So, you realize that releasing information could give away the techniques used to gather said data.
These days it's not an unreasonable assumption that the NSA intercepts, collects, and stores every frame of IP data routed through any publicly addressable router on planet Earth. I don't think it would really be giving anything away to disclose some packet logs.
I don't believe the North Korea story, but lack of transit is not (IMO) a solid argument against their involvement. I don't think anyone has accused them of downloading everything into their country and sending it back out. If I were a North Korean cyber warrior tasked with exfiltrating terabytes of data out of Great Satan's companies, I'd compromise some vulnerable servers in a country with fat pipes, and direct the attacks from there. A few kbps is plenty to sustain a control channel via ssh/RDP/LogMeIn to some rooted servers in, say, China.
GOP in this context refers to "Guardians of Peace," the supposed North Korean hacking group; the acronym as used here has nothing to do with American politics.
Nah, different guy. This is James Comey, the FBI director. The one who's spent the last couple of months heavily pushing the narrative that if Apple and Google allow encryption on their devices, a child will die. Which isn't false, anymore than it's false to say that if Americans are allowed to drive, a child will die. It's weird, though, I can't seem to recall any government officials lobbying to outlaw cars.
I'll give Comey credit for one thing, he's kept a low enough profile that the Nigerians don't yet seem to know he exists! I still get scam emails from "Robert Mueller FBI Director" almost every damned day...
Let me ask this the other way: what benefit would come out of arresting the kid? Do you honestly fear he would continue and escalate his criminal activities now?
Hasn't he shown a propensity to do just that? He got caught carding food at DEF CON in 2013. More recently he spent three months in a detention facility for that bomb threat against a Sony executive's airplane; he even joked about his haircut looking bad because they shaved it for him in jail. He got out, went home, and proceeded to step up his game by DDOSing the hell out of PSN and XBL. There does seem to be a pattern of continuing and escalating criminal activity.
I'm not arguing that he's dangerous or that he needs to be locked up for 5 years, but if he's guilty, I do believe there has to be some sort of punishment. Make him pick up litter every weekend until he's 18, or something productive that benefits society.
Lack of partitions is a dealbreaker for me. I will not work in a space where everyone sees everyone all the time and there is no private space. Period. I will not work on an open floor plan.
I'm not asking for my own office with a door that closes. I've never had that, and I don't expect it. I understand that I'm at work and that I have no real expectation of privacy. But we're all human, and I'm not comfortable sitting around where anyone can see what I'm doing at all times. Maybe I'm reading Slashdot for a few minutes, maybe I'm on StackExchange asking or answering something work-related, maybe I'm checking my personal email. Maybe I'm reading a white paper from a vendor, with my arm propped up on the desk while I gradually scroll through. As long as my work is being done and my employer is happy, there's no reason the rest of the floor should have a view of me, or vice versa.
Believe it or not, there's a happy medium. Partitions. Cubicles. They were implemented for a reason. I need some walls that extend several feet above my seated position and on all sides, which give me enough privacy to disregard the rest of the office for awhile. I'm never going to absorb a 30-page protocol spec if I'm exposed to every motion of everyone else around me. That's distracting. I have to have a bit of isolation in order to concentrate. I can mentally tune out things like telephones ringing, coworkers talking, etc. but in order to be truly productive, I need my cube partitions. I don't work in a restaurant, I don't want my workplace to resemble a restaurant.
This isn't about browsing porn at work, or spending all day on social media. I have no trouble with my company logging everything I do; I'm at work, after all. I just need some personal space to do what I'm paid for. I will not work on a big glass floor.
Is there any reason to believe that Pidgin with OTR is not reasonably secure? Competition is always a good thing, so the more services the merrier, but I'm curious what others think about existing offerings.
No one seems to be up in arms over women being underrepresented as, say, firefighters or airline pilots. No one's pushing men to become hair stylists or librarians. Yet millions and millions of dollars are being spent on exclusionary girls-only events like this, telling girls that they must learn to code. I don't get it. What's wrong with just encouraging kids, whatever genitalia they have, to follow their interests, whatever those may be? If a girl is into tech, or a boy is into makeup, encourage them to pursue those careers and bust up the stereotypes. I don't find sense in telling girls they need to be in the tech field, any more than telling boys they need to grow up and be cosmetologists.
