Kinda saw this coming...

... since Richmond had been warning us for oh, about 2 years.

I'll be complimenting one of my institutions (Chase) for NOT allowing this to happen. There are two or three ways to prevent this error message, all of which cost a bit of money. And the Info Tech people have to get it from some level of - you guessed it - MANAGEMENT and the managers at Chase, to my knowledge, understood the issue and I haven't seen this goofup at any of their ATMs. I don't actually know where this machine is, but it's at one of their competitors.

If I were Chase, I'd milk this for all it's worth, never letting the cheaper banks forget it. Hard to sweep this one under the rug.

Rank Speculations Prompting My Impending Win10 Switch

No, I'm not changing my advocacy position any. I still hate everything. But I'm now having to look at the Win10 upgrade situation due to Win7 going out of support in a few weeks (3 of my 11 currently operational boxes run some Windows or other). Is that really needed? Yes; most security problems statistically target the Win7 release. BUT going to 10 brings up a new set of problems.

(If you're interested I'm looking at buying at least one preloaded computer offlease (used) from either discountelectronics.com, tigerdirect.com, microcenter.com or officedepot.com).

Windows 10 is extremely chatty in that it monitors user activity for various reasons and excuses. Fortunately, there are lots of Win10 telemetry restriction programs, scripts and procedures available via a simple web search (I'll do a further post on some). But I speculate that it's more necessary than normal that you look into Win10 security due to the new chattiness, for the following reasons.

Unlike in the past, Windows 10 monitors user activity as well as security stance with various installed tools including a keystroke logger. This means that it sends data to Microsoft for later analysis.

But note that if this shuffling (telemetry) happens, then that means two other things. First, that it gets transmitted over probably-insecure, probably-unencrypted channels. That transmission provides the opportunity for someone to use the good-ol' MITM attack. If you don't know what that is, Goo... no, Yandex it.

And then there's a third problem I haven't seen discussed much. Microsoft would, after harvesting the info, store it somewhere. It's that storage location I wonder about. Years ago, Microsoft lost the source code to a break-in when somebody got into their network at Richmond, WA - but not directly. Rather than hit MS servers frontally, the sneaks got hold of an employee list and located a manager working from home. That's right. Security wasn't quite as good on the home laptop or desktop, so they hacked the manager. Getting in via his credentials, they swiped all of Win98SE, I think it was. Oh, I forget. Goo... no, Yandex it. And I dunno; maybe Win10 is 90% Win98SE.

This last holds the greatest number of possibilities for future bad guys in my view. Cook up a... let's call it a "Prospector Program" that searches for addresses of databases and storage locations (network, attached device, cloud, whatever). Then set up a humungous data repository for it to use as a depot. Give it an obscured and encrypted communications method. Then run the program 24x7x365 at a low-intensity level of pings, attempts, etc. You're not hitting the main web interfaces or firewalls aggressively. You're hitting a secondary area that's not being DDoS'd in spectacular fashion, for example. There's a greater possibility of overstressed admins having their backs turned.

Just a few thoughts.

Long Term Cyber Security Risk

Assume that you, on your end (company or individual) are doing everything right. You're not clicking on unknown links in emails, you're not opening any attachment from suspicious parties and you aren't going to any bad sites you shouldn't be. At least not on company time and if so, using a virtual machine that can be ditched if necessary AND with documented permission from immediate management.

But what about the party on the other end? What about companies with which your organization does business? What about organizations you don't control? Here's a nice list of issues:

Alexa/Google type assistants
Hospitals
Government organizations
businesses you shop with
Financial institutions
Phone, VPN and communications providers
Businesses purchased that haven't integrated their networks with the new owner securely yet
Email providers
Social Networks

Well? Are you sure all those parties are taking good care of your personal information? Even if an APT (advanced persistent threat) isn't interested in you, various scummy individuals and groups are looking for your info all the time, if only to resell it to another creep. I'll call this risk an "organization leak".

There's also the tendency of newer networking protocols to track your location more effectively. Things like your DOB or credit card number can be guessed by random generators. And cameras or phones pointed at you by somebody else (person or business) could save images or other recordings of you and not require your permission to do so. Put that together with facial recognition (or voice recognition if they have enough to go on) and that's another category of captured information you don't control. I'll call this risk "analysis exposure".

Given the environment of saved data above, with files and files being created everywhere regarding you while being identified with at least some of your personal information attached or associated, imagine that some time later, somebody gets interested in you. At that time, might they get hold of a super database harvesting script that spent, oh, 60 days prospecting around the 'net for anything it could find? And remember: this example presumes a third or fourth party completely unrelated to the organizations that collected or originated the data (a party that merely takes advantage of lack of organizational security, updates or oversight). I'll call this risk "data inventory exposure".

And do you use cloud storage? I'll call this risk "backup location exposure".

And in the near future, will it no longer be possible to buy a gizmo that's not wireless? Wired-only or no-connectivity options exist for various devices now but imagine if cost and convenience force out the availability of a power switch or card slot by which you could opt out of the info flow? I'll call this risk "transmission jailing".

So if in the long run there's no actual security anymore, consider that there MIGHT be if you try to keep a secret by not dealing with it over channels you can't prove are secure. I'll not recommend anything but then, I don't know what channels you use anyway. If you need to be secure about something, it might be best to go out-of-band... depending on what band is normal for you. Carrier pigeon? Marconi? Tin can telephone? Smoke signal? I have no inkling of what will work in your case. But then, the bad guy probably won't either.

