In an earlier Security Saturday I made some points about supply chain and supply chain management. Specifically focusing on what I call "Chain Attacks" which amounts to going upstream from your target and poisoning the well there.
A few examples include Chinese interference in chip production (although I am not sure if that was ever confirmed, it was at least a fear people held).
Now again we are in supply chain trouble on all sides due to the destabilizing economies across the world. To which I suggest all of you hold on to your old hardware (old laptops and the like) and get some Linux on there.
Chain attacks are also why I took so long to step away from Haskell as the language of choice for the TinySigma project, since many of the ready-to-use languages (Python, Node, C#, and even Java) are more vulnerable to chain attacks due to package managers, corpo-politics and just shoddiness. One can argue about the extent to which that is true, but Haskell is a much different animal with all the formal logic nerds working on it.
But leaving chain attacks aside for today, I wanted to look at something similar and start a discussion. Nvidia has been downgrading graphic card functionality for crypto-coin miners. I find this very funny and a good move company-wise; They want to be able to sell their GPUs to gamers at competitive prices, not have their GPUs show up 6 months later through e-bay for a significant premium after the crypto-jockeys had their way with them.
However, this is related to a supply chain attack in that Nvidia crippled one of the (unintended) functions of their GPUs which people would buy them for.
Instead of spouting about cryptocoins (which I find is a nasty field full of pump 'n' dump and pyramid schemes) I would like to have a civil discussion on what Nvidia is doing here, and maybe your experiences and viewpoints with mining cryptostuffs.
For those who want to participate, feel free to use the promo code to post your insights without paying: https://technotive.locals.com/support/promo/WHOOPS2021
And as always stay safe out there (and away from crypto mining, if I may be so bold to suggest a course of action :P)
There is so much more to this one chapter, but it is so good already!
I had to cut it short because guests arrived, but this should get you started on your own study :)
@calvinrempel Thank you once again for the Theology Tuesday you did, I refer back to it in this one :)
@JamesDerian Congratulations with your Marriage :)
Next time there might (almost certainly) not be a Theology Tuesday, so the official next one will be February 22nd! I have a marriage to attend. As the groom. Our home is still half a project.
Fun times!
Alc and I talk about my book that is now officially finished. This is part 1 of 2. Parts have not been neatly cut. Part two will air 5 minutes after part 1 for coninuity!
Hope you enjoy :)
This is the third corner to have persistent discussions and talks in. I love tech, but especially once it transcends hardware a little. I have two degrees; a bachelor's in Software Engineering and a master's in Information Security Technology. My graduation thesis focused on assembly-level optimizations (that is, one level above the hardware level) and my free subjects were in formal verification. This is why I love programming in the security corner, or maybe it is the other way around.
I started going down the Security path because I early on saw that the world around us would become a dangerous cesspool of badly-implemented and hostile tech. Now I am one of the people that understands the field around that mess :)
So in here you can discuss secure phones, weird programming languages, sad truths about internet-connected fridges. Also about malware, adblockers, and so on and so fort!
A lot of tech talk I do over at the @Lunduke community, where a lot of nerds hang out and it is ...
Much like the reading corner, let's have a music corner! A few rules for this one, since some music can be provocative. I don't mind much but let's keep youtube links with risque thumbnails out of here.
Other music I might also mind. "Do you find that offensive?" might someone ask. Yes, there is some music I choose not to listen on principle, and I walk a thin line there sometimes. But do not worry, I have a wide taste otherwise so feel free to share almost anything :)
Either way, here is the music corner!
Many times when we talk about security, we mean to say "Digital security". In essence we mean to say that our hardware and software that we use stays safe no matter what we do. And even though the ISO27001 standard (and by extension, for example, the NEN7510 standard) make it abundantly clear that security is a people-domain problem, we usually take that as a process-like truth. Meaning, we think that being secure is a matter of regulating people.
The truth is very different. For example, while writing this I am pretty shot. I slept five hours and I an under influence of a bunch of painkillers and some alcohol. Before you ask what I was thinking, let me mention that I have a genetic defect in my spine that I am dealing with right now by taking measured doses of all three (and yes, to get the Bible into this conversation, there is even a biblical ground for the inebriation with alcohol - see proverbs and the letters to Timothy - , although I did not use red wine. But hey, I am still on top of ...
