And violating [an app’s] terms of service puts you in jeopardy under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, which is the law that Ronald Reagan signed in a panic after watching Wargames (seriously!).
I watched it two days ago, that’s tragicomic.
I know, right? Like how the hell do you get worried from such a silly movie… Unless he knew the us military defense systems were in fact that weak, against people and their telephones.
Nah, Reagan was just a wuss.
Of all the things that happen in the movie, the thought that someone will have hooked a top-secret defense computer up to a modem is the one that is the absolute most believable.
Like, it’s entirely going to have happened at some point.
I love Star Wars EU mostly for correctly showing how societies work in such regards.
When something happens there (unconnected to ancient magic), it usually involves a few pretty mundane snafus, and even if descriptions used make tech people and engineers cringe, the general situation just makes sense.
TCW and Disney era, on the other hand - ugh.
for several years in the early 00’s, the process for getting security clearance involved no background check, just knowing who to ask. they literally rubber stamped it.
getting a fed job or something still did, but just security clearance, on its own, for anyone? just ask. not even nicely.
The story goes that, after watching the film, Reagan asked the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff ”Could something like this really happen? Could someone break into our most sensitive computers?”, and, after looking into it for a week, the general came back with the reply “Mr. president, the problem is much worse than you think.”, which prompted Reagan into setting off a series of interagency memos and studies that led to the signing of classified national security decision directive NSDD-145, “National Policy on Telecommunications and Automated Information Systems Security.”.
So… yeah, things probably actually were that bad, or even worse (except for the AI bit, of course).
Has there ever, once, been an infosec issue that doesn’t result in an investigation and someone then going ‘oh my god, this is worse than anyone could have imagined’?
Teaching rocks to do math was a terrible, terrible idea.
also, just imagine the threat was that defense systems could be invaded by your average citizen.
Let’s put resources to making them secure then, right? Nah, let’s just make it illegal to guess passwords. That will surely prevent bad things from happening.
basic state logic.
they’re incapable of sucking less. their whole episteme is about centralizing, about reducing thought the farther it gets from the central authority (whether that’s one guy, a class, or a building like the pentagon), but you CAN increase violence, threaten, flatten, disable, basically wherever.
The nuclear codes for decades was 00000000. That’s all you needed to launch nukes.
Our cyber security was atrocious
Maybe it’s my ADHD, but I actually feel much better (very light and easy) reading such things. Nukes with zero launch codes, laws being made after watching movies for teens, Soviet caliber differences intended to make Soviet ammunition just a bit too large to be usable by the potential enemy, BTR-1 being basically a transport so that infantry wouldn’t die while traversing nuked land, thus with no real protection against anything, and so on.
I mean, nuking another country by mistake is better than not nuking it when necessarily, or so someone judged. But some other people wanted some protection against fools, so theoretically they had that.
The last time Congress managed to pass a federal consumer privacy law was in 1988: The Video Privacy Protection Act. That’s a law that bans video-store clerks from telling newspapers what VHS cassettes you take home. In other words, it regulates three things that have effectively ceased to exist.
Corey Doctorow always hits so hard
And even though it’s being labeled as a “consumer privacy law” it was actually spurred by a politician getting upset that people might find out what he was renting. It was a self-serving law that had the side effect of also helping consumers.
Wasn’t it because a couple of anti-porn politicians were outed as having renting porn tapes (yet another thing that doesn’t really exist anymore)
Great read. Great summation of the last 30+ years.
Longer than I wanted to keep reading, not dissatisfied that I kept reading.
Thanks for your comment, it encouraged me to actually read the article and I completely agree. Long but worth the read
Always sweet to see folks incentivize each other to engage with content!
For anyone still daunted by the article, I expect the DEFCON channel will upload this talk soon, which might be more up your alley.
I’m waiting until someone invents antidisenshittificationism
The telephone jumped the shark a few years ago. Now no one expects using the phone for legit business. Now it’s email.