I'd say it's worse than "batteries not included." If I give or receive a gizmo that needs batteries, and I didn't get them ahead of time, even on Christmas morning there were several options. Walgreens, CVS, and most gas stations were open and they all sell batteries, so I could go remedy the problem if need be. With this DRM always-online nonsense, there aren't any options.
Sony had in recent days asked the White House for help in lining up a single technology partner - Apple, which operates iTunes
I'm not even sure how to react to this. Why is it that Sony, a private company, feels that the White House, the executive branch of the United States federal government, should help them seek out a technology partner? This bothers me on multiple levels. One, that Sony would feel it appropriate to ask the White House for help conducting their private corporate business. Two, that Sony expects the White House to have that level of influence over Apple, another private company.
I understand that money buys influence, and that Hollywood and Silicon Valley both historically have Democrats in their pockets (full disclosure, I voted for Obama twice, I'm not attacking Democrats). That said, I don't understand how Sony is so brazen as to assume that they can just call up the White House, ask for help, and suddenly Apple is going to capitulate to their demands. Their line of thinking goes in this direction for a reason. Either Sony has successfully coerced companies into similar relations in the past, with the White House as a mediator, or vice versa.
Sony is a corporation. Apple is a corporation. In my own experience, executives have each others' contact information and can get in touch with one another directly. I guarantee you that Sony executives have the private numbers to Apple executives, and it's up to them to work out a deal. There is absolutely no reason for Sony to involve the government in their appeals to establish a business relationship. It's corporate prostitution at the highest and most obvious level. Government "transparency," indeed.
The entire premise is disgusting to me. I for one will not be paying to see this movie on any medium.
I once visited Saudi Arabia and met the guy responsible for all Internet traffic in and out of the country -- through a single link with a single backup.
Those who wish to impose further regulations and control upon the Internet. With the flurry of news surrounding all things Sony, you might have missed it, but yesterday Obama came out with this gem:
While North Korea is hardly a beacon of consumerism, there are plenty of TVs and DVD players in the country. It's not even forbidden to own them. While it's illegal to modify them to receive anything other than state-sponsored broadcasts, in some areas homes will even have two TVs, one official (for receiving propaganda) and one bootleg (to pick up South Korean broadcasts). DVD smuggling is common. If DVDs came raining down from the heavens, especially closer to the border regions, the people would be able to use them.
Has anyone, including some nebulous North Korean hacking team, actually threatened yours?
Someone, identity unknown, claiming to be part of a group that hacked Sony, sent an email saying we'd have another 9/11 if a movie is shown. Call me naive but I don't think anyone should take that seriously. Even Homeland Security, the agency that loves to play up every whisper as ominous, has come out and said there's no credible threat. The President went on TV and his advice to Americans was not "exercise caution," not "if you see something, say something," but "go to the movies." There's every opportunity for the security behemoth to capitalize on this, crank the terror alert color up to fuchsia, and Keep America Fearful. They aren't even bothering. There is no threat.
I'm statistically far more likely to die in a car wreck on the way to a movie theater. That threat is credible, the risk is proven, and it exists every time I get on the road. I still drive every day.
I was right there with you around Thanksgiving, when we heard stories of ominous skulls displaying on Sony workstations, and we saw a huge list of files that the hackers were threatening to release. It all sounded like a Hollywood plot. After they actually started leaking the files? Assuming they're real, there's no way it's a publicity stunt. Sony isn't going to damage itself, its employees, and its reputation just to hype one movie.
That said, I remain unconvinced that North Korea are really the bad actors here. Several articles mentioned that the hack was ongoing for over a year. The movie hadn't even been announced to the public back then, had it? There was supposed to be a press release a few weeks ago squarely and officially blaming NK. If that happened, I didn't see it. I guess tomorrow's scheduled announcement might shed some light.
Are there any Americans currently imprisoned in NK? I get the feeling they're really not going to have a good time soon.
Why are banks pushing this crap in the first place?
