Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 210

Spime Watch: Linux.Darlloz, the Internet-of-Things worm

*I grant you that this piece of malware is mostly malvaporware, but it’s nice to have a name for the first pioneer worm in what will likely become a big, writhing panoply of “thingworms.”

*It’s just another service we offer here at “Beyond the Beyond,” folks. Someday in the future, people will be saying petulantly, “hey, the futurists promised us that this Internet-of-Things thing was gonna be perfect!” Actually, every genuine expert who knew anything about it was promising you that there was gonna be hell to pay, but, well, never mind! Those grumpy guys, they’re all wallflowers at the dance.

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/internet-things-new-threats-emerge-connected-world-0

(…)

“Linux worm

“The Internet of Things may be in its infancy but threats already exist. For example, Symantec investigator Kaoru Hayashi recently discovered a new worm that targeted computers running the Linux operating system. Most people have probably never come across Linux, but it plays a big role in the business world and is widely used to run Web servers and mainframes for example.

“The worm, Linux.Darlloz, initially appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. It utilizes an old vulnerability in scripting language PHP to gain access to a computer; attempts to gain administrative privileges by trying a series of commonly-used usernames and passwords and propagates itself by searching for other computers. The worm leaves a back door on the infected computer, allowing the attacker to issue commands to it.

“Since the worm exploits an old vulnerability in PHP, the threat relies on finding computers that haven’t been patched in order to spread. If this was all that the worm did, it would be fairly unremarkable. However, as Kaoru investigated the threat further, he discovered something interesting. The version circulating in the wild was designed to infect only computers running Intel x86 chip architectures, which are usually found on personal computers and servers. Kaoru then discovered versions designed for the ARM, PPC, MIPS and MIPSEL chip architectures hosted on the same server as the original worm. These architectures are mostly found in devices such as home routers, set-top boxes, security cameras and industrial control systems. The attacker was in a position to begin attack these devices at a time of their choosing. (((In other words, this is no toy worm here… this is a *futureproofed* worm, a worm that actually *anticipates new opportunities.* Great job there, cyberwarrior, Stuxnet veteran, whoever you are.)))

“One of the interesting things this worm does is scan for instances of another Linux worm, known as Linux.Aidra. If it finds any files associated with this threat, it attempts to delete them. The worm also attempts to block the communications port used by Linux.Aidra. There is no altruistic motive behind removal of the other worm. (((Oh come on — maybe the worm author is just a nice guy! Maybe he was in Eagle Scouts and likes to serve the needs of the less-privileged!))) The likelihood is that the attacker behind Linux.Darlloz knows that the kinds of devices infected by Linux.Aidra have limited memory and processing power, and does not want to share them with any other piece of malware.

“Linux.Aidra, the malware that Linux.Darlloz attempts usurp, also exemplifies this new generation of threats. Like some of the variants of Darlloz discovered by Symantec, Linux.Aidra targets smaller devices, specifically cable and DSL modems. The worm adds them to a botnet, which can be utilized by the attackers to perform distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Whoever authored Darlloz obviously believed that Aidra infections were so widespread that it posed a potential threat to their own malware. (((Thingworm hates more primitive worms, feels compulsive need to eat them.)))

“What is particularly worrisome about these kinds of threat is that, in many instances, the end-user may have no idea that their device is running an operating system that could be attacked. The software is, by and large, hidden away on the device. Another potential issue is that some vendors don’t supply updates, either because of hardware limitations or outdated technology, such as an inability to run newer versions of the software. (((That’s probably good news for feudal imperialists who’d like to run a totally ironclad megacorporate National Security Agency-of-Things.)))

“Vulnerable security cameras

“This worm is just the latest in a series of incidents highlighting the emerging security threat around the Internet of Things. Earlier this year, the US Federal Trade Commission settled a case against TRENDnet, a firm that makes Internet-enabled security cameras and baby monitors….”

       

Spime Watch: The Cellular Carrier of Things

*Now we’re moving beyond handwaving and into some actual practice, and oh my look at them wrangle.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/consumerization-of-it/how-ruin-the-internet-of-things-tie-carrier-234839

“The tech industry is going gaga over the Internet of things, a nebulous set of technologies that make everything from refrigerators to body sensors and wearables communicate with each other and with apps on your smartphone, tablet, PC, and Internet services. One example of the Internet of things mania is Cisco Systems chairman John Chambers’ declaration that the market will be worth $19 trillion, a figure larger than the entire U.S. gross domestic product.

