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Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

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Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#21

Post by marklgr »

acomjean wrote: post #3

Am I the only one thinking that we've lost total control over the machines and data we've created. It seems like nothing is safe and or verifiable anymore. Add to this the backdrop of governments wanting backdoors. People calling you in the US pretending to be from the "IRS" and yet nothing is/ can be done about it? Maybe its really high time for C and its buffer overflows to go... And SQL injection. We're tech savy…

From one of the comments in the article, it's probably more like we've lost control of how businesses work. Many people don't like the phrase "race to the bottom", but that's what comes to mind when you get to see how personal data is handled to third parties and/or cheap, expendable workforce.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#22

Post by viraptor »

adventured wrote: post #10
acomjean wrote: post #3

Am I the only one thinking that we've lost total control over the machines and data we've created. It seems like nothing is safe and or verifiable anymore. Add to this the backdrop of governments wanting backdoors. People calling you in the US pretending to be from the "IRS" and yet nothing is/ can be done about it? Maybe its really high time for C and its buffer overflows to go... And SQL injection. We're tech savy…

> People calling you in the US pretending to be from the "IRS" and yet nothing is/ can be done about it? Not quite sure I understand your premise on that one. You can't stop people from pretending to be from the IRS any more than you can stop criminal activity by outlawing it. Essentially anyone can call anyone else and pretend to be from a government agency. Ultimately you're going to have to verify that or otherwis…

These scams rely on nobody tracing them back. The phone system is completely insecure, loses are too small to prosecute properly, and it hits mostly people who don't know how to defend themselves. The whole idea of unauthorized phone systems and impersonating officials is probably only going to go away after it actually hits someone who "matters". For example soon after a well known politician's house gets swated a few times and they learn it's how hard is it to track it down. (if the caller knows how to protect themselves and do a few redirections, that is)

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#23

Post by kileywm »

such_a_casual wrote: post #8
roflaway wrote: post #7

Throwaway account because I just shared this story with a buddy of mine: I, too, have received these "Dell" tech support calls and angrily yell at them as I hang up within 15seconds. Lately though, I received a bombardment of calls (15 to be exact) in the past 3 days from the same number. I answered the one of them, and it had the same 1minute 10s message saying to call the number back regarding a computer threat the…

If you do decide to call back, make sure you check the number online first. There are some phone scams that involve getting people to call back pay-to-talk (I don't know what the proper term is) numbers.

You're probably thinking of Premium-rate telephone numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium-rate_telephone_number

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#24

Post by eru »

ctstover wrote: post #19
acomjean wrote: post #3

Am I the only one thinking that we've lost total control over the machines and data we've created. It seems like nothing is safe and or verifiable anymore. Add to this the backdrop of governments wanting backdoors. People calling you in the US pretending to be from the "IRS" and yet nothing is/ can be done about it? Maybe its really high time for C and its buffer overflows to go... And SQL injection. We're tech savy…

You do realize that if "they" took C away from us, then all we would be allowed to use is closed source lock-in oriented ecosystems to the point we wouldn't even be able to trust the very language itself. That's always been the dream, trusted computing all the way from boot to .NET (or similar). You can not in the same breath call for secure computing and spread propaganda against C. (I know it's too much of a leap f…

I don't get it. What's wrong with using something like Haskell or Rust?

The security there is in the type system at compile time, no Trusted Computing shenanigans, and you still avoid buffer overflows and SQL injections (if you use them properly).

Even something as lowly as Python mostly protects you from buffer overflows.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#25

Post by reitanqild »

Natsu wrote: post #17
roflaway wrote: post #7

Throwaway account because I just shared this story with a buddy of mine: I, too, have received these "Dell" tech support calls and angrily yell at them as I hang up within 15seconds. Lately though, I received a bombardment of calls (15 to be exact) in the past 3 days from the same number. I answered the one of them, and it had the same 1minute 10s message saying to call the number back regarding a computer threat the…

I prefer not to hang up right away. Instead, I try to waste a bit of their time. For automated calls, I just put down the phone and wait a while to hang up. But for people? I try other means of time wasting, so they can't call someone else to scam them. Last time they called, I told them that it was good that they called, because my computer had detected a virus on their computer and that I wanted them to download an…

I had a lot of fun with someone from "Microsoft IT Support" just before Christmas : )

Tried to do a reverse phish and connect to their TeamViewer[0] but I didn't have time.

