Worth Reading: AI Risks

Bruce Schneier wrote a thoughtful article on the various perceptions of AI Risks including this gem:

As the science-fiction author Ted Chiang has said, fears about the existential risks of AI are really fears about the threat of uncontrolled capitalism, and dystopias like the paper clip maximizer are just caricatures of every start-up’s business plan.

Enjoy!

Controversial Reads 101423


Imagine a future in which AIs automatically interpret—and enforce—laws.


Using the proposed “Web Environment Integrity” means websites can select on which devices (browsers) they wish to be displayed, and can refuse service to other devices. It binds client side software to a website, creating a silo’d app.


When Alexa wouldn’t respond to his commands, he called the Amazon help desk to see what the issue was. Evidently, the company locked him out because of his apparent racism: “I was told that the driver who had delivered my package reported receiving racist remarks from my ‘Ring doorbell’ (it’s actually a Eufy, but I’ll let it slide).” Later, without any explanation or apology, Amazon allowed Jackson access again.


According to Harari, “AI has all it needs in order to cocoon us in a Matrix-like world of illusions,” and, even more chillingly, “you don’t really need to implant chips in people’s brains in order to control them or to manipulate them.”


Yet given how most of the internet is currently structured, our online expression largely depends on a set of private companies ranging from our direct Internet service providers and platforms, to upstream ISPs (sometimes called Tier 2 and 3), all Continue reading

RustRadio, and Roast My Rust

I’m learning Rust. And I like playing with software defined radio (SDR). So the natural project to take on to learn Rust is to write a crate for making SDR applications. I call it RustRadio.

I have something that works, and seems pretty OK. But before marking a 1.0.0 release I want to see if I can get some opinions on my use of the Rust language. Both in terms of design, and more clippy-like suggestions.

Hence: Roast My Rust. File a github issue, email me, or tweet at me. Tell me I’m doing it wrong.

  • RustRadio code: https://github.com/ThomasHabets/rustradio
  • RustRadio docs: https://docs.rs/rustradio/latest/rustradio/
  • The first application: https://github.com/ThomasHabets/sparslog

What my priorities are

There are two API surfaces in RustRadio; the Block API (for writing blocks), and the Application API (for writing applications that use blocks). I want them to be good, and future proof, so that I don’t have to change every block and every application, after adding a feature or improving the API.

The blocks will need to be thread safe, even though the scheduler is currently single threaded.

For the streams between blocks I’ll eventually want to make a more fancy, but unsafe circular Continue reading

Weekend Reads 101323


Dereferencing null pointers is one of the most common software errors. It is so infamous that Tony Hoare called the invention of null pointers his billion-dollar mistake.


To detect DDoS attacks in a telecommunications network we need to see the traffic that traverses the network, and we have multiple protocols for that purpose.


A recent trend in cloud-native development is the use of multi-architecture infrastructures, which can run workloads on either x86 or Arm architectures.


On 28 Aug., the California Privacy Protection Agency released its initial draft regulations for cybersecurity audits and risk assessments.


The Sun is about to turn upside down – magnetically speaking, of course.


Telecoms giant Vodafone is backing more than one horse in the OpenRAN arena, confirming a collaboration with Arm on energy efficient silicon for 5G base stations and continuing to work with Intel on OpenRAN silicon.


However, DNSSEC can cause problems when combined with a widely used method for synchronising secondary DNS servers with their primaries, Incremental Zone Transfer (IXFR).


Antitrust cases like the FTC’s hinge on “threshold” issues, fundamental elements that must be proven for a case to proceed. Here, those issues are threefold: market definition, documentary evidence, and the validity of Continue reading

Malicious “RedAlert – Rocket Alerts” Application Targets Israeli Phone Calls, SMS, and User Information

Malicious “RedAlert - Rocket Alerts” Application Targets Israeli Phone Calls, SMS, and User Information
Malicious “RedAlert - Rocket Alerts” Application Targets Israeli Phone Calls, SMS, and User Information

On October 13, 2023, Cloudflare’s Cloudforce One Threat Operations Team became aware of a website hosting a Google Android Application (APK) impersonating the legitimate RedAlert - Rocket Alerts application (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.red.alert&hl=en&pli=1).  More than 5,000 rockets have been launched into Israel since the attacks from Hamas began on October 7th 2023.  RedAlert - Rocket Alerts developed by Elad Nava allows individuals to receive timely and precise alerts about incoming airstrikes. Many people living in Israel rely on these alerts to seek safety - a service which has become increasingly important given the newest escalations in the region.

