Chris: I am skeptical but let's say that there is truth to the article; the sources cited are credible, that much isn't in doubt. However, there are serious problems that go unstated: (1) What about the truth value of the contents of the purloined e-mails? However the e-mails were obtained the stuff in them is damning to the Clintons and their associates. Indeed, Hillary never once disputed the contents, her standard response was to charge that they were stolen by the Russians and therefore this was all about evil Putin & co. This was classic evasion. And, BTW, Fox news made this a continuing issue. The big networks and CNN and MSNBC, as far as I know, never made this an issue. (2) Hillary and apparently Podesta used "not secure" servers. This did not give the Russians permission to do anything but the fact is that this was carelessness like nothing else and gross irresponsibility. Sure, if Hillary was a low rank civil servant in Connecticut who earned $30,000 and was not especially computer savvy, that would be par for the course. But she had millions and all the geek help she could want, and still she acted as if high order computer security was unnecessary. (3) What about BHO in all of this? The Russians, or some Russians, may well have hacked the system. If so, that would be very bad, indeed, and this may have happened. However, why hasn't the WH made enough evidence available so that we are sure and not reduced to guesswork? I'm nor making any case for Trump. Why should I? But Hillary slit her own throat. She is out of touch with the high tech world, for which, in the case of a multi-millionaire, there is absolutely no excuse. Hell, if it would have cost her a million $$ to have a secure server that would have been a bargain, wouldn't it? Not taking the time to learn about high tech or making that expenditure did a heck of a lot toward costing her the presidency itself. I guess she always has a lot on her mind, after all, you know how she was on the tarmac in Bosnia or somewhere, dodging bullets once upon a time, after her plane touched down. Although that episode was kind of strange since her description sounded like something that was no worse than dodging raindrops in a Summer shower. I've never been under enemy fire, but the time I was on board the Enterprise we were overflown by a Russian bomber; that was serious business and made me very concerned, indeed, since one missile and the whole ship could have been blown up. I'd think that bullets flying in profusion would be frightening like nothing else, and nothing anyone who actually had that experience would ever joke about. Hence from that day onward she lost all of what little credibility she still had with me. For sure, my view of Trump is, uhhh, rather negative. But Hillary is such a phoney, so out of touch with reality, that I'm not sorry for her current plight in any way. Trump did not get what he deserved, he should never have been nominated by the GOP. This is not an issue. But if anyone deserved to lose on November 8 it was Hillary. Billy ============================================ 11/27/2016 11:02:56 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: Addendum to my paragraph below: Americans keep looking away from the election’s most alarming story https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americans-keep-looking-away-from-the -elections-most-alarming-story/2016/11/25/83533d3e-b0e2-11e6-8616-52b15787ad d0_story.html?utm_term=.39a5283c4fb5&wpisrc=nl_az_most > Sometime in the next five years we will probably have our Three-mile Island of Internet security. I think we may have already had the Internet-related meltdown and we don’t even know it. The recent election was impacted by internet security issues. The obvious example that we all know was Russian-supported WikiLeaks stream of leaks. Also, I fear that the lack of adequate security with voting systems/equipment (the internet of things), in some states and jurisdictions, may have had a significant impact on the outcome of the election. Chris From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, November 25, 2016 5:31 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: SOLUTION 'The internet era of fun and games is over'
Ernie: Once upon a time I made the comment that it was a mistake to switch from store-bought discs to downloads via the Internet. Not that discs are a perfect solution to the problems of connectivity and security but they would be a help. That is, keep computers in your appliances and car, but update every few months via physical disc and not via the Web. Sure, less timely, but so what? Who cares if your stuff is a few weeks out of date, the practical effect is zero. OK, make exceptions for crews in Antarctica and the International Space Station, but otherwise simply remove the danger by switching back to the disc system. The advantage of discs is precisely the fact that you always have them for fresh downloads when you change operating systems or what not. No need to spend all kinds of time on the Web hunting down a download site, all you need is in a dresser drawer which you can access effortlessly. Reversals of trends are always possible and can be irresistible. Remember flight from the cities? New we have gentrification and the renewal of cities and reverse flight. For a time it seemed that there would be no more sailboats anywhere on Earth, Now there are more sailboats than at any time in history. Do not misunderstand. Computers are extremely valuable, my life has been changed forever by computers. I love my XP. However, as time progresses the less and less enchanted I get with the computer industry. Why in hell does anyone need a computerized toaster? A computerized golf cart? A computerized guitar? Ever watch those TV car shows? One of my ambitions, another "when my ship comes in" idea, is to purchase a 59 Chevy like the one I owned in the early 1960s. Great car. For other people it is a restored vintage Ford or 1930s Marmon. There are restored car clubs all over the USA now, it is a multi-billion $$ business. Retro is good. Long live retro. Hail retro!!! Bring back discs -before it is too late. sincerely Billy charter member Oregon Luddite Society ---------------------------------------------------- 11/25/2016 3:29:35 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, _drernie@ radicalcentrism.org_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: Sometime in the next five years we will probably have our Three-mile Island of Internet security. Whoever can come up with a plausible way forward can build