For one, because they believe it allows them to shift liability for fraud onto the consumer. "Oh, your online banking credentials were compromised and your life savings was irrecoverably transferred to Outer Elbonia? And you didn't have our Trusteer software installed, as required by our terms of service? Very sorry to hear that, I guess you're shit out of luck, maybe you can ask the federal government to bail you out (insert raucous laughter here)."
It isn't just slow migration. Yahoo has been contracted to manage email for a lot of older ISPs, they host mail for a whole lot more than just @yahoo.com users. There are millions of people who use the Yahoo Mail interface because that's what their ISP switched to.
For example, 20 years ago I had a dialup internet account through my telco at the time, BellSouth. My email address from that service, which I still have, is @bellsouth.net. BellSouth no longer exists, it was swallowed back into ATT when the government decided that monopolies were a great idea again. For a year or two, the BellSouth webmail interface continued to exist, then it was shuffled over to the att.net domain, and several years ago ATT decided to move all of their users over to Yahoo. If I want to check my @bellsouth.net email through the web, I'm taken to Yahoo Mail. (Yes I'm aware of options like mail2web.)
As far as I know, the same is true for customers from all of the Baby Bells that were re-absorbed back into ATT, and there are plenty of smaller ISPs who gave up on hosting their own mail in favor of paying Yahoo to do it for them. There are many, many people interacting with Yahoo Mail every day who have never had an @yahoo.com email account and probably don't use Yahoo for anything else.
And how do you think they knew where to put a mole in the first place?
It was the most notorious and publicized narcotics marketplace in the world, open to all comers. I don't think it took much work to figure out that's where they needed to put the mole.
In my state it's illegal to operate a motor vehicle without having the physical license with you. They can certainly look you up as you described, but you'd get a ticket for not having your license in addition to whatever infraction got you pulled over. I wonder how long before it becomes a crime in Iowa to be in possession of a smart phone without the state-mandated identification app installed?
Slashdot Mirror
These days it's not an unreasonable assumption that the NSA intercepts, collects, and stores every frame of IP data routed through any publicly addressable router on planet Earth. I don't think it would really be giving anything away to disclose some packet logs.
I don't believe the North Korea story, but lack of transit is not (IMO) a solid argument against their involvement. I don't think anyone has accused them of downloading everything into their country and sending it back out. If I were a North Korean cyber warrior tasked with exfiltrating terabytes of data out of Great Satan's companies, I'd compromise some vulnerable servers in a country with fat pipes, and direct the attacks from there. A few kbps is plenty to sustain a control channel via ssh/RDP/LogMeIn to some rooted servers in, say, China.
GOP in this context refers to "Guardians of Peace," the supposed North Korean hacking group; the acronym as used here has nothing to do with American politics.
Nah, different guy. This is James Comey, the FBI director. The one who's spent the last couple of months heavily pushing the narrative that if Apple and Google allow encryption on their devices, a child will die. Which isn't false, anymore than it's false to say that if Americans are allowed to drive, a child will die. It's weird, though, I can't seem to recall any government officials lobbying to outlaw cars.
I'll give Comey credit for one thing, he's kept a low enough profile that the Nigerians don't yet seem to know he exists! I still get scam emails from "Robert Mueller FBI Director" almost every damned day...
Sounds like a deuce-dropper chopper. A pooey huey. Whirlybirds full of turds.
wParam's at VT, those were the days...
Let me ask this the other way: what benefit would come out of arresting the kid? Do you honestly fear he would continue and escalate his criminal activities now?
Hasn't he shown a propensity to do just that? He got caught carding food at DEF CON in 2013. More recently he spent three months in a detention facility for that bomb threat against a Sony executive's airplane; he even joked about his haircut looking bad because they shaved it for him in jail. He got out, went home, and proceeded to step up his game by DDOSing the hell out of PSN and XBL. There does seem to be a pattern of continuing and escalating criminal activity.
I'm not arguing that he's dangerous or that he needs to be locked up for 5 years, but if he's guilty, I do believe there has to be some sort of punishment. Make him pick up litter every weekend until he's 18, or something productive that benefits society.
Lack of partitions is a dealbreaker for me. I will not work in a space where everyone sees everyone all the time and there is no private space. Period. I will not work on an open floor plan.
I'm not asking for my own office with a door that closes. I've never had that, and I don't expect it. I understand that I'm at work and that I have no real expectation of privacy. But we're all human, and I'm not comfortable sitting around where anyone can see what I'm doing at all times. Maybe I'm reading Slashdot for a few minutes, maybe I'm on StackExchange asking or answering something work-related, maybe I'm checking my personal email. Maybe I'm reading a white paper from a vendor, with my arm propped up on the desk while I gradually scroll through. As long as my work is being done and my employer is happy, there's no reason the rest of the floor should have a view of me, or vice versa.
Believe it or not, there's a happy medium. Partitions. Cubicles. They were implemented for a reason. I need some walls that extend several feet above my seated position and on all sides, which give me enough privacy to disregard the rest of the office for awhile. I'm never going to absorb a 30-page protocol spec if I'm exposed to every motion of everyone else around me. That's distracting. I have to have a bit of isolation in order to concentrate. I can mentally tune out things like telephones ringing, coworkers talking, etc. but in order to be truly productive, I need my cube partitions. I don't work in a restaurant, I don't want my workplace to resemble a restaurant.
This isn't about browsing porn at work, or spending all day on social media. I have no trouble with my company logging everything I do; I'm at work, after all. I just need some personal space to do what I'm paid for. I will not work on a big glass floor.
Is there any reason to believe that Pidgin with OTR is not reasonably secure? Competition is always a good thing, so the more services the merrier, but I'm curious what others think about existing offerings.
We do need more women in the tech field
Why? Honest question.
No one seems to be up in arms over women being underrepresented as, say, firefighters or airline pilots. No one's pushing men to become hair stylists or librarians. Yet millions and millions of dollars are being spent on exclusionary girls-only events like this, telling girls that they must learn to code. I don't get it. What's wrong with just encouraging kids, whatever genitalia they have, to follow their interests, whatever those may be? If a girl is into tech, or a boy is into makeup, encourage them to pursue those careers and bust up the stereotypes. I don't find sense in telling girls they need to be in the tech field, any more than telling boys they need to grow up and be cosmetologists.
Thanks for the list. This is a good counter to the people who say "if you aren't doing something wrong, what do you have to hide?"
I'd say it's worse than "batteries not included." If I give or receive a gizmo that needs batteries, and I didn't get them ahead of time, even on Christmas morning there were several options. Walgreens, CVS, and most gas stations were open and they all sell batteries, so I could go remedy the problem if need be. With this DRM always-online nonsense, there aren't any options.
Sony had in recent days asked the White House for help in lining up a single technology partner - Apple, which operates iTunes
I'm not even sure how to react to this. Why is it that Sony, a private company, feels that the White House, the executive branch of the United States federal government, should help them seek out a technology partner? This bothers me on multiple levels. One, that Sony would feel it appropriate to ask the White House for help conducting their private corporate business. Two, that Sony expects the White House to have that level of influence over Apple, another private company.
I understand that money buys influence, and that Hollywood and Silicon Valley both historically have Democrats in their pockets (full disclosure, I voted for Obama twice, I'm not attacking Democrats). That said, I don't understand how Sony is so brazen as to assume that they can just call up the White House, ask for help, and suddenly Apple is going to capitulate to their demands. Their line of thinking goes in this direction for a reason. Either Sony has successfully coerced companies into similar relations in the past, with the White House as a mediator, or vice versa.
Sony is a corporation. Apple is a corporation. In my own experience, executives have each others' contact information and can get in touch with one another directly. I guarantee you that Sony executives have the private numbers to Apple executives, and it's up to them to work out a deal. There is absolutely no reason for Sony to involve the government in their appeals to establish a business relationship. It's corporate prostitution at the highest and most obvious level. Government "transparency," indeed.
The entire premise is disgusting to me. I for one will not be paying to see this movie on any medium.
I once visited Saudi Arabia and met the guy responsible for all Internet traffic in and out of the country -- through a single link with a single backup.
Were they allowing Slashdot?
Who had something to gain?
Those who wish to impose further regulations and control upon the Internet. With the flurry of news surrounding all things Sony, you might have missed it, but yesterday Obama came out with this gem:
"We need more rules about how the internet should operate."
