July 22, 2015 archive

Jul 22 2015

Atmos

I’m not quite geeky and paranoid enough to claim that this really is a Sontaran plot to take over the Earth or that the Skynet is falling, but I know a bad idea when I hear one and ‘driverless’ cars is a bad idea.

Jeep owners urged to update their cars after hackers take remote control

by Samuel Gibbs, The Guardian

Tuesday 21 July 2015 10.30 EDT

Security experts are urging owners of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles vehicles to update their onboard software after hackers took control of a Jeep over the internet and disabled the engine and brakes and crashed it into a ditch.

A security hole in FCA’s Uconnect internet-enabled software allows hackers to remotely access the car’s systems and take control. Unlike some other cyberattacks on cars where only the entertainment system is vulnerable, the Uconnect hack affects driving systems from the GPS and windscreen wipers to the steering, brakes and engine control.

The Uconnect system is installed in hundreds of thousands of cars made by the FCA group since late 2013 and allows owners to remotely start the car, unlock doors and flash the headlights using an app.

The hack was demonstrated by Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, two security researchers who previous demonstrated attacks on a Toyota Prius and a Ford Escape. Using a laptop and a mobile phone on the Sprint network, they took control of a Jeep Cherokee while Wired reporter Andy Greenberg was driving, demonstrating their ability to control it and eventually forcing it into a ditch.

Unlike the majority of hacking attempts on cars, the vulnerability within the Uconnect system allows cybercriminals to take control of the car remotely, without the need to make physical contact with the car.

The security researchers notified Fiat Chrysler nine months ago, allowing the car manufacturer to release a security update to fix the problem, which it did on 16 July.

However the update requires users to manually update their cars by visiting the manufacturer’s site, downloading a programme onto a flash drive and inserting it into the car’s USB socket. FCA dealers can update the car for owners, but the company is apparently unable to automatically update the cars over the internet.

Newsflash: Car Network Security Is Still A Horrible, Very Dangerous Joke

by Karl Bode, Tech Dirt

Tue, Jul 21st 2015 10:33am

As we’ve noted for years, the security on most “smart” or “connected” cars is aggressively atrocious. And in fact it’s getting worse. As car infotainment systems get more elaborate, and wireless carriers increasingly push users to add their cellular-connected car to shared data plans, the security of these platforms has sometimes been an afterthought. Hackers this week once again made that perfectly clear after they demonstrated to a Wired reporter that they were able to manipulate and disable a new Jeep Cherokee running Fiat Chrysler’s UConnect platform.

…

The exploit appears to work on any Chrysler vehicle with Uconnect from late 2013, all of 2014, and early 2015. Chrysler/Fiat posted a notice to its website last week informing users that they need to update their in-car software either via USB stick (you can download the update here) or by taking it in to a dealer. Of course like many patches, most users won’t be paying much attention to the warning. And we’re only talking about Chrysler’s UConnect; there’s a bounty of half-assed security measures implemented in infotainment systems from automakers worldwide just waiting to be tinkered with by pranksters (or worse).

Jul 22 2015

Am I Really Going To Eat This?

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The host of “Last Week Tonight” John Oliver took a critical look at food waste management in America and the shocking amount of food we don’t eat. With his usual aplomb, he discusses the causes from arbitrary expiration dates and  inconsistent tax breaks for charitable business donations to impulse buying.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “as much as 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. never gets eaten” and “Americans throw away $165 billion worth of food every year,” roughly “20 pounds per person every month.” That’s enough waste to annually fill 730 football stadiums. How is that possible in a country where so many go hungry? A recent USDA report found that “in 2013, 49.1 million people lived in food-insecure households.”

“At a time when the landscape of California is shriveling up like a pumpkin in front of a house with a lazy dad, it seems especially unwise that farmers are pumping water into food that ends up being used as a garnish for landfills,” Oliver cracks. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “as much as 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. never gets eaten” and “Americans throw away $165 billion worth of food every year,” roughly “20 pounds per person every month.” That’s enough waste to annually fill 730 football stadiums. How is that possible in a country where so many go hungry? A recent USDA report found that “in 2013, 49.1 million people lived in food-insecure households.”

“At a time when the landscape of California is shriveling up like a pumpkin in front of a house with a lazy dad, it seems especially unwise that farmers are pumping water into food that ends up being used as a garnish for landfills,” Oliver cracks.

