azdle @ azdle @news.idlestate.org

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122

Joined

2 yr. ago

That is not a repost, this is an other article from ProPublica

Ah, I just assume that was a slightly different title for the same article. Maybe a mod made the same assumption.

Are you joking with me? They are using a paraphrased title.

Well, the first part is. But, I don't know what "munching" means. The second part of the Ars title actually says what it's about. Don't get me wrong, I can probably make a guess. But when you're scrolling social media, I don't think anyone is stopping to think about what a title really means. If it's not obvious at first glace most people are just scrolling by. The Ars title, at least to me, skims as "AI bad" since those are the words anchoring each end of the title, that's probably enough all by itself to get some people to upvote.

I am really curious, what sort of evidence you want/expect to see?

Literally anything vaguely conclusive. I'm not saying you should go find more evidence for me or anything. I'm just trying to explain why I don't find your evidence here convincing.

I suspect that Reddit has more than enough money to be competently shitty. So, if they are doing what you suggest, unless they fuck up or decide they don't care, you might not be able to find solid evidence.

I don't think that shows what you say it does.

First, deleting a repost is clearly not evidence of any kind of bias.

Second, maybe Ars is just more popular/trusted? Maybe it's more upvoted because the Ars title is more meaningful, it's super well known that people mostly only read the title.

I'm not saying reddit isn't manipulating things, I'd be shocked if they weren't. But this isn't really evidence that they are.

!degoogle@lemmy.ml

Despite the name, in practice it seems to be all about getting away from all big-tech.

I agree that would make sense. I think it'll come with time.

To others, I'm pretty sure what OP is suggesting is just a generic activity pub server that all the various front ends could use.

I'm pretty sure this is what the original (?) authors of the AP spec intended and that's why they specified a client-server protocol. My understanding is that (almost?) no one uses that API though, they all just specify their own.

Fry and the Slurm Factory

It's not even over USB by default. It's an internal binary driver API. The USB part is a custom firmware for the ESP that exposes that api via USB that the people giving the talk wrote because it's useful for pentesting / development of exploits for other Bluetooth devices.

I know this website seems sketchy/scammy AF, but I found that these actually do a good job dimming the LEDs to reasonable levels, but keeping them visible.

https://www.lightdims.com/store.htm

I imagine (mostly because of all the "patent pending" bs) that this is a film you just just buy from somewhere else way cheaper, I just don't know what it is.

Idea Not Found

Tried creationg an account and still don't see it.

Maybe we can find out for sure through the magic of the fediverse...

@antoniovazquezblanco@mastodon.social Is the "backdoor" mentioned in https://www.tarlogic.com/news/backdoor-esp32-chip-infect-ot-devices/ about what you shared in your RootedCON talk? If so, how worried should people using devices containing ESP32s be?

I don't think is is a backdoor. At the moment I wouldn't consider this article any more than FUD.

It's unclear to me if the security company has actually said what the vuln is or not, but if it's what was presented in the slides linked in the article this is at worst something that can be "attacked" from a computer connected via USB (and I'm pretty sure it would also require special software already on the ESP32), where the attack is sending out possibly invalid bluetooth messages to try to attack other devices or flashing new firmware to the ESP itself. It's not a general "backdoor" in the ESP32 itself. At least that's the best interpretation I've been able to make. Happy to be corrected if anyone finds more info.

I mean, if it were a backdoor, the one thing you can be sure of is that the people who put it there wouldn't be calling it a backdoor, ever.

Though, I think it's worth pointing out that the while the security company's blog calls whatever it is a "backdoor", "backdoor" (nor "puerta" (though, I have no idea if that would be translated literally or to something else)) doesn't appear in the the slides. So I'm going to lay that one at the marketing people trying to drum it up into something more impressive than it really is.

Huh, that is interesting. Though, that post doesn't seem to have any info about what the backdoor is either.

Tarlogic Security has detected a backdoor in the ESP32, a microcontroller that enables WiFi and Bluetooth connection and is present in millions of mass-market IoT devices. [...] This discovery is part of the ongoing research carried out by the Innovation Department of Tarlogic on the Bluetooth standard. Thus, the company has also presented at RootedCON, the world’s largest Spanish-language cybersecurity conference, BluetoothUSB, a free tool that enables the development of tests for Bluetooth security audits regardless of the operating system of the devices. [Emphasis mine.]

Maybe the presentation has nothing to do with the actual backdoor?

Though, this part later might seem to imply they are related:

In the course of the investigation, a backdoor was discovered in the ESP32 chip, [...] Tarlogic has detected that ESP32 chips [...] have hidden commands not documented by the manufacturer. These commands would allow modifying the chips arbitrarily to unlock additional functionalities, [...].

Which, best I can work out, seems to be talking about the information on slide titled "COMANDOS OCULTOS" (page 39 / "41").

If the "backdoor" is the couple of commands in red on that slide, I maintain what I said above. If it's not talking about that and there's another "backdoor" that they haven't described yet, well, then ¯(ツ)_/¯ we'll see what it is when they actually announce it.

I fully acknowledge there may be something I'm missing. If there's a real vuln/backdoor here, I'm sure we'll hear more about it.

What is this article on about?

Here's the actual presentation: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25554812-2025-rootedcon-bluetoothtools/

I don't speak Spanish and only have the slides to go off of, but this doesn't sound like a "backdoor". This sounds like they found the commands for regulatory testing. To do emissions testing you need to be able to make the device transmit on command so that your testing house can verify you're within legal limits on everything.

These are commands that can be given over USB. You know what else you can do over USB? Fucking anything, these chips have a JTAG USB device. (Now, if these are commands that can't be turned off, that would be kinda bad, I guess? But still not really a super big problem. And I don't see anything that implies that in the slides.)

[Edit: It's not even that this is a "backdoor" in an internal peripheral interface. I think the "backdoor" is if you have software that exposes that interface somehow? Like you're running an example that blindly copies stuff from an external UART to this interface? Like I think that's it?]

The tone I get from the slides is more "hey we found this cool tool for doing Bluetooth stuff that doesn't require writing embedded software". Which, cool. But that's sure not the point this article is trying to make.

Mine for a while has been playing Fall Guys. It's a game that's somewhat challenging to do well at, but there's no stakes, and it's a brightly colored game that's good ad giving you a quick "dopamine" hit without sucking you in. It also lets me look at lemmy a bit between rounds, but makes sure I don't get stuck here, forcing me to put it down when the next round starts.

3. FOR PURPOSES OF THIS SECTION, "THREE-DIMENSIONAL PRINTER" MEANS A COMPUTER OR COMPUTER-DRIVEN MACHINE OR DEVICE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A THREE-DIMENSIONAL OBJECT FROM A DIGITAL MODEL

Well, that's a broad definition. I guess to whomever wrote that, a CNC mill is also a 3d printer.

It doesn't sync to homeassistant, but I use a Xiaomi scale with openScale off of F-Droid. There's a few different scales supported: https://github.com/oliexdev/openScale/wiki/Supported-scales-in-openScale

Nothing near that impressive. I don't make the fancy sand, I just move electrons around with fancy sand that someone else made, aka programming.

Nah, there's no real meaning to my username. It's just some random letters that are vaguely pronounceable.

Yeah, this one. I just meant programming.

I organize electrons in ways that make fancy sand organize more electrons.