Linux code injection paint-by-numbers.

Can we launch a process that looks one way to (superficial) auditors but is, in fact, entirely different? (Think process hollowing and the like on Windows).

Firstly, how are processes created and what does related auditing look like?

The most common pattern is fork() → execve(). Where the fork() syscall create a duplicate of the running process context and execve() overlays a copy of the target program onto that context.

After calling fork(), we’ll have two processes, the original one and a new - duplicated - one (with a new pid).

Control will return from fork() to both process instances. In the child process, the return value will simply by 0, in the parent it will hold the pid of the child.

Thus we can determine whether we are running in the child context and call execv() accordingly, while allowing the parent to continue.

Now, let’s take a look at where the auditing hooks lie. From calling execve(), we’ll eventually land up in exec_binrpm().

What are the implications of using hacked data for research?

A short thread inspired by the fact that, before AWs took it down, #Parler was extensively hacked and user data was leaked.

The #Parler dataset seems crazy interesting for doing research, and my first reaction after the breach was to shre it with other #CompSocSci ppl.

However, I started having second thoughts, so what follows is to organize ideas and have it somewhere I can look back to.

2/n

Generally speaking, as far as the ethics of research goes a good advice would be to handle hacked data with caution.

First of all, there's an issue of quality. Data might be altered or incomplete, and the source cannot be considered accountable (assuming src is anonymous).

3/n

Secondly and more importantly, a researcher using the data would probably be violating users’ consent and acting against the data collector's will.

Finally, users’ privacy is at stake, since researchers could see material that users didn’t agree for other people to see.

4/n

Sharing private information without consent might put people at risk of harm.

This is all the more true in cases such as the #ParlerHack, where the leaked information is of particularly sensitive nature, and there’s a high risk of unintended consequences.

5/n

X : Can you apply pace layers to maps?
Me : You can but what is where evolves. However, same rules apply to things, practices, data, knowledge and ethical values. All are forms of evolving capital. In the mapping world, we refer to this with pioneers, settlers and town planners.

X : What's the robot for?
Me : Image from an older presentation slide, don't worry it has no relevance.
X : Is this linked to diffusion?
Me : Not simply. Evolution of a single component can consist of many hundreds of diffusion curves i.e. a virus diffuses but it also evolves.

X : Why have you got DevOps in legacy? We haven't even started yet.
Me : That's not my problem. I would take a look at serverless.
X : DevOps is serverless.
Me : Some of the practices maybe co-opted (see ITIL vs DevOps) but the new faction will decide what it is or isn't.

X : I also disagree with your methods graphic.
Me : Do you mean this? As applied to the following map?
X : Yes. Lean is suitable for innovation.
Me : Ah, that depends upon what you mean by innovation. If you mean Genesis then lightweight XP has it beat.

X : I disagree.
Me : Well, I've had 15 years of people telling me that Agile works everywhere or Lean works everywhere or Six Sigma works everywhere and why all the competing methods don't. I have no interest in the conversation. Use appropriate methods based upon context.

Parler has been hacked and user data has been downloaded. The following thread contains information from /u/BlueMountainDace on Reddit:

"so a group of developers latched onto the Press Release that Twilio put out at midnight last night. In that Press Release, Twilio

accidentally revealed which services Parler was using. Turns out it was all of the security authentications that were used to register a user. This allowed anyone to create a user, and not have to verify an email address, and immediately have a logged-on account.

Well,

because of that access, it gave them access to the behind the login box API that is used to deliver content -- ALL CONTENT (parleys, video, images, user profiles, user information, etc) --. But what it also did was revealed which USERS had "Administration" rights,

"Moderation" rights.

Well, then what happened, those user accounts that had Administration rights to the entire platform... The hackers, internet warriors, call it what you will, was able to use the forgot password link to change the password. Why? Because Twilio was no

longer authenticating emails. This meant, they'd get directly to the reset password screen of that Administration user.

This group of Internet Warriors then used that account, to create a handful of other ADMINISTRATION accounts, and then created a script that ended up

Company
Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump
By Twitter Inc.
Friday, 8 January 2021
After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter —

we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence. 

In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action.

Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. 

However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are

not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement. 

The below is a comprehensive analysis of our policy enforcement approach in this case.

Overview

On January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump Tweeted:

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form

7 Tactics To Increase Engagement on Your Threads

// THREAD //

People are constantly seeing the same stuff over and over again on their timeline.

This is why you need to learn how to stand out.

When they’re scrolling you need to grab their attention and reel them into something they want to read.

If you think about it, your job is just to get them to click your tweet. Once that’s done, they’ll be reading your other ones in no time.

In order to get them to click you need to show one of these 7 things:
> authority
> experience
> value
> lesson
> mystery
> opinion
> numbers

The easiest way to write headlines based off of these things is to write out your audience’s objections.

