The RISKS Digest
Volume 31 Issue 59

Friday, 21st February 2020

Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems

ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

Please try the URL privacy information feature enabled by clicking the flashlight icon above. This will reveal two icons after each link the body of the digest. The shield takes you to a breakdown of Terms of Service for the site - however only a small number of sites are covered at the moment. The flashlight take you to an analysis of the various trackers etc. that the linked site delivers. Please let the website maintainer know if you find this useful or not. As a RISKS reader, you will probably not be surprised by what is revealed…

Contents

Bluetooth-Related Flaws Threaten Dozens of Medical Devices
WIRED
Electronic voting systems
Ross Anderson
Orbital Debris Summary
Aerospace.org
Fraud Case in Charleston SC Shines Light on Web's Dark Corners
WSJ
Israel Says Hamas Targeted Its Soldiers in Honey Trap's Cyberattack
WSJ
Your Doorbell Camera Spied on You. Now What?
NYTimes
Sex robots may cause psychological damage
BBC
Electrical Tape on Sign Tricked a Tesla Into Speeding in a Test
Yahoo Finance
Spooky Video shows self-driving cars being tricked by holograms
Inverse
Microsoft Surface Battery Fail
Larry Werring
Hundreds of Millions of PC Components Still Have Hackable Firmware
WIRED
EU Commission white paper On Artificial Intelligence - A European approach to excellence and trust
Europa via Diego Latella
How smartphone addiction changes your brain: Scans reveal how grey matter of tech addicts physically changes shape and size in a similar way to drug users
Daily Mail
US Govt Warns Critical Industries After Ransomware Hits Gas Pipeline Facility
CISA
Hackers Are Using the Coronavirus Panic to Spread Malware
Malware Bytes
Flywheel owners found out that their bikes were bricked through Peloton
The Verge
Scientists Warn ‘Insect Apocalypse’ Could Doom Humanity
The Guardian
Mysterious GPS outages are wracking the shipping industry
Fortune
UN/CCW/GGE documents on Autonomous Weapon Systems
Diego Latella
IBM, Marriott, and Mickey Mouse Take on Tech's Favorite Law
David McCabe
Re: A lazy fix 20 years ago means the Y2K bug is taking down computers
John Levine Martin Ward
Re: Debunking the lone woodpecker theory
Gabe Goldberg
My smart car rental was a breeze - until I got trapped in the woods
The Guardian
Today in sharing economy struggles: our app-powered rental car lost cell service on the side of a mountain in rural California and now I live here I guess
Kari Paul
Re: Car renter paired car to FordPass, could still control car long …
Jeremy Epstein R. G. Newbury
Re: The Intelligence Coup of the Century
David Lesher
How the Iowa Caucuses Came Crashing Down
WashPost
‘The only uncertainty is how long we'll last’: a worst-case scenario for the climate in 2050
The Guardian
Like Something Out of The Book Of Exodus Locust Armies Are Devouring Entire Farms In Kenya In As Little As 30 Seconds
CGTN
Info on RISKS (comp.risks)

Bluetooth-Related Flaws Threaten Dozens of Medical Devices (WIRED)

Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Fri, 21 Feb 2020 14:44:48 -0500

Hundreds of smart devices—including pacemakers—are exposed thanks to a series of vulnerabilities in the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, which oversees development of the Bluetooth and BLE standards, did not a return a request from WIRED for comment about the findings. Bluetooth and BLE implementation issues <https://www.wired.com/story/bluetooth-complex-security-risk/> are common, though, partly because the Bluetooth and BLE standards are massive and complex.

“Some of the vendors we contacted originally, the engineers said, ‘Well, the reason you're getting these issues is that you're putting in values that are not expected, not within the specification,’” Chattopadhyay says. “But you can't only be testing for a benign environment. We're talking about an attacker here. He doesn't care about what's expected.”

https://www.wired.com/story/bluetooth-flaws-ble-internet-of-things-pacemakers/

Unfair! Testing unexpected values not in specifications…


Electronic voting systems

Ross Anderson <Ross.Anderson@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Sun, 16 Feb 2020 15:42:04 +0000
(Note MIT's Voatz item, RISKS-31.58)

So now both America and Russia have deployed thoroughly unimpressive electronic voting systems that claimed to have a blockchain feature.

Last week at Financial Crypto, Sasha Golovnev talked on Breaking the encryption scheme of the Moscow Internet voting system. A new system for electronic voting in three wards of the city of Moscow in 2018 had a public testing period, in which Sasha and Pierrick Gaudry broke it twice. There was no spec, but the source code was put online a day before the first public test. It turned out that it used ElGamal encryption with keys under 256 bits; the encryption was done three times with different keys, and the designers were unaware that triple encryption doesn't strengthen ElGamal the way it does DES! Their first attack was simple key recovery as CADO-NFS could do the discrete logs on a laptop in ten minutes. The election authorities changed to 1024-bit ElGamal, whereupon a second attack was found: a one-bit leak from a subgroup attack “ enough to distinguish between the two candidates in the election. The developers denied that this attack worked but silently changed the code anyway. There was also an ethereum blockchain for vote tallying, which vanished after the election result was declared, and the link between the decryption and he blockchain was broken when they keysize was increased. Other things were wrong too.

