Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

londoncentric.media

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 89 posts

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#31

Post by lbriner »

I think lots of people who lack the experience have no idea quite how large and difficult cybersecurity is for a massive organisation whose systems span 20-30+ years or possibly even longer. There is no standardised tooling and very little that can be retrofitted to older systems. Firewalls are fine if the attack is against a port you do not need to use but otherwise you are left with a myriad of commercial offerings and a lot of "risk analysis".

The one basic tool that does seem lacking, however, is just basic network segmentation. I could understand a single system being hacked, especially an old system that is massively complex to replace but having to shutdown multiple systems including WiFi and office networks just smells like lazy "just connect all the wires together to make my IT life slightly easier". Having air gaps with separate computers, separate networks (even vlans) etc. is probably the most cost effective way to reduce your attack surface.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#32

Post by bdndndndbve »

KaiserPro wrote: post #26
truckerbill wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is it’s easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train… It’s mostly people just going to work/school, makes sense to be free

> easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train I mean its not. If it was, they would have done it. Wealth taxes are really fucking hard to do equitably, at least at first. For example OAPs tend to live in very expensive hosues. take rotherhithe for example one could have bought a house in the 90s for shit all, and now its worth the best part of 1.4 million. so now you're levying a 5%…

We need a housing policy reset, the OAPs shouldn't have the majority of their retirement assets tied up in a 1.4M illiquid house. They need an affordable off-ramp to downsize, and we need to build more affordable housing to deflate the market. This is wildly unpopular because lots of people are already over-leveraged trying to get onto the property ladder, but objectively it's the correct course to start to unfuck things.

The purpose of a house or apartment should be shelter for a family, not a retirement plan or an investment for a corporation.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#33

Post by ghusto »

KaiserPro wrote: post #26
truckerbill wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is it’s easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train… It’s mostly people just going to work/school, makes sense to be free

> easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train I mean its not. If it was, they would have done it. Wealth taxes are really fucking hard to do equitably, at least at first. For example OAPs tend to live in very expensive hosues. take rotherhithe for example one could have bought a house in the 90s for shit all, and now its worth the best part of 1.4 million. so now you're levying a 5%…

> Well, they'll transfer all they own into a corporation. They can't tax assets like that on business because it'll crash the economy super quick

Thanks for that. I've always thought that wealth isn't taxed heavily because it's the wealthy that make the laws. That still may be part of it, but this surely is too.

As a side note, I'm puzzled as to where this seemingly prevalent (here, at least) sentiment of letting people ride public transport for free has suddenly come from? It makes absolutely no sense, but is being said as if it's the most obvious thing in the world!

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#34

Post by ghusto »

bdndndndbve wrote: post #32
KaiserPro wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train I mean its not. If it was, they would have done it. Wealth taxes are really fucking hard to do equitably, at least at first. For example OAPs tend to live in very expensive hosues. take rotherhithe for example one could have bought a house in the 90s for shit all, and now its worth the best part of 1.4 million. so now you're levying a 5%…

We need a housing policy reset, the OAPs shouldn't have the majority of their retirement assets tied up in a 1.4M illiquid house. They need an affordable off-ramp to downsize, and we need to build more affordable housing to deflate the market. This is wildly unpopular because lots of people are already over-leveraged trying to get onto the property ladder, but objectively it's the correct course to start to unfuck th…

Okay Mao.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#35

Post by paganel »

> Hundreds of thousands of Londoners are being overcharged for travel, while London Centric spoke to one teenager who is having to skip meals because of cashflow issues brought on by the cyberattack.

This is just crazy, why not make public transport as cheap as peanuts to begin with? Why does everything have to be so damn expensive? Why the heck does a monthly transport pass have to cost, let me check, around 200 pounds?, what the fricking fuck?!?! Why don't the common people in the West rise up against this perverted shit? 2400 pounds per year just to have the privilege to take the bus/metro?

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#36

Post by fragmede »

jll29 wrote: post #21
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #8

Slightly OT, but really good to see London Centric on the front page of HN. Britain's local media has basically collapsed in recent years - it's now owned by three conglomerates (Reach, Gannett/Newsquest, National World) who are completely uninterested in any form of journalism, only in the sort of clickbait that would have embarrassed even Buzzfeed in its 2012 pomp. The London Evening Standard was one of the last re…

Are people really no longer interested in what happens locally? I would pay for local news, even about places that I no longer live, but used to live and still have a passing interest in. But perhaps I would want to receive it as XML feed. Even events (concerts, readings, exhibitions, screenings etc.) are typically scattered across many smaller lists or mailing lists, depending on location. For example, there is way…

> I would pay for local news

Most of my local papers have moved to a subscription model, often with paywalls so I currently pay for local news. Have your local papers not?

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#37

Post by paganel »

cdot2 wrote: post #7
bdndndndbve wrote: post #6

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service you wouldn't have free cards for all under 16, and some over 16, and all over 60, and discount fares for people in poverty. Cities spend so much money outsourcing the IT for fare collection, and the administration of budget programs, and ultimately the experien…

All of this IT infrastructure exists to ensure the exact opposite of what you said. It ensures that rich people don't get to ride the bus for free.

What's the problem with rich people riding the bus for free? All bus-riding should be as close to free as possible.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#38

Post by paganel »

avianlyric wrote: post #12
bdndndndbve wrote: post #6

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service you wouldn't have free cards for all under 16, and some over 16, and all over 60, and discount fares for people in poverty. Cities spend so much money outsourcing the IT for fare collection, and the administration of budget programs, and ultimately the experien…

TfL has built most of its fare collection systems in-house, indeed it licenses its fare collect technologies to other cities like New York. Also it’s not within TfLs or London Mayors gift to provide free transit, TfL is almost unique in that its costs are almost entirely covered by farebox collections, and they receive little to zero government subsidy. If London made transit free, they have to find an additional £7…

Take the 7 billion from the existing 37 billion and get rid of some existing stuff which is non-housing related.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#39

Post by fragmede »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #28
avianlyric wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even that won’t get close. Existing London car taxes only raise around £0.2 billion annually. Not a chance in hell you can raise that by 3500% without either public unrest, or such a dramatic change in behaviour that tax collection amounts drop, instead of raise (although I would personally love a car free London).

Are you counting fuel duties here, or only road tax?

They could also be be referring to London's congestion charge, that drivers pay for driving in inner London.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#40

Post by klelatti »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #8

Slightly OT, but really good to see London Centric on the front page of HN. Britain's local media has basically collapsed in recent years - it's now owned by three conglomerates (Reach, Gannett/Newsquest, National World) who are completely uninterested in any form of journalism, only in the sort of clickbait that would have embarrassed even Buzzfeed in its 2012 pomp. The London Evening Standard was one of the last re…

Agreed and interesting and good to see it has > 1k paying subs (out of 7k total) after a little more than a month - probably as a result of some great stories already. A promising start.
Post reply on HN