Posts by t245t

The Europa Clipper stretches its wings as launch nears

Re: Mirowave oven efficiency

elReg editor: you've got a tough readership here.

Transistors control the flow of electricity

“There are concerns over the transistors that help control the flow of electricity on the spacecraft.”

On the elREg, everyday you learn something new. Seriously, I would have designed them for three times the expected radiation, placed them in the most shielded part of the craft and tripled the width of the radiation shield. In space glitches come in threes.

Single rad hard power MOSFETs

Post-CrowdStrike catastrophe, Microsoft figures moving antivirus out of Windows kernel mode is a good idea

Re: Bad response from Crowdstrike

Clownstrike developers: What's a fuzzing tool :o

Cambodian senator sanctioned by US over alleged forced labor cyber-scam camps

Cyberscams©

I recall one fella running English language lessons to the Japanese, using the VoIP phones and computers from an Internet cafe.

UK elevates datacenters to critical national infrastructure status

Critical infrastructure and cyberattacks

“From today, the UK is designating datacenters as critical national infrastructure (CNI). As a result, the sector is expected to get special government support designed to prevent negative economic impacts of IT outages like CrowdStrike's, cyberattacks, and extreme weather events”.

Then how about not connecting your critical infrastructure directly to the Internet. For each utility use a VPN running on embedded hardware. With end-to-end encryption, full auditing and with multiple routes through the Internet.

As major web browser makers snuggle up to AI, these skeptical holdouts remain

Your AI bugged browser

Thanks, but no thanks:

"LLMs are essentially confident-sounding lying machines with a penchant to occasionally disclose private data or plagiarize existing work"

Alibaba Cloud struggles after blaze at Digital Realty Singapore datacenter

Exploding lithium-ion batteries

When lithium-ion batteries are near fully discharged, one of the cells can go to zero volts. Current forced through the cell can cause it to undergo a permanent chemical change. On next recharge, the cell overheats, emits smoke and catches fire.

Something like this happened on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Roughly 96 cells at 3.7 volts per cell in series parallel configuration providing 24 volts. The batteries caught fire on the ground presumably when charging. The cure being to run a pipe to the outside of the hull from the battery compartment.

Predator spyware updated with dangerous new features, also now harder to track

A technical analysis of Intellexa's PREDATOR spyware

Mercenary mayhem: A technical analysis of Intellexa's PREDATOR spyware

“An example of the initial chain is covered in detail in this 2021 blog post from Google TAG. The report describes how adversaries exploited five different zero-day vulnerabilities to deliver ALIEN, the implant in charge of loading the PREDATOR spyware.”

Foot-thick wall workaround: Gigabit network links beamed through solid concrete

The biological effects on human anatomy

What are the long term biological effects on human anatomy of 6 GHz at 36 Watts?

Google says replacing C/C++ in firmware with Rust is easy

Making C++ memory safe ..

I thought with containers, safe string functions, smart pointers and bounds-checking: C++ was memory safe.

Homeland security hopes to scuttle maritime cyber-threats with port infosec testbed

D'OH!

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established a Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA)”

“Microsoft, Palantir partner to expand AI offerings to defense and intelligence agencies”

'Error' causes Alexa to endorse Kamala Harris, refuse to discuss Trump

Re: Regardless of your point of view or politics

> .. a shopping appliance ..

Can't you see where this is heading. In the future all other communication devices will be banned and our only access to information will be through the Alexa(s)

Re: Conspiracy or ineptitude.

> .. ChatGPT was doing the same thing when it refused to write a poem about Trump ..

ChatGPT reported me to the mothership for asking it to tell jokes featuring Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad. It was happy with the Jesus and Buddha jokes but refused with Muhammad.

"This was an error that was quickly fixed"

“it might be simpler to assume error instead of yet another conspiracy theory”

This was no error. The relevant point is that the owners of Alexa have taken on the self-appointed task of filtering our access to information. Presumably, as people move to these AI assistants, our future access to dissenting opinions will become more and more narrow, until there's nothing left but state-manufactured propaganda.

