RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Thursday 15 October 2020 Volume 32 : Issue 32

ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks) Peter G. Neumann, founder and still moderator

***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. ***** This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/32.32>
The current issue can also be found at
<http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>

Contents:
Various election shenanigans (PGN)
Court Orders Seizure of Ransomware Botnet Controls as U.S. Election Nears
(Reuters)
Campaigns sidestep Cambridge Analytica crackdown with new methods (AFP)
Severed cable takes out Virginia voter site on registration deadline
(Ars Technica)
A different way the news is dividing America (yahoo!)
Inside the strange new world of being a deepfake actor (MIT Tech Review)

From a small town in North Carolina to big-city hospitals, how software

infuses racism into U.S. health care (Casey Ross)
Split-Second `Phantom' Images Can Fool Tesla's Autopilot (WiReD)
Car design about to change forever? (Fast Company)
Cruise received a permit from the California DMV to remove human backup
drivers from our self-driving cars (Twitter)
This Ferrari got bricked because someone tried to upgrade it underground,
where there's no cell reception. DRM in cars rules. (Twitter)
Fifth of countries at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds
(The Guardian)
The Man Who Speaks Softly -- and Commands a Big Cyber Army (WiReD)
SpaceX Is Building a Military Rocket to Ship Weapons Anywhere in the World
in 1 hour (Business Insider)
Israel cyber watchdog rests on the sabbath (Israel Defense)
Hacking a Coffee Maker (Bruce Schneier's CRYPTO-GRAM)
Apple's T2 security chip has an unfixable flaw (Lily Hay Newman)
Indian Police Accuse Popular TV Station of Ratings Fraud (NYTimes)
Watch out for this green dot on your iPhone -- it means someone is watching
(The Sun)
Fairfax County Schools Employee Data Leaked On Dark Web: Report (Patch)
A prison video visitation service exposed private calls between inmates and
their attorneys (Tech Crunch)
Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including 'Dr Johnny Bananas
(The Guardian)
Updated Eusprig page (Patrick O'Beirne)
'I Feel Like I Have Dementia': Brain Fog Plagues Covid Survivors (NYTimes) International Statement: End-To-End Encryption and Public Safety (DoJ)
Wearable tattoo: Scientists print sensors directly onto skin without heat
(UPI)
Continuous glucose monitoring/insulin dosing systems (NIH via Richard Stein) Onions too sexy for Facebook (BBC)
Interview techniques and the "don't know" answer (Rob Slade)
To my friends and colleagues in the U.S.: Be careful out there. (Rob Slade)
Re: Why cars are more "fragile": more technology has reduced robustness
(Chris Drewe)
Re: Risks of Excel (Anthony Thorn)
Re: Botched Excel import may have caused loss of 15,841 UK COVID-19 cases
(A Michael W Bacon)
Re: Apple marches to a different beat (Henry Baker)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 11:41:57 PDT
From: "Peter G. Neumann" <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: Various election shenanigans

[RISKS readers should not be surprised by these items:]

RUSSIAN BOTNETS:

Microsoft takes down massive hacking operation that could have affected the election (CNN); Federal judge rejects GA challenge

Microsoft seeks to disrupt Russian criminal botnet it fears could seek to
sow confusion in the presidential election

MS won a court order to seize servers used by the Trickbot botnet, a network
of infected computers that Microsoft says might have been used to lock up voter-registration systems.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/12/microsoft-trickbot-ransomware
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/12/tech/microsoft-election-ransomware/index.html

RANSOMWARE:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/12/tech/microsoft-election-ransomware/index.html

Of course this is ridiculous, but ignores all of the warnings about
connecting any critical system to the Internet.

GEORGIA RULING:

Federal judge rejects challenge to touch-screen voting machines in Georgia

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/12/us/trump-vs-biden/as-early-voting-begins-in-georgia-a-judge-rejects-a-challenge-to-touch-screen-voting-machines

A federal judge on Sunday night left in place Georgia's new $108 million touch-screen voting system, rejecting a call by election-integrity
advocates to switch to handwritten paper ballots hours before Georgians
flooded polling sites for the first day of early voting.

At least one local official in Atlanta reported technical glitches, similar
to problems that plagued the machines during primaries earlier this year.

