British Home Secretary Sajid Javid has signed an order requesting Julian Assange's extradition to the United States for Julian's attempts to do journalism in violation of the US Espionage Act (archived). The extradition order will be weighed in the UK's courts Friday. Sweden withdrew their competing extradition claim earlier this month.
Category Archives: Security
Vim And Neovim Vulnerable To Code Execution Through "Modelines" In Hostile Text Files
A defect in the Vim and Neovim text editors has been found which allows the execution of commands when hostile text files are opened though an opening provided by "modelines" functionality intented to specify custom editor options (archived). One again there is no substitute for hygiene to keep the vermin away.
Ongoing Ebola Outbreak Crosses Border Into Uganda
An Ebola outbreak that has been slowly burning its way through the Congo has gone international with a death across the border in Uganda (archived). The self declared "experts" have been insisting for more than a year that they are positioned to "contain" the outbreak through ring vaccination and other measures. These measures have had limited success for reasons related to the local culture.
A related hemorrhagic fever affecting porcine populations managed to escape the dark continent and is inflicting grave damage on China's swine herd (archived). Prices of pork and other meats on the international market have spiked in response as containment efforts don't seem to be doing much containment at all.
The international "experts" are pointedly not calling for strict biological controls on anything leaving Africa.
ROWHAMMER Being Used To Read From Vulnerable RAM
The ROWHAMMER vulnerability in DRAM which allows running processes to fuck with memory allocated to other processes is being developed into reliable side channel leaks reading from memory (archived). The importance of computing hygiene continues to be supported by the unforgiving march of time.
The full text of the academic paper is presented below: Continue reading
Bakery Wins 11 Million USD Verdict Against Oberlin College For Institutional Hysterics
The Pantsuitist social warfare training camp doing business as Oberlin College was slapped with an 11 million USD verdict after one of their exercises gravely damaged the business of a local bakery (archived). The drama started when three Oberlin reparations agents of color were detained, arrested, and plead guilty to theft from Gibson's Bakery which has been operating since 1885. In response to student protests, the activist institution ceased business relations with the bakery and actively engaged in an activist campaign declaring the bakery a racist business. Oberlin tried to justify their institutional actions against the bakery by proposing the doctrine that "first time offenders", meaning persons engaging in theft up to the occasion they are caught doing so, ought not be turned over to police for prosecution.
During the trial Oberlin retained a professional witness and attempted to assert the value of the business they destroyed was a mere 35,000 USD, less than the tutition for charged for a single semester at Oberlin. To their credit, Gibson's attorneys and accountans defended the intangible assets of the business including nearly a century and a half in operation while suggesting a very reasonable 5.8 million USD figure for the damages inflicted by Oberlin's attack projected over 30 years.
China Preparing To Enable Extraditions From Hong Kong To Mainland
The Chinese government is weighing a measure that would enable courts in Hong Kong to extradite suspects to mainland China for trial (archived). This move would represent a small step towards greater integration between Cantonese speaking Hong Kong and the Mandarin speaking mainland which share a common national identity under different systems of government. USG affiliated outlets are presenting the measure as a "grave violation" of the agreement that transitioned colonial stewardship of the territory from British to Chinese hands though the decision to extradite or not would still be undertaken in the Hong Kong courts system.
The Anglophone outrage highlights the always interesting problem of enforcement. What fleet and shipyards can the Anglophones act out their rage? What sanctions can the deindustrialized Anglophone economies apply to the economy that appears to have won manufacturing?
Madame Secretary Pompeo Leaks: USG Failed Politically In Venezuela
USG Madame Secretary Mike Pompeo has been caught in a leak lamenting the USG's political failure in Venezuela (archived). Per Madame secretary's laments, it appears the USG gravely misunderstood the mechanics of political parties in Latin America. In particular, the phenomenon where electorally untenable parties will fight their position all the way to their loss, repeatedly, instead of pursuing coalitions or moving on from dead movements appears to have been ignored.
Thusly with a grave lack of political and cultural competence in the Americas, the USG regime change team and Madame Secretary Pompeo found themselves in a hard place. Instead of uniting, "the opposition" in Venezuela came to offer more than 40 parties with "leaders" claiming to be the right and legitimate president of Venezuela, if only the USG could do all of the work for them.
Exim Remotely Exploitable: Most Machines Online And Running A Mail Transfer Agent Ready To Run Other People's Code
News has emerged that Exim, the most popularly deployed piece of email transmission software, is confirmed to be remotely exploitable for version numbers between 4.87 and 4.91 (archived). There are claims that the exploitable portion of the software was accidentally fixed in version 4.92 released in February, though the historical trend for this sort of shennanigan suggests more plausibly that an intentional NOBUS backdoor was quietly tightented after the US set expanded.
Austrialian Broadcaster Raided By "Law Enforcement" For Doing On War Crimes, Sweden Withdraws Assange Extradition Request
In Julian Assange's birthplace of Australia, national broadcaster ABC has been raided by "law enforcement" for engaging in journalistic activity on the subject of war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan (archived). The broadcaster's managing director offered little more than:
It is highly unusual for the national broadcaster to be raided in this way
While the Australian Federal Police offered that no arrests were planned in spite of the journalistic activity in question mirroring the same activity for which Julian Assange faces the prospect of centuries in US prison. Sweden recently retracted their extradition request for Assange leaving the US extradition request the only one under consideration by UK courts.
Chinese Ministries Issue Advisories Cautioning Against Travel To US Over Crime And Law Enforcement Hazards To Chinese Citizens
The Chinese foreign ministry and ministry of culture and tourism have issued travel advisories for Chinese citizens considering visits to the US (archived, archived, archived). Both advisories list many of the normal reasons other countries advise caution when traveling to the US including dangers presented by defects of culture and high urban crime rates. The culture and tourism ministry's advisory however goes further in highlighting the hazards posed by US "law enforcement" including the arbitrary application of laws.