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Facialized: Amazon Outs Users Locations
by grarpamp 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

https://gizmodo.com/ring-s-hidden-data-let-us-map-amazons-sprawling-home-su… How's it feel for you and your family to be fucked by both your neighbor and govcorp including Amazon? You're not doing anything about it, so you must enjoy it. An investigation by Gizmodo has revealed that it's possible to obtain the locations of Ring doorbell cameras from post on Amazon's Neighbors app. Amazon has continuously deflected criticism and claimed it is dedicated to user privacy. The company insisted Ring users have a "choice in what information, if any, they share with law enforcement." It turns not only can law enforcement access the exact location of users, but anyone, anywhere can find out where users live. Gizmodo was able to locate geographic coordinates for more than 20,000 camera. Some of the coordinates placed you directly in front of the Ring device, while other coordinates were a couple hundred feet yet identifiers from posted videos made it easy to locate the user's home. "People have been misled into buying these devices because Amazon tells them it will keep their family safe. But it's a lie. Amazon's surveillance network puts us all in danger," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future. "Any bystander caught by a Ring device could be located using the geographic coordinates found. People can be tracked going into buildings, like clinics, for private appointments. Children captured on video could be located by people with malicious intentions. The possibilities are endless. Amazon has failed to put any protections in place. Now, we're all vulnerable to the consequences of their dragnet. We need Congress to investigate, and hold Amazon accountable for these dangers."

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Cryptocurrency: War on Cash - The Great Greek Tax Grab
by grarpamp 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/greeks-set-to-face-heavy-fines-if-t… https://i.redd.it/as0o6kbz4b341.jpg https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/e8qdwi/pretty_good_selling_point_… https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/e8jimf/greeks_set_to_face_heavy_f… https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/e8qw0u/bitcoin_looks_ideal_in_gre… https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/12/10/1614216/greeks-set-to-face-heavy-f… Greeks will be hit with a hefty fine if they do not spend almost a third of their income electronically in an unprecedented bid by the new government to stamp out rampant tax evasion. The government expects to raise more than $808 million every year from the initiative that will force Greeks to spend 30 per cent of their income electronically, Alex Patelis, the prime minister's chief economic adviser, revealed. Individuals that fail to meet the target will be hit with a 22 per cent fine on the shortfall. Therefore, if an individual spends just 20 per cent of their income through electronic means, they would face a 22 per cent tax on the remaining 10 per cent bar some exclusions. The scheme is a radical attempt to cast some light on Greece's huge shadow economy, the world's largest, and is part of new prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis's sweeping overhaul to revive growth. https://www.coindesk.com/georgia-governor-appoints-bakkt-ceo-loeffler-as-ne… https://i.redd.it/9ekwt4zr5z241.png https://i.redd.it/l49n3l22sh341.jpg Demand for CCDEX = high. https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/49621/deutsche-bank-says-crypto-could-r… https://thetokenist.io/germany-passes-law-enabling-banks-to-store-cryptocur…

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Iran Cuts Internet, Toosheh SDR, Appelbaum
by grarpamp 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1195775905907576832 https://twitter.com/Maryamtaban12/status/1195792928934944768 * Down with Dictator * Down with Rouhani (President) * Down with Khamenei (Supreme Leader) "The Iranian government forces all ISPs in the country to be singlehomed to, and be downstream of, DCI, the government run ASN. If you don't do this, you don't get an international transit connection, and men with guns come to take your routers and arrest you." https://twitter.com/radiojibi/status/1195802219884503040 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toosheh Jacob Appelbaum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIvt9snFQig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qa8SRN86V8

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Plundervolt: Intel CPUs Hacked... Again - SGX
by grarpamp 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

https://plundervolt.com/ https://github.com/KitMurdock/plundervolt https://github.com/intel/Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-Files https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security-center/advisory/intel-sa-0… Academics from three universities across Europe have disclosed today a new attack that impacts the integrity of data stored inside Intel SGX, a highly-secured area of Intel CPUs. The attack, which researchers have named Plundervolt, exploits the interface through which an operating system can control an Intel processor's voltage and frequency -- the same interface that allows gamers to overclock their CPUs. Academics say they discovered that by tinkering with the amount of voltage and frequency a CPU receives, they can alter bits inside SGX to cause errors that can be exploited at a later point after the data has left the security of the SGX enclave. They say Plundervolt can be used to recover encryption keys or introduce bugs in previously secure software. Intel desktop, server, and mobile CPUs are impacted. A full list of vulnerable CPUs is available here. Intel has also released microcode (CPU firmware) and BIOS updates today that address the Plundervolt attack [by allowing users to disable the energy management interface at the source of the attack, if not needed]. Proof-of-concept code for reproducing attacks will be released on GitHub.

