KrØØk: Wi-Fi Chips Vulnerable to Eavesdropping
August 7th, 2020Via: welivesecurity:
KrØØk (formally CVE-2019-15126) is a vulnerability in Broadcom and Cypress Wi-Fi chips that allows unauthorized decryption of some WPA2-encrypted traffic. Specifically, the bug has led to wireless network data being encrypted with a WPA2 pairwise session key that is all zeros instead of the proper session key that had previously been established in the 4-way handshake. This undesirable state occurs on vulnerable Broadcom and Cypress chips following a Wi-Fi disassociation.
Exploiting KrØØk allows adversaries to intercept and decrypt (potentially sensitive) data of interest and, when compared to other techniques commonly used against Wi-Fi, exploiting KrØØk has a significant advantage: while they need to be in range of the Wi-Fi signal, the attackers do not need to be authenticated and associated to the WLAN. In other words, they don’t need to know the Wi-Fi password.
Number of Americans Who Plan to Get Coronavirus Vaccine Falls to 42%
August 6th, 2020Via: Yahoo News:
Now the latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll, conducted July 28 to 30, shows that just 42 percent of Americans plan to get vaccinated for COVID-19 — the smallest share to date.
The outlook for universal vaccination is clouded by political considerations from both sides: skepticism about medical authority and expertise (more common among Trump supporters), and suspicions (mostly among Democrats) that the administration is cutting corners on safety to rush a vaccine into production before the election.
Beirut Explosion Theories
August 6th, 2020I haven’t been posting anything about this because I haven’t seen anything that seems credible as an alternative explanation. Yet.
People are sending me everything from energy beams to the Cookie Monster as explanations.
Discernment, people. Discernment.
That said, if you’re looking for alternative takes on this, here’s a roundup.
Via: Giza Death Star:
So take what follows with a grain of salt. In fact, probably a whole bag of salt.
Saudi Hit Squad Was Sent to Toronto to Try to Kill Former Intel Official, Lawsuit Alleges
August 6th, 2020Via: TheStar:
The Saudi men arrived at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on a fall day.
Among them were DNA forensic experts, a senior military officer and a member of Saudi Arabia’s ministry of foreign affairs.
Holding tourist visas, they approached different customs kiosks. When questioned by border officers, they said they were not together.
In fact, they were a team of mercenaries known as the Tiger Squad — a group allegedly sent by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman just days after the brutal death of prominent Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey.
Their alleged target? Saad Aljabri, a former top Saudi intelligence official who had sought exile in Toronto. They had tracked him to Canada using malware on his phone. They were here to execute him.
This is the extraordinary scene from 2018, seemingly out of a Hollywood spy thriller, that is painted in the allegations of a 100-plus-page lawsuit filed Thursday by Aljabri’s lawyers at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Even though the alleged murder plot was thwarted after the team members failed to get past suspicious border officers, Aljabri’s life remains today in “dire peril,” the lawsuit asserts.
More than 20GB of Intel Source Code and Proprietary Data Dumped Online
August 6th, 2020When it rains, it pours.
Via: Ars Technica:
Intel is investigating the purported leak of more than 20 gigabytes of its proprietary data and source code that a security researcher said came from a data breach earlier this year.
The data—which at the time this post went live was publicly available on BitTorrent feeds—contains data Intel makes available to partners and customers under NDA, a company spokeswoman said. Speaking on background, she said Intel officials don’t believe the data came from a network breach. She also said the company is still trying to determine how current the material is and that, so far, there is no signs the data includes any customer or personal information.
“We are investigating this situation,” company officials said in a statement. “The information appears to come from the Intel Resource and Design Center, which hosts information for use by our customers, partners and other external parties who have registered for access. We believe an individual with access downloaded and shared this data.”
Project Veritas Founder James O’Keefe Tries to Buy a Shotgun
August 6th, 2020Via: Project Veritas:
China Helped Saudis Build Secret Nuclear Site For Extracting Yellowcake
August 6th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
When it comes to America’s allies in the Middle East, Washington has long “looked the other way” while they recklessly pursue questionable weapons technology. Think Pakistan’s nuclear program at a time when the Reagan administration prioritized fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, or Israel’s estimated 100 to possibly 200 undeclared nukes.
This has more recently been the case with Saudi Arabia, where the kingdom has long been rumored to pursue nukes to gain dominance over Shia rival Iran. And now this willful looking the other way on banned weapons is coming back to bite Washington hard.
“Saudi Arabia has constructed with Chinese help a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake from uranium ore, an advance in the oil-rich kingdom’s drive to master nuclear technology, according to Western officials with knowledge of the site,” The Wall Street Journal writes in a bombshell investigative report.
What’s Wrong with Intel, and How to Fix It
August 6th, 2020The disaster at Intel will definitely continue to get worse before it gets better.
AMD’s Zen3 chips are only a few months away and Intel… has been busy rearranging the deck chairs.
That’s the bad news for Intel.
The good news might be that Zen3 will be so horrific for Intel that the situation will finally cause a genuine shakeup over there.
Via: PC World:
The principal engineer who worked on CPUs from the Pentium III to Core i7 says Intel has lost focus, and it’s “lucky” AMD can’t make enough CPUs to do more damage.
UK Gives Town Councils Power To Bulldoze ‘Contaminated’ Homes To Contain Outbreak [???]
August 6th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
Britons were shocked and angered this week when an internal government guide meant to inform local councils and town authorities on possible strategies in dealing with rising coronavirus cases throughout the country explored scenarios wherein demolition of ‘contaminated’ homes would be allowed.
It’s unclear if the UK guide, called Covid-19 Contain Framework and produced by the Department of Health and Social Care, was intended to gain broad public circulation, given it contains what’s widely seen as oppressive overkill measures that are absolutely Orwellian and downright tyrannical in terms of the power assumed by local councils.
Here’s the headline in The Telegraph that went viral late in the day Tuesday: Councils can demolish contaminated buildings under powers to stop second coronavirus wave.
New York City: COVID Checkpoints
August 5th, 2020Via: MarketWatch:
New York City will set up checkpoints at bridges and tunnels into the five boroughs to help enforce a state-mandated quarantine order for people traveling from high-risk states.
“We’ve got 35 states now that have dangerously high infection rates. There’s a lot to be concerned about,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said as he announced the checkpoints on Wednesday. “We have to focus on people coming in from outside.”