See http://fc20.ifca.ai/preproceedings/178.pdf

The link to the liveblog from which this is taken is here:

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2020/02/10/fc-2020/


Orbital Debris Summary (Aerospace.org)

Richard Stein <rmstein@ieee.org>
Sun, 16 Feb 2020 10:43:05 -0800

https://aerospace.org/article/space-debris-and-space-traffic-management

The URL gives a table summarizing the current statistics on orbital space debris by size, quantity estimates, collision effect equivalence (hit by a bus or a bomb), and whether or not the detritus is track-able.

Any object less than 5 cm cross-section cannot be tracked. Objects at or above 10 cm cross-section are subject to tracking. The catalog for 10 or 10+ cm debris objects numbers is in the 100s of thousands. I have not found a public inventory on the Internet, though space-track.org lists satellite records using a standard 2 line summary format that identifies the name and their orbital ephemerides.

An estimated tens of millions of debris objects between 1 mm and 5 cm currently orbit Earth at various altitudes.


Fraud Case in Charleston SC Shines Light on Web's Dark Corners (WSJ)

Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:45:08 -0500

Micfo and its founder pleaded not guilty in case revolving around IP addresses and the American Registry for Internet Numbers

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fraud-case-in-charleston-s-c-shines-light-on-webs-dark-corners-11581944400


Israel Says Hamas Targeted Its Soldiers in Honey Trap's Cyberattack (WSJ)

Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:51:39 -0500

The Israeli military said operatives of the Palestinian militant group Hamas targeted its soldiers in a months-long operation that duped them into downloading spyware with the false promise of exchanging illicit photos with young women.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers downloaded the spyware, but the scheme was detected early enough to prevent important secrets from getting out and the Hamas servers hosting the operation were destroyed, the military said on Sunday.

The phishing operation, known as a honey trap, is the third such scheme since 2017 and shows how Hamas exploits social media to elicit information from enemy soldiers—and how difficult it is for Israel and others to prevent such attacks.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-says-hamas-targeted-its-soldiers-in-honey-trap-cyberattack-11581874491


Your Doorbell Camera Spied on You. Now What? (NYTimes)

Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Thu, 20 Feb 2020 10:22:13 -0500

Amazon's popular Ring security cameras have gaping security holes. Here's how to protect yourself.

tech fix: Your Doorbell Camera Spied on You. Now What?

Amazon's popular Ring security cameras have gaping security holes. Here's how to protect yourself.

Has there ever been a tech product more polarizing than Ring?

The Internet-connected doorbell gadget, which lets you watch live video of your front porch through a phone app or website, has gained a reputation as the webcam that spies on you and that has failed to protect your data. Yet people keep buying it in droves.

Ring, which is owned by Amazon and based in Santa Monica, Calif., has generated its share of headlines, including how the company fired four employees over the last four years for watching customers' videos. Last month, security researchers also found that Ring's apps contained hidden code, which had shared customer data with third-party marketers. And in December, hackers hijacked the Ring cameras of multiple families, using the devices' speakers to verbally assault some of them.

This week, Ring announced new protocols to strengthen the security of its products, such as mandating two-factor verification, which requires you to punch in a temporary code before logging into your account to see your footage. A Ring spokeswoman said the company was focused on constantly enhancing its security.

Yet security experts said that Ring had been slow to react and that its solutions were weak.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/technology/personaltech/ring-doorbell-camera-spying.html


Sex robots may cause psychological damage (BBC)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Mon, 17 Feb 2020 08:44:16 -0700

US researchers have warned that the availability of sex robots with artificial intelligence (AI) poses a growing psychological and moral threat to individuals and society

They say the technology is escaping oversight because agencies are too embarrassed to investigate it. The scientists want action to prevent the unregulated use of such robots.

Dr Christine Hendren of Duke University told BBC News that “the stakes were high”. “Some robots are programmed to protest, to create a rape scenario, Some are designed to look like children. One developer of these in Japan is a self-confessed paedophile, who says that this device is a prophylactic against him ever hurting a real child. But does that normalise and give people a chance to practise these behaviours that should be treated by just stamping them out?”

Dr Hendren was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A number of sex robots are advertised online. A US-based firm, Realrobitix, has posted a video marketing its Harmony robot for between $8,000 and $10,000.

It is a life-sized doll which can blink and move its eyes and neck, and also its lips as it talks. […]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51330261


Electrical Tape on Sign Tricked a Tesla Into Speeding in a Test (Yahoo Finance)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Wed, 19 Feb 2020 08:48:20 -0800

Researchers were able to trick a Tesla vehicle into speeding by putting a strip of electrical tape over a speed limit sign, spotlighting the kinds of potential vulnerabilities facing automated driving systems.

