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HN has a real weakness for cool surveillance technology.

cheschire 6y ago
I wonder if that has something to do with how many cybersecurity policies are based on these weird edge cases and not on 99.999% of vulnerabilities.
fit2rule 6y ago
Why is that a surprise? A large swathe of HN readers are members of the military industrial pharmaceutical complex.
- Zhenya 6y ago
  I would love a source for this. And why is that relevant to liking spy gadgets?
  - hedora 6y ago
    Microsoft, Google, and Amazon’s cloud divisions have well-documented contracts with the US military. So do Intel and AMD. Many other tech companies do too.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Sure. I for one have a huge weakness for this kind of tech, because it's an archetypal hack - a clever trick to pull something out of a system, whether the system likes it or not. It's also interesting because it's deeply grounded in reality. It's no gluing crappy APIs together to solve a "problem" twenty layers deep in someone's convoluted business shenanigans. It's using reflected light to learn about mechanical vibrations at a distance, to show that the information is there, despite what you'd hear from people who don't comprehend how reality works. It's a nice reminder that everything that happens interacts with everything around it, and information about it spreads out at the speed of light. Most side channel attack are like this, which is why I find them interesting.
stevenjohns 6y ago
The technology and the research has always been cool. That doesn’t mean people are happy with the application of it. What you’ll also find is that the people who like the surveillance could barely give a crap about the technology that enables it. The Venn diagram here isn’t one that completely overlaps.
gwern 6y ago
If you want to fight side-channel attacks, you can't put your head in the sand and pretend they don't exist (which seems to be most people's preferred reaction). You need to publicize them.

I wonder if that has something to do with how many cybersecurity policies are based on these weird edge cases and not on 99.999% of vulnerabilities.

fit2rule 6y ago

Why is that a surprise? A large swathe of HN readers are members of the military industrial pharmaceutical complex.

Zhenya 6y ago
I would love a source for this. And why is that relevant to liking spy gadgets?
- hedora 6y ago
  Microsoft, Google, and Amazon’s cloud divisions have well-documented contracts with the US military. So do Intel and AMD. Many other tech companies do too.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Sure. I for one have a huge weakness for this kind of tech, because it's an archetypal hack - a clever trick to pull something out of a system, whether the system likes it or not. It's also interesting because it's deeply grounded in reality. It's no gluing crappy APIs together to solve a "problem" twenty layers deep in someone's convoluted business shenanigans. It's using reflected light to learn about mechanical vibrations at a distance, to show that the information is there, despite what you'd hear from people who don't comprehend how reality works. It's a nice reminder that everything that happens interacts with everything around it, and information about it spreads out at the speed of light. Most side channel attack are like this, which is why I find them interesting.

stevenjohns 6y ago

The technology and the research has always been cool. That doesn’t mean people are happy with the application of it. What you’ll also find is that the people who like the surveillance could barely give a crap about the technology that enables it. The Venn diagram here isn’t one that completely overlaps.

gwern 6y ago

If you want to fight side-channel attacks, you can't put your head in the sand and pretend they don't exist (which seems to be most people's preferred reaction). You need to publicize them.