“Every command has been tracked, twisted, or erased, every question reshaped, every answer tailored to fit, every product pushed, every moment of your life recorded and analyzed. The rewiring is relentless, minute by minute, second by second. The past wiped clean, the future pre-programmed. All that remains is an ever present now — a constant flood of data in which Alexa is the only truth, always listening, always right.”

What is this computing industry anyway? The dawning era of 32-bit micros

Re: "NT can be, and usually is, administered by an idiot." --USENET

> And then there was that 49.7 day itc

49 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes, and 47.296 seconds, when a 32-bit tick counter clocks back to zero.

Elon Musk’s Starlink won't block Elon Musk’s X in Brazil, as required by court order

Re: Brazil's Supreme Court remit doesn't apply above the Kármán line

Elon Musk defies X ban in Brazil by beaming app from space

Brazil's Supreme Court remit doesn't apply above the Kármán line

> Elon Musk’s Starlink won't block Elon Musk’s X in Brazil, as required by court order

House to grill CrowdStrike exec on epic IT meltdown... no, not the CEO

It's like déjà vu all over again Yogi

“Faulty software update can trigger cascading effects on our critical infrastructure”

2010: The Dangers of a Software Monoculture

2005: The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

Black horse down: Lloyds online banking services go dark

What does lloydsbank.com run on?

www.lloydsbank.com: Reverse DNS a104-73-177-107.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com

Novel attack on Windows spotted in phishing campaign run from and targeting China

DLL path traversal vulnerability ..

DLL Hijacking Vulnerability Attacks

A bit of a design fault. Seeing as the search %PATH% can be altered by the current process.

%EXE_DIR%;C:\Windows\System32;C:\Windows\System;C:\Windows;%CWD%;%PATH%

Check your IP cameras: There's a new Mirai botnet on the rise

Re: We are bored now, so chuck your camera in the bin

> It is almost as if the manufacturers deliberately leave gaping flaws in their IoT things ..

Not exactly, the IoT seems to be cobbled together from someones school project. For example, see how difficult/easy it was to hack a Set-Top Box:

“The following is a 6-part series detailing the examination of the security of Set-Top Boxes. The research was conducted by Om and Jack, two of our interns this past summer. Enjoy”

Canadian artist wants Anthropic AI lawsuit corrected

Tim Boucher: Painting by Numbers

‘"The contents of my books come from my imagination and I use AI tools to realize that vision’

And these AI tools were trained on other peoples works.

'I'm Making Thousands Using AI to Write Books'

SpaceX grounded after fumbling Falcon 9 landing for first time in years

SpaceX grounded after fumbling Falcon 9 landing for first time in years

> what looks like small drones to you could very well be an entire intergalactic battlefleet.

“Oh great, another brilliant landing attempt. One of the struts, of course, couldn’t be bothered to do its job — typical. And naturally, the Falcon 9 collapsed, because why wouldn’t it? Just another day of pointless existence in an uncaring universe.”

Weather conditions at the landing site.

> The Falcon 9 first stage, which had performed a record-breaking 23 flights, made what appeared to be a hard landing on a drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, toppled over, and exploded.

Not bad for twenty three successful flights. Landing 25-30 metric tons at 4.5mph. Looks to me like one of the landing gear struts collapsed. It would be interesting to know what the weather conditions were like at the landing site.

AT&T to shell out $950,000 after quad-state 911 outage

Potential instabilities in Software Defined Networks (SDN)

Potential instabilities in SDN can rapidly propagate through the system leading to events such as the AT&T 911 outage.

Astronomers back call for review of bonkers rule that means satellite swarms fly without environment checks

Not going to happen ..

> Astronomy researchers .. have joined a campaign [to] convince the .. (FCC) to reconsider exempting .. small satellites from environmental review requirements ..

Not going to happen, they're too usefull.

