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I have used GlassWire (not affiliated) for a few years without issues.

It's also rootless so I assume it has the same restrictions, but it's been very helpful with apps like Uber, which I use seldomly, but prefer not to have their notifications shoved in my face every 30 minutes.

It's also helpful for disabling access to most of the bloatware that comes with e.g. Samsung phones and such.

Probably not blocking everything, but I feel like it's at least something.


It feels like the strength and type of withdrawal symptoms for each substance plays a big role here.

I've only ever been addicted to caffeine and cigarettes and while my withdrawal symptoms were terrible (almost-disabling headaches, anxiety, etc) I don't think they were ever so bad that it would make me violent.

As opposed to people I knew that were addicted to cocaine and meth which would go absolutely crazy for their next fix. In the particular case of the person that was addicted to cocaine, money was not an issue and would still become violent when the fix was not available, so I don't think it's necessarily a function of price or access to it.

Of course, my sample size is very small but given that I also know a ton of people that quit cigarettes and caffeine without becoming violent, I would say withdrawal symptoms are probably a strong component on how violent people get.


So in essence just a flavor of insurance?

Shouldn't that hit Crowdstrike's stock price much more than it has then? (so far I see ~11% down which is definitely a lot but it looks like they will survive).


Not quite. Insurance is a product that provides compensation in the event of loss. Deploying CrowdStrike with an eye toward enterprise risk management falls under one of either changing behaviors or modifying outcomes (or perhaps both).


They are paying with reputation and liability, no?

If the idea is "we'll hire Crowdstrike for CYA" when things like this happen, the blame is on CS and they pay with their reputation.


Pay for what exactly though? Cybersecurity incidents result in material loss, and someone somewhere needs to provide dollars for the accrued costs. Reputation can't do that, particularly when legal liability (or, hell, culpability) is involved.

EDR deployment is an outcome-modifying measure, usually required as underwritten in a cybersecurity insurance policy for it to be in force. It isn't itself insurance.


Not at all like insurance, because they don’t have to pay out at all when things go wrong.


How come lifts and cranes are affected by this?

Are they somehow controlled remotely? or do they need to ping a central server to be able to operate?

I can see how alarms, email and phones are affected but the heavy machinery?

(Clearly not familiar with any of these things so I am genuinely curious)


Lots and lots of heavy machinery uses Windows computers even for local control panels.


But why does it need to be remotely updated? Have there been major innovations in lift technology recently? They still just go up and down, right?

Once such a system is deployed why would it ever need to be updated?


They're probably deployed to a virtualized system to easy with maintenance and upkeep.

Updates are partially necessary to ensure you don't end up completely unsupported in the future.

It's been a long time, but I worked IT for an auto supplier. Literally nothing was worse than some old computer crapping out with an old version of Windows and a proprietary driver. Mind you, these weren't mission critical systems, but they did disrupt people's workflows while we were fixing the systems. Think, things like digital measurements or barcode scanners. Everything can be easily done by hand but it's a massive pain.

Most of these systems end up migrated to a local data center than deployed via a thin client. Far easier to maintain and fix than some box that's been sitting in the corner of a shop collecting dust for 15 years.


Ok but it’s a LIFT. How is Windows even involved? Is it part of the controls?


Real problem is not that it's just a damn lift and shouldn't need full Windows. It's that something as theoretically solved and done problem as an operating system is not practically so.

An Internet of Lift can be done with <32MB of RAM and <500MHz single core CPU. Instead they(for whoever they) put a GLaDOS-class supercomputer for it. That's the absurdity.


An Internet of Lift can be done with <32KB of RAM and <500KHz single core CPU.


You’d be surprised at how entrenched Windows is in the machine automation industry. There are entire control systems algo implemented and run in realtime Windows, vendors like Beckhoff and ACS only have Windows build for their control software which developers extend and build on top with Visual Studio.


Absolutely correct, I've seen muli-axis machine tools that couldn't even be started let alone get running properly if Windows wouldn't start.

Incidentally, on more than one occasion I've not been able to use one of the nearby automatic tellers because of a Windows crash.


Siemens is also very much in on this. Up to about the 90s most of these vendors were running stuff on proprietary software stacks running on proprietary hardware networked using proprietary networks and protocols (an example for a fully proprietary stack like this would be Teleperm). Then in the 90s everyone left their proprietary systems behind and moved to Windows NT. All of these applications are truly "Windows-native" in the sense that their architecture is directly built on all the Windows components. Pretty much impossible to port, I'd wager.


Example of patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6983196B2/en

So for maintenance and fault indications. Probably saves some time from someone digging up manuals for checking error codes from where ever they maybe placed or not. Also could display things like height and weight.


Perhaps "Windows Embedded" is involved somewhere in the control loop, it is a huge industry but not that well-known to the public;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_Industry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_IoT


We do ATM's - it runs on Windows IOT - before that it was OS/2.


