[Tsundoku]

Something something vulnerable CPUs something ...

https://www.theatlan...ecurity/551147/

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 24 January 2018 - 10:18 AM

[Cause]

Tsundoku, on 24 January 2018 - 09:59 AM, said:

Something something vulnerable CPUs something ...

https://www.theatlan...ecurity/551147/

Its an interesting exploit but attacking hardware is not new. In fact you can even attack hardware in a more direct method, by sending timed pulses of electricity through circuits you can disrupt certain computers boot cycles and get them to skip certain security checks. Of course that method requires physical access to the hardware. It will always be and already has been a race between the defenders and the attackers. In part you and I are essentially protected by two things. The scale and anonymity of PCs and people generally means that few people get hacked or suffer identity theft though it naturally sucks for the ones that do. The people capable of these kinds of these are seldom nut jobs, so no one is really looking how to crash planes into the ground or tell nuclear reactors to explode just for laughs.

[Silencer]

Tsundoku, on 24 January 2018 - 09:59 AM, said:

Something something vulnerable CPUs something ...

https://www.theatlan...ecurity/551147/

Yes, Spectre and Meltdown are very real. It is likely that the vast majority of computers currently in use will be vulnerable to these exploits forever (as patching them both requires considerable effort on the part of multiple companies, and then will require manual updates to be applied by the non-tech-savvy end-user in a lot of cases). It is one of, if not the single largest security loopholes ever discovered.


The good news: since it went public, work on patching has gone into overdrive, and some parts of the exploits (mostly Meltdown, iirc) are being covered by things like Windows Update level fixes. So as long as you're updating your OS you'll be better off than before.

The ugly: the vast majority of things worth targeting with an exploit like this are not individuals. It's just not worth the effort and still requires some degree of access to the base system (meaning appropriate network security should, in most cases, prevent some random person applying the exploit remotely...probably) for the rewards you might get from any subset of the population. Much more worthwhile applying it to banks, companies, and other large organisations. Which, unfortunately, are just as vulnerable to these exploits (if not more so) as your average user.

The bad: as noted before, it is likely that some of the problems with Spectre are unfixable. Meaning we'll be seeing entire generations of chips affected forever. One can hope that the fixes put in place make it sufficiently more difficult to use that it reduces the chances of people being hit, and also that some 100% fix is discovered, but it is literally hardware-level, machine-code level problems with the system architecture. Even if a fix is found, applying it will probably require the end-user to upgrade their BIOS and flash some firmware. (Which is gibberish to 90% of users, and not something people are comfortable doing for 95% of users.)



Note: most of what I've written above is ~1 week old at this point, and at the rate Spectre/Meltdown stuff is happening it could be out of date. But there's also a lot of misinformation and in some cases actively misleading articles out there, so until things actually settle down there's not a huge point in worrying about what the "latest news" is on the subject. Also the above is very much a TL;DR as the actual details are somewhat complex and not 100% clear due to aforementioned misinformation.

End of the day; it's bad. But it probably won't affect very many individuals on a day-to-day basis. Update your OS. Update your antivirus. Don't use stupid passwords and don't use open WiFi (and if you have to, use a VPN). But most of the normal protections (like antivirus software) are rendered useless by these exploits.

[Morgoth]

That sounds like the begining of a technocalypse

[Obdigore]

Morgoth, on 24 January 2018 - 03:03 PM, said:

That sounds like the begining of a technocalypse

Nah, its a bunch of people freaking out over a not super bad exploit.

People need to calm the fuck down.

[Tsundoku]

Ok cool. Thanks.

New question:

How do I stop stupid videos popping up and autoplaying on me in Chrome? I tried disabling popups in the settings and a couple of other things I googled. Nothing works. For example, if my sound is on and I go to news.com.au and start to read any random story, some bastard small video starts playing on the right hand side within a few seconds and competing with any audio I currently have going. I have read the latest beta of Chrome has some settings which can enable you to disable this on a site-by-site basis but fuck using a beta (as we have already established I am not tech nerd enough to muck with that shit, I know my limits), and frankly fuck having to do that every time I visit a new site. For crying out loud I even have adblock plus!

Not only that, but soon after, the main video at the top of the page starts autoplaying.

Autoplay should be opt-in, not opt-out on a site-by-site basis. Arseholes.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 03 February 2018 - 02:31 PM

[Silencer]

Tsundoku, on 03 February 2018 - 02:27 PM, said:

Ok cool. Thanks.

New question:

How do I stop stupid videos popping up and autoplaying on me in Chrome? I tried disabling popups in the settings and a couple of other things I googled. Nothing works. For example, if my sound is on and I go to news.com.au and start to read any random story, some bastard small video starts playing on the right hand side within a few seconds and competing with any audio I currently have going. I have read the latest beta of Chrome has some settings which can enable you to disable this on a site-by-site basis but fuck using a beta (as we have already established I am not tech nerd enough to muck with that shit, I know my limits), and frankly fuck having to do that every time I visit a new site. For crying out loud I even have adblock plus!

Not only that, but soon after, the main video at the top of the page starts autoplaying.

Autoplay should be opt-in, not opt-out on a site-by-site basis. Arseholes.

Remove Adblock Plus. Replace with AdGuard.

Alternatively, go into the Adblock Plus settings and set it to stop using whatever "approved ad" list they have.

I legitimately haven't had any problems with autoplaying videos (except, you know, like YouTube - if I leave a video tab open and my computer restarts, when Chrome is opened again the video starts playing!) for many, many years.