Technicians at McAfee Inc. placed the piece of tape horizontally across the middle of the ‘3’ on a 35 mile-per-hour speed limit sign. The change caused the vehicle to read the limit as 85 miles per hour, and its cruise control system automatically accelerated, according to research released by McAfee on Wednesday.

McAfee says the issue isn't a serious risk to motorists. No one was hurt and the researcher behind the wheel was able to safely slow the car.

But the findings, from 18 months of research that ended last year, illustrate a weakness of machine learning systems used in automated driving, according to Steve Povolny, head of advanced threat research at McAfee. Other research has shown how changes in the physical world can confuse such systems. […]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/electrical-tape-sign-tricked-tesla-090000044.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-19/electrical-tape-on-sign-tricked-a-tesla-into-speeding-in-a-test


Spooky Video shows self-driving cars being tricked by holograms (Inverse)

Diego Latella <Diego.Latella@isti.cnr.it>
Fri, 21 Feb 2020 13:44:02 +0100

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/us-regulators-greenlight-nuros-r2-autonomous-delivery-vehicle

Hackers can trick a Tesla into accelerating by 50 miles per hour (MIT Tech Rev)

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615244/hackers-can-trick-a-tesla-into-accelerating-by-50-miles-per-hour/


Microsoft Surface Battery Fail

Larry Werring <lwerring@nrtco.net>
Tue, 18 Feb 2020 16:00:41 -0500

Given the hype about how dangerous lithium batteries can be and the emphasis placed by the International Air Travel Association (IATA) and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the safety of lithium batteries on aircraft (https://www.iata.org/en/programs/cargo/dgr/lithium-batteries), I am surprised that the recent lithium battery troubles being experienced by Microsoft Surface users has not gained more attention.

I'm being a bit selfish here because I'm one of the users experiencing the problem and my interactions with Microsoft technical support have been less than satisfactory. A bit of background - I own both a Microsoft Surface Book (1st Gen) and a Microsoft Surface Pro 3. Until recently, I considered these to be great products. A few weeks ago I noticed that there were signs of burn-through occurring near the edge of the screen on my Surface Book. On closer examination this past weekend, I noticed that the frame of my Surface Book is warped and the screen itself has begun to bulge outwards. Research (Google is your friend) led me to discover that there are numerous complaints about Microsoft Surface products failing because the lithium battery built into them have swollen. These swollen batteries have led to cracked/warped screens and the screen almost popping off the computer. Unfortunately, these batteries cannot be removed or replaced.

Armed with this information I contacted Microsoft Customer Support. They immediately confirmed that the lithium battery in my Surface Book is likely swelling. I was told to immediately stop using and unplug the computer because the failed battery could lead to a loss of all my data - not because the swollen battery is dangerous but because I might lose my data. He also confirmed that the battery cannot be removed or replaced, I must dispose of the computer. I asked the technician whether the swelling battery was dangerous and could cause a fire or explosion. He denied this insisting that only my data was at risk. However, he did say that they would send me special packaging so I could SAFELY ship my computer back to Microsoft for disposal, this because our Post Office won't ship swollen lithium batteries (I wonder why?). He told me my computer is out of warranty but did offer to sell me a replacement for $810 CDN. I told him that I wasn't paying that much for a 6-year old computer but that I was more concerned about the safety issues associated with defective lithium batteries. I noted that there are owners of these computers living and traveling around the world who could also be unknowingly experiencing swelling batteries and, thus, could be at risk, particularly if the device is taken on an aircraft. He dismissed my concerns outright saying that only my data was at risk.

I have discovered that there are a lot of folks experiencing the same problem (swelling Surface batteries) and that Microsoft has known about the problem for a while. The company appears to have chosen to essentially do and say nothing about the risks, and there are risks. At least one user has reported that the swollen battery in their Surface computer has caught fire.

(https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/surface-pro-3-swollen-battery-safety-hazard/cbf0e621-508f-4e71-a45b-ab8c6e7c888b?page=2)

So, here we have a battery safety issue that, in the past, has resulted in at least one major device recall and an outright ban of those devices on aircraft. Yet this popular product by Microsoft is experiencing the same problems and they choose to say and do nothing. People's property and lives could be at risk. Microsoft should man up and recall all affected Surface products.

(https://www.cnet.com/news/galaxy-note-4-refurbished-batteries-recall/)

As an aside, my Surface Pro 3 doesn't look like the battery is swelling (yet) but I've had to disable the touch screen because the mouse cursor repeatedly keeps wanting to jump to the same spot. I suspect that there may be pressure on the back of the touch screen causing that problem… suggesting that its battery may also be beginning to swell. Sooo, two Microsoft products are going to be disposed of - before one of them burns my house down.