At least for an hour I bothered them by being the most clueless user I could get myself to be, "mistyping" urls so I ended up on tech websites instead. I also made notes to add to my previous guesswork on how they manage to fool users.

[0]: Yep, that or another seemingly legitimate remote access tool is what they use around here. Why TeamViewer cannot stop them I have no idea, these kinds of connections (India(?) to rural Western Europe) should stick out like a sore thumb in the data sets IK would guess?

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#26

Post by josteink »

Johnny555 wrote: post #16
acomjean wrote: post #3

Am I the only one thinking that we've lost total control over the machines and data we've created. It seems like nothing is safe and or verifiable anymore. Add to this the backdrop of governments wanting backdoors. People calling you in the US pretending to be from the "IRS" and yet nothing is/ can be done about it? Maybe its really high time for C and its buffer overflows to go... And SQL injection. We're tech savy…

Maybe its really high time for C and its buffer overflows to go... And SQL injection. Because no one ever wrote an insecure website in Java? And certainly PHP must also be completely safe since it has no buffer overflows to worry about. Are you sure the language is at fault?

Assuming an averagely careless programmer, a language made out of shotguns will produce more errors than a language with the occasional presence of shotguns.

When simply trying to concatenate 2 strings can result in arbitrary code getting executed, memory leaks, actual data-loss or fatal program instability (or all of those), it's pretty obvious the C language itself is made out of shotguns.

Making simple things simple and safe will produce fewer errors and fewer security issues. I don't see how anyone can try to argue anything else.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#27

Post by threatofrain »

ctstover wrote: post #19
acomjean wrote: post #3

Am I the only one thinking that we've lost total control over the machines and data we've created. It seems like nothing is safe and or verifiable anymore. Add to this the backdrop of governments wanting backdoors. People calling you in the US pretending to be from the "IRS" and yet nothing is/ can be done about it? Maybe its really high time for C and its buffer overflows to go... And SQL injection. We're tech savy…

You do realize that if "they" took C away from us, then all we would be allowed to use is closed source lock-in oriented ecosystems to the point we wouldn't even be able to trust the very language itself. That's always been the dream, trusted computing all the way from boot to .NET (or similar). You can not in the same breath call for secure computing and spread propaganda against C. (I know it's too much of a leap f…

You're saying that the only replacement at the level of C would be an opaque proprietary solution, but I'm not sure why that would be true. I'm personally rooting for Rust.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#28

Post by ctstover »

eru wrote: post #24
ctstover wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that if "they" took C away from us, then all we would be allowed to use is closed source lock-in oriented ecosystems to the point we wouldn't even be able to trust the very language itself. That's always been the dream, trusted computing all the way from boot to .NET (or similar). You can not in the same breath call for secure computing and spread propaganda against C. (I know it's too much of a leap f…

I don't get it. What's wrong with using something like Haskell or Rust? The security there is in the type system at compile time, no Trusted Computing shenanigans, and you still avoid buffer overflows and SQL injections (if you use them properly). Even something as lowly as Python mostly protects you from buffer overflows.

Regardless of the language, if it had a closed source runtime interpreter and/or VM that you forbade you from performing various sequences of operations on hardware that you "own", actively fought against you seeing what it was doing, etc - then you would no more be able to "trust" it than back-doored cryptography. (I'm getting sleeping, so that may sound wrong. Though it's been a popular troll/advocacy touch point since at least the mid 90s, so there should be plenty of resources out there if your are more curious. ie FSF for starters.)

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#30

Post by ommunist »

I'd rather bet that real Dell outsourced tech support to some company in India, where very often business ethics towards customer records is virtually non-existent. But what else can you expect? If you are not paying decent money, be prepared that your data woll be sold, unless you are ReallY able to enforce control over it. I seriously doubt that Dell tech support is ISO 27000 compliant.
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