Applications alerting of incoming airstrikes have become targets as only days ago, Pro-Palestinian hacktivist group AnonGhost exploited a vulnerability in another application, “Red Alert: Israel” by Kobi Snir. (https://cybernews.com/cyber-war/israel-redalert-breached-anonghost-hamas/) Their exploit allowed them to intercept requests, expose servers and APIs, and send fake alerts to some app users, including a message that a “nuclear bomb is coming”. AnonGhost also claimed they attacked other rocket alert applications, including RedAlert by Elad Nava. As of October 11, 2023, the RedAlert app was reportedly functioning normally.

In the last two days, a new malicious website (hxxps://redalerts[.]me) has Continue reading

Everyone Is Chasing What Nvidia Already Has

Transitions in the datacenter take time.

It took Unix servers a decade, from 1985 through 1995, to supplant proprietary minicomputers and a lot of mainframe capacity that would have otherwise been bought. …

The post Everyone Is Chasing What Nvidia Already Has first appeared on The Next Platform.

Everyone Is Chasing What Nvidia Already Has was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Heavy Networking 705: Evolving From Python To Platforms For Network Automation (Sponsored)

Today on Heavy Networking we talk about how to get from a handful of Python scripts to a network automation platform that enables a self-service environment and incorporates the checks and governance required to make sure the automation doesn't blow up the network. Our sponsor today is Itential. Itential offers just such a network automation platform. We talk about how Itential makes it happen, including simple and more complex examples.

Heavy Networking 705: Evolving From Python To Platforms For Network Automation (Sponsored)

Today on Heavy Networking we talk about how to get from a handful of Python scripts to a network automation platform that enables a self-service environment and incorporates the checks and governance required to make sure the automation doesn't blow up the network. Our sponsor today is Itential. Itential offers just such a network automation platform. We talk about how Itential makes it happen, including simple and more complex examples.

The post Heavy Networking 705: Evolving From Python To Platforms For Network Automation (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Cilium CNCF Graduation Could Mean Better Observability, Security with eBPF

eBPF (extended Berkeley packet filter) is a powerful technology that operates directly within the Linux kernel, offering robust hooks for extending runtime observability, security, and networking capabilities across various deployment environments. While eBPF has gained widespread adoption, organizations are encouraged to leverage tools and layers built on eBPF to effectively harness its functionality. For instance, Gartner advises that most enterprises lack the expertise to directly utilize Cilium offers additional capabilities with eBPF to help secure the network connectivity between runtimes deployed on Docker and Kubernetes, as well as other environments, including bare metal and virtual machines. Isovalent, which created Cilium and donated it to the CNCF, and the contributors are also, in parallel, developing Cilium capabilities to offer network observability and network security functionality through Cilium sub-projects consisting of Hubble and Tetragon, respectively. This graduation certifies that Cilium — created by

Downloading web resources

Last time I went to the dentist, they offered to use a fancy scanner to better be able to show me my teeth.

Who can say no to that? I already for fun got a 3D scan of my brain, so why not teeth too?

I requested the data, and got a link to a web UI. Unfortunately it was just a user friendly 3D viewer, without any download button.

Here’s how I extracted the 3D data:

  1. Open Chrome developer console, e.g. by pressing Ctrl-Shift-C (I hate it that Chrome hijacked this. Every single day I press Ctrl-Shift-C to copy, and it throws up this thing)
  2. Close the stupid “what’s new” spam, that nobody in the history of ever has wanted to see.
  3. Go to the ‘Network’ tab.
  4. Reload the page.
  5. Right click on any item in the list, and choose “Save all as HAR with content”. No, I don’t know why I can’t just save that one resource.
  6. A HAR file is a JSON file archive, essentially. 
    $ jq '.log | keys' foo.har
[
  "creator",
  "entries",
  "pages",
  "version"
]
$ jq '.log | .entries[0].request | keys' foo.har
[
  "bodySize",
  "cookies",
  "headers",
  "headersSize",
   Continue reading

Nvidia Picks Up The Pace For Datacenter Roadmaps

Heaven forbid that we take a few days of downtime. When we were not looking – and forcing ourselves to not look at any IT news because we have other things going on – that is the moment when Nvidia decides to put out a financial presentation that embeds a new product roadmap within it. …

The post Nvidia Picks Up The Pace For Datacenter Roadmaps first appeared on The Next Platform.

