RainCaster
RainCaster's JournalReports: China hacked Verizon and AT&T, may have accessed US wiretap systems
Source: Arstechnica, but originally WSJ
Chinese government hackers penetrated the networks of several large US-based Internet service providers and may have gained access to systems used for court-authorized wiretaps of communications networks, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. "People familiar with the matter" told the WSJ that hackers breached the networks of companies including Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen (also known as CenturyLink).
"A cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of US broadband providers, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests," the WSJ wrote. "For months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful US requests for communications data, according to people familiar with the matter."
These "attackers also had access to other tranches of more generic Internet traffic," according to the WSJ's sources. The attack is being attributed to a Chinese hacking group called Salt Typhoon.
The Washington Post reported on the hacking campaign yesterday, describing it as "an audacious espionage operation likely aimed in part at discovering the Chinese targets of American surveillance." The Post report attributed the information to US government officials and said an investigation by the FBI, other intelligence agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security "is in its early stages."
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/reports-china-hacked-verizon-and-att-may-have-accessed-us-wiretap-systems/
It seems that all the tools the government is using on us are now being used by our state's enemies. Who could have possibly possibly known this would happen? How soon before the basement dwellers are also breaking in and posting embarrassing conversations between FBI agents?
Local lady feeds the racoons, population explodes
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/watch-over-100-raccoons-swarm-poulsbo-womans-home-demanding-food/HYYUDG7LQ5E2LFTAHK3ZF2EJBM/She fed them for 30 years, and suddenly, there's a lot more of them expecting food.
This is not far from where I live. Her neighbors must hate her. I can hear the banjos from here...
GEICO won't insure Cybertrucks anymore
Update: Snopes says wrong
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/geico-tesla-cybertruck-coverage/
https://www.torquenews.com/11826/geico-terminating-insurance-coverage-tesla-cybertrucks-says-type-vehicle-doesnt-meet-our
Finally, there is also the issue of Elon Musk's animosity with Warren Buffett. GEICO is owned by Berkshire Hathaway which is in turn run by Warren Buffett.
Over the years, the two had crossed paths, especially in the late 2010s when Buffet was trying to stop Tesla’s solar deployments in Nevada.
Overall, these are all speculation. However, one thing that’s not in doubt is that GEICO doesn’t want the insurance business from a Tesla Cybertruck. Currently, we do not have any conclusive reason for that.
Karma?
Edit: Snopes says BS
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/geico-tesla-cybertruck-coverage/
"Bear" - it's not a comedy
It's a psycho drama with loads of worshipful images of food. I still don't understand it, though I have watched 3 seasons.
Oh no- the music industry is losing it's masters!
It's not about the people (artists) dying off, we knew about that already. It's about the technology being used to store all those masters. Studios are now going back to "re-master" them, and they are finding that the hard drives they recorded onto are no longer working, and that there is no way possible to recover them.
Here's an article in Wired about the issue.
Mix's passing along of Iron Mountain's warning hit Hacker News earlier this week, which spurred other tales of faith in the wrong formats. The gist of it: You cannot trust any medium, so you copy important things over and over, into fresh storage. "Optical media rots, magnetic media rots and loses magnetic charge, bearings seize, flash storage loses charge, etc.," writes user abracadaniel. "Entropy wins, sometimes much faster than you’d expect."
There is discussion of how SSDs are not archival at all; how floppy disk quality varied greatly between the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s; how Linear Tape-Open, a format specifically designed for long-term tape storage, loses compatibility over successive generations; how the binder sleeves we put our CD-Rs and DVD-Rs in have allowed them to bend too much and stop being readable.
Knowing that hard drives will eventually fail is nothing new. Ars wrote about the five stages of hard drive death, including denial, back in 2005. Last year, backup company Backblaze shared failure data on specific drives, showing that drives that fail tend to fail within three years, that no drive was totally exempt, and that time does, generally, wear down all drives. Google's server drive data showed in 2007 that HDD failure was mostly unpredictable, and that temperatures were not really the deciding factor.
So Iron Mountain's admonition to music companies is yet another warning about something we've already heard. But it's always good to get some new data about just how fragile a good archive really is.
Laura Loomer Is the Symptom, Not the Disease
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/laura-loomer-is-the-symptom-not-the?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=emailOVER THE PAST WEEK, a small number of elected Republicans (along with a few venerable conservative voices) have aired concerns about Donald Trump allowing right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer to accompany him on the campaign trail.
It’s not so much that Loomer says offensive things, they argue. It’s that they fear the influence that her conspiracy-addled mind might have on the former president.
“All of this would be ignorable,” the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote of Loomer amplifying a suggestion that 9/11 was an inside job and her racist tweet about Kamala Harris making the White House smell of curry, “except that others close to Mr. Trump say he is listening to Ms. Loomer’s advice.”
One can understand the fear. But if the presence of Laura Loomer by Trump’s side is what makes you worry that Trump will get dragged into the dark depths of conspiracy land, well, you’re way too late.
I shit my pants better than anyone has ever done before
People come up to me and say "sir, you shit yourself better than anyone has ever done so ever in history."
💩💩💩💩💩💩
Google is starting to irritate me
I've been texting Mrs RC this afternoon, she is away and can't watch the hometown football game on her local TV. So I'm texting play by play to her. my android phone keeps autocorrecting "interception" to "intervention". Damn ai thinks that the Seahawks need an intervention?
It irritates my alcoholic mind. Grrr. First world problems, huh?
I hope your day is going well, one and all.
Because he ignored the rules at Arlington, we all can
So I intend to pee on his grave no matter where it is. No matter how long it takes my prostate to cooperate. Of course, I'll wash my hands afterwards.
Apple TV - good and bad
Apple plays my home team games on most Fridays. Seattle Mariners fwiw. Over the last two seasons, they have improved.
Last year, they broadcast in interlaced 4k mode, and the picture quality was awful. The ball would streak across the screen, and when the camera would move, the picture would blur. Now, they are using non interlaced cameras and the picture quality is so much better. Yay!
However, the number of commercials I have to endure to watch these games is very onerous.
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Gender: MaleHome country: USA
Current location: Left Coast
Member since: Mon Oct 10, 2016, 07:19 PM
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