Heads up people. If you own a Microsoft Surface Book (1st Gen) or a Surface Pro 3 or 4, you may have safety problems with the lithium battery. Please be diligent. If you own a later Microsoft Surface product, ask Microsoft if your device is safe. I believe the risk could be reduced in newer products if Microsoft would redesign the internal battery so it can easily be removed and replaced at the first sign of problems. Considering their price tag, it seems stupid to dispose of a perfectly good computer simply because the battery is swelling.

On that note - I'm off to buy myself a new non-Microsoft laptop…


Hundreds of Millions of PC Components Still Have Hackable Firmware (WIRED)

Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Tue, 18 Feb 2020 18:11:42 -0500

The lax security of supply chain firmware has been a known concern for years — with precious little progress being made.

https://www.wired.com/story/firmware-hacks-vulnerable-pc-components-peripherals/


EU Commission white paper On Artificial Intelligence - A European approach to excellence and trust (Europa)

Diego Latella <Diego.Latella@isti.cnr.it>
Wed, 19 Feb 2020 16:46:49 +0100

You might be interested in the EU Commission WHITE PAPER On Artificial Intelligence: A European approach to excellence and trust, which has been just published.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/commission-white-paper-artificial-intelligence-feb2020_en.pdf


How smartphone addiction changes your brain: Scans reveal how grey matter of tech addicts physically changes shape and size in a similar way

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Wed, 19 Feb 2020 08:45:21 -0800
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8016779/Brains-people-addicted-smartphone-physically-change.html


US Govt Warns Critical Industries After Ransomware Hits Gas Pipeline Facility (CISA)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Wed, 19 Feb 2020 08:46:14 -0800

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) earlier today issued a warning to all industries operating critical infrastructures about a new ransomware threat that if left unaddressed could have severe consequences.

The advisory <https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-049a> comes in response to a cyberattack targeting an unnamed natural gas compression facility that employed spear-phishing to deliver ransomware to the company's internal network, encrypting critical data and knocking servers out of operation for almost two days.

“A cyber threat actor used a spear-phishing link to obtain initial access to the organization's information technology network before pivoting to its operational technology network. The threat actor then deployed commodity ransomware to encrypt data for impact on both networks,” CISA noted in its alert.

As ransomware attacks continue to escalate in frequency and scale, the new development is yet another indication that phishing attacks continue to be an effective means to bypass security barriers and that hackers don't always need to exploit security vulnerabilities to breach organizations. […]

<https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/zeppelin-ransomware-attacks.html>

<https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/everis-spain-ransomware-attack.html>

https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/critical-infrastructure-ransomware-attack.html


Hackers Are Using the Coronavirus Panic to Spread Malware (Malware Bytes)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Fri, 21 Feb 2020 11:50:54 -0700

Hackers are posing as the CDC and public health organizations to get people to open virus-laden files

EXCERPT:

Hackers are using the public's fear of the coronavirus to steal passwords and spread malware, according to multiple cybersecurity firms and computer security. The setup is usually simple—a malicious actor sends a mark on an email or message that appears to come from an official government source, such as the Centers for Disease Control, and gets the mark to click a link that asks for personal info. It's an old scam updated to prey on people's coronavirus fears.

<https://blog.malwarebytes.com/social-engineering/2020/02/battling-online-coronavirus-scams-with-facts/>

<https://www.trustwave.com/en-us/resources/blogs/spiderlabs-blog/multiple-phishing-attacks-discovered-using-the-coronavirus-theme/>

<https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/02/05/coronavirus-safety-measures-email-is-a-phishing-scam/>

“The most prominent coronavirus-themed campaign targeted Japan, distributing emotet…in malicious email attachments feigning to be sent by a Japanese disability welfare service provider,“ California-based cyber security company Check Point said in a report, “The emails appear to be reporting where the infection is spreading in several Japanese cities, encouraging the victim to open the document which, if opened, attempts to download emotet on their computer.“

<https://blog.checkpoint.com/2020/02/13/january-2020s-most-wanted-malware-coronavirus-themed-spam-spreads-malicious-emotet-malware/>

Emotet is a trojan malware program that, once installed, sits on the victim's computer and gathers personal information. Not every coronavirus-themed malware requires the user to install software. Many of them are simple phishing attempts with a coronavirus theme.

