DOUG. Cryptology, cops hacking again, Apple updates and… card counting!
All that, and extra, on the Bare Safety podcast.
[MUSICAL MODEM]
Welcome to the podcast, everyone.
I’m Doug Aamoth; he’s Paul Ducklin.
Paul, how do you do as we speak?
DUCK. I’m very properly, thanks, Douglas.
And I’m very excitedly wanting ahead to the card-counting bit, not least as a result of it’s not nearly counting, it’s additionally about card shuffling.
DOUG. All proper, superb, wanting ahead to that!
And in our Tech Historical past phase, we’ll talk about one thing that was not random – it was very calculated.
This week, on 25 October 2001, Home windows XP was launched to retail.
It was constructed upon the Home windows NT working system, and XP changed each Home windows 2000 and Home windows Millennium Version as “XP Skilled Version” and “XP Residence Version” respectively.
XP Residence was the primary client model of Home windows to not be based mostly on MS-DOS or the Home windows 95 kernel.
And, on a private observe, I beloved it.
I could be remembering easier occasions… I don’t know if it was really pretty much as good as I bear in mind it, however I bear in mind it being higher than what we had earlier than.
DUCK. I agree with that.
I believe there are some rose-tinted spectacles you could be carrying there, Doug…
DOUG. Umm-hmmm.
DUCK. …however I must agree that it was an enchancment.
DOUG. Allow us to speak a bit about comeuppance, particularly, comeuppance for undesirable facial recognition in France:
Clearview AI image-scraping face recognition service hit with €20m high-quality in France
DUCK. Certainly!
Common listeners will know that we have now spoken about an organization known as Clearview AI many occasions, as a result of I believe it’s truthful to say that this firm is controversial.
The French regulator very helpfully publishes its rulings, or has printed a minimum of its Clearview rulings, in each French and in English.
So, mainly, right here’s how they describe it:
Clearview AI collects pictures from many web sites, together with social media. It collects all of the pictures which are immediately accessible on these networks. Thus, the corporate has collected over 20 billion photographs worldwide.
Due to this assortment, the corporate markets entry to its picture database within the type of a search engine during which an individual might be discovered utilizing {a photograph}. The corporate gives this service to legislation enforcement authorities.
And the French regulator’s objection, which was echoed final yr by a minimum of the UK and the Australian regulator as properly, is: “We think about this illegal in our nation. You’ll be able to’t go scraping folks’s photographs for this business goal with out their consent. And also you’re additionally not complying with GDPR guidelines, information destruction guidelines, making it straightforward for them to contact you and say, ‘I need to choose out’.”
So, firstly, it ought to be choose in if you wish to run this.
And having collected the stuff, you shouldn’t be hanging on to it even after they need to be sure that their information is eliminated.
And the difficulty in France, Doug, is that final December the regulator mentioned, “Sorry, you possibly can’t do that. Cease scraping information, and eliminate what you’ve bought on everyone in France. Thanks very a lot.”
Apparently, in accordance with the regulator, Clearview AI simply didn’t appear to need to comply.
DOUG. Uh-oh!
DUCK. So now the French have come again and mentioned, “You don’t appear to need to hear. You don’t appear to know that that is the legislation. Now, the identical factor applies, however you additionally should pay €20 million. Thanks for coming.”
DOUG. We’ve bought some feedback brewing on the article… we’d love to listen to what you suppose; you possibly can remark anonymously.
Particularly, the questions we put forth are: “Is Clearview AI actually offering a useful and socially acceptable service to legislation enforcement? Or is it casually trampling on our privateness by accumulating biometric information unlawfully and commercialising it for investigative monitoring functions with out consent?”
All proper, allow us to keep on with this theme of comeuppance, and discuss a little bit of comeuppance for the DEADBOLT criminals.
That is an attention-grabbing story, involving legislation enforcement and hacking again!
When cops hack again: Dutch police fleece DEADBOLT criminals (legally!)
DUCK. Hats off to the cops for doing this, though, as we’ll clarify, it was sort-of a one-off factor.
Common listeners will bear in mind DEADBOLT – it’s come up a few occasions earlier than.
DEADBOLT is the ransomware gang who mainly discover your Community Connected Storage [NAS] server when you’re a house consumer or small enterprise…
…and if it isn’t patched in opposition to a vulnerability they know the way to exploit, they’ll are available, and so they simply scramble your NAS field.
They figured that’s the place all of your backups are, that’s the place all of your massive recordsdata are, that’s the place all of your vital stuff is.
“Let’s not fear about having to write down malware for Home windows and malware for Mac, and worrying what model you’ve bought. We’ll simply go straight in, scramble your recordsdata, after which say, ‘Pay us $600’.”
That’s the present going price: 0.03 bitcoins, when you don’t thoughts.