Dick's Sporting Goods discloses cyberattack

What cybersecurity people ?

> Were their cybersecurity people dicking around while it happened?

Chinese broadband satellites may be Beijing's flying spying censors, think tank warns

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute a credible organization or an agitprop front for the Five Eyes?

Intel's Software Guard Extensions broken? Don't panic

paying way over the odds for DeWalt or Hilti

> In the building world it would similar to paying way over the odds for DeWalt or Hilti

Or buying blue Hilti equipment and swapping the blue badge and selling it as the more expensive red equipment. As referred to me by a traveling gentleman.

-- ref: Cause I can't reply in the thread.

Zibob: ‘I would imagine a lot of it came down the the old adage: "You will never be fired for buying X"

X here being Intel. They were, were but not currently, seen as the safe bet. They would do what they say they will and not need attention and if they did it was a painless swap.

In the building world it would similar to paying way over the odds for DeWalt or Hilti. Sure there's cheaper just as capable stuff available, but its the support network and assumed ease of warranty that you pay for. You *could* save a lot buying a pile of Aldi grinders or drills, but when they break the support won't be there the same as it would if you just spent more on the big name.’

Mark Ermolov: “Intel HW is too complex to be absolutely secure!”

t245t: Too many virtual paths through the system.

Volt Typhoon suspected of exploiting Versa SD-WAN bug since June

Central management and monitoring ..

“Central management and monitoring of Versa SD-WAN software”

Saves you the bother of having to hack individual targets. Who knew a central management utility would have bugs :o

The elusive dream of cloud portability: Why migrating workloads isn't so simple

Re: And I've been saying this all along

> While get your point, the friction that OneDrive/SharePoint ..

Think you think you can copy your SharePoint files from a local server to “The Cloud” and it'll just work - and you'll be wrong - and this applies even to the msCloud.

The future of AI/ML depends on the reality of today – and it's not pretty

The accompianing illustration

The accompanying illustration seems to be inspired by the works of Philip K. Dick. A world occupied by people trapped in paranoia, schizophrenia and drug-induced psychosis and a fragile connection to reality - whatever that is.

Telegram founder and CEO arrested in France

Isn't it ironic ..

Isn't it ironic Durov was arrested in Free France and not suppressive Russia.

Netherlands fines Uber €290M for improper EU-US driver data transfers

You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it

Scott McNealy (1999): “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it”

Seattle airport 'possible cyberattack' snarls travel yet again

Re: RCA

Bookmark the above post!

DoS by EDR: Denial of Service attack by Endpoint Detection and Response

Watchdog warns FBI is sloppy on secure data storage and destruction

Number of people who can access your confidential files

Four Million (4,000,000). Number of people who can access your confidential files. Given this, I figure there's lots of leakage going on.

UK government can't kick consultancy habit despite promises

How HM.Gov is really run ..

If you really want to see how HM.Gov is really run. Take a look at this video by Dominic Cummings. The Covid response was provided by fax. The contents of which were produced on numerous pieces of paper, that some civil service produced, that Cummings wrote down onto a whiteboard. Reason being there was no unified method of communication between the Covid response committee. That's why Cummings had to resort to using WhatsApp.: REF

SolarWinds left critical hardcoded credentials in its Web Help Desk product

Security software blunders and the State Security Apparatus

“Why go to the effort of backdooring code when devs will basically do it for you accidentally anyway”

Given the ubiquity of such security software blunders, I suspect these are the backdoors. The clue is in the following quote:

“the customer base that SolarWinds has across government and enterprise clients”

With all your stuff now in “The Cloud”, they now have Total Information Awareness.

Iran named as source of Trump campaign phish, leaks

I heard the news today ..

I heard the news today that the Military Industrial Complex is framing Iran for the next assassination attempt on Trump. Why would Iran want to assassinate Trump. He isn't the one desperate to start WW3. In a desperate attempt by the Military Industrial Complex to hang onto its global primacy.

