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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 26 2014, @04:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the need-to-put-a-filter-on-that-e-cigarette dept.

The Guardian features a story about e-cigarettes carrying some malware, infecting computers used to charge them. Though not entirely surprising when you actually think about it, personally I'd not have expected non-computerized devices which just happen to have micro-usb charger socket to pose a threat to IT security.

From the article:

“The made in China e-cigarette had malware hardcoded into the charger, and when plugged into a computer’s USB port the malware phoned home and infected the system.”

Later the article references some low-level attacks might be used to reprogram USB chips on devices, letting them act as USB keyboards issuing commands on the behalf of the logged in user, etc.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by silverly on Wednesday November 26 2014, @05:22AM

    by silverly (4052) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @05:22AM (#120147) Homepage

    and appearently, they bring all the spammers to soylentnews.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @05:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @05:23AM (#120150)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @05:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @05:57AM (#120171)

    from 10 per day for ACs, I had a feeling that was going to get abused.
    I'm only surprised it took this long.

    -- gewg_

    • (Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday November 26 2014, @06:53AM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 26 2014, @06:53AM (#120173)

      Maybe you could tie the AC post rate to the rate of mod points given to counter it?

      --
      SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @07:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @07:24AM (#120178)

        I didn't find the old Slow down, cowboy thing to be an especially bad meme either.
        If that is not going to be in place and IP addresses aren't going to be routinely recorded, maybe a trigger could be installed such that the posting rate of an obvious bot/spammer will be picked out and that IP address will be blocked.

        I can't even -think- fast enough to compose 5 posts in 4 minutes, much less actually type them out and click the buttons.

        -- gewg_

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:22AM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:22AM (#120182) Journal

          Actually the troll spam in this story would have been adequately handled by a similarity filter.

          Anyway, I've got the setting that -1 posts should be collapsed by default, but all those top level -1 posts aren't. Is there any way to fix this (other than not displaying -1 posts at all, which I don't want to do)?

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
          • (Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:01AM

            by Marand (1081) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:01AM (#120203) Journal

            Anyway, I've got the setting that -1 posts should be collapsed by default, but all those top level -1 posts aren't. Is there any way to fix this (other than not displaying -1 posts at all, which I don't want to do)?

            I was wondering about that myself. I normally use Threshold -1, Breakthrough 0 so that, at least in theory, I see all posts 0 or up, with -1's collapsed but expandable. Works as expected on all child posts, but the top-level ones still display in full. Setting the breakthrough to 1 makes top-level -1's disappear but 0's still display, and to get rid of top-level 0's I have to set the breakthrough to 2.

            I'm not sure if there's an off-by-one error somewhere, or if top-level posts get some kind of invisible karma bonus, but the top level posts don't behave like the rest.

            • (Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Wednesday November 26 2014, @01:41PM

              by sudo rm -rf (2357) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @01:41PM (#120257) Journal

              Just for the record, slashdot* seems to be targeted also, albeit less severe

              * sudo rm -rf is neither affiliated with nor endorsed by slashdot.org

              • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday November 26 2014, @02:41PM

                by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @02:41PM (#120269)

                I wish there were separate "-1 Troll" and "-1 Spam" moderation. There are a lot of people that use "-1 Troll" as "-1 I Disagree", so there are some really good Troll posts out there. The spam posts are just useless and help nobody. Also there are some legitimately trollish posts that are amusing or interesting.

                Copy-paste spam is never interesting. As has been said before... "Troll harder, bro."

                --
                "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
                • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday November 26 2014, @02:58PM

                  by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @02:58PM (#120275)

                  Actually nevermind, moderators are assholes and will abuse this moderation by applying it to posts that were not spammy.

                  --
                  "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
                  • (Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday November 26 2014, @06:37PM

                    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 26 2014, @06:37PM (#120337)

                    Offtopic mod seems like a catch-all.

                    --
                    SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
                • (Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:09PM

                  by Marand (1081) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:09PM (#120369) Journal

                  I notice you already covered the problem with this idea, but if you still want to try it, you can do something similar with mod tweaking. Go into your user preferences and give a +1 karma mod to troll, maybe offtopic too, so they rank higher than spam. If you want to get really fancy, you can add the same +1 to all the good moderation types too, so that troll posts don't lose their relationship to the good mods but still rank higher than spam. It's a bit weird but it'll have the same basic effect.

                  The problem I see with it isn't necessarily mismoderation, it's that the distinction between flamebait and troll is vague and people use them interchangeably.

                  I know what would help, but it would require a change to slashcode that might not be possible. Allow a -2 score that can only be reached via user-set moderation (and maybe a +6 score that works same way). That would make it possible to mark spam -1 and have it show up lower than everything else. Possibly less useful, but if the inverse were allowed too, you could make insightful/interesting show higher than other good mods.

                  • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday December 01 2014, @04:57PM

                    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday December 01 2014, @04:57PM (#121555)

                    That is an excellent idea. Thank you. I think I will do the extra -1 to offtopic. I want my troll posts ON TOPIC!

                    Mod parent up (then mod him down).

                    --
                    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh