Pain is what makes the lesson sink in. The world's pain will motivate it to demand that our Intelligence agencies disclose vulnerabilities rather than sit on them, and further will demand enough transparency that they can prove they are doing this.
It won't happen immediately. But as hospital deaths roll in, and the seriousness of this failure starts to sink in, claims that this is all the fault of those who leaked the exploit will fall on some very deaf ears.
That's not what will happen at all. Nobody in government (that matters) will be held accountable for these attacks using their own leaked tools. They will not change, they will change the rules as in no more general purpose computers.
Governments will simply push for the elimination of general-purpose computers owned by the general public at large. One will have to show cause to own a GP computer and it will be licensed and registered with government, as will any device allowed to connect to the internet.
There's also the fact that the artist that made the music you are listening to isn't being paid
When will the major labels start fairly compensating them?
Honestly, these greedy bastards at the major labels are major hypocrites as they screw-over artists at any and every chance they get and in multiple ways on multiple levels. They are the kings of dishonest dealing when it comes to compensating artists.
This "think of the artists!" line coming from the people who do the most to screw them over is nauseating.
Didn't trump just make America great again? How can we still have homeless people?
Because Seattle is a Progressive/Leftist hellhole that drives businesses and jobs away leaving people unemployed & homeless, for which the leftists then promptly blame the businesses and investors instead of their own insane and self-defeating policies.
Seattle got their homelessness problem the old-fashioned way....they *earned* it! As the Progressive controlled cities of Detroit and Chicago so clearly demonstrate, Progressivism kills freedom, jobs, economies, and the dreams of future generations,
More people have died at the hands of their own governments than have died in war.
Given that usually it's governments that declare wars, maybe you should count war deaths as caused by the government, too.
Governments and the politicians in them may declare wars, but the populace has to be willing in all but the most brutally-authoritarian regimes like N. Korea. That's why an informed, educated, and non-apathetic populace was deemed so important by the US founders. Also, wars are often fought over trade/economic and resources like fossil fuels. Japan decided to go to war against the US in the practical sense because the US was strangling their ability to get oil and ship it where they needed it to feed their growing empire
Besides, adding the numbers from wars serves no point. It wouldn't increase the total that much in any case, that's how large the numbers of people who died by their own government is.
Government is the single most dangerous, lethal, and statistically-likely non-natural/non-accident-related threat to individuals lives and freedoms regardless of nation, race, ideology, religion, or culture. It would seem only logical, prudent, and wise for people of any nation to do their best to ensure their government gets no more powerful or larger than necessary and that the tasks it is obligated to perform are as few as possible to that end.
Can we post some equally-bad Linux vulns please? Intel, Microsoft, they can't be the only ones having all the fun.
I've got you covered, no worries! Here is a single vulnerability that affects every single device, OS, and piece of software there is;
"Government."
Government is and has always been, even prior to the internet, the biggest threat to citizens' privacy and security. As well as their freedom and their lives. More people have died at the hands of their own governments than have died in war.
Ah yes, good old George "Slave Teeth Dentures" Washington, AKA George "I Only Freed My Slaves In My Will Because I Was Done Using Them" Washington.
Not sure if revisionist or just plain fantasy.
GW and the rest weren't even close to being born when slavery was legally established. that was done by King George's courts btw, as 1776 was almost a century in the future. It was illegal to free slaves and would have gotten them hanged. Thomas Jefferson inherited his slaves from his in-laws when they died, he never bought a single slave. TJ also never sold a slave, as that would have broken up long-established families among the slaves, as they'd been together for decades, many for all their lives.
I'll bet you're also unaware that it was a black man, James Anthony, who was the first legally-recognized slave owner by the King's court which was the justice system of the day, and also was the one that fought a lengthy legal battle to make the laws recognize slave owners "rights and protections" regarding their "legal property" under the law. Many of the slaves Anthony acquired were Irish, as they were cheaper than African slaves.
Meh, I sometimes wonder why I even bother. You probably even believe that the "3/5ths Compromise" favored slavery and unfairly disadvantaged blacks. Go learn some real history. There's the 'net and thousands of letters and other documents written by the Founders can be viewed, including how they worked to put in a mechanism to eventually bring an end to slavery.
Go read some real history straight from original documents, and that isn't from some relatively-modern revisionist book, Progressive/Leftist blog, or university professor's papers
I disagree. Windows compromises are about as newsworthy as, "man flushes toilet. News at 11."
It's not the Windows compromises themselves that are the "interesting" part, it's all the information and clues that can be gleaned from them about things like precisely what data is being collected, by whom, where it's sent, how often, where/what servers are sending it instructions, etc etc. There's a possible treasure-trove of useful data that can be gleaned, or at least hints and clues to further investigations and possible paths towards mitigation strategies.
This sounds like a simple ARP poisoning attack? No big deal?
Pretty much what it appears. LAN attacks are pretty standard stuff, the nasty (and interesting) stuff would be the binaries and other bits they drop into the machine(s) after a successful penetration. There might actually be more relevant/usable/informative bits in the documentation than in the tools themselves.
Good to see Assange isn't backing down from the US-led "Five-Eyes" international surveillance state that turned their resources inwards on their own domestic populations after the Cold War's end.
If this had been a fentanyl distribution ring, would they have allowed it to operate in order to arrest as many people as possible, or would they have shut it down in the interest of public safety, even knowing that some of the users would be able to find other outlets?
Of course they'd allow the ring to operate while they scooped up easy pickings. This is the same government that allowed weapons that they insisted be sold illegally to be taken to Mexico and those weapons were subsequently used in a number of violent crimes, one of which was the murder of a US border agent. You notice how many went to jail over that?
It's a wonder the FBI didn't give the pedos free machine guns and let them walk.
Wrong. It's 'predicated' on human nature based on 5,000 years of human history. Those who seek power almost without exception (George Washington and Jesus Christ are the only two notable exceptions from history that spring to my mind) never stop trying to gain even more and will often go to insane lengths to obtain it.
I tend to prefer Hanlon's razor in situations like this -- "Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding."
Sorry, but Hanlon's fine instrument fails when it comes to power and politics. In fact, Hanlon could just about be turned on it's head when it comes to politicians and governments; "*Always assume, barring evidence to the contrary, bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding."
Three, four, or more decades ago, I and others might have been willing to accept incompetence, ignorance, laziness, and apathy by those in power for the violations of civil rights including privacy and all the rest. Not today. Thanks to the internet, we are much better informed now. We've gotten enough candid glimpses into the sordid corruption, deliberate criminality, lies, violations of oaths of office, and abuses of power, as well as the intentional and ongoing violations of basic civil rights in the US government and the equally corrupt and self-serving political parties and complicit mainstream media and education system, that we know damned well they're 'pissing down our backs and telling us it's raining', to mangle a quote from the movie "The Outlaw Jose Wales".
You have to consider when you make a legal ruling that is broad exactly how it might be abused. If it is possible to get 10 years for watching TV illegally, you know that someone will get 10 years for it eventually. Judges are like any other group of people. Gather a few dozen together and it's a safe bet at least one will be an asshole.
I'll just leave this here.
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." - Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Nope, states have jurisdiction over themselves not the federal government.
This is an FCC matter. Right or wrong this will probably get killed in court.
Umm, I think it's actually the FTC now that regulates internet service matters, or soon will be. Still, federal supremacy applies if Seattle law conflicts with federal law.
Of course, it won't be as simple as that. There will be endless stays and other procedural and legal roadblocks thrown up because applying and enforcing the straightforward letter of the law as written is for when dealing with the 'deplorables' in flyover country, not for the extreme political left in Seattle, because some animals are more equal than others.
It kinda looks like another convenient way to be able to disappear anyone who displeases the people with connections?