“But if you look past the hype, there is a lot of exciting, useful technology — much of it mobile — being developed under the “Internet of things” rubric. What scares me is that if the crazy hype doesn’t kill the Internet of things in its tracks, the cellular carriers might do it in.

“The cellular carriers are salivating over the Internet of things, as they see it creating huge demand for cellular data services over their 3G and 4G networks, as devices all try to talk to each other for reasons both smart and stupid. Of course, they want to own as much as that service as possible. In fact, the carriers have been eyeing this market for years, preparing to own as much of it as possible.

“So you have, for example, Audi and Tesla both agreeing to make their future cars run their embedded computing systems over AT&T’s U.S. cellular network. You have alarm companies tying up with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon to provide communication between alarm systems and the monitoring office over cellular, as landline phones continue to disappear from homes. AT&T and General Electric are also looking at ways to embed machine-to-machine (M2M) cellular radios in industrial equipment, transmitting through the AT&T network, of course.

“Any buyer in their right mind should recoil in horror at the thought. Any device or service provider should too.

“Imagine your car being tied to a specific carrier for its lifespan, which these days is easily a decade. Now think about the inconsistencies in your carrier’s cellular coverage: It’s great here, terrible there. That coverage quality changes over time even in the same location. At my house, for example, the Verizon voice service that has worked reasonably well for a decade no longer can keep a call active for more than five minutes, and Verizon has no clue why that changed, much less what to do about it.

“Do you really want your car, refrigerator, alarm system, and so on to be stuck with a single provider, no matter where you live or drive? It’s bad enough with smartphones and tablets, but imagine that situation with something you can’t easily replace….”

       

The California Ideology by Andy Cameron and Richard Barbrook

*This essay is still entertainingly bonkers, but now that we’ve managed to toss the NSA and the surveillance-marketing Stacks into the cultural mix, it looks a lot more up-to-date than some of the period reactions against it at the time it was written — way back in 1995 AD.

http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-ideology-2/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology

       

The latest Bitcoin-related press release from the US Attorney from the Southern District of New York

*Anyone seriously interested in Bitcoin issues would do well to pay attention to the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. @SDNYnews

http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/January14/SchremFaiellaChargesPR.php

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Charges Against Bitcoin Exchangers, Including Ceo Of Bitcoin Exchange Company, For Scheme To Sell And Launder Over $1 Million In Bitcoins Related To Silk Road Drug Trafficking

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, January 27, 2014

Defendants Sold Bitcoins to be Used to Buy and Sell Illegal Drugs Anonymously on the Silk Road Drug Trafficking Website

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, James J. Hunt, the Acting Special-Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), and Toni Weirauch, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (“IRS-CI”), announced the unsealing of criminal charges in Manhattan federal court against ROBERT M. FAIELLA, a/k/a “BTCKing,” an underground Bitcoin exchanger, and CHARLIE SHREM, the Chief Executive Officer and Compliance Officer of a Bitcoin exchange company, for engaging in a scheme to sell over $1 million in Bitcoins to users of “Silk Road,” the underground website that enabled its users to buy and sell illegal drugs anonymously and beyond the reach of law enforcement.

Each defendant is charged with conspiring to commit money laundering, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. SHREM is also charged with willfully failing to file any suspicious activity report regarding FAIELLA’s illegal transactions through the Company, in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act. SHREM was arrested yesterday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, and is expected to be presented in Manhattan federal court later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Pitman. FAIELLA was arrested today at his residence in Cape Coral, Florida, and is expected to be presented in federal court in the Middle District of Florida.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “As alleged, Robert Faiella and Charlie Shrem schemed to sell over $1 million in Bitcoins to criminals bent on trafficking narcotics on the dark web drug site, Silk Road. Truly innovative business models don’t need to resort to old-fashioned law-breaking, and when Bitcoins, like any traditional currency, are laundered and used to fuel criminal activity, law enforcement has no choice but to act. We will aggressively pursue those who would coopt new forms of currency for illicit purposes.”

DEA Acting Special-Agent-in-Charge James J. Hunt said: “The charges announced today depict law enforcement’s commitment to identifying those who promote the sale of illegal drugs throughout the world. Hiding behind their computers, both defendants are charged with knowingly contributing to and facilitating anonymous drug sales, earning substantial profits along the way. Drug law enforcement’s job is to investigate and identify those who abet the illicit drug trade at all levels of production and distribution including those lining their own pockets by feigning ignorance of any wrong doing and turning a blind eye.”

