alsko

From Michael's newsletter:

For years after testifying as the lead software expert in a Toyota unintended acceleration trial, I kept returning to the idea of writing a sci-fi novel about the mass weaponization of embedded systems:

What if the possible compiler supply chain attack that Ken Thompson alerted us to has already been deployed?

The result is METACOMPILER, a plausibly true techno-thriller built on ideas from real projects I've consulted on and testified about as well as common unpatched vulnerabilities. The computer science is legit. The vulnerabilities are real. Only the characters are fictional.

The protagonist is a deaf-blind computer scientist whose neural implants let her perceive the electromagnetic spectrum. Following the death of her boyfriend in a car that was remotely commanded to accelerate, Kali uncovers a compiler-level backdoor in 11 billion processors, each carrying three hidden commands: INFO, PEEK, and POKE.

Matter was created by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), formerly known as the Zigbee Alliance! Basically, Matter is the next generation Zigbee. Thread as a protocol predates Matter, and it is just one of the supported transports, together with Wifi and Ethernet (for now).

Edit: One thing Matter adds that was not in Zigbee is Bluetooth provisioning, letting you use your phone to add a device to your network without QR codes or numbers to type in.

Also fun fact; Homeassistant is part of the CSA and apparently, Google, Apple and others use HA for testing!

Aaand it's back!

Seems to also be affecting admin.microsoft.com. Azure and Office365 are still up and running.

Wow, I feel _really_ dumb now - I just saw the filename without ".py" and assumed it was an executable

Sorry, I take it back!