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Ask Slashdot: What Could Go Wrong In Tech That Hasn't Already Gone Wrong?
dryriver writes: If you look at the last 15 years in tech, just about everything that could go wrong seemingly has gone wrong. Everything you buy and bring into your home tracks you in some way or the other. Some software can only be rented now -- no permanent licenses available to buy. PC games are tethered into cloud crap like Steam, Origin and UPlay. China is messing with unborn baby genes. Drones have managed to mess up entire airports. The Scandinavians have developed a serious hatred of cash money and are instead getting themselves chipped. CPUs have horrible security. Every day some huge customer database somewhere gets pwned by hackers. Cybercrime has gone through the roof. You cannot trust the BIOS on your PC anymore. Windows 10 just will not stop updating itself. And AI is soon going to kill us all, if a self-driving car by Uber doesn't do it first. So: What has -- so far -- not gone wrong in tech that still could go wrong, and perhaps in a surprising way?
Eventually you will not be allowed to connect to the Internet unless you are using a closed "approved" hardware device using "approved" software that has been registered with your real name. It is coming.
Steam is actually the model for quality DRM too. It is there, sure, which sucks, but I understand the need for it. Steam DRM just WORKS. Simple as that. One of my all time pissed off purchases was the special edition of Unreal Tournament 2004. Back then, the game came on a massive bundle of CDs (normal edition), or on a single DVD for people who had a DVD drive (special edition, with tons of extra shit like headphones). The CD version worked just fine for everyone, but the DRM failed for the special edition DVD. So those of us that paid MORE money for what was seen as a premium product got fucked. A friend brought over a pirated copy just so I could play the game.
Two examples:
1. SalesForce charges a premium to enable encrypted-at-rest for your data. This means the company is charging to protect your data from possibly being compromised by SalesForce's own employees.
2. ZenDesk basic plans allow user passwords to be any five characters. No policy can be applied requiring more digits or types of characters (alpha, case, numbers, punctuation, etc.) unless your organization subscribes to the "Professional" or "Enterprise" level. Zendesk is using the threat of end-users having their accounts compromised to encourage customers to pay extra for the ability to enforce safe password policies.
It seems that some public cloud proprietors intend to mimic real-world ghettos. If customers want the cheapest rent for their cloud service, then thugs and criminals may break in and steal your data. Pay higher rent and you get protection.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
What I'm waiting for is some disgruntled employee, l337 haxor or "axis power" to push a "security" update ... think windows 10... with a time bomb that destroys hundreds of millions of computers simultaneously.
Would wipe all data then destroy the operating system. It could try and brick/corrupt any hardware containing field upgradable firmware (disk drives, NICs, GPUs, mgmt engines, keyboards, system firmwares...etc)
The current system in my view is simply too dangerous. It costs too little to fix programming mistakes and normalizing constant perpetual updates as if this is a normal and healthy exercise is an exceedingly dangerous local optima to fall into.
Likewise there is nothing wrong with field firmware updates so long as they are distributed upon boot and physically unable to persist after reboot. Current practices are simply too dangerous.
That's the biggest threat we know for sure exists, i.e. is already out there.
Antbiotics in livestock and CISPR are bound to someday breed a global killer that measurably reduces the global population. I'd expect something like this to perhaps cost 50 to 100 million lives before it can be stopped.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Some virus or a targeted attack makes self driving cars run through shopping malls or drive off bridges.
This could even happen if there is a GPS glitch making all maps offset by 100m to the east and the selfdriving software being buggy and assuming the GPS is right and the camera is wrong.
On one DrWho episode (or was it Torchwood?) there is an automated car system which is tricked into killing it's drivers on purpose.
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.