AC not funny,

Must be DC.

I don't understand how Canipre intends to be effective against the endpoint downloader. Canada's legal environment is significantly different from that of the US.

Criminal punishment is very limited by the recent legislation and civil judgements are limited to actual concrete losses. If somebody illegally downloads a song worth, say, $1 then the civil loss is $1. The plaintiff is not necessarily likely to get court costs either, especially if the judge feels the $1 could have easily changed hands without resorting to civil court.

At least that is what I have observed.

Perhaps their model is to get lots of funding from big business and impress them by arching their legal 'backs' (see how big I am) and making lots of hissing/spitting noises.

er. . . Typically these are tied to dial up modems or to IP port servers. They are used to access systems when the secure front door is unavailable due to Internet outages, firewall problems or the access gateway being unavailable.

You would not think anyone would be so dumb to set these up but sone may be legacy, or put in place by a local hero sysadmin.

It may even be, get this, a contractually required remote support access point. Many vendors have a very limited concept of what is required to prevent unauthorized access. One vendor sales guy told me that it was secure because no one would know about the dial up number and they had no reported break ins at other installations.

Sigh.

Of course there are ways of providing secure alternative access paths but there are a lot of folk who are under the impression that obscurity is sufficient.

Another issue besides the lack of authentication is the lack of logging and activity reporting. One outfit I did some work for spent a dinghy full of large bills on an IPS for the network side but would not pay for caller ID on their dial-up access point. Against their financial responsibility policy to pay for frivilous monthly charges.

⦠a friend of mine and his wife just passed the Canadian citizenship test. I said 'Congrats! You have just earned the right to bitch about everything along side the rest of us. And what's the deal with the Oilers eh?'

He said that's exactly what his wife said (minus the hockey bit).

Did. And I don't give a hoot for Tesla. Thanks for your opinion AC! 8->

I think you are too kind. The problem is between the ears.

Reading the articles, my take is the car does what it says it does and the reporter decided to get cute and act dumb. 'Disingenuous' is the term that should be applied to the Times and the reporter.

The Times is no stranger to concocted or manipulated stories. eh, anyone who is a reporter or a politician is automatically suspect in my books.

;-)

... The MPAA are not 'parasitic' in a technical sense but you don't take exception to the assertion that they are 'bastards' in a colloquial descriptive sense?

IMHO 'bastards' is term well used in this context.

'Abominable, hideous and abhorrent agents of cold, manipulative and greedy international corporations' would be more accurate and precise than 'parasitic' but a bit wordy. Given that 'bastards' is a figurative description, 'parasitic' isn't so wrong; matches the tone and meaning of the comment.

Besides, 'parasitic' is not so far off: sucking from the stream of income originating from the people they prosecute is somewhat 'parasitic'.

Just sayin' . . .

8=>

My first batch downloader
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Must be a SLOW news day.

I guess I could have just ignored the story. Dang me and my OCD.

er . . . about the same worry as any software from anywhere. Do your self protection rituals and don't install it on anything that contains critical information. Look for oddities (unexpected network connections etc) and check for an online community that may show some pedigree for the software.

Trojan software is a real worry but the fact that it comes from China does not seem to me to alter the worry level. ie: be worried and be careful

A very cursory check of sites that track threats shows China as a source is about on a par with the US. Somewhat worse but still, a lot of malware comes from the good ol US of A. Most sites seem to agree that the USSR er Soviets er Commies er RUSSIA is a major source of crap, standing out from the others.

eh, stats is stats.

The reason Chinese companies (ummm: Huawei) have been labelled a security worry is that the People's Lib Army of the PROC is assumed to be the defacto owner. Worry being that their routers/switches/cell equipment come with back doors pre-installed.

Who knows if this is true or not, but I have often wondered if companies like Cisco, Juniper, Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens etc are working closely with their own governments to provide "special" firmware loads for foreign installations. Maybe domestic as well. But I may be paranoid. ;->

Governments have been caught in the past doing industrial espionage for their own domestic interests. The French apparently bugged first class airline seats for competitive business reasons and the Chinese reported that a Boeing 767 was delivered complete with surveillance bugs.

So: although China doesn't worry more than say the US, it doesn't worry me any less either.