Nvidia Picks Up The Pace For Datacenter Roadmaps was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Using command options and arguments to get just the right output on Linux

This post covers some well-known Linux commands that, when used with particular options and arguments, can save you some time or ensure that what you are doing is what you intended. The first “trick” involves how you exit vi or vim and the difference that can make.Using :x instead of :wq when saving files with vi or vim The vi and vim editors are the most commonly used text editors on Linux systems. When you exit either with :x instead of the more common :wq, the file will only be saved if you have just made changes to it. This can be helpful if you want to ensure that the file’s timestamp reflects its most recent changes. Just keep in mind that, if you make a change to a file and then undo those changes – like deleting a word or a line and then replacing it with the same content, this will still be seen as a change and vi or vim will save the file, updating the timestamp whether you use :x or :wq.To read this article in full, please click here

Using command options and arguments to get just the right output on Linux

This post covers some well-known Linux commands that, when used with particular options and arguments, can save you some time or ensure that what you are doing is what you intended. The first “trick” involves how you exit vi or vim and the difference that can make.Using :x instead of :wq when saving files with vi or vim The vi and vim editors are the most commonly used text editors on Linux systems. When you exit either with :x instead of the more common :wq, the file will only be saved if you have just made changes to it. This can be helpful if you want to ensure that the file’s timestamp reflects its most recent changes. Just keep in mind that, if you make a change to a file and then undo those changes – like deleting a word or a line and then replacing it with the same content, this will still be seen as a change and vi or vim will save the file, updating the timestamp whether you use :x or :wq.To read this article in full, please click here

Arista switches target ultra-low latency networking demands

Arista Networks has unveiled a portfolio of 25G Ethernet switches aimed at supporting data center, financial, industrial control applications that demand high-performance and extremely low latency.The new 7130 25G Series boxes are a significant power and features upgrade over the vendor’s current 7130 10G Ethernet line of devices and promise to reduce link latency 2.5-fold for data transmission by reducing queuing, serialization delays and eliminating the need for latency-inducing Forward Error Correction (FEC) typically required by 25G Ethernet, according to the vendor.   In addition the new switches eliminate the need for multiple cables and switches to set up and support the current level of low-latency networks, according to Martin Hull, vice president of Cloud Titans and Platform Product Management with Arista Networks in a blog about the new switches.To read this article in full, please click here

Guest Post: Moving Secrets Where They Belong

by Simen A.W. Olsen

Pulumi recently shipped Pulumi ESC, which adds the “Environment” tab to Pulumi Cloud. For us at Bjerk, this means we can move secrets into a secrets manager like Google Secrets Manager. Let me show you how we did it!

We are already rotating secrets with our own CLI tool, which works fine, meaning we are getting notifications in our Slack channel—which everyone tends to ignore until something real breaks. If you are curious how we are handling it today, we are using our own NPM package that throws an exception if a secret has expired. To ensure everything works smoothly, we utilize a GitHub Actions workflow that is scheduled to run daily for drift checking.

The secrets are shared between stacks using StackReferences, which has served us well.

Improving security

One issue with our current setup is that we publicly store encrypted secrets in our repository. Previously, we’ve thought of using Google Secrets Manager with the GetSecret function. That comes with its own territory, such as permissions to the secret and managing those permissions—not to mention that we already use multiple secret managers/vaults.

Now, with Pulumi ESC, it’s time to pick this Continue reading

BrandPost: Five reasons to adopt a single-vendor SASE approach

By: Gabriel Gomane, Senior Product Marketing Manager at HPE Aruba NetworkingAs organizations are moving to a cloud-centric architecture, where most applications reside in the cloud and the demand for hybrid work environment increases, security must evolve in parallel: Legacy VPNs have often provided poor user experience. Additionally, usage of VPNs without granular controls could over-extend network privilege, granting users more access to resources than necessary, increasing security risks. Traditional network architectures routed application traffic to the data center for security inspection, which is no longer practical, and impacted application performance since most applications now reside in the cloud. With data increasingly hosted in SaaS applications, organizations need to take extra steps to protect their data. Sensitive data can indeed be stored in both sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud applications (or shadow IT), and may travel over unsecured links, leading to potential risk of data loss. Employees are vulnerable to web-based threats such as phishing attacks and ransomware when browsing the internet or simply accessing emails. The explosion of IoT devices in the recent years have significantly increased the attack surface. However, IoT devices are often built on a simple design and lack sophisticated security mechanisms. Finally, organizations must comply with Continue reading

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