Hacking as the new and old threats.

   Hacking as the new and old threats. 

There are always suspicions that organized crime uses hackers to steal psychiatric papers to get policemen, prosecutors, and judges fired. Same way. Fake papers can also be a tool that allows people in foreign intelligence to make military forces. To kick off their best commanders. Sensitive information can be used to blackmail even top-level politicians. 

Hackers are people who steal data. Some of that data is harmful, or it contains personal, sensitive information. That kind of data can be a very effective tool if someone wants to destroy someone’s reputation. Hackers can steal data from psychiatric services and try to blackmail politicians. One of those cases was the Vastaamo case, where a hacker stole client information from a psychotherapy company. That hacker also sent a SWAT team to a person’s home and marked one aircraft passenger as a bomb carrier. Hackers can also make things like deactivate the payment cards of their victims. 

Or, in some cases, hackers simply steal money from accounts. If a hacker steals 1 euro. From 10,000 bank accounts. Those victims might not even notice that thing. Or do you follow every euro that is lost from accounts? If there is a loss, let’s say 1 euro, do you call your bank? You should tell that thing. Because in those cases, hackers steal a small sum from many accounts. But are hackers evil people? Some of them are. Some of them enjoy their crimes, and they want to hurt people. 

Being an effective hacker. You don't have to be a computer genius. You must only have access to passwords. One unprotected telephone on the desk gives a hacker access to the entire system. If a telephone is left open on a table, the hacker can call the IT support. And ask for access to the system. If that is some very high-level boss's telephone, that makes it possible to create a super user’s access to the system. That allows an intruder to make new users.  And that allows hackers to expand that operation. 

We can say that all criminals are marginal people. But what makes them marginal people? When some ex-neonazi or MC-gang member wants to get back into society, those people carry the criminal stamp. The rest of their lives. Some people ask, can ex-Nazis or other ex-criminals really regret their actions? If we think like that. Criminals are individuals. That means some of them regret, and some of them don’t. 

We will put those people. Into a marginal position in society.  The rest of their lives. And that raises the risk that those people will commit other crimes. If a person is surrounded by other criminals, they cannot re-integrate into normal life. 

Only jobs. What the ex-inmates can get is some kind of cleaning work. They carry a criminal stamp. The rest of their lives. 

So, are hackers criminals that society created? We can say that some of them have criminal behavior. Because of other people. didn’t accept them for who they are. The media introduces computer hobbyists as some stereotype who is not social. Their place in a mental hospital is the message. Those people face demeaning treatment; they have no girlfriends, because some elder guy wants to show that they are alpha members of some school party. What would you feel if somebody yelled at you, “Get out”? Would that be non-respectful behavior?

What if your workplace treats you as necessary furniture, whose mission is to do jobs? But whose mission is to be otherwise invisible. There are people who just wait to fire those ICT support persons. They show their authority to those people all the time. So, what if your workmates treat you without respect? What if you are always an outsider? Would you want to take revenge? Those kinds of outsiders are excellent targets for a criminal gang recruiter. The hyride threat is that those criminals can cooperate with foreign intelligence services. And they can give a tip for those hostile agents. Maybe they get guns or drugs as payment for cooperation. 

And then we must ask why hackers are what they are. In this case, we must ask why computer hobbyists are what they are. Those people are boring nerds who are not in any way interesting.  Do you know those people? Some of them are people who don’t find any social hobbies. They are people who are lonely because nobody wants to play with them. And the computer is their only friend. Then some criminals come and offer money or women to those people. Some hackers are young, and they don’t understand why some criminals want policemen's home addresses. But then. We must realize. People grow into criminal behavior. 

Maybe the first case that. Those people did it for revenge. It’s easy to steal somebody's passwords. To some system, and then send a message to customs or airport security. When we think of things like professional hackers. Those people work for some criminal organizations or governments. 

Some hackers are made by governments. They can be forced to make those things for the military intelligence. Or some criminal organizations can blackmail them. The fact is, this hacker must not be a qualified programmer. That person must not be an extreme computer genius. If the person gets access to the system is enough. One of the oldest tricks is to play some cleaner and then step into the office. And search for those passwords in the places. Like under keyboards or from computer briefcases. 