IRS Special-Agent-in-Charge Toni Weirauch said: “The government has been successful in swiftly identifying those responsible for the design and operation of the ‘Silk Road’ website, as well as those who helped ‘Silk Road’ customers conduct their illegal transactions by facilitating the conversion of their dollars into Bitcoins. This is yet another example of the New York Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force’s proficiency in applying financial investigative resources to the fight against illegal drugs.”

According to the allegations contained in the Criminal Complaint unsealed today in Manhattan federal court:

From about December 2011 to October 2013, FAIELLA ran an underground Bitcoin exchange on the Silk Road website, a website that served as a sprawling and anonymous black market bazaar where illegal drugs of virtually every variety were bought and sold regularly by the site’s users. Operating under the username “BTCKing,” FAIELLA sold Bitcoins – the only form of payment accepted on Silk Road – to users seeking to buy illegal drugs on the site. Upon receiving orders for Bitcoins from Silk Road users, he filled the orders through a company based in New York, New York (the “Company”). The Company was designed to enable customers to exchange cash for Bitcoins anonymously, that is, without providing any personal identifying information, and it charged a fee for its service. FAIELLA obtained Bitcoins with the Company’s assistance, and then sold the Bitcoins to Silk Road users at a markup.

SHREM is the Chief Executive Officer of the Company, and from about August 2011 until about July 2013, when the Company ceased operating, he was also its Compliance Officer, in charge of ensuring the Company’s compliance with federal and other anti-money laundering (“AML”) laws. SHREM is also the Vice Chairman of a foundation dedicated to promoting the Bitcoin virtual currency system.

SHREM, who personally bought drugs on Silk Road, was fully aware that Silk Road was a drug-trafficking website, and through his communications with FAIELLA, SHREM also knew that FAIELLA was operating a Bitcoin exchange service for Silk Road users. Nevertheless, SHREM knowingly facilitated FAIELLA’s business with the Company in order to maintain FAIELLA’s business as a lucrative source of Company revenue. SHREM knowingly allowed FAIELLA to use the Company’s services to buy Bitcoins for his Silk Road customers; personally processed FAIELLA’s orders; gave FAIELLA discounts on his high-volume transactions; failed to file a single suspicious activity report with the United States Treasury Department about FAIELLA’s illicit activity, as he was otherwise required to do in his role as the Company’s Compliance Officer; and deliberately helped FAIELLA circumvent the Company’s AML restrictions, even though it was SHREM’s job to enforce them and even though the Company had registered with the Treasury Department as a money services business.
Working together, SHREM and FAIELLA exchanged over $1 million in cash for Bitcoins for the benefit of Silk Road users, so that the users could, in turn, make illegal purchases on Silk Road.

In late 2012, when the Company stopped accepting cash payments, FAIELLA ceased doing business with the Company and temporarily shut down his illegal Bitcoin exchange service on Silk Road. FAIELLA resumed operating on Silk Road in April 2013 without the Company’s assistance, and continued to exchange tens of thousands of dollars a week in Bitcoins until the Silk Road website was shut down by law enforcement in October 2013.

*                      *                      *

FAIELLA, 52, of Cape Coral, Florida, and SHREM, 24, of New York, New York, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. SHREM is also charged with one count of willful failure to file a suspicious activity report, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Mr. Bharara praised the outstanding investigative work of the DEA’s New York Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force, which is comprised of agents and officers of the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the New York City Police Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement – Homeland Security Investigations, the New York State Police, the U. S. Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Marshal Service, New York National Guard, Office of Foreign Assets Control and the New York Department of Taxation and Finance. Mr. Bharara also thanked the FBI’s New York Field Office.

Mr. Bharara also noted that the investigation remains ongoing.
The prosecution of this case is being handled by the Office’s Complex Frauds Unit. Assistant United States Attorney Serrin Turner is in charge of the prosecution, and Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Adams of the Asset Forfeiture Unit is in charge of the forfeiture aspects of the case.

The charges contained in the Complaint are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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Musica Globalista: Kpop Reaction Re-enaction Video by Annchirisu

*This parodic meta-video is about personal fan reaction videos which are made in response to Korean pop-music videos.

*It’s interesting to see popular culture taking this form. Teenage girls carry the future on their backs.

       

Design Fiction: Cisco “Internet of Everything Circle Story”

*Really working’ the corporate diegetic prototypes there.

Published on Jan 9, 2014
The Internet of Everything is changing everything. Tomorrow Starts Here: http://cs.co/jlbYT60Circle. #IoE

Subscribe to Cisco’s YouTube channel: http://cs.co/Subscribe.