"But I Don't Have Any Information Anyone Would Be Interested In..."

Amazon and Google offer convenience devices that listen for your spoken commands, transmitting for analysis all captured sounds to the web. If a crime is committed at your location, this information could be subpoenaed at least in certain circumstances (precedents are still being established)...

One Of Many Cases, This One From 2017 In Case You Missed It

But app(lication)s are now being developed to intercept the audio and use it for, oh, perhaps nefarious intent...

Eavesdropping And Password Phishing O Matic A Tron

Fortunately these were just proof-of-concept dev exercises and we ALL KNOW THAT THERE ARE NO SUCH SCRIPTS OR PROGRAMS IN THE WILD AT THIS TIME NO THAT'S ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE IT'LL NEVER HAPPEN IN A MILLION YEARS.

I don't make these stories up; I just report them.

Don't bother to look for it on distrowatch.com - it's not there (at least it's not on the top 100 list sidebar on the right of the page). I actually can't remember how I heard about this one. It was probably in an article with a name like "top ten oddball linux distros". But it does exist.

If you do a search or two, you can still find Hannah Montana Linux.

I'll not bother to link to the download mirrors, since the Kubuntu base system appears to date from the kid's show character in its title, which would be around ten years ago. Running apt-get didn't locate much of the guts, so the thing isn't quite supported these days. Anyway, other than a garishly-colored installer, its main feature appears to be desktop wallpaper in purples and yellows.

This blast from somebody's past inspired me to look up some things that are still (kind of) around:

jihad.net - the game lampooning some "Barney" character that used to drive parents to the brink of sanity
hamsterdance.com - those dancing critters that we discovered when the 'net was new
wakeuplaughing.com - here's Steve Baherman's character Swami Beyondananda... religion jokes R us.
plan9 - Introducing Plan 9! The only OS named after an Edward D. Wood film that must have cost all of $300 to shoot
Intercal Programming Language - a joke that actually compiles... sort of
old "Conspiracy Theory" film promo page - at the link tab marked "???" there's a theory generator form that doesn't really work anymore, but somebody could probably figure out how to move it to a working location. Much funnier than the film (which sort of had its moments).

Toward A More Secure Account

You may have heard of this trick before, but many may have not - or maybe it was heard but didn't quite sink in.

When an account you're setting up demands answers to security questions such as "What was the name of your paternal grandfather?", you often don't need to provide answers that make sense. Very often (and I've never seen a contrary example) these questions accept nonsensical answers or even gibberish.

Consider such answers as...

Favorite flavor of ice cream? Pistachio
Favorite flavor of ice cream? pistachio
Favorite flavor of ice cream? Lyndon B. Johnson
Favorite flavor of ice cream? Johnson B. Lyndon
Favorite flavor of ice cream?
4#$53@6#$%23$35andapartridgeinapeartree

In my experience, any of these answers would be accepted by the script that generated the questions. Try it out to see what will be accepted. The worst that could happen would be to get an error message that would specify the local rules set up by some administrator. But I suspect that what you come up with just goes into a text field that accepts most anything.

The Security Predicament

The more I follow network security issues, the bigger the job of security appears. Online business activity has been with us since the 1990‘s and many managerial structures still don’t have Chief Information Officers, much less Chief Information Security Officers. Even if these positions exist, authority is limited. As long as InfoSec isn’t represented in the board room (and is considered a second-tier matter - a cost to be minimized), as users we’re on our own. Other than compliance with policy in order to satisfy the boss, there is a responsibility to ourselves to handle security better than do our organizations.

My latest formula with which to observe the broad security situation is this: there are three zones of concern, namely You, Them and the Connection between You and Them.

You - this includes any account or device under your direct control or ownership.

Your Connection - this is the Internet Service Provider, or more properly the server(s) through which you get to the outside world, operated by their administrator or administrators.

Them - this is the other end of the conversation, including businesses, government entities or other individuals or groups served by their Connections.

Problems are possible in any of the zones, but we should consider mitigation possible in only two of them. Let’s say you’ve locked down your own devices and are using best practices. Let’s also say the server admin between you and the world is also locked down and behaving cautiously. What happens next? You connect with someone or something outside the control of either you or the admin.

One can affect or at least observe problems at the position of oneself or one’s own connection to others. The situation on the other side of the connection is anyone’s guess. So:

1. Maintain your own material and situation as best you can, using my “go to the PUB” advice (pay attention to Passwords, Updates and Backups).
2. Use whatever influence you have to assure the quality of your Connection, and attempt to give out as little information as possible through this connection to the other end of the communication.
3. Monitor the situation with the people and organizations with which you communicate, and regarding the information you’ve given to these organizations and which you therefore no longer control. For example, watch your credit card statement and get with that institution in case of bogus charges. Challenge inaccurate information about yourself.

... It looks like maintaining your stuff, giving out as little info as possible and monitoring the other end would be the only three courses of action capable of improving network security. At least relative to the user. In the larger world, it’s still the wild west and could become even more so. There are APT’s (state-sponsored bad actors), organized crime elements, software bugs, hardware bugs, poor decisions within software development projects, political protest hacks, social media abuse, natural disasters, program or code incompatibilities and more things that won’t fix themselves.

We’re on our own.