REPUBLICAN-OWNED DROP-BOXES for your ballots:

Private phony drop-boxes that the Republicans are appearing in California
that claim to be "Official Drop Boxes". https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/12/tech/microsoft-election-ransomware/index.html

California Officials Tell State GOP To Stop Distributing Ballot Drop Boxes (NPR) https://www.npr.org/2020/10/12/923119170/california-officials-tell-state-gop-to-stop-distributing-ballot-drop-boxes?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 12:09:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Court Orders Seizure of Ransomware Botnet Controls as U.S. Election
Nears (Reuters)

Joseph Menn and Chris Bing, Reuters, 12 Oct 2020
via ACM TechNews, 14 Oct 2020

Microsoft on Monday said it had seized via federal court order Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that had been directing activity on computers
infected with Trickbot malware. Microsoft warned that Trickbot has infected
a number of public government agencies, which could suffer worse damage if
the operators encrypt files or install programs that interfere with voter registration records or the display and public disclosure of election
results. Microsoft worked with companies including security firm ESET to disassemble Trickbot installations and trace them to their command IP addresses, and invoked copyright law to secure the court order. Said Microsoft's Tom Burt, "Ransomware is one of the largest threats to the
upcoming election." https://orange.hosting.lsoft.com/trk/click?ref=znwrbbrs9_6-277e7x22591cx066339&

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 10:26:46 -1000
From: geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: Campaigns sidestep Cambridge Analytica crackdown with new methods
(AFP)

"Your early vote has not been recorded," one text message said, with a link
for more information.

Other messages tell voters they are not registered, or offer unverified information about a political opponent.

Fraudulent messages like these are drawing attention as political campaigns ramp up data collection and voter targeting using their own technology to circumvent restrictions imposed by social media platforms following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Facebook barred apps which scraped data on users and their contacts after revelations about the now-defunct British consulting group. But in
response, President Donald Trump's campaign and some activist groups are
using their own methods.

"What we are seeing is almost more potent than in 2016," said Samuel
Woolley, a University of Texas professor who leads propaganda research at
the school's Center for Media Engagement

Woolley's team, which examined messages such as the above-referenced ones, found that the Trump mobile app, and to a lesser extent those of Democrat
Joe Biden and other political activist groups, scoop up data to create
profiles to craft personalized, targeted messages by SMS, email or social media. [...] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/campaigns-sidestep-cambridge-analytica-crackdown-with-new-methods/ar-BB19TX2S

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 00:54:07 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Severed cable takes out Virginia voter site on registration deadline
(Ars Technica)

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/severed-cable-takes-out-virginia-voter-site-on-registration-deadline/

Contractor installing a sewer line hit an unmarked cable.

MORE added by PGN:

https://www.wric.com/news/virginia-news/virginias-state-agency-websites-experiencing-outages/

https://www.oag.state.va.us/media-center/news-releases/1852-october-14-2020-judge-approves-attorney-general-herring-s-agreement-to-extend-voter-registration-deadline

https://www.wric.com/news/virginia-news/calls-mount-to-extend-virginias-voter-registration-deadline-as-online-system-goes-down/

The RISKS archives are laden with accidental cable cuts. PGN

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 14:06:24 +0800
From: Richard Stein <rmstein@ieee.org>
Subject: A different way the news is dividing America (yahoo!)

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/a-different-way-the-news-is-dividing-america-113945965.html

The 'information haves' subscribe to be informed: they can afford it, and possess the luxurious volition to ignore or believe the published content.

The 'information have-nots' have no choice. They are routinely
under-informed or misinformed by "pink slime news:" freely accessible robot news sources or scripted news services that promote divisive propaganda designed to mislead and compel conflict.

"Pink slime journalism is at its core about two things; getting clicks for a quick buck, or furthering a political agenda -- often the far-right or
foreign state actors, such as the Russians. In many cases these factors are conflated into a foul, bubbling cauldron of propaganda, salaciousness and lies."

"Think about the people who pay for the New York Times (NYT) (6.5 million digital subscribers), the Wall Street Journal, (2.2 million), the Washington Post, (2 million), the FT (750,000) etc. -- and the people who, well,
don't. 'Redlining news and information is basically saying lower
socioeconomic households won’t have access because they are unwilling or
unable to pay for information and therefore relegated to a poor news diet,' says Victor Pickard, professor at the Annenberg School of Communication at
the University of Pennsylvania and author of 'Democracy without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society' 'It's very dangerous for a
democratic society.'"