In a typical example, described at in Trustwave's SpiderLabs Blog <https://www.trustwave.com/en-us/resources/blogs/spiderlabs-blog/multiple-phishing-attacks-discovered-using-the-coronavirus-theme/>, a strange email address pretending to come from the CDC will reach out to a victim telling them a city near them has reported a coronavirus outbreak. The email asks the victim to click a link for more info. The link appears to be legitimate but redirects to a phishing website that replicates a Windows login and asks the users for their email and password. […]

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7jdxw/hackers-are-using-the-coronavirus-panic-to-spread-malware


Flywheel owners found out that their bikes were bricked through Peloton (The Verge)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Fri, 21 Feb 2020 11:51:38 -0700

After a patent settlement with Peloton, Flywheel users are left reeling with how the company handled news of its bikes suddenly shutting down. Every morning at 4:30AM, Shani Maxwell would throw on her Flywheel T-shirt and hop on her Fly Anywhere bike. An avid fan who's been riding with Flywheel since 2013, she'd leapt at the chance to own the company's branded bike when the company released its Peloton competitor in 2017. […]

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/20/21145349/flywheel-bike-shut-down-email-user-reactions-peloton-trade-in


Scientists Warn ‘Insect Apocalypse’ Could Doom Humanity (The Guardian)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Fri, 21 Feb 2020 11:52:44 -0700

For several years, a crescendo of scientists have sounded alarms over an insect apocalypse—a global dying-off of what may already amount to as much as 80 percent of the global bug population.

<https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/02/car-splatometer-tests-reveal-huge-decline-in-the-number-of-insects/>

<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html>

Now, in a grim update, 25 scientists around the world have published a stark warning: If humankind doesn't manage to save the global bug population, it could spell doom for human life.

Extinction Event

In a pair of strongly-worded open letters published in the journal Nature Conversation, the researchers decried the pollution, habitat destruction, and climate change they believe is causing the mass death of the world's insects.

<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320719317823?via=ihub#bb0910>

<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320719317793?via=ihub#bb0135>

“Each species represents an unrepeatable part of the history of life,“ the scientists wrote. “In turn, each species also interacts with others and their environment in distinctive ways, weaving a complex network that sustains other species, including us.“ Bug Hunt

The scientists wrote, poetically, that the “fates of humans and insects are intertwined.“ In other words, our collective ecological footprint doesn't just threaten our fellow Earthlings—it could also effectively kick the ladder out from under our own position in the ecosystem.

Insects, per the study provide humans with “[everything] from pollination and decomposition, to being resources for new medicines, habitat quality indication“ and more. Turns out, it's a bug's world, and humans are just living off of it. The question is: Without their help, for how much longer?

<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320719317823?via=ihub#bb0910>,

READ MORE: Fates of humans and insects intertwined, warn scientists<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/fates-humans-insects-intertwined-scientists-population-collapse> [The Guardian]

More on insects:

University Deletes Press Release Claiming Evidence of Bugs on Mars <https://futurism.com/university-deletes-press-release-claiming-mars-bugs>

https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-warn-insect-apocalypse-could-doom-humanity


Mysterious GPS outages are wracking the shipping industry (Fortune)

Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Thu, 20 Feb 2020 10:26:24 -0500

For the global maritime shipping industry, spotty satellite navigation is a disaster waiting to happen.

The call came in by radio one evening last September, at around 9 p.m. On the line was the master of a tanker, approaching the end of a month-long journey from the Port of South Louisiana and carrying more than 5,000 metric tons of ethanol. The message was urgent: The ship's GPS signal had suddenly disappeared—leaving the crew to navigate Cyprus's shoreline in the dark.

On the other end of the line was the pilots' office at the Vasiliko oil terminal, whose staff oversees shipping traffic at Vasiliko's harbor on Cyprus's arid, palm-fringed southern coast. Stelios Christoforou, the pilot on duty, recognized the gravity of the situation right away. In daylight, an experienced ship captain can maneuver using paper maps, markers, and the coastline as guides. But at night, GPS becomes a critical tool in unfamiliar waters—especially near Cyprus, where NATO and Russian warships roam. And any accident could spill the tanker's cargo across miles of coastline.

https://fortune.com/longform/gps-outages-maritime-shipping-industry/

Seems to need free account to read full article, which is interesting/alarming.


UN/CCW/GGE documents on Autonomous Weapon Systems

Diego Latella <Diego.Latella@isti.cnr.it>
Fri, 21 Feb 2020 15:33:33 +0100

The links to the following UN/CCW/GGE documents Report of the 2019 session of the Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems <https://undocs.org/en/CCW/GGE.1/2019/3> CCW/GGE.1/2019/3 - Sept. 25, 2019 Chair's Summary - Report of the 2019 session of the Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems CCW/GGE.1/2019/3/Add.1 - November 8, 2019 <https://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/(httpAssets)/931FC63728F1B052C12584AD004A6628/$file/1919338E.pdf> are now available at the page on Computers: National Security, War, and Civil Rights (http://www.uspid.org/compwa.html <http://www.uspid.org/compwa.html>) of the USPID (<http://www.uspid.org/>) web site.


IBM, Marriott, and Mickey Mouse Take on Tech's Favorite Law (David McCabe, NYTimes, 4 Feb 2020)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Tue, 18 Feb 2020 09:36:54 -0700

A motley group of powerful companies have their knives out for Section 230, which shields platforms from lawsuits over content posted by users.

An unusual constellation of powerful companies and industries are fighting to weaken Big Tech by limiting the reach of one of its most sacred laws. The law, known as Section 230, makes it nearly impossible to sue platforms like Facebook or Google for the words, images and videos posted by their users.