FTFY
It's not like there aren't a plethora of similarly-broad laws ripe for abuse in both the UK and the US that are already used against people the state finds "inconvenient", who actively oppose their agendas, and/or who embarrass or anger those in power.
Event trigger - faculty unions: demanding longer lunch breaks and closer parking, as now they have to drive to Wendy's. No winning.
How about simply abolishing public-sector unions? That would solve the problem at State run universities and public schools.
The entire concept of unionized government workers is revolting; Unions and politicians sit down together and decide how much of *your* money the politicians will give the unions in exchange for how much the unions will spend in campaign contributions, lobbyists, and plain old kickbacks to those same politicians while they all laugh their asses off at the stupid, gullible public they're raping six ways from Sunday.
I think you meant "rogue", nevertheless I agree with the sentiment.
They are not "engaged in activities covered under it in the course of their official duties."
Unfortunately, that determination is made by the same government these scofflaws work for, so expect the courts to rubber-stamp it all as perfectly Constitutional, no matter how blatantly and obviously untrue it is. Civil forfeiture has been judged unconstitutional any number of times, but yet it's still used, and that's a law/program that's anything but secret. The effort it will take and the extremes that will have to be gone to in order to rein in the US domestic surveillance system will be Herculean in scale.
So the government is unconstitutionally interfering in what should be a lawful privacy contract between telecoms and their customers and business partners.
Government's response to the unconstitutionality of it's actions when confronted has essentially been;
"We have altered the deal. Pray we do not alter it further."
What is the proper response for citizens to take when the government refuses to obey it's own laws and refuses to stop grossly violating primary civil rights on a massive scale?
I'd rather have a school offer grilled turkey, well seasoned on whole grain burger buns, with fresh veggies and kids eat it than them offering some bland tofu squares on leaf lettuce without any salt or taste that kids will go "meh" over and instead stuff their face with burgers and fries from the Wendy's around the corner.
Government solution: Ban all fast-food businesses within walking distance of any public school.
Which do you like more? A robot tax or an increase of your taxes by 2% or cutting the police department by 2% or cutting food support for the poor by 2%?
Why would police and food assistance be the *first* things you'd choose to cut...unless you intend to *punish* people for wishing to keep more of what they earned? How about we shut down some federal agencies, like the Dept. of Education, the TSA, DEA, etc? There's enough fat in the federal government to form a decent-sized planetary body (that's no moon)! How about making the federal government tighten *their* belts instead of forcing all of us to tighten our belts at gunpoint?
If you turn ME off in BIOS then it doesn't load anything above the primitives to get the system up and running, no higher kernel functions, and certainly no AMT code.
Sorry, but we're to simply trust you on this? I don't think so, nothing personal. Since everything is intentionally made extremely difficult to access in order to confirm what AMT may or may not be capable of, the only sane choice is not to trust it. I know I don't. I don't trust AMD either. I never put any data I truly wish to stay secure on an internet-connected machine. You may as well put it on a thumbdrive and mail it to NSA HQ and save some tax dollars.
The DHS needs to be abolished, their leaders and employees blackballed from any government job or office for life, the CIA and NSA need a top-to-bottom purging with their people facing the same restrictions as the newly-unemployed DHS jackboots, and new people and new & effective checks on their powers and scope put in place.
It's either suffer the pain of dealing with the out-of-control US intelligence/domestic law enforcement agencies and departments now, or wait until the US goes full surveillance/police state. At the rate things have been moving, time is likely growing short until that happens.
Slashdot Mirror
Pain is what makes the lesson sink in. The world's pain will motivate it to demand that our Intelligence agencies disclose vulnerabilities rather than sit on them, and further will demand enough transparency that they can prove they are doing this.
It won't happen immediately. But as hospital deaths roll in, and the seriousness of this failure starts to sink in, claims that this is all the fault of those who leaked the exploit will fall on some very deaf ears.
That's not what will happen at all. Nobody in government (that matters) will be held accountable for these attacks using their own leaked tools. They will not change, they will change the rules as in no more general purpose computers.
