Low Level/Linus Tech Tips/Veritasium - This Week's Finds in Computer Security

This is a really interesting one: see foomatic-rip which is a "universal print filter" which translates one language, such as PDF, to another, such as PostScript™. It's a hacked up thing that "evolved" to the point where it seems to have entered the hardware supply chain, by lazy manufacturers who just stuck a Linux kernel in their printer? That's the cock-up version of the story. I'll leave the conspiracy version as an exercise for the reader. Or maybe this is just part of the movie script for a war-crimes trial to be held in a theater somewhere near you? See The Future With Hannahs Fry, Arendt and Reid. Which should be read carefully by everyone who uses WhatsApp too. Which reminds me that on Monday 30th September they will be filming on the North Bank of the Thames, at Vauxhall Bridge, opposite the MI-6 Headquarters.

If you have cups running and listening on this port then you can turn it off with something like 

sudo sh -c 'echo manual > /etc/init/cups.override'

sudo service cups stop

I haven't figured out how to make it stay off on reboot though, ...

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This one's interesting too: starring something called SS7 and IMSIs and some class anime!

He can redirect calls and nothing shows up on the caller's phone. Not even the Phone app appearing in the list of open apps, even when you haven't used it since you switched the phone on? Wow. Imagine having to put up with this sort of thing if you're a journalist in Mexico or somewhere with lots of cartel's around. 21:04 The location tracking stuff was surely developed for "National Security" agencies for surveillance. 

Signaling System 7 is a really stupid bit of tooling because telcos don't want to route calls without seeing the money up front. Have these people never heard of insurance? Don't they just need to know that the caller has some sort of certificate that guarantees that someone will foot their phone bill while they're abroad? Why is it necessary to pass around personal data just for billing? See Hacking Linux in the Federal Republic of Germany? Mein Gott!

Here's one on how planes crash:

13:23 If 200 people had their phones cranking out microwave radiation at full power in an aluminium tube then you might see effects on the passengers' well-being. Not all passengers, but some might be in "hot spots" where there is a standing wave and constructive interference. That might be enough to make someone try to open the door before the plane lands, or if it was on the flight deck, it might make the pilot think that deliberately crashing the plane would be a good thing to do. That's just the cock-up version of the story, ...

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