Any info on whether this Crowdstrike Falcon crap is used here?


Fortunately for us not at all although we use it on our desktops - my work laptop had a BSOD on Friday morning, but it recovered.


According to reports the ATMs of some banks also showed the BSOD which surprised me; i wouldn't have thought such "embedded" devices needed any type of "third-party online updates".


Security for a device that can issue cash is kind of important.


Its easier and cheaper (and a lil safer) to run wires to the up\down control lever and have those actuate a valve somewhere, than it is to run hydraulic hoses to a lever like in lifts of old, for example.

That said it could also be run by whatever the equivalent of "PLC on an 8bit Microcontroller" is, and not some full embedded Windows system with live online virus protection so yeah, what the hell.


Probably for things like this - https://www.kone.co.uk/new-buildings/advanced-people-flow-so...

There’s a lot of value on Internet of Things everything, but comes with own risks.


I'm having a hard time picturing a multi-story diesel repair shop. Maybe a few floors in a dense area but not so high that a lack of elevators would be show stopping. So I interpret "lift" as the machinery used to raise equipment off the ground for maintenance.


Several elevator controllers automatically switch to the safe mode if they detect a fire or security alarm (which apparently is also happening).


The most basic example is duty cycle monitoring and trouble shooting. You can also do things like digital lock-outs on lifts that need maintenance.

While the lift might not need a dedicated computer, they might be used in an integrated environment. You kick off the alignment or a calibration procedure from the same place that you operate the lift.


how many lifts, and how many floors, with how many people are you imagining? Yes, there's a dumb simple case where there's no need for a computer with an OS, but after the umpteenth car with umpteen floors, when would you put in a computer?

and then there's authentication. how do you want key cards which say who's allowed to use the lift to work without some sort of database which implies some sort of computer with an operating system?


It's a diesel repair shop, not an office building. I'm interpreting "lift" as a device for lifting a vehicle off the ground, not an elevator for getting people to the 12th floor.


> But why does it need to be remotely updated?

Because it can be remotely updated by attackers.


Security patches, assuming it has some network access.


Why would a lift have network access?


Do you see a lot of people driving around applying software updates with diskettes like in the old days?

Have we learned nothing from how the uranium enrichment machines were hacked in Iran? Or how attackers routinely move laterally across the network?

Everything is connected these days. For really good reasons.


Your understanding of stuxnet is flawed, Iran was attacked by the Us Gov in a very very specific spearfish attack with years of preparation to get Stux into the enrichment facilities - nothing to do with lifts connected to the network.

Also the facility was air-gapped, so it wasn't connected to ANY outside network. They had to use other means to get Stux on those computers and then used something like 7 zero days to move from windows into Siemens computers to inflict damage.

Stux got out potentially because someone brought their laptop to work, the malware got into said laptop and moved outside the airgap from a different network.


"Stux got out potentially because someone brought their laptop to work, the malware got into said laptop and moved outside the airgap from a different network."

The lesson here is that even in an air-gapped system the infrastructure should be as proprietary as is possible. If, by design, domestic Windows PCs or USB thumb drives could not interface with any part of the air-gapped system because (a) both hardwares were incompatible at say OSI levels 1, 2 & 3; and (b) software was in every aspect incompatible with respect to their APIs then it wouldn't really matter if by some surreptitious means these commonly-used products entered the plant. Essentially, it would be almost impossible† to get the Trojan onto the plant's hardware.

That said, that requires a lot of extra work. By excluding subsystems and components that are readily available in the external/commercial world means a considerable amount of extra design overhead which would both slow down a project's completion and substantially increase its cost.

What I'm saying is obvious, and no doubt noted by those who've similar intentions to the Iranians. I'd also suggest that the use of individual controllers etc. such as the Siemens ones used by Iran either wouldn't be used or they'd need to be modified from standard both in hardware and with the firmware (hardware mods would further bootstrap protection if an infiltrator knew the firmware had been altered and found a means of restoring the default factory version).

Unfortunately, what Stuxnet has done is to provide an excellent blueprint of how to make enrichment (or any other such) plants (chemical, biological, etc.) essentially impenetrable.

† Of course, that doesn't stop or preclude an insider/spy bypassing such protections. Building in tamper resistance and detection to counter this threat would also add another layer of cost and increase the time needed to get the plant up and running. That of itself could act as a deterrent, but I'd add that in war that doesn't account for much, take Bletchley and Manhattan where money was no object.


I once engineered a highly secure system that used (shielded) audio cables and amodem as the sole pathway to bridge the airgap. Obscure enough for ya?

Transmitted data was hashed on either side, and manually compared. Except for very rare binary updates, the data in/out mostly consisted of text chunks that were small enough to sanity-check by hand inside the gapped environment.


Stux also taught other government actors what's possible with a few zero days strung together, effectively starting the cyberwasr we've been in for years.