Governments will simply push for the elimination of general-purpose computers owned by the general public at large. One will have to show cause to own a GP computer and it will be licensed and registered with government, as will any device allowed to connect to the internet.
Strat
There's also the fact that the artist that made the music you are listening to isn't being paid
When will the major labels start fairly compensating them?
Honestly, these greedy bastards at the major labels are major hypocrites as they screw-over artists at any and every chance they get and in multiple ways on multiple levels. They are the kings of dishonest dealing when it comes to compensating artists.
This "think of the artists!" line coming from the people who do the most to screw them over is nauseating.
Strat
Truth has been known to have a strong 3/5ths-integer spin. :)
Strat
Didn't trump just make America great again? How can we still have homeless people?
Because Seattle is a Progressive/Leftist hellhole that drives businesses and jobs away leaving people unemployed & homeless, for which the leftists then promptly blame the businesses and investors instead of their own insane and self-defeating policies.
Seattle got their homelessness problem the old-fashioned way....they *earned* it! As the Progressive controlled cities of Detroit and Chicago so clearly demonstrate, Progressivism kills freedom, jobs, economies, and the dreams of future generations,
Strat
Governments and the politicians in them may declare wars, but the populace has to be willing in all but the most brutally-authoritarian regimes like N. Korea. That's why an informed, educated, and non-apathetic populace was deemed so important by the US founders. Also, wars are often fought over trade/economic and resources like fossil fuels. Japan decided to go to war against the US in the practical sense because the US was strangling their ability to get oil and ship it where they needed it to feed their growing empire
Besides, adding the numbers from wars serves no point. It wouldn't increase the total that much in any case, that's how large the numbers of people who died by their own government is.
Government is the single most dangerous, lethal, and statistically-likely non-natural/non-accident-related threat to individuals lives and freedoms regardless of nation, race, ideology, religion, or culture. It would seem only logical, prudent, and wise for people of any nation to do their best to ensure their government gets no more powerful or larger than necessary and that the tasks it is obligated to perform are as few as possible to that end.
Strat
Can we post some equally-bad Linux vulns please? Intel, Microsoft, they can't be the only ones having all the fun.
I've got you covered, no worries! Here is a single vulnerability that affects every single device, OS, and piece of software there is;
"Government."
Government is and has always been, even prior to the internet, the biggest threat to citizens' privacy and security. As well as their freedom and their lives. More people have died at the hands of their own governments than have died in war.
Strat
James Anthony
**Anthony Johnson**
Gah! That'll 'learn me' to hit 'submit' before finishing the first cup of coffee!
Ah yes, good old George "Slave Teeth Dentures" Washington, AKA George "I Only Freed My Slaves In My Will Because I Was Done Using Them" Washington.
Not sure if revisionist or just plain fantasy.
GW and the rest weren't even close to being born when slavery was legally established. that was done by King George's courts btw, as 1776 was almost a century in the future. It was illegal to free slaves and would have gotten them hanged. Thomas Jefferson inherited his slaves from his in-laws when they died, he never bought a single slave. TJ also never sold a slave, as that would have broken up long-established families among the slaves, as they'd been together for decades, many for all their lives.
I'll bet you're also unaware that it was a black man, James Anthony, who was the first legally-recognized slave owner by the King's court which was the justice system of the day, and also was the one that fought a lengthy legal battle to make the laws recognize slave owners "rights and protections" regarding their "legal property" under the law. Many of the slaves Anthony acquired were Irish, as they were cheaper than African slaves.
Meh, I sometimes wonder why I even bother. You probably even believe that the "3/5ths Compromise" favored slavery and unfairly disadvantaged blacks. Go learn some real history. There's the 'net and thousands of letters and other documents written by the Founders can be viewed, including how they worked to put in a mechanism to eventually bring an end to slavery.
