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Links Writing

As the Olympics Near, Brazil and Rio Let the Bad Times Roll

We are getting closer and closer to the Summer Olympics and, as they approach, more critical eyes are turned to Rio and the city’s state of preparation. The New York Times, in particular, has done a good job of synthesizing the various concerns and critiques associated with Brazil hosting the games: corruption and a functional coup have absorbed the electorate’s attention, costs are overrunning and major projects may only barely be finished on time, pollution at venues may lead to health issues with athletes, and the general economic and security conditions of the city are poor at best.

There is almost no doubt that Rio would not win the bid were they bidding for the games, today, given the state of things. But I also think that it’s important to remember that almost all countries and host-cities face incredible criticism in the run-up to any games. This was true of Beijing, of Vancouver, and of the various venues which have recently held the World Cup.

What will perhaps be most telling is the impact of the games after everyone has left. Will it be the case that the spending on infrastructure for the games prevents Rio from investing in desperately needed additional kinds of services for those worst off? Or will it be that many of the legacy improvements — such a the alert system that was set up to warn those in favelas of forthcoming major storms that could lead to mudslides — that are less talked about will genuinely improve the status of the most impoverished? And what, if anything, will be the lasting effects of Pacification that has taken place in recent years after the major events are over and the economy continues to contract?

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Links Writing

Can @Jack Save Twitter?

A long read by the author of Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal, which unpacks the return of one of Twitter’s co-founders. It’s an instructive read into the poisonous culture of Twitter and the backbiting that characterizes the company…and seemingly has meant that it’s been unable to really determine what it’s about, for whom, and how it will be profitable to investors. The end is particularly telling, insofar as Twitter is seen as having one last chance — to succeed in ‘live’ events — or else have to potentially sell to a Microsoft or equivalent staid technology company.

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Links

An Internet Censorship Company Tried to Sue the Researchers Who Exposed Them

An Internet Censorship Company Tried to Sue the Researchers Who Exposed Them:

Netsweeper is a small Canadian company with a disarmingly boring name and an office nestled among the squat buildings of Waterloo, Ontario. But its services—namely, online censorship—are offered in countries as far-flung as Bahrain and Yemen.

In 2015, University of Toronto-based research hub Citizen Lab reported that Netsweeper was providing Yemeni rebels with censorship technology. In response, Citizen Lab director Ron Deibert revealed in a blog post on Tuesday, Netsweeper sued the university and Deibert for defamation. Netsweeper discontinued its lawsuit in its entirety in April.

 

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Links

This woman is fed up with sexual harassment on the TTC

This woman is fed up with sexual harassment on the TTC:

Ross said the TTC does not track complaints of sexual harassment but it does track complaints about sexual assault. “Regardless of the number, one is too many.”

He said the TTC is developing an app that would allow riders to report harassment through their smartphones and it will give riders another tool to protect themselves when on TTC trains.

The TTC is developing an app, so people can report incidents, while mobile phone service isn’t offered to 90% of riders and wifi isn’t installed on the trains themselves.

Brilliant.

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Links Photography

IPPAWARDS | iPhone Photography Awards

Just gorgeous photos that show just how much you can actually do with an iPhone’s camera.

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Links

Real-Life ‘Love Potions’ Are Coming, But Are they Ethical?

Can we medicalize our relationships that much more? Perhaps. Should we? Probably not. Will that stop us? Unlikely.

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Links

Over 100 Snooping Tor Nodes Have Been Spying on Dark Web Sites

Interesting research:

By setting up honeypots in the Tor network, Guevara Noubir, a professor from the College of Computer and Information Science at Northeastern University, and Amirali Sanatinia, a PhD candidate also from Northeastern, discovered an armada of Tor hidden service directories that are spying on dark web sites. These modified nodes allow whoever is behind them—perhaps law enforcement, hackers or other researchers—to find the addresses of sites that are supposed to be secret. The pair will be presenting their research at the Def Con hacking conference in August.

People who want to hunt out dark web sites “go through the code and do the modifications to be able to log the .onions, and then visit them,” Noubir told Motherboard in a phone call.

Cops could do this to find new child pornography sites, or hackers to hunt fresh targets. Noubir pointed out that there are plenty of companies that sell dark web intelligence too, so perhaps they could be setting up HSDirs.

The Tor network is amongst the most secure ways of browsing the Internet anonymously. But this research demonstrates that using the service doesn’t guarantee your anonymity.

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Links

‘Overwatch’ Players Are Crashing Servers to Avoid Losses in New Competitive Mode

Overwatch is, without a doubt, the spiritual successor to Team Fortress 2. And part of what makes the new game so much fun is how aggressive Blizzard is toward cheating: if you’re caught you’re banned for life.

Apparently a glitch has been found that lets players crash servers, and they are crashing them when they or their team are losing badly. Blizzard’s response has been to identify the persons responsible and ban their accounts, thus meaning that the rest of us can happily play to win or lose without worrying that the session is going to drop because of some hyper-competitive spoilsport.

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Links

Security researcher uncovers high-risk BIOS vulnerability in Lenovo PCs

According to researcher Dmytro Oleksiuk aka Cr4sh, the erroneous code exploits the 0day privileges escalation vulnerability in Lenovo’s BIOS. This bug allows users to exploit the flash write protection, disabling of UEFI Secure Boot, Virtual Secure Mode and Credential Guard on most Windows Enterprise powered Lenovo PCs. And this is just a small list of possible evil things that can be executed using this vulnerability.

Another serious vulnerability. I wonder: how many of the vulnerable BIOSes will actually be updated versus those that will remain permanently vulnerable to this kind of attack? And doesn’t the persistence of new vulnerabilities speak the failure of manufacturers to secure end point devices, thus obviating some government concerns surrounding the encryption of communications?

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Links

Android’s full-disk encryption just got much weaker—here’s why

But researchers from two-factor authentication service Duo Security told Ars that an estimated 37 percent of all the Android phones that use the Duo app remain susceptible to the attack because they have yet to receive the patches. The lack of updates is the result of restrictions imposed by manufacturers or carriers that prevent end users from installing updates released by Google.

Yikes.

Beyond hacks, Beniamini said the design makes it possible for phone manufacturers to assist law enforcement agencies in unlocking an encrypted device. Since the key is available to TrustZone, the hardware makers can simply create and sign a TrustZone image that extracts what are known as the keymaster keys. Those keys can then be flashed to the target device.

And double yikes: do we now need to get phone manufacturers to release transparency reports that indicate whether they’ve compromised devices after receiving requests to do so from law enforcement agencies?