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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 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.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (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