51–60 of 96 posts
A program I wrote launches every time I start my computer. It allocates some memory and scans it periodically for unexpected changes. After an equivalent of 15.8 256MB/months no anomalies have been found yet.
Would really like to see more authoritative figures for modern consumer hardware.
As the article points out, using collected client data is problematic, because some errors will often be undetectable, as in numeric data. And in general, you would have to control for bit flips somehow caused by software. I wonder whether a SETI approach would be useful here. Allocate, say, 1MB of memory. Fill it with some known bit pattern. Periodically check the memory and look for discrepancies. Do this once an h…
Idea looks very realistic, except that it will drain battery, and could also be used as surveillance tool, so I have not seen real app.
To be strict, any digital camera sensor is excellent tool for such things, much better than ram, only need to close objective with something opaque for light, but transparent to particles (any thin plastic fit), and sure, run monitoring program and store logs in cloud.
And in real life, on ali could buy Geiger counter shield for arduino, and one my pal even expose such sensor to internet.
- Better to use two such sensors and simple logical circuit, so they will detect not all events, but only when two sensors simultaneous detect something, so you will see vector, from where cosmic particle appear.
- This method of many sensors with logic and logs, where used in researches, which detected hidden rooms in Great Pyramids of Giza (real cosmic rays so powerful, that could detected with simple equipment at depths up to hundred meters, so ordinary concrete is like cardboard for them). And I even seen post from one guy, who installed such machinery at home (used 8 or 16 counters, I forgot details), and in few months from logs was clearly seen, where in his room is window :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on whether or not the client specifically requested, or is expecting, traffic over HTTPS. But yes, if the user's client requests encrypted traffic, the attacker will not be able to produce a valid certificate. This attack isn't that different than a MITM.
Nothing prevents an attacker from getting a cert for snytimg.com or oslashdot.org.
"Bitsquatting is a form of cybersquatting which relies on bit-flip errors that occur during the process of making a DNS request. These bit-flips may occur due to factors such as faulty hardware or cosmic rays. When such an error occurs, the user requesting the domain may be directed to a website registered under a domain name similar to a legitimate domain, except with one bit flipped in their respective binary repre…
I worked at Sonus Networks (now Ribbon[0]) in the early 2000's building VoIP solutions for telcos. We had a bunch of unexplained errors in a new installation in Denver. After much head scratching the engineers on the problem concluded that the higher altitude significantly increased the likelihood of impact by alpha particles and that that was the cause of the problem! (IIRC we increased the shielding on the devices.…
This idea looks promise, but Denver is not high enough to make much difference from sea level.
From experience, radiation detector shows significant raise from ~6000m, and at standard civilian airplane echelon 10k m, it buzzes continuously :)
Most probably, errors caused from electric surges or from some local radiation anomaly, or from something like radar equipment.
- I hear, in few places in world exists old buildings, even churches, build from stone with high content of natural radionuclides, so there radiation is significantly higher than standard level, but not too high to cause fast people death, so nobody care, but it departments found unexplained errors ;)
Btw, stone with high content is widely distributed. After Chernobyl, we pay this much attention, and know, for this first care in Sweden in 1940s, all other countries after 1950s. And one person even said me, that near our city there are two mines, stone from one used for industrial buildings, for roads, and from other for homes.
I don't know folks. 2 years ago I took a laptop which I wasn't using (16 GiB RAM non-ECC) => I created in Linux with Python an array ("bytes"? Don't remember exactly anymore) of ~10 or 12 GiB containing random integers => computed the array's hash and saved it. Then for ~1-2 months I recomputed from time to time the hash of that array (inbetween the laptop was in suspend-to-RAM) and compared it to the original result…
> Jaguar had 360 terabytes of main memory [and] was logging ECC errors at a rate of 350 per minute
Source: https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-to-kill-a-supercomputer-dirty-...
I don't know folks. 2 years ago I took a laptop which I wasn't using (16 GiB RAM non-ECC) => I created in Linux with Python an array ("bytes"? Don't remember exactly anymore) of ~10 or 12 GiB containing random integers => computed the array's hash and saved it. Then for ~1-2 months I recomputed from time to time the hash of that array (inbetween the laptop was in suspend-to-RAM) and compared it to the original result…
What I really see - on digital photo dark current test videos, usually could see few flashes.
So looks like, modern ram has some sort of ecc inside chip.
And yes, digital photo sensors much better suited for detecting of cosmic rays, even simplest, sure much better (semi)professional, which could tuned to make long exposition. But even on book webcam, or on smart front camera, could see events when low light (or if close lens with some opaque material).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing prevents an attacker from getting a cert for snytimg.com or oslashdot.org.
That only helps the attacker if the error happened before reaching the DNS-specific path. If the error happens inside the DNS path, then the browser is still expecting to get a certificate for the correct website.
"Bitsquatting is a form of cybersquatting which relies on bit-flip errors that occur during the process of making a DNS request. These bit-flips may occur due to factors such as faulty hardware or cosmic rays. When such an error occurs, the user requesting the domain may be directed to a website registered under a domain name similar to a legitimate domain, except with one bit flipped in their respective binary repre…
How does a comic bit flip make it past the Ethernet CRC?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That only helps the attacker if the error happened before reaching the DNS-specific path. If the error happens inside the DNS path, then the browser is still expecting to get a certificate for the correct website.
If the error happens inside the DNS path, the name in the answer won't match the name in the query. The browser is still expecting to get an answer for the hostname it sent.