Security

Hackers Attempted to Remove Regulation of Poison Content in Florida

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Someone needs to say “damn Florida, water you even doing right now” (puns intended) given the latest news.

And I don’t say this lightly, despite the puns, given Florida’s awful history of “killing zones” in water.

This blog post title could be talking about Facebook’s “business” relationship with Cambridge Analytica being so obviously toxic to humanity, or it could be talking about Flint Michigan being a foreshadowing.

The reader would be forgiven for assuming either of those stories are linked here to a metaphor of poisoned content, misuse of controls, and the need for better regulation.

However, this is a non-metaphorical story. A hacker literally attempted to bypass regulations, change control of levels of known harmful contents, to flow in a massive content delivery system — water.

“The hacker changed the sodium hydroxide from about one hundred parts per million, to 11,100 parts per million,” Gualtieri said, adding that these were “dangerous” levels. When asked if this should be considered an attempt at bioterrorism, Gualtieri said, “What it is is someone hacked into the system not just once but twice … opened the program and changed the levels from 100 to 11,100 parts per million with a caustic substance. So, you label it however you want, those are the facts.”

So now when clubhouse, or Uber or some other anti-regulatory tech darling says they want to be the next water, be sure to ask them to explain this story and how they’d handle it.

There are a couple obvious integrity questions being floated (pun not intended) here.

First, why could the amount go up more than a small percentage, for example? Adding a bunch of zeros to 100 (or 1s, from 100 to 11100) sounds like this was a lazy attack to overflow (pun not intended) the input field in more ways than one.

Second, what’s this remote access direct into changing levels all about? I can maybe understand remote access to something with limited capabilities (see point one) but total control with no multi-factor authentication (MFA)? Everyone knows that is just wrong, mismanagement of basic plant safety. Update: TeamViewer has a history of this, where users report losing control even with MFA.

Third, multiple entry? Coming back a second time means the platform admins allowed a hacker to lye in wait (ok, pun intended because sodium hydroxide is lye, get it?). I just wanted to say lye in wait. But seriously, what else did they change and can the admins even tell or should the whole infrastructure be treated (pun not intended) as contaminated?

History, Poetry, Security

White History Month

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Brilliant history/comedy by The Amber Ruffin Show explaining why Americans desperately need a White History Month:

I do feel the need to point out her citation of Lincoln, while true, evades the important context of his speech.

First, after being repeatedly fraudulently bashed by his political opponents as someone who would dare to marry blacks to whites (narratives about protecting white women from black men is a long-time propaganda method), Lincoln said he was racist enough to not do the things he was being accused. It wasn’t his best moment to be sure and there’s no excusing it, but you have to understand he was saying in his experience he didn’t see whites and blacks as equals. He still was an abolitionist, just a racist one.

Second, this attitude changed dramatically after he became President. Like President Grant, who often reflected on where he had made mistakes and who worked to overcome and amend them, Lincoln came to regard blacks as equals. So the context is really a terrible defense he used in the heat of contest to prove he was worthy of votes even by racist Americans, which reverses completely into a story of him emancipating slaves and (through new experiences) finally describing blacks as equal to whites.

Food, History, Sailing, Security

The Movie “Jaws” Foreshadowed America’s Disinformation Crisis

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If you want to talk about disinformation in America, “Jaws” is one of the best examples of how a simple story based on a false fear can do exceptional long lasting harm.

It is very difficult to get sharks back to what they are, correctly seen as loving and affectionate.

An example of shark reality is from 1959 to 2010 the TOTAL number of fatalities was 26 in America (0.5/year average). Only 1 in a 3.7 million chance.

For an obvious comparison in risk homeostasis, lightning data shows a 37.9/year average. That average means 1 in 180,746 Americans will be killed by lightning. And that actually is less likely even than being killed by a dog, which is 1 in 118,776!

Ok, to be fair American citizens killed by anything means we take the population total and divide by recorded deaths. The resulting number really shouldn’t be substituted for a probability because factors creep in.

Do you swim every day with sharks? Things like that make better factoring for probability.

Speaking of swimming with sharks then, here is another example of shark reality, as written by Sune Nightingale:

On a dive one day Cristina Zenato noticed a hook inside a shark’s mouth. In the end she just stuck her hand in and pulled it out. From that moment on the shark changed her behaviour and would show up on the dive and allow Cristina to stroke her, and would give Cristina a little nudge on the hip as if to say “hey I’m here”

Then other sharks started showing up wanting hooks removed…..Cristina now has a box of over 300 removed hooks.

“This is a wild animal and she’s giving me full trust…….It is something to be absolutely in awe of no matter how many times it happens …..what I developed is an appreciation for their vulnerability.”

Really changes your perception of sharks doesn’t it to see one being so cuddly and kind?

Again the odds of an American being killed by shark are about 1 in 3.7 million for everyone in the general population. It’s super remote on a generic predictive scale prone to error.

Yet here we see the odds of being killed by a shark actually even MORE remote, reaching towards zero for someone swimming with them constantly. They seem to love her and trust her.

The author of Jaws expressed his deep regrets for writing such a dangerous fiction, but obviously it did little to change the disinformation effect of his book and the movie.

“Spielberg certainly made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased,” Wendy Benchley told Associated Press. “But Peter kept telling people the book was fiction, it was a novel, and that he took no more responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia,” she said, referring to Puzo’s screenplay and novel “The Godfather.”

“Jaws” was “entirely fiction,” Peter Benchley repeated in a London Daily Express article that appeared last week.

“Knowing what I know now, I could never write that book today,” said Benchley, who also co-wrote the screenplay for “Jaws.” “Sharks don’t target human beings, and they certainly don’t hold grudges.”

Americans target sharks and hold grudges against them. Not the other way around.