The question is always who made the initiative.  Who gave the idea for the hacking operation? Or was it the hacker self, or somebody else? That means some sensitive information can be used as a booster in political games. Psychiatric papers are tools that can offer a possibility to clear the competitor out of the way. That means some people can steal those papers. And some other people are willing to pay for that kind of information. 

The leak in speculative execution sent 5000 bytes in a second into the hands of hackers.

  

"ETH Zurich scientists have discovered a new CPU flaw that lets attackers read private memory from shared Intel processors — exploiting a nanosecond timing glitch in prediction logic. Credit: SciTechDaily.com" (ScitechDaily, Intel’s Memory Leak Nightmare: 5,000 Bytes per Second in the Hands of Hackers)

In modern computing, even nanosecond is a long time. In that time AI can break down defenses using data injection. 

The memory leak left 5000 bytes per second in the hands of hackers. The ability to see the data flow. That comes out from the processor is one of the most dangerous situations in data security. Researchers found vulnerabilities in the actions called "speculative execution". Wikipedia determines speculative execution like this: 

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Quote from Wikipedia. 

Speculative execution is an optimization technique where a computer system performs some task that may not be needed. Work is done before it is known whether it is actually needed, so as to prevent a delay that would have to be incurred by doing the work after it is known that it is needed. If it turns out the work was not needed after all, most changes made by the work are reverted and the results are ignored.

"The objective is to provide more concurrency if extra resources are available. This approach is employed in a variety of areas, including branch prediction in pipelined processors, value prediction for exploiting value locality, prefetching memory and files, and optimistic concurrency control in database systems."

Overview

Modern pipelined microprocessors use speculative execution to reduce the cost of conditional branch instructions using schemes that predict the execution path of a program based on the history of branch executions. In order to improve performance and utilization of computer resources, instructions can be scheduled at a time when it has not yet been determined that the instructions will need to be executed, ahead of a branch.

Variants

Speculative computation was a related earlier concept.

Eager execution

See also: Eager evaluation

Eager execution is a form of speculative execution where both sides of the conditional branch are executed; however, the results are committed only if the predicate is true. With unlimited resources, eager execution (also known as oracle execution) would in theory provide the same performance as perfect branch prediction. With limited resources, eager execution should be employed carefully, since the number of resources needed grows exponentially with each level of branch executed eagerly.

Predictive execution

Predictive execution is a form of speculative execution where some outcome is predicted and execution proceeds along the predicted path until the actual result is known. If the prediction is true, the predicted execution is allowed to commit; however, if there is a misprediction, execution has to be unrolled and re-executed. Common forms of this include branch predictors and memory dependence prediction. A generalized form is sometimes referred to as value prediction.

Runahead

This paragraph is an excerpt from Runahead.

Runahead is a technique that allows a computer processor to speculatively pre-process instructions during cache miss cycles. The pre-processed instructions are used to generate instruction and data stream prefetches by executing instructions leading to cache misses (typically called long latency loads) before they would normally occur, effectively hiding memory latency. In runahead, the processor uses the idle execution resources to calculate instruction and data stream addresses using the available information that is independent of a cache miss. Once the processor has resolved the initial cache miss, all runahead results are discarded, and the processor resumes execution as normal. The primary use case of the technique is to mitigate the effects of the memory wall. The technique may also be used for other purposes, such as pre-computing branch outcomes to achieve highly accurate branch prediction.

Related concepts

Lazy execution

Lazy execution is the opposite of eager execution, and does not involve speculation. The incorporation of speculative execution into implementations of the Haskell programming language, a lazy language, is a current research topic. Eager Haskell, a variant of the language, is designed around the idea of speculative execution. A 2003 PhD thesis made GHC support a kind of speculative execution with an abortion mechanism to back out in case of a bad choice called optimistic execution. It was deemed too complicated.

