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Trump expresses doubts about security of all computers

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Trump expresses doubts about security of all computers

#21

Post by cimi_ »

facepalm wrote: post #19
thought_alarm wrote: post #9

America has become ridiculous. The headline is absurd. The article is absurd. Everything about this is absurd.

How so? The absurd thing is that it is news - it should just be common sense that computers are not secure. It shouldn't take a statement by the future US president to convey that message. Have you ever looked at a computer owned by one of your relatives (someone who is not a computer expert)?

I've not seen any numbers, but I don't think it's far fetched to say that the US probably has ridiculously large budgets for cyber security, military research in computing, cryptography etc. We're not talking about uncle Jim-Bob's computer here.

Having the person that will lead all of that say he'd rather send couriers with hand written notes is horrifying for me. As a computer scientist I feel that this is yet another attack on science and reason. I wonder how you don't feel the same?

Re: Trump expresses doubts about security of all computers

#22

Post by jrapdx3 »

KVFinn wrote: post #10
divbit wrote: post #2

>Trump rarely uses email or computers, despite his frequent tweeting.. If 2016 taught us anything, this is a reasonable infosec strategy - Although I assume, when he becomes President there is some high powered govt. agency that can do it securely if he uses whatever protocols they suggest.

>>Trump rarely uses email or computers, despite his frequent tweeting.. >If 2016 taught us anything, this is a reasonable infosec strategy - Although I assume, when he becomes President there is some high powered govt. agency that can do it securely if he uses whatever protocols they suggest. I do wonder about problems even with Twitter. If the current @POTUS account announced a nuclear attack had just been launched…

AFAIK Trump hasn't used Twitter for anything but brief public statements and comments on the current (and usually minor) issues at hand. Basically just gets around editorial slants of news media to address his huge following.

Reasonably enough, so far haven't seen anything suggesting he'd use Twitter or similar when there's something substantial at stake. However the possibility someone could hack in and use his account is a risk he must have considered. As you say it would be a hot target for that sort of mischief. Obviously it could be bad if that happened.

Given the fact that his accounts haven't been hacked into in that way despite the ample exposure over many months, it suggests we could consider it a good sign of taking security seriously.

Re: Trump expresses doubts about security of all computers

#24

Post by jrapdx3 »

josh_fyi wrote: post #11

Hackers of various sorts have strong interest in hacking the Trump Organization to get dirt on him. Knowing how IT in that sort of medium-size sales-oriented low-tech business works, chances are they have very weak security procedures on their financial and other data. I wouldn't be surprised if hackers are having a field day.

Could be, but if that were true I would expect we would have seen a lot of publicity about such hacked info. Surely there's been no shortage of interest in finding "dirt" on Trump, his businesses, family, etc. The nasty political situation would be a great incentive for it. The absence of such data suggests decent security is in place.

That makes sense insofar as Trump runs large operations that has to require considerable computing resources to run them. He probably has top-notch people overseeing the data end of management and that would include maintaining security

Re: Trump expresses doubts about security of all computers

#25

Post by gaius »

cimi_ wrote: post #21
facepalm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? The absurd thing is that it is news - it should just be common sense that computers are not secure. It shouldn't take a statement by the future US president to convey that message. Have you ever looked at a computer owned by one of your relatives (someone who is not a computer expert)?

I've not seen any numbers, but I don't think it's far fetched to say that the US probably has ridiculously large budgets for cyber security, military research in computing, cryptography etc. We're not talking about uncle Jim-Bob's computer here. Having the person that will lead all of that say he'd rather send couriers with hand written notes is horrifying for me. As a computer scientist I feel that this is yet anoth…

Having the person that will lead all of that say he'd rather send couriers with hand written notes is horrifying for me

Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

    Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style 
    light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications
Using these tactics - in an exercise only of course - the "enemy" defeated the US military easily.

Re: Trump expresses doubts about security of all computers

#26

Post by origami777 »

Is it just me, or is it damn near impossible to not make fun of everything Trump does or says. Every time I see an article about him I feel like he's a real life Forest Gump. Hes just doing whatever, and no matter how dumb or idiotic it seems, it just works out for him.

Re: Trump expresses doubts about security of all computers

#29

Post by danso »

I don't particularly mind if Trump wants to stay off of email. What bothers me is that a lifetime of isolation against computers makes him almost entirely incapabale of understanding or prioritizing information technology, and I don't just mean things like Obama's fluff campaign for learn to code.

This isn't a fault particular to Trump, of course. Anyone who isn't using technology will likely have just a facile understanding of its full impact on life today...kind of like how it's nearly impossible to understand Twitter's appeal (or at least, differentiate it from other forms of publishing, such as blogging or mass email) without using it.

Re: Trump expresses doubts about security of all computers

#30

Post by thomask0 »

jrapdx3 wrote: post #24
josh_fyi wrote: post #11

Hackers of various sorts have strong interest in hacking the Trump Organization to get dirt on him. Knowing how IT in that sort of medium-size sales-oriented low-tech business works, chances are they have very weak security procedures on their financial and other data. I wouldn't be surprised if hackers are having a field day.

Could be, but if that were true I would expect we would have seen a lot of publicity about such hacked info. Surely there's been no shortage of interest in finding "dirt" on Trump, his businesses, family, etc. The nasty political situation would be a great incentive for it. The absence of such data suggests decent security is in place. That makes sense insofar as Trump runs large operations that has to require consid…

Or the Trump organization is much smaller than what he wants it to appear. It's mainly branding (Trump Vodka trump water, a lot of the Trump buildings), get-rich-schemes (Trump University, Trump Network) or hotels. And ofcourse the reality-tv business

With regards to infosec at his hotels, plenty of credit-card breaches https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/04/sources-trump-hotels-bre...

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/07/banks-card-breach-at-tru...

His email servers run on Windows 2003 with IIS6:

http://fortune.com/2016/10/18/donald-trump-email-server-secu...

It could be there is a different answer to why nothing been released yet, eg. blackmail.

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