Computing | The Arts Mechanical

A Public Service

Posted on August 6, 2018 by jccarlton

Recently, a YouTuber was assaulted at the GenCon gaming convention.

https://disneystarwarsisdumb.wordpress.com/2018/08/02/sjws-throw-the-first-punch-at-gencon/

http://boundingintocomics.com/2018/08/02/the-quarterings-jeremy-hambly-attacked-at-gencon-2018/

http://boundingintocomics.com/2018/08/02/gencon-begins-silencing-people-who-bring-up-the-quarterings-attacker/

Apparently the assault was perpetrated because the YouTuber, the Quartering was a Trump supporter. Also apparently the perpetrator is the proprietor of a gaming store in New Haven CT. It is also apparent Jeremy Hambly is a nice guy and wants to seek justice through the legal system.

The Fragility Of Systems And The Need For Backups

Posted on April 30, 2017 by jccarlton

As system get more complex they get more fragile. That is definitely the case when it comes to computer and information systems. I found that out again last Friday. Now as of now, I don’t know if what happened to my main computer is a hard drive failure or a corrupted update. At this point it’s hard to tell and it’s going to be some work to figure out what. My big mistake this time was not making a Windows 10 boot disk.

https://www.xtremerain.com/fix-bad-system-config-info/

System failure can also be caused by malware and viruses though this has been less common as the security people have dealt with this sort of thing and if the data and files themselves are not wrecked, using a boot disk can get things running and work around the malware until things are running, anyway, here’s the week in ransomware.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/the-week-in-ransomware-april-28th-2017-cerber-mordor-and-cve-2017-0199/

The Future Of Cyber Security?

Posted on February 26, 2017 by jccarlton

This is a post series on cybercrime. For more posts click here or the cybercrime tag below.

The IEEE recently had an interview with one of their senior members about the future of cybersecurity. Here’s their short article.

So What Should A Secure OS Look Like?

Posted on September 18, 2016 by jccarlton

This is a post series on cyber crime. For more posts click here or the cybercrime tag below.

Last week, I posted Karl Denninger’s rant on how MS and Apple had dropped the ball on computer security. The fact is that the current ransomware epidemic is the result of a four decade denial to understand that this problem even existed. Having had Windows 10 installed on the computer and using it for the last couple of months now I don’t see much effort to take things in the direction I think that the way things are going are going to force them to go.

Frankly this should have been considered a long time ago. We’ve all been spoiled and it’s not as if Hacking and computer security hasn’t been an issue. Yet none of the OS providers, including Linux seem to have invested much effort into creating the tools that make it easy to partition and protect drives and partitions from open access. That needs to change. There need to be tools installed and easily accessible to allow users to partition and separate data from the network access. These days computers are storing immense amounts of irreplaceable personal and corporate data that can be read or destroyed by any Tom Dick or Harry that gets access to the machine. It wasn’t that way before the PC, there’s no true reason, other than “we’ve always done it that way” to set up a system so that it’s not secure.

How might this be done? Well the old Unix system was set up so that individual spaces could be secured. If people want to know what can be done to partition and fence data so that it can be secured, that’s where I would start. Get a 1990’s vintage copy of BSD UNIX and play with how it works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution

The fact is that unless resource access control becomes THE issue in the next round of OS updates, we will ALL be held for ransom. There’s no way the security firms can keep up with the infiltration efforts that the cybercriminals come up with and without being able to fence data, the users are going to be helpless.

This week in ransomware:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/the-week-in-ransomware-september-16-2016-stampado-locky-atom-and-more/

Hard Computers And Fuzzy People

Posted on August 29, 2016 by jccarlton

I was thinking about ATS systems and how they worked while cutting the lawn the other day and I had an insight about them that I don’t think that people appreciate. For a computer, there is no “maybe.” A computer is not a brain and the software program running defines everything as yes, or no.

They Need To Remember To Keep The Web Light

Posted on August 3, 2016 by jccarlton

This is a post series on cyber crime. For more posts click here or the cybercrime tag below.

There is an old Roman saying; “Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?” It means, who will watch the watchers? It’s appropriate when considering the internet and the web. Heretofore the web standards and protocol development has been more or less a mutual agreement between interested parties who by and large had no real interest in doing anything that would create problems in real society. They just wanted to make their wonderful toy work. They were idealistic and didn’t really see the potentials of the dark side.

Malware Is an International Problem

Posted on July 16, 2016 by jccarlton

This is a post series on cyber crime. For more posts click here or the cybercrime tag below.

Check out this archive of a search on twitter for “crypz.”

https://archive.is/Wxiht

The Problem With Ever Higher Fences

Posted on July 9, 2016 by jccarlton

This is a post series on cyber crime. For more posts click here or the cybercrime tag below.

I’ve been called an idiot in various venues by mostly it seems computer security types for this series and my insistence that more law enforcement is required. What these people don’t see is the bigger issues involved.

Cyber Crooks Are Human Too

Posted on July 3, 2016 by jccarlton

This is a post series on cyber crime. For more posts click here or the cybercrime tag below.

The fact that they are young and inexperienced seems to work against them. They make mistakes. And get caught. The interesting thing is that, like a medieval castle under siege the dark net is most likely to break from the inside. What’s also amazing is that no matter how stupid the last guy was and how big the punishment, there’s always anew idiot ready and willing to step in and be the next guy on the “caught” list. One would think that the possibility of a lifetime relationship with “Bubba” and his friend and strict limitations on computer usage would be a huge deterrent. Apparently not.

Looking Inside The Hood Of Malware

Posted on June 26, 2016 by jccarlton

This is a post series on cyber crime. For more posts click here or the cybercrime tag below.

In this post we are going to take look inside the guts of a ransomware program. How this stuff comes about is unknown, but there are some clues. The key thing is that the malware relies on the TOR browser anonymity to do it’s work.