Security vulnerabilities

See also: Speculative execution CPU vulnerabilities

Starting in 2017, a series of security vulnerabilities were found in the implementations of speculative execution on common processor architectures which effectively enabled an elevation of privileges

(Wikipedia, Speculative execution)

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"To compute faster, a predictor in the computer processor anticipates certain calculation steps. Hackers can exploit these anticipations to bypass security barriers and access confidential information. In the illustration, a hacker manages to overcome the protective measures (privileges) at step 3. Credit: ETH Zurich / COMSEC, HK" (ScitechDaily, Intel’s Memory Leak Nightmare: 5,000 Bytes per Second in the Hands of Hackers)

ScitechDaily tells about the new vulnerability like this: 

"Computer scientists at ETH Zurich have uncovered a serious flaw in Intel processors that could let attackers steal sensitive information by exploiting how modern chips predict upcoming actions. Using specially designed sequences of instructions, hackers can bypass security boundaries and gradually read the entire memory of a shared processor. This vulnerability affects a wide range of Intel chips used in personal computers, laptops, and cloud servers."

The Nanosecond Loophole

The so-called BPRC (Branch Predictor Race Conditions) emerge during a brief period of a few nanoseconds when the processor switches between prediction calculations for two users with different permissions, explains Sandro Rüegge, who has been examining the vulnerability in detail over the past few months.

Breaking through the built-in protective barriers between users, known as privileges, is possible because the permissions for individual activities are not stored at the same time as the calculations. With special inputs, it is now possible to cause ambiguity in the sequence of events when changing users, resulting in incorrect assignment of privileges. An attacker could exploit this in order to read an information byte (a unit consisting of eight binary 0/1 pieces of information).

From a Byte to the Entire Memory

The disclosure of a single byte would be negligible. However, the attack can be repeated in quick succession, allowing the contents of the entire memory to be read over time, explains Rüegge. “We can trigger the error repeatedly and achieve a readout speed of over 5000 bytes per second.” In the event of an attack, therefore, it is only a matter of time before the information in the entire CPU memory falls into the wrong hands."

ScitechDaily, Intel’s Memory Leak Nightmare: 5,000 Bytes per Second in the Hands of Hackers

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We can think of the speculative execution as a secretary, who does some work before the boss gives it to that person. The secretary does the jobs before and then the boss decides if that thing is necessary or should the task be denied. The boss can have the numbers in those papers and if there is a match for the paper, let's say number five, the boss marks the work done. In this case, the boss and secretary are two microprocessors. When some tasks happen very often, the system can perform them.  

The programmed tasks can have tables that are numbered from one to a billion. If the computer makes tasks that include certain actions that match with Table 1 the computer sends the number instead of the entire data to the receiver. The number 1 activates the table that has those actions. 

If there is no match the works are denied. The speculative execution is the thing that works in cases that repeat very often. And the operator can teach new tasks to the computer. 

That action helps intel processors to predict each other's actions. The idea is that the processor makes certain actions after a certain output series. The Speculative execution can be programmed in the microchip's kernel. That means the processor can predict the actions or mark series that other processors can send to it. The system can perform some tasks. Then the system decides if that task is necessary or not. 

This method causes problems. That means that if attackers can download those tables that microchips involve. It causes vulnerability to the system. The ability to get access to data that helps the receiving system to predict the transmitter's actions causes danger. If we think that there is a key code that the transmitter must send the receiver, the receiver can open the message and the system confirms that the data is understood by sending data back. 

If that data matches. With data, that the transmitter should send the receiver can open the data. The idea is the same as a case where a serviceman must open the door. The boss has a copy of the lock in the office.  The serviceman tests the key and sends it back. Maybe there are multiple keys that the serviceman must use in a certain order. If the boss marks the last key that fits to lock that makes it easier to return the system in order, if there is a problem. The system must return to the last key that fits to control lock. 

If the same key matches with the boss's lock. That key is not corrupted. But if the key doesn't work, that means the key is corrupted. And that means the system must return to begin the operations. In that case, the system must get a new key series. In these cases where the system uses the same keys again. That makes it possible to break the algorithms. The attacker must only know the key's code and their order. That makes it possible to open those messages. 

