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PaperclipPerfector  24d ago (text post)   34277 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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We don't actually know: why would you assume it's not serious?

Because if my biggest enemy managed to get the BIOS password to one of my machines (if I even cared to put one; I don't), I would not give a fuck. If you told me my biggest enemy managed to get the BIOS password to my machine AND unsupervised physical access to my machine for for a couple of hours, then yeah I'd be worried and wouldn't trust that machine anymore.

But so would I if he just had unsupervised physical access to my machine for a couple of hours.

Hence, the BIOS password is inconsequential.

Considering that this organization is literally publishing their passwords in an Excel document on the open internet, would you think that their physical security is likely to be particularly competent?

Considering that this organization is literally publishing their passwords in an Excel document on the open internet, would you think that their physical security is likely to be particularly competent?

No, I don't think it is. But the BIOS password is not holding back anything if the physical security is lacking.

Who has access to voting machines? Lots of people, presumably. It's not like we have a full list of all election workers who stand near a ballot. I went and voted early this week, there were two ballot machines, in the hullabaloo it would have been easy for someone to stick a USB in. How would you feel about the scenario, "My biggest enemy managed to get the BIOS password to my machine AND dozens of people have unsupervised access to my machine, and one of those people could or could not be my worst enemy."

in the hullabaloo it would have been easy for someone to stick a USB in

If that was possible, then the issue is not a BIOS password, it's unsecured USB ports and no one keeping an eye on them. Someone could stick in a keylogger or rubber ducky and cause all sorts of issues, without any BIOS password.

I'm not making the case that voting machines are secure; from my understanding they're very much not. Just that the situations in which having the BIOS password enables someone to do something nefarious overlap almost perfectly with the situations in which someone could do similar harm without the BIOS password. Replacing the OS with a tampered version is not a drive-by attack even with the BIOS password any worker can do in a couple of minutes with the machine. They need physical access to the machine for a length of time that is in the same ballpark as the time they would need to bypass a BIOS password.

How would you feel about the scenario, "My biggest enemy managed to get the BIOS password to my machine AND dozens of people have unsupervised access to my machine, and one of those people could or could not be my worst enemy."

Pretty much the same as if no one had my BIOS password and dozens of people have unsupervised access to my machine, and one of those people could or could not be my worst enemy. BIOS passwords are a paper thin security feature, they're more to keep nosy kids and clueless employees from creating issues for IT to solve than protect the integrity of the data on the machines.

I don't understand how anyone reasonably intelligent or familiar with IT could be so blase about this.

Lots of people from random officials and polling site volunteers, to the voting public themselves are going to have unsupervised physical access to these machines. Meanwhile the number of people who have legitimate reasons to access the bios, change settings, etc... can't be more than a few dozen. This is, to all apperances, quite bad.

Lots of people from random officials and polling site volunteers, to the voting public themselves are going to have unsupervised physical access to these machines.

Because that's the very point point, a BIOS password is hardly any protection against someone who knows what they're doing having unsupervised access to the hardware, AND it requires having unsupervised physical access to the machine to exploit a leaked password anyway. At best it saves them a bit of time. The usefulness of a BIOS password is protecting against people who don't know what they're doing accidentally changing BIOS settings, or very unsophisticated malicious actors (kids, disgruntled employees wanting to break something).

Lots of people are going to have physical access to these machines who shouldn't have access to things like system settings.

Is it really so difficult for you to understand why that presents a problem? Or are you also in the habit of arguing that people should leave thier doors unlocked because a determined thief will just pick the lock or break a window to get in anyway?

Lots of people are going to have physical access to these machines who shouldn't have access to things like system settings.

And they all have access to the BIOS settings, with or without the BIOS password. Unsupervised physical access to a machine makes completely irrelevant a BIOS password.

Or are you also in the habit of arguing that people should leave thier doors unlocked because a determined thief will just pick the lock or break a window to get in anyway?

I'm not saying they SHOULD give out the BIOS password. I'm saying that for these machines to be trustworthy, the BIOS password does basically nothing if untrusted people have access to them unsupervised for significant amounts of time.

I'm saying it makes no difference if the door is locked or not if someone is given a couple of hours unsupervised access to your house; they have more than enough time to get in with or without a locked door.

I don't understand how anyone reasonably intelligent or familiar with IT could be so blase about this.

Because all is lost anyway. Computer systems are not generally secure things with layers of protection that are sometimes breached. Rather, inside any connected system there's likely malware from the CIA, NSA, a couple of Russian and Chinese groups, and some freelancers. Inside the malware is malware from the other bunch, plus the Mossad. And also the firewalls and such are thoroughly pwned. And this is all just automated, it's just luck whether anyone actually notices whether they've gotten into anything of value.

I have felt for a long time that fatalism more often than not a coping mechanism for a percieved or imagined lack of agency.

The attitude being that if nothing matters than I can't be held responsibile for anything can I?

There isn't anything most reasonably intelligent people familiar with IT can do about it, since they don't have any power, authority, or influence over the security of these particular machines. If a house is thoroughly infested with termites, worrying about a woodpecker pecking at the facade is pointless.

Again smells like cope to me.

The normalization of deviance and incompetence is not an excuse for it.

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