RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Saturday 7 May 2022 Volume 33 : Issue 19

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/33.19>
The current issue can also be found at
<http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>

Contents:
Japan Says It Needs Nuclear Power. Can Host Towns Ever Trust It Again?
(NYTimes)
AI goes to war in Ukraine (Fortune)
The Information War in Ukraine is Far from Over (NYTimes)
Russia struggles under unprecedented wave of hacking (WashPost)
Microsoft Finds Linux Desktop Flaw That Gives Root to Untrusted Users
(Dan Goodin)
Google Docs crashed when fed 'And. And. And. And. And (The Register)
Ordinary Copper Telephone Wire Could Carry Gigabit Broadband Speeds
(Matthew Sparkes)
The Weapon that Mistook a School Bus for an Ostrich (Science Diplomacy
via Diego Latella)
Smart Office Buildings Are Vulnerable to Hacks (Konrad Putzier)
Every ISP in the US Must Block These 3 Pirate Streaming Services (WiReD)
Problems with Elon Musk's Plan to Open-Source the Twitter Algorithm
(MIT Tech Review)
Elon Musk wants to 'authenticate all real humans' on Twitter.
Here's what that could mean (CNN)
Why is the U.S. still probing foreign visitors' social media accounts?
(WashPost)
Is your social network accurately reporting where you are? (Reddit)
Can computers write product reviews with a human touch? (Techxplore.com)
DeFi ponzinomics, Grayscale ETF comments, Binance and Russia, El Salvador
-- Attack of the 50-Foot Blockchain (Sam Bankman-Fried)
The Tale of a Crypto Executive Who Wasn't Who He Said He Was (NYTimes)
What Is Happening to the People Falling for Crypto and NFTs (NYTimes)
Wikimedia Foundation announces it will no longer accept cryptocurrency
donations (Lauren Weinstein)
Re: Bitcoin Is Unlikely to Go Green (Andrew Waught, John Beattie)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

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Date: Thu, 5 May 2022 15:44:48 -0400
From: "Gabe Goldberg" <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Japan Says It Needs Nuclear Power. Can Host Towns Ever Trust It
Again? (NYTimes)

The Ukraine war has shown the fragility of Japan's energy supplies. But
the decision to restart plants after the Fukushima disaster is fraught
with emotions and political calculation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/world/asia/japan-nuclear-power.html

The risk? No perfect solutions.

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

Date: Fri, 6 May 2022 16:18:03 -0400
From: "Gabe Goldberg" <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: AI goes to war in Ukraine (Fortune)

War is terrible. But it has often played a pivotal role in advancing
technology. And Russia's invasion of Ukraine is shaping up to be a key
proving ground for artificial intelligence, for ill and, perhaps in a few
instances, for good, too.

Civil society groups and AI researchers have been increasingly alarmed in
recent years about the advent of lethal autonomous weapons systems --
AI-enabled weapons with the ability to select targets and kill people
without human oversight. This has led to a concerted effort at the United
Nations to try to ban or at least restrict the use of such systems. But
those talks have so far not resulted in much progress.

https://fortune.com/2022/03/01/russia-ukraine-invasion-war-a-i-artificial-intelligence/

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

Date: Fri, 6 May 2022 12:06:04 PDT
From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: The Information War in Ukraine is Far from Over (NYTimes)

Serge Schmemann, *The New York Times*, lead op-ed, 6 May 2022

If the first casualty of war is truth, then the corollary in Ukraine is that
information is the first battlefield.

On the battlefield, lies are ammunition in Putin's struggle to stay in
power.

[Pithy article. I first mistyped it as *babblefield*. That somewho seems
appropriate. PGN]

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

Date: Sun, 1 May 2022 17:27:34 +0000
From: The Washington Post <email@washingtonpost.com>
Subject: Russia struggles under unprecedented wave of hacking (WashPost)

.... puncturing the myth of Moscow's unassailable cyber-superiority

[Thanks to Richard Thieme. PGN]

Prolific Russian ransomware groups had pledged to step up attacks on
American infrastructure if Russian technology was hobbled in retribution for
the invasion of Ukraine. But in the third month of the war, Russia, not the
United States, is dealing with a cyber-assault involving government
activity, political voluntarism and criminal action.

