Update here: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-Decembe...
Seems mysterious but not confirmed to be LE raid.
“Warning: Do Not use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation”
51–60 of 167 posts
Re: “Warning: Do Not use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation”
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, the whole cyberwar situation is far from "hopeless". The truth is nobody to speak of has taken it seriously yet. Security is still mostly an afterthought, if that , almost everywhere you look. Even in nominally security-focused contexts. And much of the activity in places that really are security focused are built around an environment in which software must be assumed to basically be constructed out of styrofoam…
> Security is still mostly an afterthought, if that, almost everywhere you look... yes, this will require immense effort. What I keep thinking, though, is, what would be the total dollar cost to make security a forethought, with information technology being pretty ubiquitous? I think it might actually have serious economic impact -- is it possible we literally can't afford security, as a society?
The problem with "how much" is this: as the dollar amount of loss increases, the distance between "the owners of the money" and "the people responsible for keeping it safe" also increases. I make sure I know where my wallet is, but Jeff in IT won't lose billions (or a clueless CIO, for that matter).
Re: “Warning: Do Not use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation”
#53Interesting. It is entirely possible it is survivor bias on my part but I get the suspicion that a global sort of 'cyberwar' that has been rumbling along for years is heating up rapidly. I've seen a 10x increase in various scripted attacks being attempted (patch early and often folks!) and a number of APT level compromises of systems either staging malware or deploying it (see the latest bulletin on the Afghan govern…
> It is entirely possible it is survivor bias on my part but I get the suspicion that a global sort of 'cyberwar' that has been rumbling along for years is heating up rapidly. It might have been a freudian slip or some kind of intuition, but when I was describing my life plans to my family, I said something along the lines of "I don't want to manage people, I want to stay on the front lines with the code." Except I d…
Jim: Dr. Rawlin, do you remember how we had helped build the runway? If we died like the others, our bones would be IN the runway. In a way, it's OUR runway...
Dr. Rawlins: No it's THEIR runway, Jim! Try not to think so much! Try not to THINK so much!
One of my favorite quotes of all time when I dealt with similar issues myself, from Empire of the Sun.
Re: “Warning: Do Not use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation”
#54Interesting. It is entirely possible it is survivor bias on my part but I get the suspicion that a global sort of 'cyberwar' that has been rumbling along for years is heating up rapidly. I've seen a 10x increase in various scripted attacks being attempted (patch early and often folks!) and a number of APT level compromises of systems either staging malware or deploying it (see the latest bulletin on the Afghan govern…
If the USB device from the article is doing anything along the lines of BadUSB or EFI compromise, then re-imaging your server won't accomplish much. https://trmm.net/EFI
it is pretty likely the USB device is this
http://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/mouse_jiggler/
to prevent the computer going to sleep while this is utilized
http://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/hotplug_field_kit/
These are pretty standard plays in seizing computers these days.
One should note that the grsec linux patchset has functionality to not load drivers for any plugged usb devices, as well as log when it happens, possibly resulting in action being taken.
Re: “Warning: Do Not use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation”
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is entirely possible it is survivor bias on my part but I get the suspicion that a global sort of 'cyberwar' that has been rumbling along for years is heating up rapidly. It might have been a freudian slip or some kind of intuition, but when I was describing my life plans to my family, I said something along the lines of "I don't want to manage people, I want to stay on the front lines with the code." Except I d…
I don't think that the scenario you're sketching here is far fetched at all. Code re-use and recycling inside technical companies is very common. If any code you wrote there turned out to be great/good at something you'd never know where it might end up. Perhaps in the processor of some killer robot in the future. I wonder where the code that is running inside the drones today comes from. Some one who never meant to…
I've had job offers for programming drones. I was involved with computer security for a while, and I still have a strong interest in every computational and mathematical aspect of it. I have friends that work on those things. I like those friends. I write code. I write math. We all think. We all share abstract models, different ways of thinking. It's not just code that gets turned into code. It's thought, and everything else too. I hate feeling like my thoughts can be used to hurt people. I hate feeling like the act of choosing to exist can cause harm, but looking at it that way is like saying a tapestry is no longer a tapestry when one thread is pulled from it.
I still love math, and I still love computer science. I just don't want to use it the way the a lot of the world uses it, and I don't know how much thinking I have to do before I can create code that I am satisfied over being both intelligent and humane. It's absolutely ridiculous, sometimes. Sometimes I can just stare at a cursor blinking on an IDE and feel like I'm falling into a void of 'what ifs'. Other times it is like there is no difference between myself and the machine. And then I wonder whether I'm thinking enough, again, or am I letting calculation and logic get the best of me. Have I abstracted this problem too much, too far away from reality? Does anything I think matter at all? My life continues to improve, but suffering still exists, and I feel like it is almost taboo to talk about in this way. But what is the point of existing if you can't actually make real improvements?
Re: “Warning: Do Not use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation”
#56Interesting. It is entirely possible it is survivor bias on my part but I get the suspicion that a global sort of 'cyberwar' that has been rumbling along for years is heating up rapidly. I've seen a 10x increase in various scripted attacks being attempted (patch early and often folks!) and a number of APT level compromises of systems either staging malware or deploying it (see the latest bulletin on the Afghan govern…
Does ISIS really have the resources to carry out criminal computer activities? From what I understand, they are a group with limited technological advantage, and there is no way they could carry out a major attack on the Internet.
Well they do have money, while they may not have members that possess the necessary knowledge I'm sure they could finance such attacks.
That being said, they do not look to me like a group that would be using, and generally be interested in, such tactics.
Re: “Warning: Do Not use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation”
#57Re: “Warning: Do Not use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation”
#58Wonder what shenanigans the USB device is up to. A bootable drive for flashing backdoored bios/hdd firmware or keylogging? Snapshotting the HDDs? 0day'ing the kernel USB stack?
A bootable drive for flashing backdoored bios/hdd firmware or keylogging? Snapshotting the HDDs? 0day'ing the kernel USB stack?
Or maybe just..
input: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Logitech Logitech USB Optical Mouse] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-1.3Re: “Warning: Do Not use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation”
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is entirely possible it is survivor bias on my part but I get the suspicion that a global sort of 'cyberwar' that has been rumbling along for years is heating up rapidly. It might have been a freudian slip or some kind of intuition, but when I was describing my life plans to my family, I said something along the lines of "I don't want to manage people, I want to stay on the front lines with the code." Except I d…
Jim : Dr. Rawlin, do you remember how we had helped build the runway? If we died like the others, our bones would be IN the runway. In a way, it's OUR runway... Dr. Rawlins : No it's THEIR runway, Jim! Try not to think so much! Try not to THINK so much! One of my favorite quotes of all time when I dealt with similar issues myself, from Empire of the Sun .
I just sort of picture humanity as ants, building a little colony made of silicon and symbols. It's just nature, a natural outgrowth of our existence. It can manifest in any direction, and the direction it is supposed to go in is the one it does. It's more zen than happiness.