Posts by Charles 9

Re: One obvious problem with backdoors in end-to-end encryption......

"Really? Suppose the message originates on a burner phone? Or appears to originate at a VPN end point? It's not clear to me that the spooks can apply a "red-flag" to any identifiable account or person."

The burner phone or VPN itself would be a red-flag. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear would be their viewpoint.

"Even in the case of spooks finding mysterious cipher content in emails, it's likely that there are throw away email addresses at both ends....once again no identifiable account or person."

Just about everything on the Internet can be identified in some point or manner. After all, TCP is a two-way communications medium which means both endpoints must know each other.

"Oh....and before you mention metadata, IP addresses, mobile phone towers, CCTV and the like....a careful anonymous person will be using internet cafes (or someone else's hijacked WiFi), and staying well out of the way of CCTV."

It's hard to be careful when you're not guaranteed to be aware of all the surveillance tech that may actually be at your adversary's disposal, including tech you may not be able to detect or know such as hidden CCTV cameras, passive cell signal listeners who don't give their positions away, to say nothing of compromised endpoints and honeypot operations (like that convenient Internet cafe or VPN provider).

Re: Patchwork laws?

Unfortunately, due to the way cell phones work, NOT tracking you is literally impossible without your phone being a brick.

Re: "App stores are natural monopolies"

Would you rather have two sewage networks in your neighborhood? That's what he meant by utilities being a natural monopoly.

As for alternative app stores, Apple forbids it via first-party device control, and Google won't bite it's own hand without force, plus the aforesaid network effects

Re: Patchwork laws?

Massachusetts has leverage with the major metropolis of Boston and access to an egghead nexus in MIT. As for California, as the largest state and one of the most populous, they sell A LOT of cars.

What kind of pull would Arizona have that would keep companies from going Sod You and just keep out?

Re: Force open source instead

I thought one of the biggest stumbling blocks to third-party OS support is that the manufacturers can't assure that level of support because the chips to them are black boxes with only binary blobs given to them by the chip makers.

Re: Snake Oil

Besides, there's a huge psychological trigger behind the word "FREE".

Why do you think free trial scams get so much traction?

Re: It's imperative that the new technology ... allows for legally compliant data-sharing

"How have papers managed to survive centuries without this technology? Or radio and TV for the best part of a century?"

Most of them were local, so there was enough of a degree of monopoly and personalization that they mattered.

What you should ask yourself instead is, "Will newspapers, radio, TV, etc. survive the next ten years in their current format?"

Based on a search of "decline of news," the answer may well be, "Probably not."

Re: It's imperative that the new technology ... allows for legally compliant data-sharing

Then get off the Internet, cut off all power and go live in a cave (the woods won't work, as there are surveillance aircraft). If you don't like other people watching you, your only real alternative is to walk away.

Think about it. When you walk into a brick-and-mortar store, there are cameras everywhere usually. Probably microphones, too. So when you enter someone else's domain, or even out on the public streets, you have no expectation of privacy. Period. And other people's websites are just as much their domain as their brick-and-mortar stores.

Re: It's just GIGO

Think about it. Where would they go from there, then? They'll just find someplace else to taint. We just can't have nice things...

Re: Ooga booga!

Not so simple when ad-blocker-blockers and adwalls get thrown up, especially for sites with no substitutes...

Re: Its impractical of course.

"Yes, but the practicality sending Tide detergent over the Internet as a series of numbers is vanishingly small."

But bank account numbers, diamond rings, and other small-but-valuable-and-easily-concealed things were a thing before the Internet. And there are usually black-market agents who are willing to do things no-questions-asked for a cut of the take. It's all part of the whole money-laundering game. Sure, the Internet makes it easy, but it's not like there were other ways then and they can still work today.

Re: Surely

"Go after weak systems and encrypt them before someone else can, of course then the key is known and it is a simple though inconvenient matter to reverse."

What's to stop the real criminals from encrypting the encryption using THEIR wrapper instead? Surround the surrounders, so to speak?