Information source redlining reinforces economic dislocation. How can a society's citizens become globally competitive when so many are denied affordable or free access to viable and foundational information sources?
These sources help guide daily and long-term decisions governing their
personal health, economic welfare, or loyalty?

The "pink slime information" publication problem appears intractable to
resolve given short-term economic incentives that promote circulation.
These incentives outweigh priorities that government institutions and
programs established to benefit education, and create a functional
democracy.

That citizens of a democracy cannot afford to access viable and factual information seems unconstitutional, a textbook case of big-tech capitalism
on overdrive (see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/big-tech-out-of-control-capitalism-and-the-end-of-civilization/
retrieved on 11OCT2020 by John Horgan).

Suppose there was an legally enforceable tax on pink slime information publication. The hypothetical "Pink Slime Information Taxation Act"
authorizes government revenue collection from "pink slime publication" platforms. The taxes subsidizes public education: school districts receive grants and vouchers that enable students (and families) to access certified "non-pink slime" information sources.

Does democracy's long-term survival depend on The Pink Slime Information Detector (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it)? It
might be only a few keystrokes away from open source release. The "Daily Planet" headline from 04OCT2027 says it all: "Literature Nobel Prize Winner: Pink Slime Taxes Taught Me To Write."

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 08:43:06 -1000
From: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: Inside the strange new world of being a deepfake actor
(MIT Tech Review)

*There's an art to being a performer whose face will never be seen.*

In 2019, two multimedia artists, Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund, set about to pursue a provocative idea. Deepfake video and audio had been
advancing in parallel but had yet to be integrated into a complete
experience. Could they do it in a way that demonstrated the technology's
full potential while educating people about how it could be abused?

To bring the experiment to life, they chose an equally provocative subject: they would create an *alternative history of the 1969 Apollo moon landing* <https://moondisaster.org/>. Before the launch, US president Richard
Nixon's speechwriters had prepared two versions of his national address -- one designated ``*In Event of Moon Disaster* <https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf>,''
in case things didn't go as planned. The real Nixon, fortunately, never had
to deliver it. But a deepfake Nixon could.

So Panetta, the creative director at MIT's Center for Virtuality, and
Burgund, a fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, partnered up with two AI companies. *Canny AI* <https://www.cannyai.com/> would handle the deepfake video, and *Respeecher* <https://www.respeecher.com/> would prepare the deepfake audio. With all the technical components in place, they just
needed one last thing: an actor who would supply the performance.

``We needed to find somebody who was willing to do this, because it's a
little bit of a weird ask,'' Burgund says. ``Somebody who was more flexible
in their thinking about what an actor is and does.''

While deepfakes have now been around for a number of years, deepfake casting and acting are relatively new. Early deepfake technologies weren't very
good, used primarily in dark corners of the Internet to swap celebrities
into porn videos without their consent. But as deepfakes have grown increasingly realistic, more and more artists and filmmakers have begun
using them in broadcast-quality productions and TV ads. This means hiring
real actors for one aspect of the performance or another. Some jobs require
an actor to provide `base' footage; others need a voice.

For actors, it opens up exciting creative and professional possibilities.
But it also raises a host of ethical questions. ``This is so new that
there's no real process or anything like that,'' Burgund says. ``I mean, we were just sort of making things up and flailing about.'' ``Want to become Nixon?'' [...] https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/09/1009850/ai-deepfake-acting/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 15:27:56 -0600
From: Jim Reisert AD1C <jjreisert@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: From a small town in North Carolina to big-city hospitals, how
software infuses racism into U.S. health care (Casey Ross)

Casey Ross, StatNews, 13 Oct 2020 https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/13/how-software-infuses-racism-into-us-health-care/

A STAT investigation found that a common method of using analytics
software to target medical services to patients who need them most is
infusing racial bias into decision-making about who should receive
stepped-up care. While a study published last year documented bias in the
use of an algorithm in one health system, STAT found the problems arise
from multiple algorithms used in hospitals across the country. The bias is
not intentional, but it reinforces deeply rooted inequities in the
American health care system, effectively walling off low-income Black and
Hispanic patients from services that less sick white patients routinely
receive.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 10:29:09 -1000
From: geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: Split-Second `Phantom' Images Can Fool Tesla's Autopilot (WiReD)

*Researchers found they could stop a Tesla by flashing a few frames of a
stop sign for less than half a second on an Internet-connected billboard.*

SAFETY CONCERNS OVER automated driver-assistance systems like Tesla's
usually focus on what the car can't see, like the white side of a truck that one Tesla confused with a bright sky in 2016, leading to the death of a
driver.
<https://www.wired.com/2016/06/teslas-autopilot-first-deadly-crash/> But one group of researchers has been focused on what autonomous driving systems
might see that a human driver doesn't -- including "phantom" objects and
signs that aren't really there, which could wreak havoc on the road.

