Real-life wireless implant hacking Options

[DMK]

Thought the crew here would find this interesting... https://www.axios.com/cybersecurity-insulin...f549c8ded5.html

[Nstol_wisper]

This is a problem.

Corporate Open Source has already decided they can't trust critical projects to hobbisyt coders, no matter how long they've been doing it.

[hermit]

It also isn't a recent discovery.

Too bad Cheney is too retarded to understand how FUN combat hacking is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Nstol_wisper]

Even the US is throwing malware at enemies now, so is it a big stretch of the imagination to say the rush towards open source by private companies is just ammo against threats like these?

[Nstol_wisper]

If 5th edition is any guide......
Devices like these in 6e will have more than just all deckers to worry about. Mages and Technomancers will be able to influence devices too. *Sick* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Jaid]

in fairness, technomancers actually being able to hack things (rather than needing to rely on a sprite to do everything for them) would count as an improvement (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Nstol_wisper]

I was sure Technomancer gained some ability to do so without sprites.
I have not looked at 5e rules for some time now, but if I come across it in the near future I'll post it.

[Jaid]

I was sure Technomancer gained some ability to do so without sprites.
I have not looked at 5e rules for some time now, but if I come across it in the near future I'll post it.

well i mean, it's technically possible. but the cost of building a technomancer is so high that it generally works out to petnomancer being the only build that works well at all, last i looked. they did eventually get around to making some changes that help somewhat, but considering the quadruple nerf beatdown they got to kick off the edition, a couple of small buffs was never going to be enough.

so, yes, they gained a few extra points of skills in chargen, which makes them less incapable of doing things themselves than prior to that buff... but they're still far behind a decker (which started off in a good position and got buffed by the addition of new gear, new rules, etc) and should frankly probably still rely on compiled/registered sprites for doing most actual hacking.

[hermit]

Even the US is throwing malware at enemies now, so is it a big stretch of the imagination to say the rush towards open source by private companies is just ammo against threats like these?

EVEN the US?

And probably, yes. Though i they have the quality and quantity of personnel to adequately develop these remains to be seen.

[KCKitsune]

EVEN the US?

And probably, yes. Though i they have the quality and quantity of personnel to adequately develop these remains to be seen.

Considering the state of the US education system, I would be very surprised that the US could mount an effective cyber defense. Full disclosure, I'm an American and I think that until we fix our adult daycare system (AKA Colleges) then we're going to get our asses kicked by all and sundry.

I've said it to my friends, in a Cyber war verses NORTH KOREA, I fear we would get beat. While NK makes their students WORK 18 hrs a day, our students argue who can use which bathroom.

[hermit]

Considering the state of the US education system, I would be very surprised that the US could mount an effective cyber defense.

For the longest time, throughout the tech boom, the US relied on immigrants to do that for them (I mean, look at the average tech entreprenneur - precious few actual, born Americans there). According to my sister, who is in Stanford a month a year for professional reasons, American-educated students stop to be relevant in US science from doctorate level up - precious frew MINT professors, scientists, researchers and even administrative people are US natives. This worked for as long as the US was very accomodating to immigrants. It stops ... well, you said it.

As I see it, though, the problem is earlier. Grade and High Schools. I have no idea what you do during High School, but you manage to drag an equivalent to a middle school degree (9 to 10 years) to 13 years. From what little I know of the US school system, though, deprivatizing the curricula, standardizing and strictly regulating learning materials and significantly tightening schedule and curriculum to the level of a prep school as the standard would probably work to get US schools (and graduates) to competitive standards again. Do away with standardized testing, offer left-behind students special counseling instead of making them the determinant for progress speed, and make learning materials transparent and ban the secrecy currently prevalent. Of course, as with everything in the US, this means fighting powerful and entrenched oligarchs and their pet corporations.

[Nstol_wisper]

While a vast amount of products are actually produced outside of the US and Europe, there has of yet been no competitive equivalent to, say an SAP, Microsoft, Google or AT&T to give examples.
While foreign workers are about at less than half of what they were at their heights and some technical fields in the US only employ about a third of what the peaks were.

[bannockburn]

You do know where SAP comes from, right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[hermit]

While a vast amount of products are actually produced outside of the US and Europe, there has of yet been no competitive equivalent to, say an SAP, Microsoft, Google or AT&T to give examples.

Yes, an American equivalent of SAP has yet to develop. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

That aside, Google and AT&T are more a product of the US' leniency towards uncompetitive monopoly markets than technological ingenuity. And Google especially was built at every level primarily by immigrants. The rise of pure-scam "innovators" like Uber also speaks volumes about what the american tech scene really is good at.

[Nstol_wisper]

Down with the Imperialists Indeed! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Nstol_wisper]

Yes, an American equivalent of SAP has yet to develop. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

That aside, Google and AT&T are more a product of the US' leniency towards uncompetitive monopoly markets than technological ingenuity. And Google especially was built at every level primarily by immigrants. The rise of pure-scam "innovators" like Uber also speaks volumes about what the american tech scene really is good at.

It seems as if the options are steal secrets or look for an unfair competitive advantage, or at least it always comes down to those options.

[Iduno]

You do know where SAP comes from, right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Am I too late to say "trees"?

[KCKitsune]

As I see it, though, the problem is earlier. Grade and High Schools. I have no idea what you do during High School, but you manage to drag an equivalent to a middle school degree (9 to 10 years) to 13 years. From what little I know of the US school system, though, deprivatizing the curricula, standardizing and strictly regulating learning materials and significantly tightening schedule and curriculum to the level of a prep school as the standard would probably work to get US schools (and graduates) to competitive standards again. Do away with standardized testing, offer left-behind students special counseling instead of making them the determinant for progress speed, and make learning materials transparent and ban the secrecy currently prevalent. Of course, as with everything in the US, this means fighting powerful and entrenched oligarchs and their pet corporations.

