Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: louel who wrote (133702)	5/13/2017 4:05:22 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218251

'Accidental hero' finds kill switch to stop spread of ransomware cyber-attack Olivia Solon in San Francisco The GuardianMay 12, 2017 An “accidental hero” has halted the global spread of the WannaCry ransomware that has wreaked havoc on organizations including the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), FedEx and Telefonica. A cybersecurity researcher tweeting as @malwaretechblog, with the help of Darien Huss from security firm Proofpoint, found and implemented a “kill switch” in the malicious software that was based on a cyber-weapon stolen from the NSA. The kill switch was hardcoded into the malware in case the creator wanted to stop it from spreading. This involved a very long nonsensical domain name that the malware makes a request to – just as if it was looking up any website – and if the request comes back and shows that the domain is live, the kill switch takes effect and the malware stops spreading. Of course, this relies on the creator of the malware registering the specific domain. In this case, the creator failed to do this. And @malwaretechblog did early this morning (Pacific Time), stopping the rapid proliferation of the ransomware. “They get the accidental hero award of the day,” said Proofpoint’s Ryan Kalember. “They didn’t realize how much it probably slowed down the spread of this ransomware.” The time that @malwaretechblog registered the domain was too late to help Europe and Asia, where many organizations were affected. But it gave people in the US more time to develop immunity to the attack by patching their systems before they were infected, said Kalember. The kill switch won’t help anyone whose computer is already infected with the ransomware, and and it’s possible that there are other variances of the malware with different kill switches that will continue to spread. The malware was made available online on 14 April through a dump by a group called Shadow Brokers, which claimed last year to have stolen a cache of “cyber weapons” from the National Security Agency (NSA). Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts a user’s data, then demands payment in exchange for unlocking the data. This attack was caused by a bug called “WanaCrypt0r 2.0” or WannaCry, that exploits a vulnerability in Windows. Microsoft released a patch (a software update that fixes the problem) for the flaw in March, but computers that have not installed the security update remain vulnerable. Follow MalwareTech @MalwareTechBlog I will confess that I was unaware registering the domain would stop the malware until after i registered it, so initially it was accidental. The ransomware demands users pay $300 worth of cryptocurrency Bitcoin to retrieve their files, though it warns that the “payment will be raised” after a certain amount of time. Translations of the ransom message in 28 languages are included. The malware spreads through email. “This was eminently predictable in lots of ways,” said Ryan Kalember from cybersecurity firm Proofpoint. “As soon as the Shadow Brokers dump came out everyone [in the security industry] realized that a lot of people wouldn’t be able to install a patch, especially if they used an operating system like Windows XP [which many NHS computers still use], for which there is no patch.” Security researchers with Kaspersky Lab have recorded more than 45,000 attacks in 74 countries, including the UK, Russia, Ukraine, India, China, Italy, and Egypt. In Spain, major companies including telecommunications firm Telefónica were infected. By Friday evening, the ransomware had spread to the United States and South America, though Europe and Russia remained the hardest hit, according to security researchers Malware Hunter Team. The Russian interior ministry says about 1,000 computers have been affected.

To: louel who wrote (133702)	5/13/2017 4:36:50 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218251

The structural brain differences between people who can accommodate difference and those who badly tolerate difference is well documented. - cell.com - Researchers at University College London found that self-described conservative students had a larger amygdala than liberals. The amygdala is active during states of fear and anxiety. - Self-described liberal students had more gray matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity. Based on people in my own immediate and extended family I'd say these differences are entirely genetic with cultural attempts to change this predisposition being relatively futile. One of my Grandmother's graduated from USC in 1918, so relatively smart and accomplished for that era. But she was always very politically conservative and conservative in lifestyle. She was anxious about anything different in a way that was very noticeable. She never had any interest in traveling outside of the United States, nor even outside of California where she had gown up. When her daughters took her to Hawaii we saw their slide show of Mt Haleakala, a barely active volcano. My Mother knew her Mother-in-Law well, so asked her how she liked the volcano. She replied in her quavering trill, "Oh noooo, I stayed at the hotel. I would never go to a volcano," which was funny to everyone present. One day as a young adult I had lunch with her cousin Faith who lived a few blocks away from my Grandmother, who traveled the world and did things like hiking in the Swiss Alps with her husband. I asked her, "Don't misunderstand I love my Grandmother, but why is she so conservative the way she is?" I didn't even have to describe it any further. She replied, "I don't know, Marian has been very conservative like that ever since she was a little girl." That's not scientific proof, but I think if's safe to say this brain difference is genetic. Conservatives working at a psychologist's computer matching patterns or doing simple math recover to their previous level of performance far less quickly after being startled mid-task by a loud buzzer. Liberals are more briefly impaired in their ability to resume their tasks post-buzzer. Not surprisingly conservatives are more attuned to stimuli in their environment they find threatening or disgusting. - cambridge.org There are useful functions in society for each of these two different brain types, but they'll never be able to see the world around them in the same way simply because their reaction to the same stimuli is so different.