So that they’re taking that consumer-oriented method of attempting to hit a number of folks and asking for a considerably inexpensive quantity every time.
And I suppose if every thing you’ve bought is backed up on there, then you definitely would possibly really feel, “ what? $600 is some huge cash, however I can nearly afford it. I’ll pay up.”
To simplify issues (and we’ve grudgingly mentioned, this can be a intelligent half, when you like, of this explicit ransomware)… mainly, what you do is you inform the crooks you’re interested in sending them a message through the Bitcoin blockchain.
Mainly, you pay them the cash to a specified, unique-to-you Bitcoin tackle.
After they get the cost message, they ship again a cost of $0 that features a remark that’s the decryption key.
In order that’s the *solely* interplay they want with you.
They don’t want to make use of electronic mail, and so they don’t should run any darkish internet servers.
Nevertheless, the Dutch cops figured the crooks had made a protocol-related blunder!
As quickly as your transaction hit the Bitcoin ecosystem, in search of somebody to mine it, their script would ship the decryption key.
And it seems that though you can not double-spend bitcoins (in any other case the system would disintegrate), you possibly can put in two transactions on the similar time, one with a excessive transaction charge and one with a really low or a zero transaction charge.
And guess which one the bitcoin miners and finally the bitcoin blockchain will settle for?
And that’s what the cops did…
DOUG. [LAUGHS] Very intelligent, I prefer it!
DUCK. They’d stick in a cost with a zero transaction charge, which may take days to get processed.
After which, as quickly as they bought the decryption key again from the crooks (they’d, I believe, 155 customers that they type of clubbed collectively)… as quickly as they bought the decryption key again, they did a double-spend transaction.
“I need to spend the identical Bitcoin once more, however this time we’re going to pay it again to ourselves. And now we’ll supply a wise transaction charge.”
In order that transaction was the one which finally really bought confirmed and locked into the blockchain…
…and the opposite one simply bought ignored and thrown away… [LAUGHS] as all the time, shouldn’t snigger!
DOUG. [LAUGHS]
DUCK. So, mainly, the crooks paid out too quickly.
And I suppose it’s not *treachery* when you’re legislation enforcement, and also you’re doing it in a legally warranted method… it’s mainly a *lure*.
And the crooks walked into it.
As I discussed firstly, this could solely work as soon as as a result of, after all, the crooks figured, “Oh, expensive, we shouldn’t do it that method. Let’s change the protocol. Let’s await the transaction to be confirmed onto the blockchain first, after which as soon as we all know that no one can come together with a transaction that can trump it later, solely then will we ship out the decryption key.”
DUCK. However the crooks did get flat-footed to the tune of 155 decryption keys from victims in 13 totally different nations who known as on the Dutch police for assist.
So, chapeau [French cycling slang for a “hat doff”], as they are saying!
DOUG. That’s nice… that’s two constructive tales in a row.
And let’s hold the constructive vibes rolling with this subsequent story.
It’s about ladies in cryptology.
They’ve been honoured by the US Postal Service, which is celebrating World Struggle 2 code breakers.
Inform us all about this – this can be a very attention-grabbing story, Paul:
DUCK. Sure, it was a kind of good issues to write down about on Bare Safety: Girls in cryptology – United States Postal Service celebrates World Struggle 2 codebreakers.
Now, we’ve lined Bletchley Park code breaking, which is the UK’s cryptographic efforts in the course of the Second World Struggle, primarily to attempt to crack Nazi ciphers corresponding to the well-known Enigma machine.
Nevertheless, as you possibly can think about, the US confronted an enormous downside from the Pacific theatre of struggle, attempting to cope with Japanese ciphers, and particularly, one cipher generally known as PURPLE.
Not like the Nazi’s Enigma, this was not a business machine that could possibly be purchased.
It was really a homegrown machine that got here out of the army, based mostly on phone switching relays, which, if you consider it, are type of like “base ten” switches.
So, in the identical method that Bletchley Park within the UK secretly employed greater than 10,000 folks… I didn’t realise this, nevertheless it turned out that there have been properly over 10,000 ladies recruited into cryptology, into cryptographic cracking, within the US to attempt to cope with Japanese ciphers in the course of the struggle.
By all accounts, they have been extraordinarily profitable.
There was a cryptographic breakthrough made within the early Nineteen Forties by one of many US cryptologists known as Genevieve Grotjan, and apparently this led to spectacular successes in studying Japanese secrets and techniques.
And I’ll simply quote from the US Postal Service, from their stamp collection:
They deciphered Japanese fleet communications, helped stop German U-boats from sinking very important cargo ships, and labored to interrupt the encryption techniques that exposed Japanese delivery routes and diplomatic messages.