       

Dead Media Beat: Dragan Espenschied to Lead Rhizome’s Digital Conservation Program

*Wow.

http://rhizome.org/editorial/2014/jan/27/dragan-espenschied-lead-rhizomes-digital-conservat/

“After an international search, leading digital preservation specialist, artist, and musician Dragan Espenschied has been appointed to lead Rhizome’s growing and award-winning Digital Conservation program. Espenschied, who will relocate from Germany to New York for the position, (((double wow))) will bring the program to its next phase and steward the ArtBase, Rhizome’s collection of over 2,000 born-digital artworks.

“Espenschied is well known in the academic research field for projects such as bwFLA: Emulation as a Service, which allows legacy computer systems to run in a standard web browser. With Olia Lialina, he has also undertaken user-centered projects like One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age, an automatically-generated archive of screen captures of 1990s Geocities webpages; and Once Upon, an enactment of contemporary websites in a historic network environment. He has also published and spoken widely on vernacular uses of the web, such as in the book Digital Folklore, edited with Lialina.

“With this role, Espenschied expresses a commitment to preserving works in the ArtBase while also contributing new research to the digital preservation field. About this appointment, Espenschied says: “I strongly believe that designing the access to complex legacy digital artifacts and systems is the largest contemporary challenge in digital culture. (((Me too.))) Digital culture is mass culture, and collection and preservation practices have to change to reflect this fact.”

“Espenschied will start in March 2014. In 2013, Rhizome’s Digital Conservation Program, then under the leadership of Ben Fino-Radin, won the Archivists Round Table award for Innovative Use of Archives. Fino-Radin is now practicing in the Department of Conservation at MoMA.

“Welcome, Dragan!”

       

How Arduino is Becoming the World’s Social Network for Hackers and Makers

*This may seem an odd connection, but I think that this article is basically about the same contemporary issue as Joanie Lemercier’s article about “AntiVJ.” Here you’ve got tech-artists who are a less like a band of rock-and-rollers and a bit more like engineers, so the upshot is not a “visual label” like AntiVJ but whatever the heck Arduino seems to be turning into now. A lot more than some electric gizmo in a laser-cut box. Some kind of distributed means of production, I guess. Like an Italian network factory.

http://www.fastcolabs.com/3025320/how-arduino-is-becoming-the-worlds-social-network-for-hackers-and-makers

(…)

“Little Changes, Big Stakes

“Oliveiro and Banzi understood that beyond just making Arduino profiles more ‘social,’ the big change would come from a reward system. Now, a maker can make a percentage of the sales their tutorial generates. This will attract users to post their content online versus other sites like Instructables because tutorials posted on Arduino measure the click-through purchases and reward the original curators. This is even a plus for people just making the tutorials, because before this users needed to click around before they found the hardware and other materials for a specific DIY.2

“The incentive model hopes to create pay for makers of stellar tutorials. ‘If their tutorials bring sales to the store, we need to provide some reward to whoever wrote that tutorial. In a way we’re trying to create this loop where people create beautiful projects, put them online as tutorials, and publish the code. In exchange we can help them promote their tutorials through the blog, and in a way, these tutorials become things people actually use,’ says Banzi.

“Among other changes, the rise of the new Wi-Fi-powered Arduinos, such as the Linux based Yun, spurred the demand for a unified coding editor online. Since these boards are connected to the Internet, it’s much easier to update the code without having to dig them up and plug them into your computer for an upgrade. With the unified coding editor Arduino plans to launch, you can just type up the code, from your phone or your tablet, save it, and run it on the board. No need to go digging the devices out of tubes in your kitchen or irrigation systems.

“Much like YouTube videos and tweets, Arduino added the option of making code embeddable. ‘The tutorial system becomes key to the whole thing because people are inventing ideas and walking others through them, and embedding allows you to explain it in a place easily,’ says Banzi.

“Open Source And The Economy Of A BLT Sandwich

“All of these changes are mainly trying to crack the mystery of ‘GitHub orphans’ and why some projects take off and others don’t. Often there are bits of code on GitHub, or sites like such, which start out as open source projects but get forgotten along the way because no one ever contributes code. Banzi believes communities are the driver for contribution in the maker community and attributes this reason for rethinking the website in the first place. ‘What you find is that if you can create a community around an open source project then it becomes really alive because everyone starts to contribute. If you don’t have an ecosystem, the platform won’t be successful,” says Banzi. “If you start charging for everything, everything dies very quickly….”

       

Joanie Lemercier explains AntiVJ

*He explains his departure in this blogpost, but it’s quite interesting to learn how AntiVJ, the self-described “visual label,” worked as an arts and performance organization.