Corporations are working with the Trump administration to control online speech (Ron Wyden, Dem-OR, The Washington Post, 14 Feb 2020) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/corporations-are-working-with-the-trump-administration-to-control-online-speech/2020/02/14/4d3078c8-4e9d-11ea-bf44-f5043eb3918a_story.html

Some of the biggest corporations in the United States are brawling over the future of the law that allows free speech and innovation to thrive online. Under the guise of getting rid of lies and protecting children, they're working with the Trump administration and top Republicans to undermine Americans' rights and give the government unprecedented control over online speech.


Re: A lazy fix 20 years ago means the Y2K bug is taking down computers, now (Ward, RISKS-31.58)

“John Levine” <johnl@iecc.com>
17 Feb 2020 16:22:09 -0800

> [And there won't be any COBOL programmers around when we hit Year 2100, > PGN]

Wanna bet? COBOL is now 60 years old. The ISO standard was last updated in 2014 and now contains OOP constructs borrowed from C++, which is only fair since C++ borrowed its structures from COBOL via PL/I and C.

For all that people complain about COBOL, it is still a pretty good language for the things it was designed for—business calculations with arithmetic that follow business rules, e.g., decimal rounding to the nearest cent.

I realize 2100 is 80 years from now, but we're almost halfway there already.


Re: A lazy fix 20 years ago means the Y2K bug is taking down computers, now (Levine, RISKS-31.59)

Martin Ward <martin@gkc.org.uk>
Tue, 18 Feb 2020 18:50:00 +0000

Many large companies are still using IBM assembler on mainframes. The really forward-looking companies are thinking about migrating to the wave of the future: COBOL! But the temptation to make do with the current system for another year or two is often too strong.

New technology is not being developed and put into practice in the way it used to be (other than exploiting Moore's Law: which itself has slowed considerably in the last decade). Consider the technological inventions and advances that occurred in the 30 years from 1950 to 1980: microwaves, lasers, halogen lamps, LEDs, LCDs, the transistor, integrated circuits, minicomputers, microcomputers, games consoles, mobile phones, colour television, FM radio, LP records, CDs, video recorders, solar panels, moon landings etc. etc.

Now think about the new technology that has been introduced to everyday life between 1990 and 2020. PCs have got faster, with larger memories, mobile phones have got smaller and sprouted apps, and what else?

Given that COBOL has already survived decades of technological innovation, in the current period of relative stagnation and caution, there seems to be no reason why it should not survive indefinitely.

Scientific and technological progress are not inevitable features of the modern world: they have to be desired and laboured for.


Re: Debunking the lone woodpecker theory (RISKS-31.58)

Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Tue, 18 Feb 2020 13:48:48 -0500

Understood, that goes with a curated digest!

The rambly bit was from friend-of-a-friend; someone else in our little cabal commented on it:

It's impressive that a company like that would even hire someone with actual experience. Somebody in HR slipped up somewhere. So is (as Dan was discussing in another note) “get code into production as fast as possible” just another way of saying “move fast and break things”?

The risk—disdain for any sort of technology discipline—is terrifying. NWANC is real and growing.


My smart car rental was a breeze - until I got trapped in the woods

“Cuckoo Fair Treasurer” <cuckoofairtreasurer@gmail.com>
Wed, 19 Feb 2020 21:48:39 -0000

The dangers of renting an Internet-enabled (or is it dependent) car and then taking it to an area with no mobile coverage

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/18/smart-car-gig-rental-app-trapped?CMP=share_btn_link


Today in sharing economy struggles: our app-powered rental car lost cell service on the side of a mountain in rural California and now I

the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Tue, 18 Feb 2020 09:38:25 -0700

It appears that although I do not have enough cell service to start up my only means of transportation I do have enough to live tweet my struggle so thanks for tuning in I will be here indefinitely… apparently in 45 minutes to an hour a tow truck will come to move us three miles down the road where there is cell service so we can start our car the future is dumb… six hours, two tow trucks, and 20 calls to customer service later apparently it was a software issue and the car needed to be rebooted before we could use it…

https://twitter.com/kari_paul/status/1229214223227478016


Re: Car renter paired car to FordPass, could still control car long after return (ZDNet via Shaw, RISKS-31.58)

Jeremy Epstein <jeremy.j.epstein@gmail.com>
Sun, 16 Feb 2020 08:54:40 -0500

The Ford and Enterprise situation is just the tip of the iceberg. Enterprise presumably has the technical and financial capability to reset every rental car before re-renting it (and perhaps now has the motivation as well).

But what about people renting out their personal vehicles with Getaround or Turo or similar services? Those individuals undoubtedly do NOT have the knowledge or ability to reset the car, and since the systems are unattended, they may never even be accessed by the owner in between rentals. And without centralized controls (since such services don't physically manage the vehicles), the service can't do the reset for them - unless they enable remote automated reset, which brings its own set of risks…

So, I agree with ZDnet: “Too often, tech companies place the onus on customers to work things out for themselves and even to save themselves. Or, worse, to only discover a breach when it's too late. Wouldn't it be bracing if tech companies, I don't know, showed a little responsibility in advance?”

