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

Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

notepad-plus-plus.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 560 posts

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#531

Post by hulitu »

chvid wrote: post #168
lobito25 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the real motive.

“ The incident began from June 2025. Multiple independaent security researchers have assessed that the threat acotor is likely a Chinese state-sponsored group, which would explain the highly selective targeting obseved during the campaign.” How do they know it was a Chinese group or even a state sponsored one?

> Chinese group

our enemy. It must be Chinese, North Korean or Russian.

> state sponsored one

"our software/our provider is so good that only a state actor can compromise us" (see Microsoft's AD keys hack for details)

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#532

Post by hulitu »

ryandrake wrote: post #44
LoganDark wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but feel there must some better venue for such messaging. When I see politics in software updates or documentation, nothing happens because I'm not looking to use the software for political activism. Maybe I tell my adblocker to remove the messaging, and carry on with my task. I can engage with politics in a social context, when political messaging isn't interrupting something else I'm doing; that's a be…

Similar comments also come up in the [now regular] "I don't want to see political articles on HN" threads, and I think the response is similar: Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view: One in support/service of whatever the current status quo is. Trying to set oneself apart from (or above) politics is itself political. If you're lucky enough to be one of the fortunate people on earth who are not un…

> Trying to set oneself apart from (or above) politics is itself political.

we are just sick of propaganda. And of pissing contests. And of "mine is longer than yours" content.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#533

Post by fc417fc802 »

direwolf20 wrote: post #527
fc417fc802 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that depend entirely on the context? Telling the grocery store not to carry dairy products is an anti-dairy stance. Objecting to dairy products in the vegetable section is not anti-dairy it's pro-keeping-things-organized. Debating whether or not dairy ought to be allowed in the vegetable section is also not anti-dairy, at least in the general case.

Unlike milk, politics pervades everything. It's not like keeping milk cartons out of the vegetable section, it's like keeping the letter "p" out of the vegetable section.

You've broken the analogy. The broad categories of food equate to the broad categories of discussion topics.

How attention works, whether training on scraped data is legal, and whether or not the latter should be permissible are three distinct topics. Only the third is inherently political. The second has a close relation to politics but is ultimately a legal question as opposed to a political contest. The first has absolutely nothing to do with politics in and of itself.

> politics pervades everything

That's exactly the problem. Sometimes I don't want it to. If I pull up a spec sheet for a microcontroller I don't want to be bombarded with propaganda pertaining to the political tug of war of the day.

The fact that mundane actions can have political impacts when considered en masse does not imply that we can't or shouldn't have spaces for discussions that are reasonably free of political topics. It isn't always appropriate (imo) to discuss the political impacts of the task at hand. It's okay to have a space in which only the task itself is permitted.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#534

Post by maronato »

thegrim000 wrote: post #512
Pet_Ant wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checking for updates and pulling in plug-ins. Both are valid.

As for updates - my OS has a built-in package management system, which is responsible for installing and updating packages. Why should notepad++ bypass that and do its own independent update process?

Because other OSs do not and the notepad++ team wants all users to have a similar experience.

If you don’t need auto updates, just disable them.

More importantly, notepad++ being able to update itself is not the exploit here. Your OS’ package manager would download the same compromised binary as notepad++’s built in updater.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#535

Post by nacozarina »

Lammy wrote: post #182

Vindicated once again for turning off any update checks the moment I install any new piece of software. Even if this sort of (obviously rare) attack is not a concern, it baffles me how few otherwise-intelligent people fail to see the way these updaters provide the network (which itself is always listening, see Room 641A and friends) with a fingerprint of your specific computer and a way to track its physical location…

an auto-updater for a text editor is particularly infuriating

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#536

Post by hulitu »

davorak wrote: post #166
egl2020 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, that's my question: am I compromised? What should I do?

Standard answer to a potentially compromised machine is to start with a factory reset machine and add the software and data you need to do your work/use the machine. Do not take executables from the compromised machine and use them any where since they too could be compromised. There are more steps you can take to ensure greater safety. The above is the minimum a I do for myself and what the minimum IT department and…

> Standard answer to a potentially compromised machine is to start with a factory reset machine

How do you "factory reset" a PC ?

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#538

Post by davorak »

hulitu wrote: post #536
davorak wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standard answer to a potentially compromised machine is to start with a factory reset machine and add the software and data you need to do your work/use the machine. Do not take executables from the compromised machine and use them any where since they too could be compromised. There are more steps you can take to ensure greater safety. The above is the minimum a I do for myself and what the minimum IT department and…

> Standard answer to a potentially compromised machine is to start with a factory reset machine How do you "factory reset" a PC ?

My minimum is start with a freshly formatted hard drive then reinstall the os, software(fresh not transffered), and data required for your use.

> There are more steps you can take to ensure greater safety.

There are firmware infections that can persist even after hard drive format. Though to my understanding os/user space to firmware infections are rare. As far as I know a 'factory reset' on phone and some laptops does not reinstall firmware and clear out firmware infections. So to my understanding the 'factory reset' found on phones is analogous to formatting your hard drive, reinstall the os, software, and data required for your use.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#539

Post by direwolf20 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #533
direwolf20 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike milk, politics pervades everything. It's not like keeping milk cartons out of the vegetable section, it's like keeping the letter "p" out of the vegetable section.

You've broken the analogy. The broad categories of food equate to the broad categories of discussion topics. How attention works, whether training on scraped data is legal, and whether or not the latter should be permissible are three distinct topics. Only the third is inherently political. The second has a close relation to politics but is ultimately a legal question as opposed to a political contest. The first has…

The spec sheet being written in English is politics. The spec sheets of the most advanced microcontrollers, the cheapest microcontrollers, and the most widely used microcontrollers are exclusively written in Chinese. You don't have easy access to them. That's also politics.

Microcontroller is a broad category of electronic components. Maximum I/O current is orthogonal to microcontroller. Spec language is orthogonal to microcontroller. Politics is orthogonal to microcontroller, and orthogonal to maximum I/O current. The letter "x" is orthogonal to all of the above.

If we make a category of microcontrollers with French data sheets, we are intersecting two axes. That's analogous to vegetables that contain saturated fat or vegetables that begin with the letter "a" in Flemish.

Saturated fats pervade foods (but not all of them), the Flemish letter "a" pervades foods (but only 1/26 of them), electrical concepts pervade microcontroller spec sheets (all microcontrollers, but not all documents describing them) and politics pervades everything (some exceptions here too?)

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#540

Post by XdekHckr »

np1810 wrote: post #479
sciencejerk wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LittleSnitch is great for MacOS; it is easily configured to alert you every time your machine makes ip/domain connections, which can then be accepted, denied, or rules made

> LittleSnitch is great for MacOS; it is easily configured to alert you every time your machine makes ip/domain connections, which can then be accepted, denied, or rules made For an open-source alternative, consider checking out - Lulu [0]. It's not as feature rich nor has impressive UI like the former but gets the main work done. [0] https://github.com/objective-see/LuLu

Are you for realy using apple products? Yuh...
Post reply on HN