*Creative differences are common in an atelier and I hope for the best for all involved.

http://joanielemercier.com/why-im-leaving-antivj

(…)

“HOW IT BEGAN.

“In 2006, I started using the name AntiVJ as a nickname for my solo VJing performances. I was performing intensively in Bristol and London, and I was becoming fed up with the classic ‘multi-colored VJing effects’ and random visuals mashups. I chose the word AntiVJ at that time half as a statement, and half as a joke.

“After a couple of years performing and touring, I came across the work of other visual artists that totally blew my mind: Legoman (Yannick Jacquet) was using transparent materials to create 3d displays, while Olivier Ratsi and Romain Tardy were developing multiscreen VJ sets and producing 100% original material, all developing their own unique visual style. Thomas Vaquié, the sound artist who was contributing to most of legoman’s AV work at the time, was also one of the founding members.

“Early in 2008, we started working together, and we multiplied collaborations. Quite naturally “AntiVJ” became the name for the group, in order to dissociate and distance our work from basic club projections. I then created a logo, the website, a blog, and a teaser to regroup works from individual artists into a single showreel that would set the tone and aesthetics our future projects together.

“A LABEL.

“In the first months, we were not sure about what we were: Art collective, team, company, agency ?
I come from the club and festival scene, and I’ve always been fascinated by record labels such as Warp, minus and Raster- Noton.

“A structure with a recognizable image, to help artists developing their projects, and to produce and promote their work. Within the label, artists could have their own style, and develop solo projects as well as collaborations.

“Outputs formats could be anything from physical releases, editions, to live performances.

“That was it, I found working within the label framework very inspiring, as opposed to working as a collective (such as the brilliant Pfadfinderei) where you often have no clue who’s behind the name. I then brought in a producer, Nicolas Boritch, to help on bookings and project management, and a new artist: Simon Geilfus, who’s creative coding skills made possible the development of a new approach to live visuals, and 100% realtime and audio reactive graphics, such as the show he developed with music producer Murcof.

“2009 and 2010 were the busiest years we had…”

(…)

“THE NEXT STEPS.

“After so many projects, and being all more and more busy, we realised that we had to develop the structure to be able to continue making better projects.

“We realised we needed to get some help to progress on several points:

- legal structure: being all freelancers is great, but it limits us for a lot of potential projects.
- bookings: to tour existing projects and look for new partners.
- communication: to develop a new identity and logo, make a new website, with more regular updates.
- documentation: to work with a photo and videographer, as well as an editor, to document projects.
- copywriters: to write about the projects, and work on press releases.
- internship program: to get digital arts students on board, and provide work experience in return.

“Unfortunately, more than a year after listing all these needs back in late 2012, we did not manage to make significant progress on these points, due to the complexity of taking decisions as a group of 7 people.

“While working as a group on creative content can create some amazing results, dealing with structural decisions all together is a major constraint, and unfortunately it is not practical for me to work in that way anymore….”

       

A new pay-for-play crypto Internet to replace the Legacy Internet

*This proposal may sound far-fetched, but personally, I’d cheerfully pay a lot for an Internet without any dot-coms in it.

*If you’re an electronic-frontier type by your nature, well, the Stacks are gated communities by now. There’s no “frontier” to be found in there. They’re cattle-barons: Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon. If you want any elbow-room, you’ll have to pack up and go somewhere else.

*This may not be the place, but you ought to be open-minded about the necessity of going. Even Huck Finn knew that the day comes when you have to light out for the territory.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25858629

“An ambitious project has been launched that the developers hope could one day replace the current internet.

“Bitcloud aims to harness the same methods used to mine Bitcoins, to provide services currently controlled by internet service providers (ISPs) and corporations.

“Individuals would perform tasks such as storing, routing and providing bandwidth, in return for payment.

“The founders are searching for developers for the project.

” “We will start by decentralising the current internet, and then we can create a new internet to replace it,” they said.

“Just as Bitcoin miners provide computing power and are rewarded for solving complex mathematical equations with the virtual currency, so individual net users would be rewarded based on how much bandwidth they contribute to the Bitcloud network.

” “Adding the profit motive to the equation gives this project a chance to succeed where many others have failed in the past,” reads the group’s white paper.

“A currency known as Cloudcoins is proposed to underpin the network.

” “If you’re interested in privacy, security, ending internet censorship, decentralising the internet and creating a new mesh network to replace the internet, then you should join or support this project,” the group said….”