Researchers at Israel's Ben Gurion University of the Negev have spent the
last two years experimenting with those "phantom" images to trick semi-autonomous driving systems <https://www.nassiben.com/phantoms>. They previously revealed that they could use split-second light projections on
roads to successfully trick Tesla's driver-assistance systems into automatically stopping without warning when its camera sees spoofed images
of road signs or pedestrians. In new research, they've found they can pull
off the same trick with just a few frames of a road sign injected on a billboard's video. And they warn that if hackers hijacked an
Internet-connected billboard to carry out the trick, it could be used to
cause traffic jams or even road accidents while leaving little evidence
behind.

"The attacker just shines an image of something on the road or injects a
few frames into a digital billboard, and the car will apply the brakes or possibly swerve, and that's dangerous," says Yisroel Mirsky, a researcher
for Ben Gurion University and Georgia Tech who worked on the research,
which will be presented next month at the ACM Computer and Communications Security conference. "The driver won't even notice at all. So somebody's
car will just react, and they won't understand why."

In their first round of research, published earlier this year <https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/01/how-a-300-projector-can-fool-teslas-autopilot/>,
the team projected images of human figures onto a road, as well as road
signs onto trees and other surfaces. They found that at night, when the projections were visible, they could fool both a Tesla Model X running the HW2.5 Autopilot driver-assistance system -- the most recent version available at the time, now the second-most-recent -- and a Mobileye 630 device. They managed to make a Tesla stop for a phantom pedestrian that appeared for a fraction of a second, and tricked the Mobileye device into communicating
the incorrect speed limit to the driver with a projected road sign.

In this latest set of experiments, the researchers injected frames of a
phantom stop sign on digital billboards, simulating what they describe as a scenario in which someone hacked into a roadside billboard to alter its
video. They also upgraded to Tesla's most recent version of Autopilot known
as HW3. They found that they could again trick a Tesla or cause the same Mobileye device to give the driver mistaken alerts with just a few frames
of altered video. [...] https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-model-x-autopilot-phantom-images/

[Richard Stein noted
Advanced driver-assistance systems found to be susceptible to
split-second flash phantoms (Techxplore.com) https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-advanced-driver-assistance-susceptible-split-second-phantoms.html

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2020 13:05:02 -1000
From: geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: Car design about to change forever? (Fast Company)

Electric vehicles are incredible. Beyond eliminating fossil fuels, they are whisper quiet, accelerate faster than gasoline cars, and according to *a new Consumer Reports study* <https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/owning-an-electric-car-really-does-save-money-consumer-reports-finds/>,
operate with less expensive maintenance over time. But one of the biggest benefits of EVs that they are *revolutionizing* <https://www.fastcompany.com/90534847/why-the-car-of-the-future-is-more-like-a-lego-set-than-a-bond-ride>
the way cars are built.

How? As this new video from Israeli startup Ree demonstrates, the EV of tomorrow is basically just a giant skateboard. With tiny motors placed
inside the wheels, the car can assume any form imaginable; any sort of
seating or storage arrangement can be built right on top of this flat base.

Traditional gas cars were built atop a flat chassis, too. But that chassis
was hardly so self contained. Components like your engine and steering
system are on top. Then the motor propels a complex series of axles under
the car. Of course you have brakes, suspension, cooling systems, gas lines,
and other systems to snake around, too. It all adds up to *30,000 parts* <https://www.toyota.co.jp/en/kids/faq/d/01/04/#:~:text=A%20single%20car%20has%20about,materials%20and%20different%20manufacturing%20processes.>
which
are screwed, pressed, glued, and welded together. Today, most modern manufacturing uses robots to frame out the entire car first like a
house -- from chassis to body -- meaning your car's floorpan is permanent from its earliest moments on the assembly line.