Before today that thing was not a problem. But things like modern drones make it possible to eavesdrop on data that travels in cables in the computer centers. 

https://scitechdaily.com/intels-memory-leak-nightmare-5000-bytes-per-second-in-the-hands-of-hackers/

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

See also

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaluation_strategy#Eager_evaluation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerability)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_(computing)

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

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

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

Internet is the biggest opportunity. But also the biggest threat to democracy.

The internet allows to deliver information but also manipulate it in a new way. Internet is allowing that people can communicate straight with politicians. And let them know bout the difficulties and needs of society. But the same thing allows hostile actors to take contact straight with political leaders and offer them something. 

Or the hostile actor can introduce the research. That kind of faked research can tell that most people want something that is against the national interest. That thing can make simply introducing the faked polls. There is the possibility that there is no poll at all. And those kinds of things are affecting the politicians.

The media companies can be good platforms for cyber attacks. 

The thing that makes international web and social media and media operators a threat to democracy and national security is that they can act as a platform for the operations of the GRU and other intelligence services. Social media channels can use for collecting information. 

The GRU agent might just ask people where they or their family members are working. But the regular media can turn the weapon against democracy if they are in the wrong hands. Well-known and trusted media channels can turn into a propaganda factory in seconds. 

The actors like GRU or FSB can just buy media houses by using some covert company. And then they can replace the entire crew with their staff. Then the company starts to send the Russian propaganda. The fact is that the media company can deliver one-sided information on purpose or accidentally. There is a possibility that the sources that reporters use are telling lies. 

But also reporters can be the agents who are telling the version of "truth" that serves their government.  And that thing makes them very good actors in the indoctrination operations that are also called psychological operations or PSY-OPS. 

The new threats to democracy are the governmentally controlled trolls.

We live in the western world. And our world governments are protecting people. If somebody threatens us we might call the police. In the cases of hacking and trolling the police tries to track that actor. And if the actor is in a foreign land. Authorities send international arrest warrants. But then Chinese hackers attacked western facilities. They were tracked and then the Chinese authorities couldn't operate. 

The reason for that was that those hackers operated under the control of the Chinese government and worked for PLA (People's Liberation Army). Also, the cyberattacks that targeted Baltic states did not cause juridical actions in Russia. The reason for that was that the attacks happened under the control of the GRU, Russian military intelligence. 

Those cases have proven that western authorities couldn't predict and react to the situations that hackers operated under governmental control. The same way the Russian troll factory is operating under governmental control. The operator sits in Russia or China and the assistant is bringing the computer to the western world. The hacker or troller uses that remote computer for operations and that makes it difficult to prove. That attacks are coming from outside of borders. That makes it also difficult to deny that kind of attack. Because just closing the connections from those countries is not enough.  

The kill-ware or killing malware is a big threat. Maybe it's just hype, but the threat is still real. In scenarios, the malware is used to cause the disorder. Or give extra time for friendly military operators.

In the worst-case scenario, the malware shuts down the controlling computers of the nuclear power plants. That causes a need to shut down energy production. In some other scenarios, the malware destroys important databases in critical moments. 

The malware destroys the medical databases or databases that are controlling the flight of the missiles. If the users of those missiles recognize that the databases are destroyed. Replacing them requires a couple of minutes and in modern warfare, a couple of minutes is a long time.

Media can also use to deliver malware. The normal media can involve links that will cheat the user to download some software. And that kind of software can be malware. In the worst case, the malware kills people. 

The killing malware is the computer software that can kill people. That malware might be the computer virus that changes the blood types in the hospital. And that thing is the most dangerous situation if somebody needs blood transfer. 

Another version is the computer virus that raises the level of the runways. Or maybe it can shut down the engines of the aircraft and refuse to shut down autopilot. But that kind of malware can also change the programming code of the gas pedal of the automobile. And that means that the system starts to accelerate the car in the wrong place. 

There are many places where the killing malware can affect. In the nuclear or uranium enrichment process, the malware can raise the speed of the centrifuges. And that thing can cause a nuclear explosion in those facilities. The threat of that type of malware. Forces to shut down nuclear power plants. And in those cases, even the threat is enough for losing energy. 