Nothing is impenetrable.


You picked a really odd day and thread to say that everything is connected for really good reasons.


Or being online in the first place. Sounds like an unnecessary risk.


Remember those good old fashioned windows that you could roll down manually after driving into a lake?

Yeah, can’t do it now: it’s all electronic.


I’m sure that lifts have been electronically controlled for decades. But why is Windows (the operating system) involved?


but why do they have CS on them? they should be simply not connected to any kinds of networks.

and if there's some sensor network in the building that should be completely separate from the actual machine controls.


Compliance.

To work with various private data, you need to be accredited and that means an audit to prove you are in compliance with whatever standard you are aspiring to. CS is part of that compliance process.


Which private data would a computer need to operate a lift?


Another department in the corporation is probably accessing PII, so corporate IT installed the security software on every Windows PC. Special cases cost money to manage, so centrally managed PCs are all treated the same.


Anything that touches other systems is a risk and needs to be properly monitored and secured.

I had a lot of reservations about companies installing Crowdstrike but I'm baffled by the lack of security awareness in many comments here. So they do really seem necessary.


It must be security tags on the lift which restrict entry to authorised staff.


who's allowed to use the lift? where do those keycards authenticate to?


Because there's some level of convenience involved with network connectivity for OT.


That sounds...suboptimal.

I would imagine they used specialized controller cards or something like that.


They optimize for small batch development costs. Slapping windows PC when you sell a few hundred to thousand units is actually pretty cheap. Software itself is probably same order of magnitude, cheaper for UI itself...


And cheap both short and long term. Microsoft has 10 year lifecycles you don't need to pay extra for. Linux you need IT staff to upgrade it every 3 years. Not to mention hiring engineers to recompile software every 3 years with the distro upgrade.


Ubuntu LTS has support for 5 years, can be extended to 10 years of maintenance/security support with ESM (which is a paid service).

Same with Rocky Linux, but the extra 5 years of maintenance/security support is provided for free.


thats just asking for trouble.


Probably a Windows-based HMI (“human-machine interface”).

I used to build sorting machines that use variants of the typical “industrial” tech stack, and the actual controllers are rarely (but not never!) Windows. But it’s common for the HMI to be a Windows box connected into the rest of the network, as well as any server.


I'm still running multiple CNC/Industrial equipment with win3.1/98/xp. Only just retired one running Dos 6.2


I don't think it's satire.

The "Experience" section looks like a big complain about the world not recognizing his genius.

I really don't think a lot people would call him for an interview just by looking at this resume.


You are the Boop author!? Awesome!

I use it and it's very handy. Thanks for creating useful no-nonsense tools!


Small world! Thanks for using it, I'm glad you like it


Sounds interesting. How did you wrap it in an Android app if you could elaborate?


Simple, I basically wrote a script to figure out probabilities for gambling ( I won't open source it since I don't want someone angry at me when they lose money). Then you basically have the UI layer call the script.

It's really hacked together, but it works.


Apparently not, at least for this update.

I had the settings disabled, then updated to the latest version ("126.0 (64-bit)") and settings were kept disabled.

So at least for now it looks like it respects your current settings.


did you find if submitted entries are more likely to reach the frontpage depending on the title or the content?

i.e. do HN users upvote more based on the title of the article or on actually reading them?


I tried making an LLM generate different titles for a given article and compared their ranking scores. There seems to be a lot of variation in the ranking scores based on the way the title is worded. Titles that are more likely to generate 'outrage' seems to be getting ranked higher, but at the same time that increases is_hn_flagged score which tries to predict if a entry will get flagged.


I am actually a little relieved because everytime one of these interactive XKCD comic is published I wonder how does Randall find enough time to work on them, plus What If, etx.

Of course there are some people that simpliy are hyper productive, but the level of detail and complexity of these comics always made me feel a bit "inadequate" :)


tbf, I don't think he has another job, so if he's only creating 3 comics a week and writing his books, there is def enough time as a side project to put out a fun annual comic that requires a bit of work, obviously it would need to be planned well in advance, which it appears this was not.


> “only creating 3 comics a week”

As if this is not an absolutely breathtaking creative accomplishment, especially so consistently and after so many years!

I agree with another commenter that it probably does get easier with experience, but nevertheless impressive.


I've always assumed he has a large backlog of comics, and a script that pushes them out on schedule.

He can always push new comics into the queue based on current events or fresh ideas, but at other times he can probably go for weeks without needing to draw new comics.


Well, do that for a while, and the queue will empty rapidly :)


Right. Maybe the workload is manageable, especially for someone with the amount of experience he has, nevertheless the breadth of the stuff he does is what amazes me the most.

Just programming one of those interactive comics must be quite a challenge, to then add the story, the wittiness, depth, etc is what blows me away.


There's a YouTube channel too now, for xkcd"s "what if"


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