Monthly Archives: April 2019

Article note: Hiding behind Hanlon's razor (let's go with the modified "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice"): We _genuinely can't tell_ if internet connected garbage is insecure because it's garbage, or because it's backdoored.

Enlarge / PORTUGAL - 2019/03/04: 5G logo is seen on an android mobile phone with Huawei logo on the background. (credit: Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Vodafone, the largest mobile network operator in Europe, found backdoors in Huawei equipment between 2009 and 2011, reports Bloomberg. With these backdoors, Huawei could have gained unauthorized access to Vodafone's "fixed-line network in Italy." But Vodafone disagrees, saying that while it did discover some security vulnerabilities in Huawei equipment, these were fixed by Huawei and in any case were not remotely accessible, and hence they could not be used by Huawei.

Bloomberg's claims are based on Vodafone's internal security documentation and "people involved in the situation." Several different "backdoors" are described: unsecured telnet access to home routers, along with "backdoors" in optical service nodes (which connect last-mile distribution networks to optical backbone networks) and "broadband network gateways" (BNG) (which sit between broadband users and the backbone network, providing access control, authentication, and similar services).

In response to Bloomberg, Vodafone said that the router vulnerabilities were found and fixed in 2011 and the BNG flaws were found and fixed in 2012. While it has documentation about some optical service node vulnerabilities, Vodafone continued, it has no information about when they were fixed. Further, the network operator said that it has no evidence of issues outside Italy.

Article note: "UK to spend 1.5 million of students' tuition dollars to lock our freshmen into Apple's roach-motel ecosystem." It could be worse on the privacy invasion front but ...really? iPads? At least the press release says they're including "an Apple Smart Keyboard and an Apple Pencil" so it isn't _purely_ a consumption device, even if it isn't quite a full function computer.

Article note: Exciting. I've never found anything that even comes close for some classes of educational material making tasks, so it's wonderful to see some resources and energy going in to Fritzing again.

Article note: Bullshit plumbing built out of shaky, haphazardly composed layers of bullshit to vaguely ape existing designs, by the webtard community who only know how to work that way. I'm ready for Singularity to fuck up the rest of the Linux container space.

Article note: Intel's fab situation the last few years has been fascinating.

Intel Skylake die shot, built using the 14nm process. (credit: Intel)

In its earnings conference call, Intel has warned that chip shortages are set to continue into the third quarter of the year, However, the company has also said that its 10nm manufacturing process is improving faster than anticipated and that it will be able to sell more 10nm chips this year than previously predicted.

Intel's troubled migration to its 10nm manufacturing process has had many consequences in the wider computing industry. Gartner and IDC both say that some of the shrinkage of the PC market is due to a lack of processors, and companies such as Microsoft have stated that their financial performance would have been better were it not for the shortages. Intel was expected to be building a wide range of mainstream processors on its 10nm at this point, reducing the pressure on its 14nm facilities. The delay to 10nm has prevented this.

So great is the demand for 14nm manufacturing capacity that in some areas the company has even had to go backwards. Most 300-series chipsets, introduced with Coffee Lake processors, are built on 14nm. In December last year, Intel released a new chipset, B365, aimed at mainstream consumer and corporate desktops. This chipset is built on the previous generation 22nm process to free up 14nm capacity. It's also believed that the company has issued a 22nm version of the H310 chipset, called H310C. These moves both enable the company to use its limited 14nm manufacturing capacity for chips with a higher margin than these chipsets. The company has also invested $1.5 billion on machinery to increase its 14nm output.

Article note: Isn't this an old - like late 80s old - idea?

Article note: Unfortunately I read this as "Bullshit is both rewarded and learned." Professionally, there only seems to be impostor syndrome or bullshitting, and the latter is far more individually rewarded.

Article note: Microsoft has been teasing and failing to deliver mid-90s BeOS feature since the early 2000s.

Article note: Hey look, a serious book on a drum I've been beating for years.

Article note: We "accidentally" vacuumed up and analyzed millions of people's data using the access we demanded. The only question is "Is Facebook criminally incompetent, or simply criminal." Neither is a good look.