The main video at the top of the page might be trickier - you can probably mark it as an ad with AdGuard but because it's actually site-served content it is assumed to be desired like a video on a YouTube page. That one should have site settings though. EDIT: Yeah, just checked, and the main video will still play. You got to remember to click on the "pause" button before you start scrolling. Fucking news websites. (As an aside, I am pleased to see that News.com.au has almost as much lack of editor oversight as NZ Herald's website does - 3 stories and about 30 seconds and I found a glaring grammatical error on an article snippet - yay quality journalism!)

[Tsundoku]

Uh, I don't s'pose you'll be up here any time soon ... ?

Guess I'll wait for the next full version of Chrome to see if they fix it or have clearer instructions for the settings. Not likely though since isn't popups etc where half of Google's revenue comes from? They're not going to bite the hand that feeds.

[Silencer]

Tsundoku, on 04 February 2018 - 07:00 AM, said:

Uh, I don't s'pose you'll be up here any time soon ... ?

Guess I'll wait for the next full version of Chrome to see if they fix it or have clearer instructions for the settings. Not likely though since isn't popups etc where half of Google's revenue comes from? They're not going to bite the hand that feeds.

Haha, this is what you get for moving!

(But seriously, click the three dots in the top right of Chrome to open the menu, click 'more tools', then 'extensions'. Click the trash bin next to AdBlock Plus in the window that opens next. (Or just untick the "enable" box, if you don't want to commit to removing it just yet.) Go here: https://chrome.googl...gbkllg?hl=en-US and click "add to Chrome". Profit!)

[Tsundoku]

OK ta, I'll give that a whirl, see how it goes.



And it's not like I had a choice in moving.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 04 February 2018 - 09:24 AM

[Tsundoku]

Seems good so far.

[Tsundoku]

God dammit, it's started up again.

Iceholes.

[Tsundoku]

Xbone? The mind boggles. One daren't imagine the VR experience.

Don't date robots BK. Or you'll end up shagging a fembot terminator.

[Tsundoku]

Curses! Foiled ... again(?)

http://www.news.com....c0754a0dfaa04b0

Blockchain technology embedded in new movies to prevent piracy.

So ... how long before some 15 year old kid hacks blockchain?

And yes, I realise it's blindingly obvious I know precisely diddly-squat about blockchain. Like 99.99% of people.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 03 April 2018 - 07:33 AM

[Tsundoku]

So ... should I just delete Chrome and go back to Firefox?

https://www.news.com...beb5d6b76b26530

Or maybe I should use the Avast browser? Or Tor?

Does using a VPN negate browser trackers as described in the article?

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 17 September 2018 - 10:58 AM

[Silencer]

Tsundoku, on 17 September 2018 - 10:57 AM, said:

So ... should I just delete Chrome and go back to Firefox?

https://www.news.com...beb5d6b76b26530

Or maybe I should use the Avast browser? Or Tor?

Does using a VPN negate browser trackers as described in the article?

This is nothing new.

That adblocker you downloaded to help prevent those annoying videos from playing? It should have built-in functionality that allows you to do the same thing (on by default, I believe, in most of them), and depending on which one you use, they even disable those annoying "Like" buttons and such from tracking you while you're logged into Facebook in another tab (which is the traditional way around it Facebook has used).

As noted in the article, Google's Chrome does already offer some of these features - though of course the question of whether they actually work as advertise when Google has a vested interest in the ad revenue is always up for debate.

Nothing wrong with Firefox, though.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

You should be using Firefox with content blocking and tracking protection enabled! Also, at a minimum, install the uBlock Origin extension.

DuckDuckGo has a nice extension that overlaps with some default FF functionality, but also adds some more stuff too.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 17 September 2018 - 11:53 AM

[Aptorian]

Aren't targeted ads better than random useless ads?

[Silencer]

Alternative Goose, on 17 September 2018 - 11:57 AM, said:

Aren't targeted ads better than random useless ads?

No, because these "targeted ads" are collecting data from unrelated things, and feed into algorithms that create echo chambers and generally invade people's privacy. And despite that, they don't work.

Not only do they basically only advertise things I want AFTER I've purchased them, but the majority of their ads are so far off point it might as well be random, though I can often tell they are actually targeted. I'd rather be exposed to something new and different that I actually might want to look into/buy, than things I already know I want.

There's also a whole ethical quandary - the people who use these ads, are most likely the people who aren't able to tell they're being exploited. E.g. someone with an alcohol consumption issue gets more ads for beer? That's bad. Someone who gambles a lot gets ads for gambling sites? That's bad. Someone is having doubts about their marriage (expressed in "private" in Facebook Messenger, for example) and suddenly is getting ads for sites that enable cheating. Etc.

The only good argument for targeted ads is that they're more efficient, and frankly, I find the reality doesn't align with the theory there, and the drawbacks and ethical concerns far outweigh any benefit. Ads should be random, and your browsing habits should be by default private. If you want to get targeted ads, you should have to opt in on every site that it can use that data, and it should be very clear what that data is. It shouldn't be collected automatically, and it shouldn't be effectively required for use of a site or service (e.g. in the ToS). It cedes too much power and control over people's data to private corporations who exploit it with abandon.

[Messremb]

Tsundoku, on 17 September 2018 - 10:57 AM, said:

So ... should I just delete Chrome and go back to Firefox?

https://www.news.com...beb5d6b76b26530

Or maybe I should use the Avast browser? Or Tor?

Does using a VPN negate browser trackers as described in the article?

Use Opera.

Ironically, Ghostery informs me it blocked 5 trackers on that article.