To: louel who wrote (133702)	5/13/2017 7:12:11 PM
From: Gemlaoshi	Respond to of 218251

louel, Thank you for the inspirational story of your life. I think we all face adversity of some type in life...to me the crucial question is why does adversity become a positive motivator for success (as in your case), or become a crutch for lack of motivation to success in so many others. Can those traits be identified early in life? Is environment the most important factor? Can a child's destiny be changed by changing the environment? I think we get tunnel vision of racial discrimination being THE driving factor. Its very complex and I don't pretend to have the answers...but I do know that the simplest response is not the total picture. Dave

To: louel who wrote (133702)	5/14/2017 10:44:25 AM
From: TobagoJack	3 Recommendations Recommended By abuelita arun gera cblranch Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218251

re <<Just look at the pictures of TJ's kids and their friends. They are almost oblivious to their differences.>> it may easily and understandably seem that way from 10k km away. from up close, it seems that they are vaguely aware that there are differences, but that the differences do not much matter. they are far more aware of gender differences, the differences matter when it comes to team-forming. in (13 in october) coconut's social study class the kids are simulating an island economy, with each student assigned jobs that pay at different point levels ... - the coconut has two jobs, one assigned, as were all students assigned jobs; and the other she volunteered for. - the former, a stapler of assignments paid at 50 points per week, and the latter, a genuine reviewer of books in the library, at 100 points per review. - the coconut is now the 'wealthiest' in class points and formed her own 'conglomerate' comprised mostly of girls and bought nearly all of the 'real estate' desks in the classroom that are then 'rented' by other students. hasbro monopoly knowledge comes to the fore, and the conglomerate is gaining strength. - tj: "coconut, how come?" - coconut: "dada, because my second job is as a contractor, paid more if i review more. the regular jobs are just salaried" (i thought, thumbs-up :0) - a rival conglomerate of 4 boyz got crushed when they were caught cheating in realtime (a fifth boy they tried to recruit ratted out on the 4) ... they were printing up fake 'fake money' and are in 'jail'. their desks got seized and sold cheap by the 'police' teacher. hasbro instruction to the banker, 'when run out of money just write up more' did not pass the laugh-test. too funny. but of course the kids also got an early hint of economic differences, those w/ and w/o real estate, and w/ and w/o non-paper money. random walk down history, note we never made a big deal of differences but neither did we emphasise common threads except that family is true, and friends are real jack's class spring break birthday party group outing girls party chow down gobble up no different than so very long ago coconut and jacks great grandma, great grandpa, and grand uncle jack's class coconut's grandpa and 1st wife luchia flaxman, and uncle denny uncle denny all grown up tj and brother denny brother denny's daughter and tj's niece iolanda iolanda gone wild tj and niece iolanda coconut / jack's grandpa jack, and uncle chenny brother chenny w/ somebody brothers chenny and tj chenny's mama and grandma coconut / jack's grandpa, grand uncle, and grand aunts and friends erita school mates erita grand uncle and friends erita great great grandpa and family the kids grand grand grand ... erita's grandpa jack, tj, and grandma erita's grand uncle percy and fellow soviet officers erita's grandpa jack jack's great grandma agatha erita's cousin george ioland from russia, covering the beijing olympics, in which erita's cousins from trinidad competed, and partied w/ chenny, tj, and and and ...