<https://s2.washingtonpost.com/36b9790/>

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

Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2022 12:26:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Microsoft Finds Linux Desktop Flaw That Gives Root to Untrusted
Users (Dan Goodin)

Dan Goodin, *Ars Technica*, 26 Apr 2022, via ACM TechNews; 29 Apr 2022

Microsoft discovered an elevation of privileges flaw in Linux incorporating
two vulnerabilities that can grant root system rights to untrusted
users. The Nimbuspwn exploit, which Microsoft calls "the EoP threat,"
resides in the networkd-dispatcher, a component in many Linux distributions
that dispatches network status changes and can process various scripts to
respond to a new status. Networkd-dispatcher runs as root when a desktop
boots up, and the flaws blend threats including directory traversal, symlink
race, and time-of-check time-of-use race condition, permitting hackers with
minimal access to a desktop to link exploits for these vulnerabilities and
gain full root access. The flaw has been patched, and users of vulnerable
versions of Linux are advised to implement the patch as soon as possible.

https://orange.hosting.lsoft.com/trk/click?ref=znwrbbrs9_6-2e86bx23379bx073897&

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

Date: Sat, 7 May 2022 08:41:01 -0400
From: Tom Van Vleck <thvv@multicians.org>
Subject: Google Docs crashed when fed 'And. And. And. And. And
(The Register)

https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/06/google_docs_crash/

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

Date: Mon, 2 May 2022 12:00:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Ordinary Copper Telephone Wire Could Carry Gigabit Broadband Speeds
(Matthew Sparkes)

Matthew Sparkes, *New Scientist*, 26 Apr 2022 via ACM TechNews, 2 May 2022

Ergin Dinc and colleagues at the U.K.'s University of Cambridge claim copper
telephone wire already deployed across Britain can carry data at rates three
times higher than fiber-optic cable at much less cost, over short distances.
The researchers say twisted pairs of copper wire can bear a frequency five
times higher than is currently employed, which may enable houses near
fiber-optic cables to realize higher speeds than currently possible, without
threading fiber all the way to their homes. In addition, the researchers
learned that copper broadband connections' operating frequency of less than
1 gigahertz can theoretically be increased to 5 gigahertz through the use of
an electrical device called a balun.

https://orange.hosting.lsoft.com/trk/click?ref=znwrbbrs9_6-2e891x233851x071263&

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

Date: Thu, 05 May 2022 21:53:55 +0200
From: "Diego.Latella" <diego.latella@isti.cnr.it>
Subject: The Weapon that Mistook a School Bus for an Ostrich

D. Amoroso, D. Garcia, and G. Tamburrini - Science & Diplomacy
An interesting article on autonomous weapons

https://www.sciencediplomacy.org/article/2022/weapon-mistook-school-bus-for-ostrich

[de BUStigus NON DISPUTANDUM oESTrich? PGN]

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

Date: Wed, 4 May 2022 12:40:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Smart Office Buildings Are Vulnerable to Hacks (Konrad Putzier)

Konrad Putzier, *The Wall Street Journal*, 03 May 2022

Smart office buildings in the U.S. raise concerns about privacy and
cybersecurity. Cybersecurity consultants warn that building managers devote
little attention to digital security, and the interconnection of smart
building systems means accessing a single Internet-connected door can
potentially enable hijacking, extortion, or data theft. Lucian Niemeyer at
smart-building safety nonprofit Building Cyber Security worries that more
criminals will target smart buildings as protections for mobile phones and
databases are strengthened. Said Dave Tyson of cybersecurity company Apollo
Information Systems Corp., "The bad guys only need to find one way in, and
whatever you've connected to is now on the table."

https://orange.hosting.lsoft.com/trk/click?ref=znwrbbrs9_6-2e8e7x23395bx071938&

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

Date: Thu, 5 May 2022 20:05:09 -0400
From: "Gabe Goldberg" <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Every ISP in the US Must Block These 3 Pirate Streaming Services
(WiReD)

The 96 Internet service providers were told to enforce the orders.
"by any technological means available".