Then, indirectly counter their objection within your headline (sounds cool right?).

An old copywriting trick 😉

1. Authority

“Why should I read your thread? What have you done that makes me trust you”

Headline:
“$97,840 in Profit This Month Using This 5-Step Plan to Make Landing Pages”

Authority shows people you know what you’re doing by telling them a true stat/claim.

WHO STOLE MY DISK SECTOR

what

this is a different disk.

did two disks on my desk go bad at the same time? or is this USB drive A USELESS FAILURE?

ok I'm trying a third disk and if this fails this drive is going right in the lake

it wrote successfully! now I can install some MS-DOS 6.22

dang it. after all that time installing it, it can't boot.
it doesn't even fail to boot, it just hangs at boot

some stupid problem with partitioning/mbr, probably

Lunchtime #humour - Ordering a Pizza in 2021!
CALLER: Is this Pizza Delight?

GOOGLE: No sir, it's Google Pizza.

CALLER: I must have dialed the wrong number. Sorry.

GOOGLE: No sir, Google bought Pizza Delight last month.

CALLER: OK, I would like to order a pizza.

Contd... 1/9

GOOGLE: Do you want your usual, sir?

CALLER: My usual? You know me?

GOOGLE: According to our caller ID data sheet, the last 12 times you called you ordered an extra-large pizza with 3 slices of cheese, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, and meatballs on a thick crust.

Contd... 2/9

CALLER: OK! That’s what I want.

GOOGLE: May I suggest that this time you order a pizza with ricotta, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives on a whole wheat gluten-free thin crust?

CALLER: What? I detest vegetables!

GOOGLE: Your cholesterol is not good, sir.

Contd... 3/9

CALLER: How the hell do you know?

GOOGLE: Well, we cross-referenced your home phone number with your medical records. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years.

Contd... 4/9

CALLER: Okay, but I do not want your rotten vegetable pizza! I already take medication for my cholesterol.

GOOGLE: Excuse me sir, but you have not taken your medication regularly.

Contd... 5/9

With Parler down, there are going to be a ton of white supremacists switching to (or back to) @Telegram, a company that has sheltered some of the worst, most explicitly pro-terror Nazi groups for years now.

RT to tell @apple & @google to KICK TELEGRAM OFF their app stores, too.

Or, Telegram can actually enforce its terms of service.

But I am watching tons of Nazis thrill to the idea of mass murder on there.

They're emboldened, and @Telegram gives them a place to recruit, radicalize, and plan to kill people.

Parler was bad, but Telegram is the absolute wild west.

I've watched actual terror plots unfold there.

It's where they share printable gun plans and bomb how-tos.

It's where they discuss targets and share vicious, gory murder videos of minorities they don't like.

And I would also add, deplatforming the less dark-webby extremism platforms like Parler ALWAYS means a temporary influx to these more extremist, darker-webby platforms.

We saw it after 8chan, too.

It was necessary, it immediately and overwhelmingly cut down on successful deadly terror, but in the very short term I watched numbers swell in overtly terror Nazi channels as more radicalized/edgelors 8chan folks sought a new home.

#Whatsapp Privacy & Term of Service Thread:

I am sharing screenshots of their ToSs, please have a look.

1/9

2/9

3/9

4/9

5/9

*** THREAD ***

Three really useful Google Chrome extensions for Google Classroom.

1️⃣

Mote: voice notes and feedback.

This is an efficient tool for recording and posting verbal feedback. Mote is fully integrated into Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Google Classroom. This makes it incredibly accessible and easy to use.

The mote icon (purple) appears in the 'private comments' box when you view submissions in GC. You simply click on the icon and record. With voice recording one click away, it is easy and quick to use. You only get 30 seconds but this encourages succinct, precise feedback.

It's great that you can view the document you are providing feedback on whilst recording. This helps to ensure specificity. For example, you can highlight specific examples from a student's work and then talk through them. This sort of thing prevents me from waffling, anyway.

There are other benefits too:
- Verbal feedback can be transcribed, with the option to review and change before posting.
- Mote supports transcription in more than 20 languages.

1/The next major problem set in #DeFi is #NFTLiquidity.

It has become very clear that, like fungibles, nonfungibles are their own financial asset class.

One path to see this is to envision the future of NFTs as “liquid

2/Some say that NFTs “shouldn’t be” liquid, yet the innovation process continues.

Just like photography has become much easier to create in the last 100 years, liquid NFTs will surely bring down price points of tokenized digital content but will also open expansive new markets.

3/The key observation is this: #NFTLiquidity is merely a technical problem for #DeFi, and the entire set of economic mechanisms is its solution space.

👉🏻 In particular, because of tokenization, *the NFT liquidity problem reduces to the NFT price discovery problem.*

4/In other words, if we could reliably price a set of NFTs, we could issue a token backed by their reliably priced future resale value.

