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Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

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Re: Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

#21

Post by Endlessly »

thefounder wrote: post #14
Endlessly wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) Food safety issues could literally kill Starbucks (2) Starbucks business depends on having those measurements for quality control (3) Starbucks gets lots of vendor deals from partner companies because they are a well know brand and having them on board helps land more deals (4) Hacker using the machines might be able to sabotage the stories; food poisoning, fires, etc (5) The smarter the tech in store — less trai…

>> The smarter the tech in store — less training required per employee on site We know that the larger the attack surface the more likely is to get hacked so if Starbucks really cares about everything you said (i.e food safety issues) it should hire more people and less machines.

Using that logic, all tech with vulnerabilities should be removed.

While I understand the urge want to humanize the process, give people jobs, this is not the way to do it.

Future of human employees inside of Starbucks is clearly focused on what the baristas do best as humans, being friendly person that’s humanize the experience of getting coffee.

As for including humans in food safety procedures, what exactly are you referring too? Inserting 30-60 IoT continuous environmental and systems monitoring sensors into a store clearing makes more sense that paying a human to be in the store 24/7 and writing it down on paper. If I am recalling correctly, Starbucks has already saved millions by not letting the on site employees control the HVAC systems.

Re: Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

#22

Post by Endlessly »

at_a_remove wrote: post #10
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

> Businesses like Starbucks are rolling out Azure Sphere to secure its store equipment, which feeds back data points on the type of beans, coffee temperature, and water quality for every shot of espresso. I understand detailed feedback on huge multi-million dollar industrial machines where proactive maintenance based upon massive ML datapoints can save unexpected downtimes with millions in damage, but on coffee machi…

I will offer an observation here: franchise production of food and drink relies upon homogeneity. Sometimes, people go out for something new, but often people want the same old thing. Someone across the country in a strange bed, where their accent sticks out, might want something familiar, and that is the experience of McDonald's in the United States. I could go from one corner of the country to another and the burge…

Oddly, globally, Starbucks around the world are not the same; for example, the percent of fat in the milk differs from region to region.

Re: Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

#23

Post by INTPenis »

Clearly they've put a lot of work into this and are willing to pay out for a "3rd party audit" so to speak.

But my schadenfreude is hoping for an outcome similar to what happened to an old co-worker of mine back in 2005.

He was a Windows nut and we were always in a friendly competition about which ecosystem was the better one. One time he had done a bunch of modifications to his own laptop OS, IDS, and tweaking services to have a slimmed down install with a web server. When he was happy he told me "tell your hacker buddies to try and hack this website hehe" :D

He had put up a simple website offering 1000 USD for hacking into the server it was hosted on. His own personal work laptop, with a bunch of other sensitive stuff on it.

I said, ok... And posted it on a certain mailing list that I won't mention.

We sat opposite each other and within 10 minutes I saw him bend down towards the screen with a worried look on his face. Tapping frantically on the keys.

Within another 10 minutes he had disconnected the computer from the internet and said the challenge was off. :D

Apparently his IDS had been throwing up warnings about md5 checksums being changed left and right. That's all we figured out about it. I was 16 years younger so he didn't want to share much more with me.

Re: Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

#24

Post by Endlessly »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #13

I am amused that MS has its own Linux flavor, but I won't make a joke about it. I won't mention previous attempts at embrace, extend and extinguish. I want to focus on the IoT part. Do not get me wrong. I am glad MS tries to show they care about security in IoT space. Heavens know I don't want to see Starbucks microwave botnet in 2021.

I would argue Linux by design is supposed to be embraced, extend, extinguished — key is balancing how much how it is private & public.

For anyone not aware of the “EEE” reference, here’s the wiki page for it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extingu...

Re: Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

#26

Post by at_a_remove »

Endlessly wrote: post #22
at_a_remove wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will offer an observation here: franchise production of food and drink relies upon homogeneity. Sometimes, people go out for something new, but often people want the same old thing. Someone across the country in a strange bed, where their accent sticks out, might want something familiar, and that is the experience of McDonald's in the United States. I could go from one corner of the country to another and the burge…

Oddly, globally, Starbucks around the world are not the same; for example, the percent of fat in the milk differs from region to region.

