https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...tious-Ulez-plans-little-impact-pollution.html I know it’s a **** rag, but also being reported in other media outlets. Turns out they were cherry picking data in order to make ULEZ seem like a better idea, exactly as I predicted
Just listened to a couple of episodes of 'Power Corrupts' Podcast. EXCELLENT!!! Being an IT geek I was drawn firstly to the Pod on IOT devices and their issues. I have been banging the 'local only' connected devices for ages. People don't get it though. "Oh so what if someone hacks my fridge". Well, they then potentially have access to your Wifi creds (so can connect themselves to it) or through the fridge remotely anywhere in the world are on your network. I have what you call VLANs at home - main network, then an IOT network totally isolated from my main stuff. All my IOT devices that have to have internet access (fewer and fewer nowadays as I buy devices that I can integrate into my own Home automation system) on one - this includes Amazon Alexas, and everything else on the other. Ok I have IT knowledge and a Enterprise level firewall that i create rules on so they can talk to only things that they need to etc, but please people, think before you buy a 'connected' device. Don't trust cloud services - not because they necessarily set out to be malicious, but the security flaws that can be exploited open you up to a whole load of attacks. Also, once say a connected kettle is compromised, that means EVERY connected kettle by that manufacture is compromised. Imagine buying a new front door lock that had a key that all of a sudden was the same as thousands of them. Anyway, the next one I listened to (and on topic for this thread) was "how to rig an election" - an excellent listen! My 14 ½ year old Chihuahua is looking at me saying please no more as I keep saying "Prince, do you want to go walkies", just so I can listen to another pod Thanks Vin. A really good listen.
You're welcome. It's waaaaay above normal level podcasting standards. I'm eagerly awaiting his new series. Vin
Having listened to 7-8 episodes, my only complaint is that some of the episodes really ought to be 3-4 part series at least. But as my benchmark for optimal podcast length is a 114-part series on the Russian Revolution, that might be best ignored. And yeah, as someone with a little bit of a tech background (though much less than you), IOT is both utterly unnecessary for most people/often completely adverse for the consumer owing to the way companies are using them to turn household items into SAAS cash grabs, and really scary because of the sheer lack of security on most. And this is only going to get worse, because increasingly many of these devices have always-on voice detection...something that can be, and has been, repurposed for malicious use. I'm not particularly interested in having my toaster listening in on me at the best of times, but particularly if it can be easily hacked, and they can.
Don’t they also use a stab in the back myth of the west promising not to expand nato eastwards? Or is that just the Russian apologists in the west that do that? (Although they would have got that propaganda from somewhere)
There is an episode for that - please give it a listen O's - I found it really interesting. I kept an open mind whilst listening. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/power-corrupts/id1458750622?i=1000437000624
This has some impeccably sourced information and links I haven't read yet. The song lyric "no one knows what goes on behind closed doors" comes to mind. https://theconversation.com/ukraine...ato-promised-not-to-expand-to-the-east-177085
Heh, one difference is that we know this is the case because government regulation in the United States and European Union led to action. The fact that Ring cameras were hideously insecure and routinely hacked was disclosed because the FTC sued Ring, and the fact that Alexa devices collected huge swathes of information (and are also extremely hackable, allowing an easy means to access the information it gathers) came via the GDPR in the EU. So, it's less government conspiracy, and more government doing good governance things.
Exactly what I said in my post. IOT devices probably aren’t maliciously insecure, but privacy/security isn’t their priority. There is also maybe a user experience drop if you make it secure - these things are made for the open market and people of all IT knowledge. A lot easier to make it easy for the user, though normally that compromises security.
Absolutely, I don't think it's malice on the part of manufacturers, just a complete lack of concern, and in many instances an utter lack of expertise. A company/division of a company that specializes in making computers/tablets/etc will be filled top to bottom with people who are keenly aware of the security issues inherent with connected devices. A company that specializes in making toasters (that now have to be connected for some reason) will have a couple hardware engineers that figured out how to wire in a Raspberry Pi clone and a handful of sensors, some small third party to whom they outsourced the creation of an app, and a couple more dudes that wrote some quick code to connect those two elements together and stress-tested it not in the slightest. They aren't going to spend a bunch of money on cybersecurity, that's not the industry they're in. Or at least, it's not the industry they think they're in, but they entered into it the day some marketing dingus wondered aloud whether they could allow people to adjust the darkness of their toast from the other side of the world, and every executive in the room got excited and ordered it to be done.
Veering off topic here a bit, but passwords. My bugbear. People use dictionary words or birthdays etc as “easy to remember”. Also easy guess. People also use same passwords on multiple sites, so if you are compromised on LinkedIn (like a year or so ago), your whole online identity is compromised. Use a password manager. I self host Bitwarden (called vault warden) but you don’t have to. For a few pounds a month they host it for you and there are auto fill extensions for all browsers. That way use a different unique password for everything (can auto generate in Bitwarden) and where possible use two factor (something you know - password, something you don’t - one time code). Bitwarden is inherently secure in the cloud (unlike onepass) - there are many security experts reviews of it. I just like hosting it myself. Public service announcement over before I start talking about self hosted search engines (searng if anyone wants to look…not using google lol)
Well that didn't take Putin long. Kudos to him though, not even trying to be subtle about it. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin 'on board' crashed Russian plane - BBC News
Crossing the Rubicon and then immediately uncrossing it was a really poor idea for his long-term survival. Putin may have been weakened by events, but he's not that weak.