a ton of political capital… Bruce Schneier: 'The internet era of fun and games is over' http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bruce-schneier-internet-of-things/ (via _Instapaper_ (http://www.instapaper.com/) ) ____________________________________ Internet pioneer _Bruce Schneier_ (http://www.dailydot.com/tags/bruce-schneier/) issued _a dire proclamation_ (http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/internet-of-things-committee-security/) in front of the House of Representatives’ Energy & Commerce Committee Wednesday: “It might be that the internet era of fun and games is over, because the internet is now dangerous.” The _meeting_ (http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/internet-of-things-committee-security/) , which focused on the security vulnerabilities created by smart devices, came in the wake of the Oct. 21 cyberattack on Dyn that knocked _Amazon_ (http://dailydot.com/tags/amazon/) , _Netflix_ (http://dailydot.com/tags/netflix/) , _Spotify_ (http://dailydot.com/tags/spotify/) , and other major web services offline. Schneier’s opening statement provided one of the clearest distillations of the dangers posed by connected devices I’ve seen. It should be required viewing. He starts around the 1:10:30 mark in the livestream below, but we’ve also transcribed most of his remarks. Here’s how he framed the Internet of Things, or what he later called the “ world of dangerous things”: As the chairman pointed out, there are now computers in everything. But I want to suggest another way of thinking about it in that everything is now a computer: This is not a phone. It’s a computer that makes phone calls. A refrigerator is a computer that keeps things cold. ATM machine is a computer with money inside. Your car is not a mechanical device with a computer. It’s a computer with four wheels and an engine… And this is the Internet of Things, and this is what caused the DDoS attack we’re talking about. He then outlined four truths he’s learned from the world of computer security, which he said is “now everything security.” 1) ‘Attack is easier than defense’ Complexity is the worst enemy of security. Complex systems are hard to secure for an hours’ worth of reasons, and this is especially true for computers and the internet. The internet is the most complex machine man has ever built by a lot, and it’s hard to secure. Attackers have the advantage. 2) ‘There are new vulnerabilities in the interconnections’ The more we connect things to each other, the more vulnerabilities in one thing affect other things. We’re talking about vulnerabilities in digital video recorders and webcams that allowed hackers to take websites. … There was one story of a vulnerability in an Amazon account [that] allowed hackers to get to an Apple account, which allowed them to get to a Gmail account, which allowed them to get to a Twitter account. Target corporation, remember that attack? That was a vulnerability in their HVAC contractor that allowed the attackers to get into Target. And vulnerabilities like this are hard to fix. No one system might be at fault. There might be two secure systems that come together to create insecurity. 3) ‘The internet empowers attackers’ Attacks scale. The internet is a massive tool for making things more efficient. That’s also true for attacking. The internet allows attacks to scale to a degree that’s impossible otherwise. We’re talking about millions of devices harnessed to attack Dyn, and that code, which somebody smart wrote, has been made public. Now anybody can use it. It’s in a couple dozen botnets right now. Any of you can rent time on one dark web to attack somebody else. (I don’t recommend it, but it can be done.) And this is more dangerous as our systems get more critical. The Dyn attack was benign. A couple of websites went down. The Internet of Things affects the world in a direct and physical manner: cars, appliances, thermostats, airplanes. There’s real risk to life and property. There’s real catastrophic risk. 4) ‘The economics don’t trickle down’ Our computers are secure for a bunch of reasons. The engineers at Google, Apple, Microsoft spent a lot of time on this. But that doesn’t happen for these cheaper devices. … These devices are a lower price margin, they’re offshore, there’s no teams. And a lot of them cannot be patched. Those DVRs are going to be vulnerable until someone throws them away. And that takes a while. We get security [for phones] because I get a new one every 18 months. Your DVR lasts for five years, your car for 10, your refrigerator for 25. I’m going to replace my thermostat approximately never. So the market really can’t fix this. Schneier then laid out his argument for why the government should be a part of the solution, and the danger of prioritizing surveillance over security. It was OK when it was fun and games. But already there’s stuff on this device that monitors my medical condition, controls my thermostat, talks to my car: I just crossed four regulatory agencies, and it’s not even 11 o’ clock. This is something that we’re going to need to do something new about. And like many new agencies in the 20th century, many new agencies were created: trains, cars, airplanes, radio, nuclear power. My guess is that [the internet] is going to be one of them. And that’s because this is different. This is all coming. Whether we like that the technology is coming, it’s coming faster than we think. I think government involvement is coming, and I’d like to get ahead of it. I’d like to start thinking about what this would look like. We’re now at the point where we need to start making more ethical and political decisions about how these things work. When it didn’t matter—when it was Facebook, when it was Twitter, when it was email—it was OK to let programmers, to give them the special right to code the world as they saw fit. We were able to do that. But now that it’s the world of dangerous things— and it’s cars and planes and medical devices and everything else—maybe we can’t do that anymore. That’s not necessarily what Schneier wants, but he recognizes its necessity. “I don’t like this,” he concluded. “I like the world where the internet can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, at all times. It’s fun. This is a fun device. But I’m not sure we can do that anymore.” You can watch the full committee meeting above or _here_ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvId5-0295U) . ____________________________________ Sent from my iPhone = -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
