From the “No good deed goes unpunished” files, this week came news of a German programmer who probably wishes he had selected better clients. According to Heise Online (English translation), a freelance programmer — referred to only as “defendant” in the article — was retained by a company to look into a database problem in their system. His investigation revealed that the customer’s database was being filled with log messages from a third-party service called Modern Solution GmbH & Co. KG. over a MySQL connection to a remote server. Assuming this connection was dedicated for his client’s use, the programmer looked at the executable used to make the connection with a text editor, which revealed a password in plain text. Upon connecting to the remote database, he found that it not only contained data for all of Modern Solution’s customers, but also data for all the end users of their customers.
Realizing he’d unintentionally wandered into verboten territory, the programmer immediately backed out and contacted Modern Solutions. They quickly fixed the issue, and then just as quickly reported him to the police. Their “investigation” revealed that the programmer had “decompiled” the executable to obtain the password, in violation of German law. The judge agreed, stating that merely looking at and using the password constituted a criminal offense, regardless of intent and despite the fact that Modern Solution had provided the password to the programmer’s client when they sold them the software. The upshot of all of this nonsense? A €3,000 fine for the programmer, if the verdict stands on appeal. It could have been worse, though; German law allows for up to three years in prison for such offenses.
Speaking of legal nonsense, the Venn diagram of dystopian fiction is edging ever closer to becoming just a bunch of concentric circles with news of an INTERPOL white paper that details international law enforcement opportunities challenges presented by the metaverse. With the frightening title “Grooming, radicalization and cyber-attacks: INTERPOL warns of ‘Metacrime’,” the white paper anticipates a day when police will be faced with “virtual crime scenes where there is no physical evidence to be collected – just digital interactions involving virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).” Crimes they imagine taking place in this imaginary world include obvious yet ill-defined crimes such as grooming and radicalization, but also “virtual trespassing” into private metaverse property and theft from digital avatars. To some degree, we get their point; wherever people go, crime will follow. And it makes sense to be ahead of the curve, of course. But “metacrime” is a little too close for comfort to various sci-fi visions of crime.
In today’s “Google’s Gonna Google” news, it looks like the tech giant is floating changes to how it touts Incognito mode on Chrome browsers. Right now, the splash screen that pops up on Chrome incognito windows has comforting verbiage about how you’ll be browsing privately, and that you won’t leave any trace of which sites (ahem) you visited. But on Chrome Canary, which is a bleeding edge browser intended mainly for developers and gets nearly daily updates, the incognito splash screen now has more weasel words, saying that your browsing session will be more private than in a regular window, and offers a warning that data will still be collected. It’s probably not news to most readers that just because the calming visage of “Heisen-Nerd” appears doesn’t mean nobody is looking over your virtual shoulder while browsing, but it’s interesting that Google seems to be planning on making that clearer to the general public.
And finally, if you’re looking for a side hustle and have an extra $75,000 a month to spare, you might want to consider going into business as a rural ISP. That seems to be the intention of Starlink’s Community Gateways program, which lets participants access the satellite internet company’s 10-Gbps connection via a special gateway kit. As opposed to the flat user terminals we’re used to seeing, the gateways look more like miniature radomes; in a “Dishy McFlatface” world, we shudder to think what the nickname for these things will be. Setting up a Community Gateway seems like a pretty serious undertaking, as in addition to the $75K a month, you need to provide a suitable site with power and “lifting equipment,” as well as a startup fee of $1.25 million. But for someone with the right location and the proper skills, this could be a great opportunity.
What a crock with that poor programmer. Reminds me of that US case Gov. Mike Parson tried to claim a Journo was a “hacker:” All the guy did was look at a website’s source and noticed 50,000 teacher’s Social Security numbers, which he reported.
you know its all about protecting the business owner, it’s almost like telling everyone to check for e-coli bacteria in your hot-dogs and getting sued for releasing “trade secrets”
Germany even has a law that specifically outlaws “hacker tools”. These idiotic laws are the reason Germany has about zero talents in the IT security field. It’s a thankless job anyways, but if people risk going to jail just for having the “wrong” piece of software on their computers, they definitely won’t venture into that area even.