"While they are at it publish a few well timed news articles about "x, y or z got ransomwared", and intensive retraining of the people falling for script kiddie level pwnage."

And then it gets hushed quickly because the one who clicked the link was in the C-suite or cuts the checks, you know?

Re: Its impractical of course.

The guy actually buying the cards is just a mule who doesn't even know who gave them the money. All they do is get a cut. Even if they're busted, the head honchos cut them loose and leave them to roast. Plus they can always look for different avenues of laundering such as ghetto marts who aren't as diligent about who buys their stuff.

Re: Lots of opinions, Problem is ...

"Finally EDUCATION is the hardest thing but nothing beats running one of the phish testers against your people, and 'having a prayer meeting' with the dumb-asses that follow the link and put in thieir creds..."

Until they find out that "Jody" is the one cutting the checks...

Re: Its impractical of course.

"You would not want to live in that world, especially if you ever disagreed with the people who decided what crime was."

WE wouldn't, but you'd be surprised how many people would prefer it...

Re: There is *NO* excuse for paying to get data back

And what about all its customers that depend on that business to keep operating. "You should go out of business" sounds nice...until you learn it's your bank...or your insurance provider...or the only grocer in your neck of the woods...

Sure, it's the whole "too big to fail" collateral damage thing, but the fact is, it's still a thing...that could come back to bite you in the keister.

Re: bring the problem back into cyberspace

In the US, road-worthiness is handled at the state level (each state has its own rules), so you would be saying your car insurance won't pay out if you don't have your driver's license and the car isn't current on its state inspections.

There's another reason it failed. Account hijacking and full-on identity theft was already a thing then. The bad guys would simply piggyback off other people's accounts and make them take the flak.

Re: A Dilemma...

But what happens when the false dichotomy is itself false? What happens when you end up with a false false?

Re: False Dilemma...

No, True Dilemma, as you still end up with one or the other with apparently mo hope of a third option, otherwise one could reject both and be able to keep both from asserting themselves anyway.

Re: This is all just privacy theatre

"No tracking, period" is a pipe dream because it's dual-use. Without tracking, things like contact tracing (you know, for COVID tracking) wouldn't work nearly as well. As long as there's a good use for it, someone will abuse it. We just can't have nice things.

Re: This is nice, but

Probably see a bunch of arrests soon after as the government starts connecting the dots. De-anonymization is a thing, you know...

Re: This is nice, but

Yeah, right. "For the, not for me."

I'll believe it when someone like Facebook makes an end run and gets banned as a results, users and money be damned.

I don't think it's going to matter much anymore. If they really want to track you, they can track you come Hell or Hiawatha, simply by using server-side techniques, transparent proxies, unique identifiers embedded in the actual content to make them part and parcel, and other ways to basically say you submit or go walk on the Sun.

Re: I wonder...

Especially for those of us who remember their Shakespeare. Think of this, right in Act I, Scene 2, Juliet Capulet (of Romeo & Juliet) was being hinted at being called a spinster...at 14, seeing as how her peers were already marrying and having children at that point (as noted, standards were different in Renaissance Italy).

Re: Who can spot the hypocrisy?

But here's an interesting question. Supposing that a certain level of intolerance is necessary to maintain tolerance, what if that intolerance can in and of itself be used to stifle all forms of tolerance by simple "E3" principles?

Then the paradox becomes a dilemma.

Problem is, what if the whole thing boils down to "You can't fix Stupid"?

PS. One reason for the criminalization of the possession of such stuff is to curb the demand for the stuff, which in turn is meant to curb the supply and thus production of it to meet that demand, so there's some logic to it. Like everything, there has to be limits or you end up with Fire in a Crowded Theater and other problematic edge cases.

Re: “The driver has been removed.”

Nvidia has no control there. They mostly sell the chips to card manufacturers who in turn sell to wholesalers, to retailers, etc. You would think the retailers would have put a quantity limit on them, but the unsavories know all the ways around them (stacks of stolen credentials, fronts, etc.). Those that don't get run out.