41–50 of 65 posts
> “We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation-state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.” [Bruce Schneier when Mirai first appeared] This looks especially foolish now. Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress. He should be more careful when engaging in rampant speculation like this. What basis did he have for such an assumption? I don’t understand why every s…
I think a lot of the speculation was based on the initial size of the attack (620-665gbps). https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/krebsonsecurity-hit-with...
> “We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation-state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.” [Bruce Schneier when Mirai first appeared] This looks especially foolish now. Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress. He should be more careful when engaging in rampant speculation like this. What basis did he have for such an assumption? I don’t understand why every s…
Here's the source titled "Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet", dated September 2016:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/someone_is_le...
The source paragraph does not mention Mirai at all (nor does the article):
> Over the past year or two, someone has been probing the defenses of the companies that run critical pieces of the Internet. These probes take the form of precisely calibrated attacks designed to determine exactly how well these companies can defend themselves, and what would be required to take them down. We don't know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.
You should actually read the whole article to get a sense of where he is coming from.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress Schneier has been around for a long time, knows the industry well and has made significant contributions. Not everyone get's things right all the time including Schneier. Credibility wise he .. - has a master's degree in computer science - was awarded an honorary Ph.D from the University of Westminster in London - is chief technology officer of B…
But that does not excuse knee-jerk reactions. >China or Russia would be my first guesses Why? If this is just based on it being a massive attack, then there's no basis to automatically blame China/Russia. Have you not noticed this trend? Every time there's a big attack or new strain of malware, it's always China/Russia/North Korea, and that finger pointing is before any concrete evidence? Honestly, it's xenophobic an…
Companies seems to love to throw "state sponsored" around because it sounds better to imply that you were so secure that only North Korea, Russia or China had a chance and at that level of attack (by such a state that openly challenges USA so often) it's not your fault you got breached because it's implied everyone would be. Equifax ran outdated Apache Struts for a few days after a patch and information about the vulnerability was out and now China is being pointed at with really flimsy (IMO) evidence[0].
On the other hand no one probably wants to defend China, North Korea and Russia and it sounds much cooler to be fighting against their state hackers than script kiddies and saying that all these "high profile state attacks" were script kiddies is basically shitting on the security industry in a way.
[0] - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4937010/Clues-sugges...
> “We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation-state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.” [Bruce Schneier when Mirai first appeared] This looks especially foolish now. Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress. He should be more careful when engaging in rampant speculation like this. What basis did he have for such an assumption? I don’t understand why every s…
Wired is misusing that quote, since it does not pertain to Mirai specifically, but to cyberwarfare in general. Here's the source titled "Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet", dated September 2016: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/someone_is_le... The source paragraph does not mention Mirai at all (nor does the article): > Over the past year or two, someone has been probing the defenses of…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress Schneier has been around for a long time, knows the industry well and has made significant contributions. Not everyone get's things right all the time including Schneier. Credibility wise he .. - has a master's degree in computer science - was awarded an honorary Ph.D from the University of Westminster in London - is chief technology officer of B…
I don't want to throw more shade at Schneier than needs to be thrown, but I want to point out that you've pointed out basically two† real credentials: * He has a masters degree. * He wrote a bunch of popular books, and reaped a lot of fame from them. I work, part-time, in the cryptography space his best-known books cover. His most popular book, Applied Cryptography, is not well regarded in the field. Opinions differ…
On the book front, would be keen to gain your perspective on the following crypto book that was recently published -
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress Schneier has been around for a long time, knows the industry well and has made significant contributions. Not everyone get's things right all the time including Schneier. Credibility wise he .. - has a master's degree in computer science - was awarded an honorary Ph.D from the University of Westminster in London - is chief technology officer of B…
I don't want to throw more shade at Schneier than needs to be thrown, but I want to point out that you've pointed out basically two† real credentials: * He has a masters degree. * He wrote a bunch of popular books, and reaped a lot of fame from them. I work, part-time, in the cryptography space his best-known books cover. His most popular book, Applied Cryptography, is not well regarded in the field. Opinions differ…
Can you name them?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want to throw more shade at Schneier than needs to be thrown, but I want to point out that you've pointed out basically two† real credentials: * He has a masters degree. * He wrote a bunch of popular books, and reaped a lot of fame from them. I work, part-time, in the cryptography space his best-known books cover. His most popular book, Applied Cryptography, is not well regarded in the field. Opinions differ…
Thanks for the perspective. How would you classify him if ranked against the other usual high profile “security personalities?”. Often an individuals ability for self promotion can place a shadow over their true ability making it difficult to discern their true qualities when not a subject matter expert on the topic at hand. On the book front, would be keen to gain your perspective on the following crypto book that w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the perspective. How would you classify him if ranked against the other usual high profile “security personalities?”. Often an individuals ability for self promotion can place a shadow over their true ability making it difficult to discern their true qualities when not a subject matter expert on the topic at hand. On the book front, would be keen to gain your perspective on the following crypto book that w…
Serious Crypto is strong, and JP Aumasson is the real deal. I might still want both Cryptography Engineering and Serious Crypto; Serious Crypto is far more detailed and up-to-date, but Cryptography Engineering has valuable perspective on a lot of nuts-and-bolts stuff.
> “We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation-state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.” [Bruce Schneier when Mirai first appeared] This looks especially foolish now. Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress. He should be more careful when engaging in rampant speculation like this. What basis did he have for such an assumption? I don’t understand why every s…
> Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress Schneier has been around for a long time, knows the industry well and has made significant contributions. Not everyone get's things right all the time including Schneier. Credibility wise he .. - has a master's degree in computer science - was awarded an honorary Ph.D from the University of Westminster in London - is chief technology officer of B…
He has been working for IBM since they acquired Resilient Systems where Schneier was CTO.