This is a core mechanism that today is underutilized in the market, and one that — we will soon see — applies to all illiquid assets.

5/Today, NFT price discovery proceeds via three main mechanisms: sales, auctions, and ERC20 fractionalization.

And the fundamental problem with each of these mechanisms is capital efficiency: in each mechanism, participants need to spend *at least* $N to value something at $N.

Yoga employs more Americans than coal. But compare and contrast 1/2

and 2/2

I think many of us carry in our minds an image of the US economy that looks like this

when the reality is this

and this

1/

Thread on @signalapp:

28th Nov 2011: A deal is made.

Security researcher @Moxie Marlinspike and Roboticist Stuart Anderson's brainchild, Whisper Systems, will be sold off to Twitter for a nice sum of money. It comes as a surprise because all of Whisper System's services

Lemme know of your thoughts on this entire story of the Signal App! Also help dispel the rumors surrounding it!

Cc: @UnSubtleDesi @swati_gs @rahulroushan @bhootnath @PrinceArihan @BefittingFacts @disclosetv @TheWolfpackIN @VertigoWarrior @WarHorizon @ExSecular @RDXThinksThat

Play is our future

Skill is measurable w/ two resources 1) time, 2) energy

Players whose actions make better use of these resources can be defined as optimal. This is not subjective

Time (faster)/overload/conscious/stress
Energy(easier)/underload/unconscious/low anxiety

Orgel's First Rule:

"Whenever a spontaneous process is too slow or too inefficient a protein will evolve to speed it up or make it more efficient."

Faster (speed/strength)-Deliberate Practice
Easier--Play

Overload (D.Practice) builds faster=hypertrophy and results in measurable selection resulting in problems such as Relative Age Effect, and players with very fast cars saddled with inexperienced drivers

It's more likely to be wrapped around a tree than finish the race.

as Orgel says, if we allow it, play will produce faster and easier

Kids in play build the driving sills first, in Go Karts, like Ayrton Senna

Big brains, slow cars, easier

But where speed is limited by physics,

Ideas are plentiful and under resourced in US youth sport

Almost every coach will agree w/ the following

Competition is important
Training is more important than games
Play is more important than both

But,

the big thing is to keep the big thing the big thing

I did more research into the Parler dump. What probably happened was not so much a "hack", but this: When Twilio/Okta shut them down, they just disabled email/phone verification to create an account. This means anyone could directly create huge amounts of accounts via their API.

Someone also found out that fetching Parler posts could be done by enumerating IDs (e.g 1, 2, 3) instead of random IDs that can't be guessed. Unclear if this was via the ordinary API endpoint, or that they found a separate one by monitoring app network traffic.

So you combine these two things and you can create a script to scrape all the posts on the entire platform, using a lot of different accounts to avoid suspicion. Anyone could download and run this script to spread it out over many IP addresses as well.

What I'm still not sure about is whether deleted (meaning flagged as deleted, it's common that services never actually delete data) posts could be fetched without any special handling.

The verdict: The people who wrote Parler are fucking amateurs.

Right, I did some reading and here’s what likely happened with Parler. Lots of crossed wires here.

First up: someone noticed that Parler uses sequential integers in the API endpoint to get content.

An API endpoint is just a URL with a value added onto the end that tells the system what you want to get back.

Using sequential integers means that a hacker can set up an automated script to start at 1 and count up, trying API calls over and over again, to get back content from Parler.

Parler apparently had no restrictions on this API endpoint, which frankly blows my mind as a web dev.

If you had a working URL, it just spat out whatever it had whether you were logged in or not.

It seems that EVERYTHING that had been uploaded - video, photos, text posts - was accessible whether it had been deleted or restricted in the app itself. Even uploaded photos of licenses etc etc.

I cannot describe how amateur hour this is, if true.

I first joined Facebook in 2007 to report a Facebook group called "Find Dirt on the New Pastor at Northbrook: Because Everyone Has Secrets," which began within about 7-8 months of me arriving.

It has maybe 450+ members, some of which were children of church members (and maybe some on the membership roles).
It contained pictures of me (one altered to add 666 to my necktie) and my family (one implying that I abused my youngest child).

I reported it to FB, after which the administrators dropped off it. So I contacted FB again, saying if they didn't remove it ithey would hear from my attorney about defamation of character. It was soon removed (though I may still have printouts of all group pages).

(Around the same time there was another Facebook group called "Take Back the Northbrook Youth Group," for which the cover pic was a former youth group member brandishing a handgun. Removed much more quickly when his mother learned of it!)

What I'm saying is this:

1. This is (one of several reasons) why I don't tolerate people misrepresenting me, making unwarranted accusations, or making threats...especially when they are "Christians."

2. Not much has changed on Facebook in 15 years.