October 29, 2018

Gab forced offline over apparent tie to Pittsburgh synagogue shooter

Source: Ars Technica

Gab, a "free speech" alternative to Twitter that's popular with the far right, has been shut down after losing service from a number of mainstream technology platforms, including PayPal, Joyent, Medium, and GoDaddy.

"Gab is under attack," the company's home page now reads. "We have been systematically no-platformed by App Stores, multiple hosting providers, and several payment processors." Gab is working to get back online using new service providers.

The attacks on Gab follow revelations that the man accused of Saturday's deadly mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh appeared to be a regular Gab user. An account with his name was "rife with anti-refugee, anti-Semitic and white supremacist posts," according to the Washington Post. One post complained about a "kike infestation."

The account's final post referred to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which works to resettle refugees in the United States: "HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/gab-forced-offline-over-apparent-tie-to-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooter/

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At last- tech businesses with a (belated) conscience.

October 20, 2018

Go fund me- let's buy the Seahawks

https://www.gofundme.com/lets-buy-the-seahawks
OK, it's a long shot, but why should Green Bay be the only one?

October 19, 2018

I am so tired of the negative adverts coming from TX and other places

So many negative adverts-
Don't vote for her, she will spend all our money.
Don't vote for gun safety, we are safer just the way things are
Don't vote for that carbon tax, it's not fair
That doctor will tax your gas

To hell with this - I have a Netflix subscription.

October 16, 2018

DFT told Lesley Stahl what bugs him most

He kept mentioning "Baby" in a derogatory way. It came up three times.
So fly those baby balloons proudly!

October 4, 2018

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies

Source: Bloomberg

In 2015, Amazon.com Inc. began quietly evaluating a startup called Elemental Technologies, a potential acquisition to help with a major expansion of its streaming video service, known today as Amazon Prime Video. Based in Portland, Ore., Elemental made software for compressing massive video files and formatting them for different devices. Its technology had helped stream the Olympic Games online, communicate with the International Space Station, and funnel drone footage to the Central Intelligence Agency. Elemental’s national security contracts weren’t the main reason for the proposed acquisition, but they fit nicely with Amazon’s government businesses, such as the highly secure cloud that Amazon Web Services (AWS) was building for the CIA.

To help with due diligence, AWS, which was overseeing the prospective acquisition, hired a third-party company to scrutinize Elemental’s security, according to one person familiar with the process. The first pass uncovered troubling issues, prompting AWS to take a closer look at Elemental’s main product: the expensive servers that customers installed in their networks to handle the video compression. These servers were assembled for Elemental by Super Micro Computer Inc., a San Jose-based company (commonly known as Supermicro) that’s also one of the world’s biggest suppliers of server motherboards, the fiberglass-mounted clusters of chips and capacitors that act as the neurons of data centers large and small. In late spring of 2015, Elemental’s staff boxed up several servers and sent them to Ontario, Canada, for the third-party security company to test, the person says.


Featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Oct. 8, 2018. Subscribe now.PHOTOGRAPHER: VICTOR PRADO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
Nested on the servers’ motherboards, the testers found a tiny microchip, not much bigger than a grain of rice, that wasn’t part of the boards’ original design. Amazon reported the discovery to U.S. authorities, sending a shudder through the intelligence community. Elemental’s servers could be found in Department of Defense data centers, the CIA’s drone operations, and the onboard networks of Navy warships. And Elemental was just one of hundreds of Supermicro customers.

During the ensuing top-secret probe, which remains open more than three years later, investigators determined that the chips allowed the attackers to create a stealth doorway into any network that included the altered machines. Multiple people familiar with the matter say investigators found that the chips had been inserted at factories run by manufacturing subcontractors in China.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

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Wow- this is a really f-ed up thing. A Security Failure that got into the computer supply chain for the CIA and others.

October 3, 2018

2:18pm Wednesday - we all get a blast from the Mango Molester

Tomorrow we will all get a special alert on our phones. We cannot disable it, and there is nothing you can do to respond. Are you ready for this? Happy about it?

I'm a geek, and I would love to find a way to have my phone automatically react to this "pResidential" notice. To send a tweet to the White House, a text to the Asslick McConnell, maybe a few other items as well.