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Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

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Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#171

Post by marcosdumay »

janvidar wrote: post #42
josteink wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 simp…

C doesn't even have strings, but you would typically be using char arrays instead. All you need is a pointer to the array in order to access it. However, if you just have the pointer then you are lacking to essential pieces of information, the length of the string and the capacity of the string. The length of the string is however by convention determined by the first NULL byte (zero termination), so it is important…

> Concatenating two "strings", is not particularily difficult, it just needs to be done with care.

Driving home is not particularly difficult, it just needs to be done with care. Consequently tens of thousands die every year doing it.

Really, it's probably the case that if you find it simple, you shouldn't be using C. You will make mistakes doing that, and if you don't think so, those mistakes will be released.

Now, about things C was intended for... It was intended for everything. Nowadays we have better options for most uses, but it was indeed intended for web development.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#173

Post by nandhp »

ferongr wrote: post #168

It's been some time (10 years or so) since I've last bought a prepackaged computer (I build my desktops from parts) but do you really have to register your personal information with the manufacturer when you buy a prebuilt computer? Why would there be a need to do that anyway, wouldn't the serial number of the machine be enough for warranty purposes?

Well, generally speaking, if you order a computer online (as most people probably do) you give them your name, address, and phone number so they can ship it to you.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#174

Post by leesalminen »

branchless wrote: post #160
JadeNB wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A serious question, though I assume that you were joking: is it more creepy to have your own actions tracked and accurately tied to you, or other people's actions tracked and inaccurately tied to you? Both sound pretty awful to me, but I think I'd prefer the former if those were the only two options.

What stops these guys from selling to all the major health insurers. Been buying too much sugar? Dental insurance up. Too much butter? Health insurance up. Bought three times the median amount of headache tablets? That's a paddlin'. Bought more alcohol than normal? Car insurance up. Opt out to keep off their radar? They assume the worst and charge you double?

I've heard stories of this happening (shopper club data -> insurance companies), but it's never been substantiated.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#175

Post by EGreg »

davismwfl wrote: post #132

I posted about this about 7 months ago on HN, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9881674 , I also tweeted it out. Dell responded to my tweet saying there has been no breach and our data was secure. Obviously I didn't and don't believe them, and their main response was report it to the FTC. That is crap, admit it, fix it and deal with the issue. What totally pissed me off is that it was my sons laptop they called on…

Guess the PCI Compliance thing works at least. Otherwise why do they need to ask his credit card authorization?

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#176

Post by davismwfl »

speeder wrote: post #164
davismwfl wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll add to that a couple more details. Many ecommerce companies sell your purchase history to third parties as well, just like the credit card companies. This allows others to market to you more directly. There is at least one company that has built technology that will monitor most all these purchases, monitor the IP's from them and the browser profile to identify a specific machine that you use. Then when you…

To me, well done, is still creepy. I am from Brazil, and I am openly dissident of our government, and here assassinations (And other unpleasant things) DO happen to dissidents (example: in the last year a couple anti-government bloggers all in the same region where "murdered", the police claim it was just normal murder, but the coincidence is too great to be just normal murder, they were obviously assassinated). What…

Your concern is totally valid, I luckily do not live in a country that I feel I need to be on guard at the level you do but it still doesn't mean I appreciate all the data collection either.

That said, there are things people can do with companies like Acxiom to help reduce the data collection. At least in the US (not sure overseas) if you as a consumer submit a request to be removed from their lists they must honor your request and remove you, many US states have strict laws about this and I believe the Federal laws also have strict restrictions. The catch 22 to this is that you can wind up back in the collection at a later date because of activity you take or because of a timeout period (from what I understand). You can read about Acxiom's policy and opt-out here: https://isapps.acxiom.com/optout/optout.aspx

As a point too, you may check out the data collection from Acxiom, as I believe they actively collect and use data in your home country, as they do in many counties. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion all also work in the US and overseas and collect/sell vast amounts of data on individuals. The very fact they collect so much data does make people (including me) nervous because I personally feel they do not take security of the data nearly serious enough, as recent security issues have shown at most of them. But that I guess is a different issue/post.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#177

Post by eppsilon »

kuschku wrote: post #100
wfo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fairly well known and accepted that regulations and rules in western countries are FAR stricter than those in Asian and Indian countries. If you care about privacy EU > US > everywhere else (any non western country has literally zero protections or laws about privacy that are enforced), if you care about workers being treated decently EU and US are bastions of fairly mediocre to bad treatment, everywhere else is…

That’s not really true, though. Look at Japan. Sweatshops and de facto slavery isn’t everywhere, but you’re kinda right, countries which were colonies before – mostly in Africa, Asia and South America – tend to have less wealth and prosperity.

> ...countries which were colonies before – mostly in Africa, Asia and South America – tend to have less wealth and prosperity

The US, Canada, and Australia are rather prominent counterexamples.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#178

Post by fvinci »

JadeNB wrote: post #139
manigandham wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purchase and transaction histories provide very rich data profiles and are a big business. There are also several companies that match up this "offline" data with online profiles so you can be targeted online. PII is not available, it is anonymized. There are laws around this. Purchase data itself is usually grouped into major purchase types, not amounts or actual goods purchased. For that detail, it would be the CRM…

> PII is not available, it is anonymized. There are laws around this. But we've seen how useless even apparently well meaning anonymisation is—think of the AOL search results. I can't imagine how utterly useless it becomes when it is done by people in whose interest it is to do it poorly, while remaining just within the law.

Agreed. I work on pharmacy data, which is additionally subject to HIPAA compliance. While the the pharmacy data does technically not contain anything identifiable, it is frightening how easily someone can match their own company's records up to a data set that is supposedly anonymous.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#179

Post by Silhouette »

kuschku wrote: post #105
Silhouette wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you find it complicated, then you should not use C, nor should you use it for things it's not intended for. In theory, string handling in C is straightforward enough. In practice, string handling in C is the source of a crazy number of security vulnerabilities and other bugs, even in popular and relatively well regarded software written by experts. No-one should still need to use C in 2016. We know how to fix many…

1 Word: Rust.

Yes, I'm hoping that as Rust matures and its ecosystem grows we will start to see some improvements in the robustness of low-level software. It's one of the few alternative languages I see that seems to have significant potential in that area right now.

Re: Dell Computers Has Been Hacked

#180

Post by xorcist »

macintux wrote: post #128
xorcist wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess why Google and Apple desperately wants to get in on payments? It fits their data driven business model perfectly.

Apple has a data-driven business model?

Well, they aspire to. Their ad network is large and growing.
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