Four short links: 16 October 2017
Exploding WiFi, No More Jailbreaking, Tech Ethics, and AI Strategy
- Krack Attack — force WPA2 to reuse a key, making your secure network roll over and expose its soft underbelly. The bug is in the protocol, not any particular implementation. As a friend pointed out, many wireless ISPs use WPA2-PSK to auth their subscriber terminals. The blood will flow from far more than your home WiFi network.
- How Apple Killed iOS Jailbreaking — First, they force their opponent to find four vulnerabilities; fixing any one of which breaks the jailbreak and forces the attacker to find a new flaw that serves the same purpose. Second, and perhaps more critically, Apple ensures that at least one of those flaws must be in the boot sequence. This is a huge advantage because, unlike most programs, boot loaders are typically relatively small (hundreds or thousands of lines of code, not millions) and they don’t need a lot of new features added over time. Thus, attackers can’t count on the bootloaders introducing new flaws. This creates a “narrow pass,” and, as Sun Tzu advised (“With regard to narrow passes, if you can occupy them first, let them be strongly garrisoned and await the advent of the enemy.”), Apple has fortified it.
- The Ethical Minefields of Technology (Scientific American) — “Society keeps up because the technology needs to be able to land somewhere,” says Duncan. “The same is not true of our governments, and to fix it will require effort and thoughtfulness that is not currently on display.”
- How AI Will Change Strategy (HBR) — Most shoppers have noticed Amazon’s recommendation engine while they shop—it offers suggestions of items that their AI predicts you will want to buy. […] Now, imagine the AI uses that data to improve its predictions.[…] At some point, as they turn the knob, the AI’s prediction accuracy crosses a threshold, such that it becomes in Amazon’s interest to change its business model. The prediction becomes sufficiently accurate that it becomes more profitable for Amazon to ship you the goods that it predicts you will want rather than wait for you to order them.