[However,] that responsibility needs to be considered in light of the different usage models, not just the traditional rental car companies (e.g., Enterprise), but also other uses.

(And FWIW, even something as simple as having the oil changed in your car gives the opportunity for someone to link their phone to your car, and enable the remote control. So I'd argue this isn't a failure by Enterprise — it's a failure by Ford and anyone else who makes remote controls.)


Re: Car renter paired car to FordPass, could still control car long after return (ZDNet via Shaw, RISKS-31.58)

“R. G. Newbury” <newbury@mandamus.org>
Sun, 16 Feb 2020 22:36:14 -0500

It's worse than you think. A new OWNER may find himself unable to change the car's settings, because the car is still ‘locked’ to a prior owner. And the prior owner still has the power to start or unlock the car. It's not a matter of ‘clearing’ the settings: only theĀ ‘owner’ can do that! Apparentlyit's not just Land Rover; it could include Jaguar, Audi and BMW cars.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/27/jaguar_land_rover_connected_car_privacy/

John Leyden, The Register, 27 Jul 2018

Shock Land Rover Discovery: Sellers could meddle with connected cars if not unbound; Secondhand owners who didn't sell at JLR dealer can call us, says firm

Both data and the online controls on “connected cars” from Jaguar Land Rover remain available to previous owners, according to security experts and owners of the upmarket vehicles. The car maker has defended its privacy safeguards and security of its InControl tech.

El Reg began investigating the issue after talking to Matt Watts, a techie who blogged about the issue of connected cars and the data they collect, without initially naming Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).

Watts' secondhand Range Rover came with the ability to remotely control the climate systems, call breakdown services, upload GPS/destination details and much more. The vehicle also keeps a record of much of this information and stores it in an online account.

Most drivers won't use this functionality, but Watts is a self-admitted geek. After he downloaded the JLR app to his smartphone and started to experiment, Watts realised that he was able to use the eight digits of the vehicle identification number (VIN) to link his vehicle to an online account.

When doing so, the JLR website informed him that the vehicle was linked to another user's account. After dealing with support centres and a JLR dealer, Watts was eventually told that the previous owners should have disconnected before selling on the car. He was initially advised to contact the previous owner, which is annoying enough in itself.

“The process to get the manufacturer to update the online details for the vehicle is for me to try and find the previous owner and get them to do it for me,” Watts wrote.

The issue goes far beyond Watts being unable to use the funky functionality of his secondhand motor, as he explained:

The previous owner of my car has control over it, they can unlock it, they can remotely set the climate control without me knowing about it, even when the car isn't running, they potentially can even look at the sat-nav system, they can also call break down services to the vehicle and all of this without me knowing anything about it.

Someone else has access to a significant amount of data about myself and my vehicle and there appears to be nothing that the manufacturer is prepared to do about it.

Watts told El Reg: “Data is being collected about me and the vehicle's location and simply provided to whomever previously connected the app to the car. JLR needs a bullet-proof method for this to be automatically disconnected when the vehicle changes hands. I don't know how you do this but the current process is clearly not sufficient.” […]


Re: The Intelligence Coup of the Century (RISKS-31.58)

David <wb8foz@panix.com>
Sun, 16 Feb 2020 10:14:40 -0500

One interesting aspect of this reporting is only CIA is mentioned.

When this saga started, they were effectively the Intelligence Community. (Their only-child status did not last long.) Yet it's hardly their forte to design crypto systems & hardware. That is the purview of their stepbrothers at Fort Meade.

While they now seemingly on good terms, before the end of the Cold War there were many tales of their …discordant… relationship. [I recall being told by a SIS just assigned a joint tasking at the other place “I knew there was a sea change when I arrived and found they suddenly honored not only my badge but my executive parking pass…”]

So for now one can just wonder what part NSA played in this saga over its tenure. It can't be trivial.


How the Iowa Caucuses Came Crashing Down (WashPost)

“Peter G. Neumann” <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Sun, 16 Feb 2020 11:24:09 PST

This adds some more details to what happened.

The Washington Post, 15 Feb 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-iowa-caucuses-came-crashing-down-under-the-watchful-eye-of-the-dnc/2020/02/15/25b17e7e-4f5f-11ea-b721-9f4cdc90bc1c_story.html


'The only uncertainty is how long we'll last': a worst-case scenario for the climate in 2050 (The Guardian)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Mon, 17 Feb 2020 08:46:15 -0700

The Future We Choose, a new book by the architects of the Paris climate accords, offers two contrasting visions for how the world might look in thirty years (read the best case scenario here).