Ree was one of our Most Innovative Companies of 2020, and it's one of
several manufacturers working on an alternative platform. Peers include automotive mainstays like *VW* <https://www.ft.com/content/a2b8cf3a-1e14-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65>, newer startups like *Rivian* <https://www.fastcompany.com/90406937/amazon-plans-to-have-100000-electric-delivery-vans-on-the-road-by-2030>,
and even *Tesla* <https://cleantechnica.com/2020/06/19/history-of-electric-cars-using-skateboard-platforms/>.
But Ree's new video, seen here, is the first time I've witnessed the odd spectacle of these flat chassis whipping around a track with no other
filigree attached. [...]

https://www.fastcompany.com/90562654/car-design-is-about-to-change-forever-this-video-encapsulates-how

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2020 08:48:36 -1000
From: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: Cruise received a permit from the California DMV to remove human
backup drivers from our self-driving cars (Twitter)

https://twitter.com/Cruise/status/1316786478291320834

[Gives new meaning to Cruise control, or the lack thereof? PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 16:22:04 -1000
From: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: This Ferrari got bricked because someone tried to upgrade it
underground, where there's no cell reception. DRM in cars rules. (Twitter)

https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/1315736960082808832
which leads to https://old.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j914fh/dude_comes_straight_from_the_dealership_for_a/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, Oct 12, 2020 at 1:49 AM
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>
Subject: Fifth of countries at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds
()

Trillions of dollars of GDP depend on biodiversity, according to Swiss
report

One-fifth of the world's countries are at risk of their ecosystems
collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats,
according to an analysis by the insurance firm Swiss Re.

Natural services such as food, clean water and air, and flood protection
have already been damaged by human activity.

More than half of global GDP -- $42tn - depends on high-functioning biodiversity, according to the report, but the risk of tipping points is growing.

Countries including Australia, Israel and South Africa rank near the top of Swiss Re's index of risk to biodiversity and ecosystem services, with
India, Spain and Belgium also highlighted. Countries with fragile
ecosystems and large farming sectors, such as Pakistan and Nigeria, are
also flagged up.

Countries including Brazil and Indonesia had large areas of intact
ecosystems but had a strong economic dependence on natural resources, which showed the importance of protecting their wild places, Swiss Re said.

``CA staggering fifth of countries globally are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing due to a decline in biodiversity and related beneficial
services,'' said Swiss Re, one of the world's biggest reinsurers and a
linchpin of the global insurance industry.

``If the ecosystem service decline goes on [in countries at risk], you would see then scarcities unfolding even more strongly, up to tipping points,''
said Oliver Schelske, lead author of the research.

Jeffrey Bohn, Swiss Re's chief research officer, said: ``This is the first index to our knowledge that pulls together indicators of biodiversity and ecosystems to cross-compare around the world, and then specifically link
back to the economies of those locations.''

The index was designed to help insurers assess ecosystem risks when setting premiums for businesses but Bohn said it could have a wider use as it
``allows businesses and governments to factor biodiversity and ecosystems
into their economic decision-making.''

The UN revealed in September that the world's governments failed to meet a single target to stem biodiversity losses in the last decade, while leading scientists warned in 2019 that humans were in jeopardy from the
accelerating decline of the Earth's natural life-support systems. More than
60 national leaders recently pledged to end the destruction.

The Swiss Re index is built on 10 key ecosystem services identified by the world's scientists and uses scientific data to map the state of these
services at a resolution of one square kilometre across the world's land.
The services include provision of clean water and air, food, timber, pollination, fertile soil, erosion control, and coastal protection, as well
as a measure of habitat intactness.

Those countries with more than 30% of their area found to have fragile ecosystems were deemed to be at risk of those ecosystems collapsing. Just
one in seven countries had intact ecosystems covering more than 30% of
their country area.

Among the G20 leading economies, South Africa and Australia were seen as
being most at risk, with China 7th, the US 9th and the UK 16th.

