Nobody Cares: Technology-only Edition

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Fair, lol

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Like the average sportsball fan?

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Fair, lol

No one uses Coqsmear anymore, it is all about gkocsmeer.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Here's an interesting one - security analysts found a hidden "reverse back door" coded into a patient vital-signs monitor, of all things. The device is called the Contec CMS8000, although it is also available from other resellers rebranded, and is produced in China. Researchers doing some normal vulnerability checking on the firmware noticed some inexplicable network activity, or attempted network activity, so they dug a little further and found something suspicious.

The first thing the suspicious binary does is turn on the device's networking port. It does this even if networking is set to disabled by default or by a user. Once the network is on, the binary reaches out to an IP address - a very specific, hard-coded IP address, which the researchers discovered is owned not by Contec or any other hardware or software vendor, but by a particular Chinese university whose name they did not disclose in the report. There's nothing at that IP address right now; but if there was, and the device is able to connect, it will then mount an NFS share folder and download any files that are available from the IP address. It does seem to expect a certain directory structure, because after the download is complete the binary will then copy any files from specific folders in the download to specific other folders in the device's own directory, overwriting whatever is there.

Now you might be thinking that just sounds like a remote update function, like the kind of thing almost any old device has. But the security researchers do not believe that's the case. For one thing, update routines on normal devices usually do a version check - they'll only download an update if it's actually an update, if it's newer than its current firmware, and if there's instructions from the vendor saying "yes, this update is specifically for your version, go ahead and download it". And then it usually does an integrity check on whatever it's downloaded before it actually installs it. Whereas, this binary doesn't care about any of that; once it connects, it downloads whatever happens to be there and installs it, no questions asked. And no logs - did I mention that? Yeah it silently overwrites the firmware with whatever it downloaded. Basically, anyone who has control over that IP address can, whenever they want, put new and possibly compromised firmware up on it and every one of these machines will automatically and stealthily find, download, and install it, and you as the user or administrator would never have any indication that had happened.

But that's not even all the backdoor does. Once it has downloaded and installed any new firmware, the device then starts uploading data to the same hard-coded IP address. Firstly any patient identity data that is loaded into the machine, and then it just streams the sensor data, for as long as it's collecting it and staying connected to the network.

So the machine is just a monitor, right - all it does is passively monitor a patient's vitals. Pulse, BP, O2, all that jazz. How much harm could someone possibly do by compromising a machine like that? If the thing starts giving wild readings or otherwise stops working right they'll just disconnect it and use a different one. Well yeah...if they know it's not working right. But a lot of these machines are set up in hospital rooms and connected via network to the nurse's desk, so that the duty nurses will get an alarm if someone's vital signs start looking bad. What happens if you disable that alarm functionality?

 

[Free]

Looks like American exceptionalism really is just a myth.

China's Tech Sector Is Absolutely Crushing America's Right Now

As Western investors balk at the growing cost of US AI development, the Chinese tech sector is soaring, fueled by a robust STEM education.

futurism.com

The Chinese century may be here — at least for the tech industry, that is.

As the "magnificent seven" US tech companies slump amidst a disappointing fourth quarter, China's tech sector is rallying, spurred by the explosive reverberations of Chinese AI company DeepSeek.

On Wednesday, the Heng Seng Index — a Hong Kong aggregate index indicating the overall health of the market, like the NASDAQ or the S&P 500 — hit a four-month high, just short of a three-year high. That hype started when the index entered a bull market last week — a buzzy financial term for when a market enters a sustained period of growth, at least in the short term, and typically to the delight of investors.

Indices in mainland China and Shanghai have likewise grown, supported by optimistic Wall Street strategists who say China's moment in the Sun is just getting started.

"Global investors are starting to reassess China’s investability within the tech and AI space," wrote Morgan Stanley strategist Laura Wang. "We expect the momentum to sustain in the near-term."

 

[Free]

How cute. They should add whiskers to it that quiver when it smells something.

What was that? Oh, you mean it smells. I see...