Go read some real history straight from original documents, and that isn't from some relatively-modern revisionist book, Progressive/Leftist blog, or university professor's papers
Strat
I disagree. Windows compromises are about as newsworthy as, "man flushes toilet. News at 11."
It's not the Windows compromises themselves that are the "interesting" part, it's all the information and clues that can be gleaned from them about things like precisely what data is being collected, by whom, where it's sent, how often, where/what servers are sending it instructions, etc etc. There's a possible treasure-trove of useful data that can be gleaned, or at least hints and clues to further investigations and possible paths towards mitigation strategies.
Strat
This sounds like a simple ARP poisoning attack? No big deal?
Pretty much what it appears. LAN attacks are pretty standard stuff, the nasty (and interesting) stuff would be the binaries and other bits they drop into the machine(s) after a successful penetration. There might actually be more relevant/usable/informative bits in the documentation than in the tools themselves.
Good to see Assange isn't backing down from the US-led "Five-Eyes" international surveillance state that turned their resources inwards on their own domestic populations after the Cold War's end.
Strat
If this had been a fentanyl distribution ring, would they have allowed it to operate in order to arrest as many people as possible, or would they have shut it down in the interest of public safety, even knowing that some of the users would be able to find other outlets?
Of course they'd allow the ring to operate while they scooped up easy pickings. This is the same government that allowed weapons that they insisted be sold illegally to be taken to Mexico and those weapons were subsequently used in a number of violent crimes, one of which was the murder of a US border agent. You notice how many went to jail over that?
It's a wonder the FBI didn't give the pedos free machine guns and let them walk.
Strat.
Predicated on pessimistic bullshit.
Wrong. It's 'predicated' on human nature based on 5,000 years of human history. Those who seek power almost without exception (George Washington and Jesus Christ are the only two notable exceptions from history that spring to my mind) never stop trying to gain even more and will often go to insane lengths to obtain it.
I tend to prefer Hanlon's razor in situations like this -- "Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding."
Sorry, but Hanlon's fine instrument fails when it comes to power and politics. In fact, Hanlon could just about be turned on it's head when it comes to politicians and governments; "*Always assume, barring evidence to the contrary, bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding."
Three, four, or more decades ago, I and others might have been willing to accept incompetence, ignorance, laziness, and apathy by those in power for the violations of civil rights including privacy and all the rest. Not today. Thanks to the internet, we are much better informed now. We've gotten enough candid glimpses into the sordid corruption, deliberate criminality, lies, violations of oaths of office, and abuses of power, as well as the intentional and ongoing violations of basic civil rights in the US government and the equally corrupt and self-serving political parties and complicit mainstream media and education system, that we know damned well they're 'pissing down our backs and telling us it's raining', to mangle a quote from the movie "The Outlaw Jose Wales".
"Oops, our bad" doesn't cut it.
Strat
You have to consider when you make a legal ruling that is broad exactly how it might be abused. If it is possible to get 10 years for watching TV illegally, you know that someone will get 10 years for it eventually. Judges are like any other group of people. Gather a few dozen together and it's a safe bet at least one will be an asshole.
I'll just leave this here.
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." - Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Strat
Umm, I think it's actually the FTC now that regulates internet service matters, or soon will be. Still, federal supremacy applies if Seattle law conflicts with federal law.
Of course, it won't be as simple as that. There will be endless stays and other procedural and legal roadblocks thrown up because applying and enforcing the straightforward letter of the law as written is for when dealing with the 'deplorables' in flyover country, not for the extreme political left in Seattle, because some animals are more equal than others.
Strat
It kinda looks like another convenient way to be able to disappear anyone who displeases the people with connections?
FTFY
It's not like there aren't a plethora of similarly-broad laws ripe for abuse in both the UK and the US that are already used against people the state finds "inconvenient", who actively oppose their agendas, and/or who embarrass or anger those in power.
Strat
The cost of auditing compliance can outweigh any benefit so it is safer and cheaper to run a legitimate business in a more relaxed legal environment.