Yes, I think where an established culture exists in some boundaries that a franchise tries to grow into, it must adapt and offer its own variety within that. I know McDonald's would be different in, say, Japan, but it is likely the same within Japan.

It is a bit more startling in the United States because it is such a large country. Imagine crossing a reasonable fraction of the globe and the food is still the same! The comfort of the familiar is an incredibly strong lure and I believe it happens in ways that are so broad we can hardly see we are within them, like a bug on the surface of a tidal wave. Food and drink homogeneity is only one of the ways, but is likely one of the more primal. People of a certain age, when given Kosher-for-Passover Coke (still made with sugar) are delighted by the return to what they grew up with.

In any case, Starbucks wants a customer who, perhaps having had their fill of experimental recipes and lunches at new places, can reach for a stimulus just like they had before. It might mean a lot in an airport terminal after nights on a mattress you've never slept on before.

Re: Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

#27

Post by WhyNotHugo »

at_a_remove wrote: post #10
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

> Businesses like Starbucks are rolling out Azure Sphere to secure its store equipment, which feeds back data points on the type of beans, coffee temperature, and water quality for every shot of espresso. I understand detailed feedback on huge multi-million dollar industrial machines where proactive maintenance based upon massive ML datapoints can save unexpected downtimes with millions in damage, but on coffee machi…

I will offer an observation here: franchise production of food and drink relies upon homogeneity. Sometimes, people go out for something new, but often people want the same old thing. Someone across the country in a strange bed, where their accent sticks out, might want something familiar, and that is the experience of McDonald's in the United States. I could go from one corner of the country to another and the burge…

McDonald has very different menus in different regions, as does starbucks.

I remember visiting NY and being fascinated by many of the options I've never seen in other countries.

Re: Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

#28

Post by ValentineC »

at_a_remove wrote: post #10
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

> Businesses like Starbucks are rolling out Azure Sphere to secure its store equipment, which feeds back data points on the type of beans, coffee temperature, and water quality for every shot of espresso. I understand detailed feedback on huge multi-million dollar industrial machines where proactive maintenance based upon massive ML datapoints can save unexpected downtimes with millions in damage, but on coffee machi…

I will offer an observation here: franchise production of food and drink relies upon homogeneity. Sometimes, people go out for something new, but often people want the same old thing. Someone across the country in a strange bed, where their accent sticks out, might want something familiar, and that is the experience of McDonald's in the United States. I could go from one corner of the country to another and the burge…

> Given that, unlike McDonald's which can freeze and ship, you must go from bean to drink on premise in a matter of minutes, I could see a focus on trying to ferret out a way to make that expensive cup taste the same from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine.

There's a 2013 article on why 30% of Michelin-star restaurants went with Nespresso, which seems to have consistency down: https://www.grubstreet.com/2013/03/nespresso-sold-at-micheli...

Re: Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

#29

Post by at_a_remove »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #27
at_a_remove wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will offer an observation here: franchise production of food and drink relies upon homogeneity. Sometimes, people go out for something new, but often people want the same old thing. Someone across the country in a strange bed, where their accent sticks out, might want something familiar, and that is the experience of McDonald's in the United States. I could go from one corner of the country to another and the burge…

McDonald has very different menus in different regions, as does starbucks. I remember visiting NY and being fascinated by many of the options I've never seen in other countries.

Yes. And your basic burger is still going to taste the same. The idea is that Item X is going to taste the same within a given region, typically a country, not that Y or Z will not be on offer.

Re: Microsoft offers $100k to hack its custom Linux OS

#30

Post by dqv »

mschuster91 wrote: post #2

> Businesses like Starbucks are rolling out Azure Sphere to secure its store equipment, which feeds back data points on the type of beans, coffee temperature, and water quality for every shot of espresso. I understand detailed feedback on huge multi-million dollar industrial machines where proactive maintenance based upon massive ML datapoints can save unexpected downtimes with millions in damage, but on coffee machi…

I think this might be a barista thing. A while back an espresso machine with open source software was posted here.[0] It has all kinds of data. And I've seen baristas wanting very specific parameters for making coffee (e.g. making pour-over coffee with exact weights, volumes, temperatures, bean grind durations). I imagine (but of course could be wrong) there are baristas at the top in Starbucks who find this data important.

[0]: https://decentespresso.com/downloads

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