You’ll be able to think about that provides you very, very, usable intelligence certainly… that you need to assume helped to shorten the struggle.
Luckily, though the Japanese had been warned (apparently by the Nazis) that their cipher was both breakable or had already been damaged, they refused to consider it, and so they carried on utilizing PURPLE all through the struggle.
And the ladies cryptologists of the time positively made hay secretly whereas the solar shone.
Sadly, simply as occurred within the UK with all of the wartime heroes (once more, most of them ladies) at Bletchley Park…
…after the struggle, they have been sworn to secrecy.
So it was many many years till they bought any recognition in any respect, not to mention what you would possibly name the hero’s welcome that they basically deserved when peace broke out in 1945.
DOUG. Wow, that may be a cool story.
And unlucky that it took that lengthy to get the popularity, however nice that they lastly bought it.
And I urge anybody who’s listening to this to move over to the location to learn that.
It’s known as: Girls in cryptology – USPS celebrates World Struggle 2 codebreakers.
Excellent piece!
DUCK. By the best way, Doug, on the stamp collection that you could purchase (the commemorative collection, the place you get the stamps on a full sheet)… across the stamps, the USPS has really put somewhat cryptographic puzzle, which we’ve repeated within the article.
It’s not as tough as Enigma or PURPLE, so you possibly can really do it pretty simply with pen and paper, nevertheless it’s a great little bit of commemorative enjoyable.
So come on over and have a strive when you like.
We’ve additionally put a hyperlink to an article that we wrote a few years in the past (What 2000 years of cryptography can train us) during which you’ll find hints that can allow you to resolve the USPS cryptographic puzzle.
Good little bit of enjoyable to go together with your commemoration!
DOUG. All proper, so let’s persist with randomness and cryptography somewhat bit, and ask a query that perhaps some have questioned earlier than.
How random are these automated card shufflers you would possibly see at a on line casino?
Critical Safety: How randomly (or not) are you able to shuffle playing cards?
DUCK. Sure, one other fascinating story that I picked up because of cryptography guru Bruce Schneier, who wrote about it on his personal weblog, and he entitled his article On the randomness of automated card shufflers.
The paper we’re speaking about goes again, I believe, to 2013, and the work that was accomplished, I believe, goes again to the early 2000s.
However what fascinated me in regards to the story, and made me need to share it, is that it has unbelievable teachable moments for people who find themselves at the moment concerned in programming, whether or not or not within the area of cryptography.
And, much more importantly, in testing and high quality assurance.
As a result of, not like the Japanese, who refused to consider that their PURPLE cipher may not be working correctly, this can be a story about an organization that made automated card shuffling machines however figured, “Are they actually adequate?”
Or may somebody really work out how they work, and get a bonus from the truth that they aren’t random sufficient?
And they also went out of their strategy to rent a trio of mathematicians from California, considered one of whom can also be an achieved magician…
…and so they mentioned, “We constructed this machine. We predict it’s random sufficient, with one shuffle of the playing cards.”
Their very own engineers had gone out of their strategy to devise exams that they thought would present whether or not the machine was random sufficient for card shuffling functions, however they wished a second opinion, and they also really went out and bought one.
And these mathematicians checked out how the machine labored, and have been in a position to come up, consider it or not, with what’s generally known as a closed method.
They analysed it fully: how the factor would behave, and subsequently what statistical inferences they may make about how the playing cards would come out.
They found that though the shuffled playing cards would cross a big battery of excellent randomness exams, there have been nonetheless sufficiently many unbroken sequences within the playing cards after they’d been shuffled that allowed them to foretell the following card twice in addition to likelihood.
They usually have been in a position to present the reasoning by which they have been in a position to provide you with their psychological algorithm for guessing the following card twice in addition to they need to…
…so not solely did they do it reliably and repeatably, they really had the arithmetic to point out formulaically why that was the case.
And the story is maybe most well-known for the earthy however completely acceptable response from the president of the corporate that employed them.
He’s presupposed to have mentioned:
We’re not happy together with your conclusions, however we consider them, and that’s what we employed you for.
In different phrases, he’s saying, “I didn’t pay to be made comfortable. I paid to seek out out the info and to behave upon them.”
If solely extra folks did that when it got here to devising exams for his or her software program!
As a result of it’s straightforward to create a set of exams that your product will cross and the place if it fails, you recognize one thing has positively gone fallacious.
Nevertheless it’s surprisingly tough to provide you with a set of exams that it’s *price your product passing*.
And that’s what this firm did, by hiring within the mathematicians to look into how the cardboard shuffling machine labored.
Numerous life classes in there, Doug!
DOUG. It’s a enjoyable story and really attention-grabbing.
Now, each week we typically discuss some type of Apple replace, however not this week.
No, no!