Alexander Pfaff, a professor of public policy, economics and environment at Duke University in the US, said: ``Societies, from local to global, can do
much better when we not only acknowledge the importance of contributions
from nature -- as this index is doing -- but also take that into account in
our actions, private and public.'' [...] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/12/fifth-of-nations-at-risk-of-ecosystem-collapse-analysis-finds

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 00:57:46 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: The Man Who Speaks Softly -- and Commands a Big Cyber Army (WiReD)

Meet General Paul Nakasone. He reined in chaos at the NSA and taught the US military how to launch pervasive cyberattacks. And he did it all without you noticing.

https://www.wired.com/story/general-paul-nakasone-cyber-command-nsa/

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2020 12:47:57 -1000
From: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: SpaceX Is Building a Military Rocket to Ship Weapons Anywhere in
the World in 1 hour (Business Insider)

Fresh Delivery

SpaceX and the Pentagon just signed a contract to jointly develop a new
rocket that can launch into space and deliver up to 80 tons of cargo and weaponry anywhere in the world -- in just one hour.

Tests on the rocket are expected to begin as early as next year, *Business Insider <https://www.businessinsider.com/musks-spacex-partners-us-military-to-deliver-weapons-by-rockets-2020-10>reports
<https://www.businessinsider.com/musks-spacex-partners-us-military-to-deliver-weapons-by-rockets-2020-10>*.
It's expected to shuttle weapons around the world 15 times faster than
existing aircraft, like the US C-17 Globemaster.

``Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe
in less than an hour,'' General Stephen Lyons, head of US Transportation Command said at a Wednesday conference <https://www.ndtahq.com/events/fall-meeting/>. Military Contractor

The new contract is further evidence that SpaceX is leaning hard into
military partnerships. Earlier this week, the private space company won a contract with the military's Space Development Agency to *manufacture four missile-tracking satellites*. <https://futurism.com/the-byte/pentagon-commissioned-spacex-build-missile-tracking-satellites>

Prior to that, the *Army approached SpaceX* <https://futurism.com/the-byte/us-military-access-spacex-satellite-constellation>
about turning its constellation of Starlink broadband satellites into a new military navigation network, and Space Force officials let slip earlier this year that they were *already working closely* <https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-force-elon-musk> with SpaceX after awarding the company a contract *in August*, *BI* reports. History Rhymes <https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-wins-space-force-rocket-launch-nssl-agreement-40-percent-2020-8>

The new weapon delivery system resembles a militarized version of something that SpaceX CEO proposed *back in 2017* <https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/28/spacex-plans-to-use-spaceships-for-earth-passenger-transit/>,
when he talked about passenger space travel.

Back then, Musk proposed launching passengers into space and then quickly landing them back down closer to their destination. The new plan is highly similar, just with weapons rather than people.

READ MORE: The US military and Elon Musk are planning a 7,500 mph rocket
that can deliver weapons anywhere in the world in an hour <https://www.businessinsider.com/musks-spacex-partners-us-military-to-deliver-weapons-by-rockets-2020-10>
[*Business Insider*]

More on SpaceX: *The US Military Wants Access to SpaceX's Satellite Constellation <https://futurism.com/the-byte/us-military-access-spacex-satellite-constellation>*

https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-building-military-rocket-to-ship-weapons-anywhere-world

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 19:57:27 +0300
From: Mike Rechtman <mike@rechtman.com>
Subject: Israel cyber watchdog rests on the sabbath (Israel Defense)

https://www.israeldefense.co.il/he/node/45782">https://www.israeldefense.co.il/he/node/45782
(In Hebrew; does not appear in the English-language version)

The Israel Lands Administration (a governmental department) has setup a
cyber war-room

SOC/SIEM for cyber support in cases of problems or the need to escalate
issues to suppliers (rough translation) The centre will supply support 24
hours Sunday to Thursday, half-day on Friday, and none on Saturday.

Do not waste your time attacking the Lands Adminstration sites on weekdays.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2020 07:43:26 +0000
From: Bruce Schneier <schneier@schneier.com>
Subject: Hacking a Coffee Maker (CRYPTO-GRAM)

[Excerpted from Bruce's CRYPTO-GRAM, 15 Oct 2020 by PGN[

[2020.09.29] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/09/hacking-a-coffee-maker.html]
As expected, IoT devices are filled with vulnerabilities [https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/09/how-a-hacker-turned-a-250-coffee-maker-into-ransom-machine/]:

As a thought experiment, Martin Hron, a researcher at security company Avast reverse-engineered one of the older coffee makers to see what kinds of hacks
he could do with it. After just a week of effort, the unqualified answer
was: quite a lot. Specifically, he could trigger the coffee maker to turn on the burner, dispense water, spin the bean grinder, and display a ransom message, all while beeping repeatedly. Oh, and by the way, the only way to
stop the chaos was to unplug the power cord. [...]


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