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/an-nsa-derived-ransomware-worm-is-shutting-down-computers-worldwide/

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2021/10/killware-is-it-just-as-bad-as-it-sounds/

https://securityboulevard.com/2021/10/killware-hype-is-bigger-than-the-threat-for-now/

https://visionsoftheaiandfuture.blogspot.com/

There is one thing about the translation texts in Internet

http://gamesandtehories.blogspot.com/p/there-is-one-thing-about-translation.html

Kimmo Huosionmaa

Almost all users of the Internet have seen the very attractive text when they will go to some homepages. That text asks if the user wants to translate the homepage, and that would be the very bad mistake because the homepage would get know about the nationality or home language, what this person uses. And if the user would go after this to look some YouTube or something else videos, would the third part follow the user in the net, by using the IP-address, what the translator used in the connection. That kind of information can also get from other homepages, but they would not tell the nationality so clear.


This might seem very innocent, but the music- and other videos and the homepages, where we are visiting are telling professional profilers many personal details of our life, what somebody would want to hide. Those things tell about our sexual behavior, our political opinions, and many other things. One more thing is very remarkable in profiling and that is that if somebody would not have social media or that person would not write a world on the Net, that tells this person hides something.


Also, old telephones are the interesting thing, because they are safe for underworld people. The mobile telephone would tell many things about our life if the hackers can get some information from it. If the hacker would get the location information of the telephone in the use, that intruder can get information, about the driving speed and location of the targeted person. And if that person drives often very high speed, what is above the top speed of highways in the country, that tells something about that person. If somebody uses very much prepaid sim-cards that will tell about the necessity of hiding the information and personal identity.


If somebody makes over speed all the time, that tells this person doesn't care about the driver's license. It can mean that this person has corrupted all the police force. But this is the very uncommon idea, what is probably not true. Nobody pays police only because they want to drive over speed. Racetracks are somewhere else than the motorway. But it can tell that the person is some kind of nervous because following the speed limit is somehow difficult. Also, the censorship can wake the notice of the hackers, who can work independently or for some intelligence organization. The reason for hacking is getting information.

There are many problems with self-driving car

(Picture 1)

https://futurism.com/ubers-self-driving-car-just-killed-pedestrian/

Kimmo Huosionmaa

Computer programs what are controlling the self-driving car are very complicated. And those vehicles are under development, and there is always the driver when those vehicles are operating in some area. Uber has made lots of work about the security of their autonomous driving taxis. And this was the sad accident for that pedestrian.  If there is a single error in a program, the computer cannot control the vehicle. The results would be terrible and sad because the car would kill somebody.


But that kind of news is causing terrible thoughts in my mind. If somebody wants to make murder by using the car as the weapon, might this person able to make the computer program what makes the car as an invincible weapon. And when the normal taxi drives on the road, it would suddenly turn and hit some person.


This is the problem with the self-driving cars. If somebody wants to hurt some innocent persons,  he might just change those car’s controlling program. And the results would be devastating. Also, somebody would want to make assassinations with autonomous vehicles, by connecting their controlling program the thing, what is called as “ghost protocol”. In this scenario, somebody would make the car a terrible assassination weapon. And then the strike is done, would that program terminate itself.


The “ghost protocol” means that in the controlling software would be injected the code, what reacts, when the targeted person is visible. That code makes the car attack to that targeted person. In normal drive, those self-driving cars seem like harmless, but when they would notice the target, that would begin the attack against that victim. The computer of the car would get the image of the targeted person or another vehicle, and then this car would transform real life “Christine”.

Sources:

https://futurism.com/ubers-self-driving-car-just-killed-pedestrian/

Picture 1:

https://fi.pinterest.com/pin/264305071851219905/?lp=true

https://crisisofdemocracticstates.blogspot.fi/

http://crisisofdemocracticstates.blogspot.fi/p/there-is-any-problem-with-self-driving.html

What if the antivirus program transforms as the spying tool?

http://crisisofdemocracticstates.blogspot.fi/p/what-if-antivirus-program-transforms-as.html

http://crisisofdemocracticstates.blogspot.fi/p/what-if-antivirus-program-transforms-as.html