We all need to be more aware of what we purchase at the grocery store and in restaurants, asking ourselves “Am I really going to eat this?”

Jul 22 2015

The Breakfast Club (Limits)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

Wiley Post completes first solo flight around the world; Robber John Dillinger shot dead; Saddam Hussein’s sons killed in Iraq; The September 11th Commission releases its report; Birth of the Frisbee.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

Jul 22 2015

On This Day In History July 22

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge

July 22 is the 203rd day of the year (204th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 162 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1933, Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.

Like many pilots at the time, Post disliked the fact that the speed record for flying around the world was not held by a fixed-wing aircraft, but by the Graf Zeppelin, piloted by Hugo Eckener in 1929 with a time of 21 days. On June 23, 1931, Post and his navigator, Harold Gatty, left Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York in the Winnie Mae with a flight plan that would take them around the world, stopping at Harbour Grace, Flintshire, Hanover twice, Berlin, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk, Nome where his airscrew had to be repaired, Fairbanks where the airscrew was replaced, Edmonton, and Cleveland before returning to Roosevelt Field. They arrived back on July 1, after traveling 15,474 miles in the record time of 8 days and 15 hours and 51 minutes. The reception they received rivaled Lindbergh’s everywhere they went. They had lunch at the White House on July 6, rode in a ticker-tape parade the next day in New York City, and were honored at a banquet given by the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America at the Hotel Astor. After the flight, Post acquired the Winnie Mae from F.C. Hall, and he and Gatty published an account of their journey titled, Around the World in Eight Days, with an introduction by Will Rogers.

His Lockheed Vega aircraft, the Winnie Mae is on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, and his pressure suit is being prepared for display at the same location. On August 15, 1935, Post and American  humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post’s aircraft crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow, in Alaska.

Jul 22 2015

Cartnoon

Jul 22 2015

The Daily/Nightly Show (The Big Get)

You can watch it if you can stand it.  My position is that at least it’s out of the way and we can concentrate on what makes Jon good and not on what makes him suck.  My activist brother was worried that it will be just another one of these love fests where Jon decides not to burn his Rolodex by asking only softball questions, big and fat and right over the heart of the plate (oh, and he’s bi-partisany about it too, anyone remember John McCain?).

My brother was exactly right.

Obama on The Daily Show: ‘Executive order: Jon Stewart cannot leave’

by Rory Carroll, The Guardian

Tuesday 21 July 2015 19.54 EDT

With Obama approaching his final year in the White House and Stewart nearing the end of his 16-year-run as host of the Comedy Central flagship, the encounter had a valedictory air.

The Iran nuclear deal, as expected, featured prominently. Obama joked that critics of the deal seemed to think that “if you had brought Dick Cheney to the negotiations everything would be fine”.

Stewart noted his guest’s recent run of victories: “It appears that you’re feeling it a little bit right now. Do you feel like seven years in ≥”

“I know what I’m doing,” Obama interrupted. “A lot of the work that we did early starts bearing fruit late. The way I’m feeling right now is, I’ve got 18 months.” He vowed to tackle climate change and fuel-efficiency standards before leaving power.

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Obama said he felt strongly that “stuff gets better if we work at it and we stay focused on where we are going”. He said the “Hope” posters from his 2008 election run gave some the impression that everything would be fixed right away.

“We didn’t make those. You made those,” Stewart noted.

The president conceded many goals will remain unmet when he leaves office in 2017. “You’re always going to fall short, because if you’re hitting your marks, that means you didn’t set them high enough. We don’t score a touchdown every time, but we move the ball forward.”

Hmm… what would Dr. King have to say about that?

As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained.

As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community.

…

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides–and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history.

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I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

In a democratic system our representatives are not without agency and power, to pretend otherwise is a lie.

And the Party Platform?  A broken promise.

It’s not about the morality of the victim, it’s about the motivation of the rapist and consent

Tonightly we’ll be talking about the Ashley Madison hack and, of course, the Cos.  Our panel will be 50 Cent, Judd Apatow, and Rachel Feinstein.

Discontinuity

Not just a step, a giant leap for ass kind

This week’s guests-

Paul Rudd’s web exclusive extended interview and the real news below.