<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/15/best-case-scenario-2050-climate-crisis-future-we-choose-christiana-figueres-tom-rivett-carnac>

EXCERPT:

It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions registered in 2015, no further efforts were made to control emissions. We are heading for a world that will be more than 3C warmer by 2100

The first thing that hits you is the air. In many places around the world, the air is hot, heavy and, depending on the day, clogged with particulate pollution. Your eyes often water. Your cough never seems to disappear. You think about some countries in Asia, where, out of consideration, sick people used to wear white masks to protect others from airborne infection. Now you often wear a mask to protect yourself from air pollution. You can no longer simply walk out your front door and breathe fresh air: there might not be any. Instead, before opening doors or windows in the morning, you check your phone to see what the air quality will be.

Fewer people work outdoors and even indoors the air can taste slightly acidic, sometimes making you feel nauseated. The last coal furnaces closed 10 years ago, but that hasn't made much difference in air quality around the world because you are still breathing dangerous exhaust fumes from millions of cars and buses everywhere. Our world is getting hotter. Over the next two decades, projections tell us that temperatures in some areas of the globe will rise even higher, an irreversible development now utterly beyond our control. Oceans, forests, plants, trees and soil had for many years absorbed half the carbon dioxide we spewed out. Now there are few forests left, most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an already overburdened atmosphere. The increasing heat of the Earth is suffocating us and in five to 10 years, vast swaths of the planet will be increasingly inhospitable to humans. We don't know how hospitable the arid regions of Australia, South Africa and the western United States will be by 2100. No one knows what the future holds for their children and grandchildren: tipping point after tipping point is being reached, casting doubt on the form of future civilisation. Some say that humans will be cast to the winds again, gathering in small tribes, hunkered down and living on whatever patch of land might sustain them.

More moisture in the air and higher sea surface temperatures have caused a surge in extreme hurricanes and tropical storms. Recently, coastal cities in Bangladesh, Mexico, the United States and elsewhere have suffered brutal infrastructure destruction and extreme flooding, killing many thousands and displacing millions. This happens with increasing frequency now. Every day, because of rising water levels, some part of the world must evacuate to higher ground. Every day, the news shows images of mothers with babies strapped to their backs, wading through floodwaters and homes ripped apart by vicious currents that resemble mountain rivers. News stories tell of people living in houses with water up to their ankles because they have nowhere else to go, their children coughing and wheezing because of the mold growing in their beds, insurance companies declaring bankruptcy, leaving survivors without resources to rebuild their lives. Contaminated water supplies, sea salt intrusions and agricultural runoff are the order of the day. Because multiple disasters are often happening simultaneously, it can take weeks or even months for basic food and water relief to reach areas pummeled by extreme floods. Diseases such as malaria, dengue, cholera, respiratory illnesses and malnutrition are rampant.

You try not to think about the 2 billion people who live in the hottest parts of the world, where, for upwards of 45 days per year, temperatures skyrocket to 60C (140F), a point at which the human body cannot be outside for longer than about six hours because it loses the ability to cool itself down. Places such as central India are becoming increasingly challenging to inhabit. Mass migrations to less hot rural areas are beset by a host of refugee problems, civil unrest and bloodshed over diminished water availability.

Food production swings wildly from month to month, season to season, depending on where you live. More people are starving than ever before. Climate zones have shifted, so some new areas have become available for agriculture (Alaska, the Arctic), while others have dried up (Mexico, California). Still others are unstable because of the extreme heat, never mind flooding, wildfire and tornadoes. This makes the food supply in general highly unpredictable. Global trade has slowed as countries seek to hold on to their own resources.

Countries with enough food are resolute about holding on to it. As a result, food riots, coups and civil wars are throwing the world's most vulnerable from the frying pan into the fire. As developed countries seek to seal their borders from mass migration, they too feel the consequences. Most countries' armies are now just highly militarised border patrols. Some countries are letting people in, but only under conditions approaching indentured servitude. […]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/15/worst-case-scenario-2050-climate-crisis-future-we-choose-christiana-figueres-tom-rivett-carnac


Like Something Out of The Book Of Exodus Locust Armies Are Devouring Entire Farms In Kenya In As Little As 30 Seconds (CGTN)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Mon, 17 Feb 2020 08:47:41 -0700

<https://africa.cgtn.com/2020/02/09/swarms-big-as-cities-un-chief-says-locust-fight-must-intensify/>

… we have never seen anything like this before. the UN continues to warn that the number of locusts could get 500 times bigger by June. But even if this plague ended right now, millions of people would still be facing a devastating famine in the months ahead. These locusts travel in swarms up to 40 miles wide, each one can eat the equivalent of its own body weight every day, and the swarms can travel close to 100 miles in a 24 hour period. This is a nightmare of epic proportions, and it is just getting started.

National Geographic has never been known to sensationalize news stories, but even they are saying that this plague is like something out of the Book of Exodus. […]

<https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/locust-plague-climate-science-east-africa/>

Please report problems with the web pages to the maintainer

x
Top