Agreed. My 11th and 12th grade year were completely worthless. I would have loved to graduate High School at grade 10 and then go to Community College.

I wish they would just skip the last two years, but the Teacher's Union would fight that tooth and nail. It IS getting a tiny bit better with High Schools though.

[hermit]

It seems as if the options are steal secrets or look for an unfair competitive advantage, or at least it always comes down to those options.

It's neither innovative new algorithms (like google) or economies of scale (like amazon) with Uber, Lyft et al. They tried to make an uncompetitive, less efficient than traditional competitors product that also causes great harm to society into a global monopoly by utilizing the wellspring of venture capital and comparatively loose monetary policies in the US back then. It's basically capitalism according to Karl Marx. Blatant idea theft from evil megacorporations that at least are actual innovators is the icing on the shitcake.

Agreed. My 11th and 12th grade year were completely worthless. I would have loved to graduate High School at grade 10 and then go to Community College.

May I ask what you did, curriculum-wise? Also, efficiency-wise, a jump to an open, free, general prep school (basically operating like today's high schools) and abolishment of the current system of colleges altogether (which exist only to fleece students and make education unavailable to the lower classes anyway) would be best, imho. A vocational component - like the German dual system Melania Trump, of all people, is taken by - would also be a good addition, coupled with a middle school degree at 10 years.

Unsurprisingly, my idea is a euro-style school system. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Nstol_wisper]

I remember when the the word was that the next big microprocessor company cannot be in the US, or the next big operating system cannot be from a US company.
Has not happend that way at all. So the US education system must be doing something right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)

[Sendaz]

Has not happend that way at all. So the US education system must be doing something right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)

Not really.

Over 57% of STEM jobs in Silicone Valley are being filled by workers from abroad, because they can not fill those spots domestically.

And with the current administration tightening the visa rules, even for STEM related hirings, many tech companies in the US are expressing concerns about being able to fill the expanding demand for this skillset as they point out domestic education is not properly preparing students for STEM jobs, or even letting them know those options exist.

One student survey had 64% of them not even knowing there were Math related jobs available. So it is not just a question of education, but also actually a need for better encouraging students to look at STEM options that they might not realise exist.

[hermit]

I remember when the the word was that the next big microprocessor company cannot be in the US, or the next big operating system cannot be from a US company.
Has not happend that way at all. So the US education system must be doing something right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)

Uhm, no. Immigrants have. Americans don't exist much either in Tech R&D or university research in the US. The current idiocracy is just digging your country's grave. Besides, the last big tech and microprocessor companies were all Chinese. All the US managed was pie-in-the-sky-companies like tesla, and scams like Lyft or Uber.

[pragma]

Uhm, no. Immigrants have. Americans don't exist much either in Tech R&D or university research in the US. The current idiocracy is just digging your country's grave. Besides, the last big tech and microprocessor companies were all Chinese. All the US managed was pie-in-the-sky-companies like tesla, and scams like Lyft or Uber.

There are some incorrect statements here about the microprocessor market. Intel, the largest microprocessor chipmaker in the world, is an American company. Samsung, the second largest, is Korean, not Chinese. ARM, which arguably has a bigger footprint on the catalog/OEM microcontroller market than Samsung through licensing agreements on the ARM architecture, is British. AMD, the second largest server/PC supplier (ARM architectures dominate the mobile market), is also American. NVIDIA, which competes with AMD in the GPU (no longer microprocessors, but whatever) market, is also American.

It's true that many employees of these companies are immigrants (~20% generalizing from a Pew Research thing here), but more are American citizens, including second generation immigrants. So I don't think this industry in particular reflects particularly poorly on American engineering education.

Mainland China doesn't have a particularly successful track record of semiconductor (including microprocessor) manufacturing, but they're trying to change that. On the other hand, TSMC (in Taiwan) is one of the largest fabrication (but not design) houses in the world. A Chinese state-backed venture fund recently bought Imagination Semicondutor which might give Chinese companies access to the somewhat popular, but dated, MIPS CPU architecture IP. There are legal questions about that deal.

All this said, I agree that there are problems in the American education system and workforce. Colleges do cost too much, which does seem debt driven, and there is some evidence that they don't improve critical thinking or writing (though that study didn't look at other educational outcomes). I think more sever problems are systemic, unequal educational outcomes and a failure to provide the workforce with sufficient robotics, AI and computer security professionals. I'd argue that these problems problems have a similar root, which is a lack of universal pre-K and understaffing/undertraining at the elementary school level. Educational research has been way ahead of classroom practice for decades, and I think much of that has to do with the lack of time and teaching resources, and other research suggests that students start identifying themselves as STEM-capable in 7th and 8th grade, which is where I think the supply is drying up.

[hermit]

It's true that many employees of these companies are immigrants (~20% generalizing from a Pew Research thing here), but more are American citizens, including second generation immigrants. So I don't think this industry in particular reflects particularly poorly on American engineering education.

It's not just their number but also the jobs they fill. The janitors, asisstants and management are much less crucial to innovation, research, design and implementation of new technologies than the respective specialists, and it'S there that many non-Americans or naturalized first generation immigrants make their presence felt.

It'S true though that China has no major microprocesor/semiconductor producer. That was sloppy of me. Still, Samsung isn't American, neither is ARM, so my point versus nstol_whisper still stands.

[Nstol_wisper]

And no one mentioned Intel? Motorola?