Sorry, that's illegal! :P
Strat
Thus, in cases such as this, the punishment happens even if you're innocent.
Maybe judges and those in government are suffering from some strange new form of dyslexia and read 'Blackwell's Formulation" as;
"Better that 10 innocent men are wrongly convicted than one guilty man goes free."
Strat
Event trigger - faculty unions: demanding longer lunch breaks and closer parking, as now they have to drive to Wendy's. No winning.
How about simply abolishing public-sector unions? That would solve the problem at State run universities and public schools.
The entire concept of unionized government workers is revolting; Unions and politicians sit down together and decide how much of *your* money the politicians will give the unions in exchange for how much the unions will spend in campaign contributions, lobbyists, and plain old kickbacks to those same politicians while they all laugh their asses off at the stupid, gullible public they're raping six ways from Sunday.
Strat
They are rouge actors operating out side the law.
I think you meant "rogue", nevertheless I agree with the sentiment.
They are not "engaged in activities covered under it in the course of their official duties."
Unfortunately, that determination is made by the same government these scofflaws work for, so expect the courts to rubber-stamp it all as perfectly Constitutional, no matter how blatantly and obviously untrue it is. Civil forfeiture has been judged unconstitutional any number of times, but yet it's still used, and that's a law/program that's anything but secret. The effort it will take and the extremes that will have to be gone to in order to rein in the US domestic surveillance system will be Herculean in scale.
Strat
So the government is unconstitutionally interfering in what should be a lawful privacy contract between telecoms and their customers and business partners.
Government's response to the unconstitutionality of it's actions when confronted has essentially been;
"We have altered the deal. Pray we do not alter it further."
What is the proper response for citizens to take when the government refuses to obey it's own laws and refuses to stop grossly violating primary civil rights on a massive scale?
Strat
Just hold classes at Mickey-D's!
Save everyone time, taxes, and trouble!
Strat
I'd rather have a school offer grilled turkey, well seasoned on whole grain burger buns, with fresh veggies and kids eat it than them offering some bland tofu squares on leaf lettuce without any salt or taste that kids will go "meh" over and instead stuff their face with burgers and fries from the Wendy's around the corner.
Government solution: Ban all fast-food businesses within walking distance of any public school.
Strat
Which do you like more? A robot tax or an increase of your taxes by 2% or cutting the police department by 2% or cutting food support for the poor by 2%?
Why would police and food assistance be the *first* things you'd choose to cut...unless you intend to *punish* people for wishing to keep more of what they earned? How about we shut down some federal agencies, like the Dept. of Education, the TSA, DEA, etc? There's enough fat in the federal government to form a decent-sized planetary body (that's no moon)! How about making the federal government tighten *their* belts instead of forcing all of us to tighten our belts at gunpoint?
Strat
If you turn ME off in BIOS then it doesn't load anything above the primitives to get the system up and running, no higher kernel functions, and certainly no AMT code.
Sorry, but we're to simply trust you on this? I don't think so, nothing personal. Since everything is intentionally made extremely difficult to access in order to confirm what AMT may or may not be capable of, the only sane choice is not to trust it. I know I don't. I don't trust AMD either. I never put any data I truly wish to stay secure on an internet-connected machine. You may as well put it on a thumbdrive and mail it to NSA HQ and save some tax dollars.
The DHS needs to be abolished, their leaders and employees blackballed from any government job or office for life, the CIA and NSA need a top-to-bottom purging with their people facing the same restrictions as the newly-unemployed DHS jackboots, and new people and new & effective checks on their powers and scope put in place.
It's either suffer the pain of dealing with the out-of-control US intelligence/domestic law enforcement agencies and departments now, or wait until the US goes full surveillance/police state. At the rate things have been moving, time is likely growing short until that happens.
Strat
And end with the solution of.....governments designing networks:
There's a world of difference in the amount of control local people have over their local government vs over the federal government.
Apples and oranges.
Strat