Potential to make Germany a hotbed for criminal activity though. Much like swatting in the US, if enough bad things happen to the rich and powerful something will be done.
Starlink gateways… so how many customers do you think you need to make that viable, and in a rural location? Sounds like a product for military deployments or remote FIFO mining villages.
Well, to get breakeven on just the monthly bandwidth costs you’d need 750 subscribers at $100/mo or 1000 at $75/mo. Starlink consumer is your competition at $120/mo. If you sell at $75/Mo to 1000 customers you can guarantee 10Mbps. If you 2x oversubscribe, that gives you$75000/mo to pay down your capital costs, pay employees, do maintenance, etc. If you take a 5 year loan at 6% to pay the capital costs, that’s $25000/mo (approx) leaving you $50000/mo for all your other costs. That’s within the realm of reason, so I’d say 2000 subscribers at $75/mo to make it viable for a bare bones operation.
Speed is much worse. The article says its 75k per Gbps per month so those 1000 customers only get a guaranteed 1Mbps.
How exactly do you think it is possible to access 2,000 subscribers in a rural location? I have a local WISP that uses my ham radio tower on a mountain hillside in a semi-rural area. He’s essentially the only viable service and yet covers roughly only 250 customers. Even with relays he’s going to be lucky to cover twice that.
Thanks for doing the math so I don’t have to.
I think I agree with the other commenter that most locations where you can sign up over 2000 users at $75 per month are going to already have options.
Also, last mile is one of the main expenses for this kind of setup in my understanding. You’d still need something for that, which might cost more than the starlink setup.
(I’m sure there are some good spots for them, it’s probably just the kind of thing you can count all the prime locations on your fingers and toes)
I’m surprised it isn’t mentioned in the article, the new text in Chrome is due to a lawsuit filed in California in 2020 and about to be settled, which accused Chrome of implying that their sites wouldn’t collect data from you in incognito mode when they do collect them. Details in Ars Technica for those curious (I don’t know if I can link to other websites but it isn’t hard to find).
accused *Google, my bad.
I hate to disparage or diminish anyones trauma, but the inevitable intersection of e-crime and the woke cottonball snowflake culture clash has already begun and will soon result in a global epidemic of eyes rolled back soo far that reading the news breaks will permanantly blind you leaving only the dark portrait of the back of your eyesockets to gaze upon for the rest of your days.
Please note im a staunch liberal supporter of police reform, womens rights, equitable lgbtq policy, anti fascism, etc. U name it. But i almost had to go to the er to get my palm removed from my forehead after reading this🤷🤦
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/rape-metaverse-woman-oculus-facebook-b2090491.html
That whirring sound you hear is the sound of my eyes rolling at your assumption that exposure to unwanted sexual content is harmless.
Is it harmless if you hang pictures of group sex all around the desks of your female colleagues?
Is it harmless if you spam your female colleagues with “dick pics?”
Is it harmless if you and a dozen other men all simulataneously flood the WhatsApp of a female colleague with sexuell inuendo and suggestive pictures?
While you are in the ER, see if they can extract your cranium from your rectum.
You have the choice to enter the virtual world.
The real world does not come with that option.
While the events of one may spill over into the other, they are NOT the same.
Don’t like the content? Stop reading it. Stop using it. Stop PAYING FOR it. Find another platform.
. . . Not that easy in the real world, different argument entirely.
If am as woke and snowflakey as they come, I read about this story in The Guardian ffs, but unless they have redefined with word and not told anyone, it’s very hard to see how this could fall under the definition of “rape”.
That’s not to say something illegal didn’t happen, or that the petson wasn’t traumatised, but on the surface it sounds more like malicious communications. Not a lawyer and all that.
Should be called “Chrome Canary-In-The-Coalmine”…