This week we’ve bought for you… an Apple *megaupdate*:
Apple megaupdate: Ventura out, iOS and iPad kernel zero-day – act now!
DUCK. Sadly, when you’ve got an iPhone or an iPad, the replace covers a zero-day at the moment being actively exploited, which, as all the time, smells of jailbreak/full spyware and adware takeover.
And as all the time, and maybe understandably, Apple could be very cagey about precisely what the zero-day is, what it’s getting used for, and, simply as curiously, who’s utilizing it.
So when you’ve bought an iPhone or an iPad, that is *positively* one for you.
And confusingly, Doug…
I’d higher clarify this, as a result of it really wasn’t apparent at first… and due to some reader assist, thanks Stefaan from Belgium, who has been sending me screenshots and explaining precisely what occurred to him when he up to date his iPad!
The replace for iPhones and iPads mentioned, “Hey, you’ve bought iOS 16.1, and iPadOS 16”. (As a result of iPad OS model 16 was delayed.)
And that’s what the safety bulletin says.
While you set up the replace, the fundamental About display simply says “iPadOS 16”.
However when you zoom into the principle model display, then each variations really come out as “iOS/iPadOS 16.1”.
In order that’s the *improve* to model 16, plus this very important zero-day repair.
That’s the arduous and complicated half… the remaining is simply that there are many fixes for different platforms as properly.
Besides that, as a result of Ventura got here out – macOS 13, with 112 CVE-numbered patches, although for most individuals, they received’t have had the beta, so this can be *improve* and *replace* on the similar time…
As a result of macOS 13 got here out, that leaves macOS 10 Catalina three variations behind.
And it does certainly look as if Apple is simply now supporting earlier and pre-previous.
So there *are* updates for Large Sur and Monterey, that’s macOS 11 and macOS 12, however Catalina is notoriously absent, Doug.
And as annoyingly as all the time, what we can not let you know…
Does that imply it merely was proof against all these fixes?
Does that imply it really wants a minimum of a few of the fixes, however they only haven’t come out but?
Or does that imply it’s fallen off the sting of the world and you’ll by no means get an replace once more, whether or not it wants one or not?
We don’t know.
DOUG. I really feel winded, and I didn’t even do any of the heavy lifting in that story, so thanks for that… that’s quite a bit.
DUCK. And also you don’t even have an iPhone.
DOUG. Precisely!
I’ve bought an iPad…
DUCK. Oh, do you?
DOUG. …so I’ve bought to go and ensure I get it updated.
And that leads us into our reader query of the day, on the Apple story.
Nameless Commenter asks:
Will the 15.7 replace for iPads resolve this, or do I’ve to replace to 16? I’m ready till the minor nuisance bugs in 16 are resolved earlier than updating.
DUCK. That’s the second degree of confusion, when you like, brought on by this.
Now, my understanding is, when iPadOS 15.7 got here out, that was precisely the identical time as iOS 15.7.
And it was, what, simply over a month in the past, I believe?
In order that’s an old-time safety replace.
And what we now don’t know is…
Is there an iOS/iPadOS 15.7.1 nonetheless within the wings that hasn’t come out but, fixing safety holes that do exist within the earlier model of working techniques for these platforms?
Or is your replace path for safety updates for iOS and iPadOS now to go down the model 16 route?
I simply don’t know, and I don’t know the way you inform.
So it’s wanting as if (and I’m sorry if I sound confused, Doug, as a result of I’m!)…
…it’s wanting as if the *replace* and the *improve* path for customers of iOS and iPadOS 15.7 is to shift to model flavour 16.
And at this present time, which means 16.1.
That might be my advice, as a result of then a minimum of you recognize that you’ve got the most recent and best construct, with the most recent and best safety fixes.
In order that’s the lengthy reply.
The quick reply is, Doug, “Don’t know.”
DOUG. Clear as mud.
DUCK. Sure.
Effectively, maybe not that clear… [LAUGHTER]
In the event you go away mud lengthy sufficient, ultimately the bits settle to the underside and there’s clear water on the highest.
So perhaps that’s what you need to do: wait and see, or simply chunk the bullet and go for 16.1.
They do make it straightforward, don’t they? [LAUGHS]
DOUG. All proper, we are going to control that, as a result of that would change somewhat bit between now and subsequent time.
Thanks very a lot for sending that remark in, Nameless Commenter.
In case you have an attention-grabbing story, remark or query you’d prefer to submit, we’d like to learn it on the podcast.
You’ll be able to electronic mail suggestions@sophos.com, you possibly can touch upon any considered one of our articles, and you’ll hit us up on social @NakedSecurity.
That’s our present for as we speak, thanks very a lot for listening.
For Paul Ducklin, I’m Doug Aamoth, reminding you till subsequent time to…
BOTH. Keep safe!