So, cui bono? The US Government, that's cui.
You don't have to be lonely, at Left Feet Only dot com.
<description of violent act redacted so I'm not prosecuted by UK anti-terror laws>
Face-sitting?
While North Korea is hardly a beacon of consumerism, there are plenty of TVs and DVD players in the country. It's not even forbidden to own them. While it's illegal to modify them to receive anything other than state-sponsored broadcasts, in some areas homes will even have two TVs, one official (for receiving propaganda) and one bootleg (to pick up South Korean broadcasts). DVD smuggling is common. If DVDs came raining down from the heavens, especially closer to the border regions, the people would be able to use them.
Has anyone, including some nebulous North Korean hacking team, actually threatened yours?
Someone, identity unknown, claiming to be part of a group that hacked Sony, sent an email saying we'd have another 9/11 if a movie is shown. Call me naive but I don't think anyone should take that seriously. Even Homeland Security, the agency that loves to play up every whisper as ominous, has come out and said there's no credible threat. The President went on TV and his advice to Americans was not "exercise caution," not "if you see something, say something," but "go to the movies." There's every opportunity for the security behemoth to capitalize on this, crank the terror alert color up to fuchsia, and Keep America Fearful. They aren't even bothering. There is no threat.
I'm statistically far more likely to die in a car wreck on the way to a movie theater. That threat is credible, the risk is proven, and it exists every time I get on the road. I still drive every day.
I was right there with you around Thanksgiving, when we heard stories of ominous skulls displaying on Sony workstations, and we saw a huge list of files that the hackers were threatening to release. It all sounded like a Hollywood plot. After they actually started leaking the files? Assuming they're real, there's no way it's a publicity stunt. Sony isn't going to damage itself, its employees, and its reputation just to hype one movie.
That said, I remain unconvinced that North Korea are really the bad actors here. Several articles mentioned that the hack was ongoing for over a year. The movie hadn't even been announced to the public back then, had it? There was supposed to be a press release a few weeks ago squarely and officially blaming NK. If that happened, I didn't see it. I guess tomorrow's scheduled announcement might shed some light.
Are there any Americans currently imprisoned in NK? I get the feeling they're really not going to have a good time soon.
Why are banks pushing this crap in the first place?
For one, because they believe it allows them to shift liability for fraud onto the consumer. "Oh, your online banking credentials were compromised and your life savings was irrecoverably transferred to Outer Elbonia? And you didn't have our Trusteer software installed, as required by our terms of service? Very sorry to hear that, I guess you're shit out of luck, maybe you can ask the federal government to bail you out (insert raucous laughter here)."
It isn't just slow migration. Yahoo has been contracted to manage email for a lot of older ISPs, they host mail for a whole lot more than just @yahoo.com users. There are millions of people who use the Yahoo Mail interface because that's what their ISP switched to.
For example, 20 years ago I had a dialup internet account through my telco at the time, BellSouth. My email address from that service, which I still have, is @bellsouth.net. BellSouth no longer exists, it was swallowed back into ATT when the government decided that monopolies were a great idea again. For a year or two, the BellSouth webmail interface continued to exist, then it was shuffled over to the att.net domain, and several years ago ATT decided to move all of their users over to Yahoo. If I want to check my @bellsouth.net email through the web, I'm taken to Yahoo Mail. (Yes I'm aware of options like mail2web.)
As far as I know, the same is true for customers from all of the Baby Bells that were re-absorbed back into ATT, and there are plenty of smaller ISPs who gave up on hosting their own mail in favor of paying Yahoo to do it for them. There are many, many people interacting with Yahoo Mail every day who have never had an @yahoo.com email account and probably don't use Yahoo for anything else.
And how do you think they knew where to put a mole in the first place?
It was the most notorious and publicized narcotics marketplace in the world, open to all comers. I don't think it took much work to figure out that's where they needed to put the mole.
Wish I had mod points for "hexth ass."
In my state it's illegal to operate a motor vehicle without having the physical license with you. They can certainly look you up as you described, but you'd get a ticket for not having your license in addition to whatever infraction got you pulled over. I wonder how long before it becomes a crime in Iowa to be in possession of a smart phone without the state-mandated identification app installed?