Asus’ new “Fragrance Mouse” is a wireless mouse that also smells

Does your PC's mouse smell like anything? The answer could soon be "yes."

arstechnica.com

PC- and accessory-maker Asus has never been one to shy away from a strange idea, whether it's a tablet that you need to slide your smartphone into before you can use it, a laptop touchpad that's also a screen, or going with "Rock Solid, Heart Touching" as a corporate slogan. But an announcement the company made today stands out: Asus is launching something called the Asus Fragrance Mouse, a fairly regular-looking wireless mouse that also smells.

Yes, the main differentiating feature of the Fragrance Mouse is a "refillable vial" in its underside, next to the place where you put the battery and store its 2.4 GHz USB wireless receiver when not in use. The vial stores "aromatic oils" that "can be washed and refilled with different scents."

 

[Free]

/me laughs in SQL

Woman Whose Last Name Is "Null" Keeps Running Into Trouble With Computer Systems

To this day, the last name "Null" totally flummoxes computer systems, much to the chagrin of Nulls everywhere,

futurism.com

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

/me laughs in SQL

Woman Whose Last Name Is "Null" Keeps Running Into Trouble With Computer Systems

To this day, the last name "Null" totally flummoxes computer systems, much to the chagrin of Nulls everywhere,

futurism.com

Obligatory XKCD

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

In the age of paper records, this was a common problem for people whose last name was Blank.

 

[Free]

In the age of paper records, this was a common problem for people whose last name was Blank.

Worse if your parents were monsters, and named you Intentionally Left.

 

[Noodles]

Worse if your parents were monsters, and named you Intentionally Left.

Lefty Blank and Devon Null.

 

[Free]

Lefty Blank and Devon Null.

 

[Khamon]

In the age of paper records, this was a common problem for people whose last name was Blank.

Twas more of an issue to those named "None."

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Blank is actually a common-ish last name.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Skype will be shutting down on May 5th, as confirmed by Microsoft.

This isn't really a shock since Microsoft also develops and heavily promotes Teams. Still, although maybe not the best stewards of the app, Microsoft kept Skype going for quite a long time. Longer than I thought they would, even after they started making Teams.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Chinese Tech Youtuber Geekerwan benchmarked the performance of Apple's C1 broadband modem, which first is being used in the new iPhone 16e.

We've got to remember that Apple is not developing from scratch here, but bought the Intel cellular modem division back in 2019 for a bargain of $1bn.. Since then Apple was busy developing their own modem to get rid of Qualcomm here.

About 2 years ago there were rumors that Apple's division so far failed to produce an own modem with competetive advantage, it had bad connection quality, was too slow and used too much energy. In short was behind 3 years of behind Qualcomm's best modem chip of that time. (Apple’s failure to develop its own modem detailed in new report).

Now the tides have changed: C1 has arrived, and while according to Geekerwan it breaks no speed records, it's power consumption is about 25% less than what Qualcomm requires. Which is a lot.

In other words: for first in a long time Qualcomm is feeling here pressure to innovate again.

Apple reportedly is already working in-house on the C2 chip.

If other sources will confirm these results, this will turn to be interesting.

Apple's C1 modem breaks no records for speed, but is exceptionally power efficient

The first real-world tests of Apple's C1 modem in the iPhone 16e say that has comparable performance to previous 5G chips, but achieves that with significantly less battery power.

appleinsider.com

 

[Veritable Quandry]

In the age of paper records, this was a common problem for people whose last name was Blank.

Blank Frank is the messenger of your doom and your destruction.


Then there's Blank Reg...


"Remember when we said there's no future? Well this is it."

 

[Essence Lumin]

This sucks.

 

[Free]

This sucks.

Google Is Hobbling Popular Ad Blocker uBlock Origin on Chrome

Google is migrating Chrome browser extensions to a new specification that limits the functionality of ad blockers.

gizmodo.com

 

[Essence Lumin]

Google Is Hobbling Popular Ad Blocker uBlock Origin on Chrome

Google is migrating Chrome browser extensions to a new specification that limits the functionality of ad blockers.

gizmodo.com

Yes. They have taken a long time to make their transition to v3 and mess up ublock origin. I didn't know when it would happen but now it has. It will shortly be time to explore other options, in particular Brave. I just don't have the energy right now.