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ShadowSocks: Doubi of SSr Nabbed Under Twitter Questions
by grarpamp 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

https://mobile.twitter.com/robert_spalding/status/1134797195771863041 Is Twitter leaking user phone numbers to the Chinese police, or have they been hacked? People are being called in for questioning about their Twitter activity. 5:21 AM - 1 Jun 2019 https://amp.ft.com/content/afd44222-5c34-11e9-9dde-7aedca0a081a Chinese authorities step up crackdown on Twitter users Police warn people for liking posts that insult leaders or even opening an account. " Here is a story what has happened to Doubi (SSr developer.) He was a very well aware of anonymity risks, and he evaded police for years on end. China literally tried to do geolocate him by turning off the internet in entire cities, but to no result. He caught on to that, and started randomising his release timing, and avoiding releasing "hotfixes". So, the entire Chinese police and MSS been looking him for 4-5 years. What has happened? A few month before his arrest, he registered a Twitter handle with a throwaway SIM card. Those are being usually sold by "grannies" in Chinese 2nd tier cities who peddle things like fake tax receipts, anonymous train tickets and such. China either hacked Twitter, or had somebody bribed there, and they got the number. They then tracked down the granny who sold him the SIM card, and went on and checking every person door to door in that small town. Then, they found him. He got 5 years prison, and 4 years of laogai (gulag) Basically Twitter got pwned big time, and now denies it because GDPR will ruin them if breach is proven. Here is what Doubi's online followers figured: State security got all phone numbers used for Twitter phone verification up to May 2019 and possibly till July. Twitter haphazardly closed the breach in complete secrecy. API hole explanation is excluded as people with 100% private accs got police visits. People with foreign SIM cards also got into trouble. So the explanation that China compromised Twitter's SMS providers is also excluded, as its improbable that they did it in 4+ countries. 2016 breach is also out of question. The only explanation is that they got hold on a big piece of their user DB, or, worse, they have an active infiltrator in Twitter, or Twitter voluntarily cooperated. "

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iqnets: opportunistic XYZ, e.g. "begin xmit"
by Zenaan Harkness 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

Every round trip between 2 peer nodes incurs 2x the average link latency. Google did substantial design and testing for various TCP HTTP(s) speedups. One of the concepts ISTR bandied about was opportunistic data sending - as long as the server is happy with the initial packet(s) sent by the client, and the client has included its initial request(s) into those initial packets, then the server begins to transmit data to the client, without waiting for ACKs of ACKs and further requests. The concept, at least as I understand it, is to, where possible, include initial data/ link set up/ etc requests, as early as feasible in the p2p link establishment packets, to minimize or eliminate round trips and thereby drastically reduce at least initial latency, and possibly also additional latency. For example think of a web page which contains hrefs to content, which the client only knows exist when it receives the base web page, so then of course must otherwise make a new request for the content identified - if the server knows what the client will need to ask for, it can automatically/ opportunistically send that data, without waiting for the obvious request. There may be peer node negotiation for different types of opportunism, e.g.: - on first ever new node contact, nodes may choose to auto (opportunisticly) hand out X cache undertaking/ promise - nodes may request "may I opportunisticly assume I may begin a "bulk fill" link with you, if I need (or am requested) to do so? - certain types of opportunism may be enabled by default, unless overridden by conf - other types of opportunism may only (by default) occur by nego - we ought be diligent in attempting to identify all possible types of opportunism that overlay nets may utilise/ provide for - we that we may opportunisticly optimize for as much opportunism as possible - everything possible to minimize number of round trips - algos which scale linearly (or better) with time, rather than b/w, and rather than exponentially in any unit A thought giving rise to the above is that notwithstanding our best efforts to stay "optimally" below link b/w and other limits, for many reasons any of these attempts will, at different times, fail. A link at a b/w of say 2MiB/s may oscillate or otherwise vary over time, up to 2MiB/s. When we are xmitting at say 1.95MiB/s, and phys nodes out of our control (such as an ISP's router) shape downwards, even temporarily, UDP packets get dropped. In many, most or all cases to start with, we will not have QoS at the (from our overlay net point of view) physical network layer. - This means we may have minimal to no control over which UDP packets get dropped. - This QoS issue is a fundamental area we need to expand our understanding of. - Longer term, iqnets shall be a motivator to end users, ISPs and GT-* folks, to push QoS down to the link layer. - When we do achieve internet wide QoS contracts at the network layer, a privacy issue (depending on your threat model) will be which QoS modes to utilize - e.g. you may be better off using "bulk fill", rather than "telephone audio" class QoS, in order to better hide your important phone call. - notwitstanding use cases and threat models, we don't fail to maximise provision for QoS, just because some use cases won't use it

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Yahoo News: Rights activists warn on weakening encryption
by jim bell 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

Yahoo News: Rights activists warn on weakening encryption. https://news.yahoo.com/rights-activists-warn-weakening-encryption-150704001…

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MIT Technology Review: Cops see an encryption problem. Spyware makers see an opportunity.
by jim bell 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

MIT Technology Review: Cops see an encryption problem. Spyware makers see an opportunity.. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614898/cops-see-an-encryption-problem-sp…

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Tom's Hardware: Arm China Will Make Chips With ‘State-Approved’ Cryptography
by jim bell 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

Tom's Hardware: Arm China Will Make Chips With ‘State-Approved’ Cryptography. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/arm-china-will-make-chips-with-state-appr…

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Phys.org: In surprise breakthrough, scientists create quantum states in everyday electronics
by jim bell 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

Phys.org: In surprise breakthrough, scientists create quantum states in everyday electronics. https://phys.org/news/2019-12-breakthrough-scientists-quantum-states-everyd…

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