notaddicted

Joined 18 years ago

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Oct 31

jhl805atgmail.com

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Comment · 13 years ago

I think this is of endgame for network security, I don't see a way out -- the Sony Rootkit[1] should have been the point where I realized but it is just sinking in for me now since the Snowden NSA leak.

Any network connected computer will be running an OS+Applications which are typically a gigabyte or more. This is produced by companies which are beholden to a nation state, and the companies can be coerced[2] or compelled[3] to use the software against the user. The software is also constantly being probed for vulnerabilities, which can also be exploited by law-enforcement / military [4][5].

So, if you turn on auto-update you have to trust the software maker is not being coerced by someone, or being compelled by a secret court to trojan you. If you don't turn on auto-update you can still get trojaned by any vulnerability. Lose-Lose.

[1] Sony Rootkit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootki...

[2] Qwest CEO Nacchio's claims: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30...

[3] FISA court

[4] German Govt. Trojan from 2011: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-world-from-b...

[5] FBI's TOR trojan injection: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi...

Comment · 13 years ago

I doubt anyone would disagree that triple negatives aren't easy to parse.

Comment · 13 years ago

Yeah, actually now that I'm reading the SEC report it appears pretty seriously reckless, also their lack of capital thresholds.

Comment · 13 years ago

Yes, these criminal masterminds found a way to swindle honest hard-working themselves out of 440 million dollars and "get away with" a cool extra -12 million.

Comment · 13 years ago

I haven't been following cracking development, is anyone aware of a back of the envelope analysis of how much using a preconceived mnemonic reduces entropy versus random letters? I would expect the math has been done, I think all you need are the 1gram counts for the first letter position[1].

[1] https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1DlRnW1...

EDIT: Based on a quick spreadsheet calculation, I think uniform A-Z each letter is 4.7 bits, and a phrase constructed of random english words each letter is 4.1 bits, so maybe not all that bad. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ar03cGpoaUJ3dHp...

Comment · 13 years ago

Hilarious quote of Marco Arment from 4 years ago:

When a similar idea circulated back in 2009, Tumblr’s then–lead developer, Marco Arment, summed up the party line in a scornful blog post: “I hope they let me work on some of the many exciting projects at Yahoo … I want to move to California and get stuck in traffic every day on the way to my midlevel engineering job where I sit in a cubicle all day and can’t make any product decisions while working on something nobody will ever see to manage regional ad clickthrough stats tracking.” Thanks, but no thanks.

Comment · 13 years ago

For the passage in the wikipedia diagram, both of the two paths after the first bifurcation (moving westward) pass through channels less than 24 nautical miles wide. Canada would need to build observation towers but it could be defended with "cannons" e.g. the M777.

Comment · 13 years ago

I've got no direct knowledge of this in particular but I've heard that the mouse movement is one of the highest level interrupts in the OS and won't be preempted -- so the number is probably very small but the response by the application when you click may be longer. Also, this is why sometimes you'll see the entire computer locked up except for the mouse movement.

Comment · 13 years ago

If their boat is more of a skiff, a couple paddles and a milk jug cut in half for bailing might be sufficient.

In terms of winter storms, this is approximately as bad as it gets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Juan .

Comment · 13 years ago

Carrying a burner is itself also suspicious -- the safest course it to be as normal as possible which means having a regular computer/phone with some stuff on it, or nothing. Also, it isn't sufficient to focus the the border policies for re-entry to your own country, you also have to consider every country you would travel to, all of which have their own laws, all of which can change at any moment, even while you are in transit. Carrying around "sensitive" data, along with the password (which is in your brain, thus you are carrying it) is just overall a really bad idea.