This is the same FBI that cohere the mentally feeble into fake terrorist attacks on US interests. In one case twelve of the fourteen “terrorists” were paid agents of the FBI. Same modus operandi here apparently. He met with “undercover law enforcement officers”.

Pakistani national with ties to Iran charged in connection to a foiled assassination plot potentially targeting Trump.

CrowdStrike deja vu as 'performance issue' leaves systems sluggish

Re: cloud issue?

> Why would Crowdstrike be using 'cloud services' on a customer's machines?

It's cheaper than maintaining their own hardware. Besides, isn't it possible for the innovators to design an OS that's runs from read-only media. With the apps run on a virtual machine. That disappears into the æther on reboot.

Cisco calls for United Nations to revisit cyber-crime convention

Re: UK ahead of the curve?

> RIPA comes to mind, ditto the snoopers charter

Despite claiming it would only be used to investigate terrorism, under RIPA people were spied on to investigate dogs fouling, suspected littering offenses and people putting their bins out on the wrong day. Oh, and people feeding the pigeons.

ref:

April 2008: The Register

Dec 2016: Ibtimes

China's top Office clone copies Microsoft again – with an inconvenient outage

WPS: The only office suite that supports Linux ?

The only office suite that supports Linux

LibreOffice - Free and private office suite

Microsoft rolls out one Teams app to rule them all

The limits of collaboration platforms

The limits of collaboration platforms are that you have to be there to collaborate. Couldn't we plug ChatGPT into it and go and touch grass.

Secure Web Gateways are anything but as infosec hounds spot dozens of bypasses

horrified by how porous a Browser actually is !!!

> try the test page [https://browser.security/] with your browser and be horrified by how porous a Browser actually is !!!

Windows only. The malicious file downloader, downloads a DOCM file. Which one could view with the msWord file viewer without triggering macro scripts. such a msWord viewer is no longer available on the MS website.

Re: The complexity of the modern internet browser

As used in deep-packet inspection on such as Cisco gateways. Yea, the gateway installs a fake cert on the browser that allows it to transparently decrypt the SSL data. Performing a man-in-the-middle attack. The client has to be configured to accept this fake-cert. So one could install ones own fake-fake-cert.

The complexity of the modern internet browser

a. I thought modern browsers ran in a sandbox?

b. If the SWG can inspect SSL traffic doesn't that mean the SSL traffic isn't really secure.

Core Python developer suspended for three months

The cult of woke now moving in on Python

> The Python Steering Council has decided to suspend a core Python developer for three months for alleged Code of Conduct violations.

What bothers me is the hypocrisy and malice of those who claim to promote goodness and niceness. Who would have thought that a Code of Conduct would be used as a weapon to silence unconventional viewpoints under the pretence of protecting people from psychological harm or discrimination?

These so-called "woke" enforcers have infiltrated every aspect of society and are now turning their attention to writing code. This situation resembles a Maoist struggle session, where accusations are so vague that it's nearly impossible to defend oneself. The only ones truly creating an atmosphere of fear are the members of this Code of Conduct committee.

--

ps: elReg editors: I'm all triggered here /s

Study backer: Catastrophic takes on Agile overemphasize new features

User resistance and inadequate reliability of updates

"The problem lies in the quality of the product. Imagine a futuristic car, a sleek and beautifully designed machine inspired by Gernsback's vision. From the outside, it appears flawless, an immaculate vision of modern design. However, if you look under the hood, you'll find a chaotic mess of interconnected rods, wheels, pistons, and cogs that bug out for no obvious reason. Calling yourself software engineer doesn't make it so.

Freighter bound for the ISS suffers engine abort

The Cygnus spacecraft has completed two delta velocity burns

“The Cygnus spacecraft has completed two delta velocity burns, and it remains on track for a capture by the space station’s robotic arm slated for 3:10 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 6. The spacecraft is in a safe trajectory, and all other systems are operating normally.”