“Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
The developers of popular Mozilla extension AdBlock Plus had been receiving bug reports of “issues” with another popular extension, NoScript, after an update was issued by the developer of the script-blocking software. The AdBlock Plus developers decided to take a look into what was wrong and found something extremely disturbing. The 1.9.2 update of NoScript had incorporated an obfuscated piece of code that actually made changes to AdBlock Plus to allow for ads on the NoScipt and related sites to be shown. In otherwords, it does what a viruses and other malware does to antivirus software only in reverse; instead of blocking access to update sites, it forced AdBlock Plus to allow ads to be shown for the developer’s site explicitly. This most likely would have flown under the radar had it not completely broken Adblock Plus and get caught doing unethical things to other software for self-interest. The issue snowballed when the issue made it to Reddit and caused an outrage amongst faithful users of both extensions. To make things worse, the developer only slightly backtracked; allowing the user to allow or disallow the code modification upon installation of NoScript. The developer eventually removed the code completely in version 1.9.2.6, but not without severely impacting user opinion of the software and spurring discussion of a policy change regarding Mozilla Extensions.
More after the jump.
While on the surface, this may not seem to be about security, but that’s exactly what it’s about. The Time.com poll for the world’s most influential person is legitimate. The interesting part is that the poll was hacked to allow him to win. This may be seen as a prank by some nerdy kids with too much time and some decent knowledge on their hands to make a name for themselves, that’s exactly what it is and isn’t.
You may not know moot is, but you are probably aware of some of the antics and feats of his site’s users (4Chan). While I could name some of the things they have done, that would be breaking rules #1 and #2, so I’ll just mention some that have reached mainstream media. A group called Anonymous began waging a war upon the Church of Scientology, which, until then, was virtually impossible to do and win. They staged protests with Guy Fawkes masks at CoS sites around the US, they successfully defeated the DMCA takedown notices the church’s lawyers had been so successful at regarding anything that could be perceived as bad press on the net, and they enabled ex-members who were too afraid of the Church to come out and speak of their experiences in public. Some other campaigns and antics that have shown just how influential moot’s site has become includes slipping fake news onto national broadcasts, having Oprah say a meme unwittingly on her show, and…hacking the Time.com poll.
Just think about the things you don’t know about and the significance of how much power moot has and can, if provoked, threaten the security of the most complex security systems. More after the jump.
After Time Warner backed away from their new extremely unpopular and perceived unfair speed and traffic limits, the company is now beginning now shut off heavy users without notice. According to user accounts in the link after the jump, they were directed to TW’s security and abuse department and lectured about using too much bandwidth.
Fresh off related story of the company also suspending DOCSIS 3.0 trials in response to public outcry, this really seems like the company is being childish and essentially taking it’s ball and going home.
Slashdot | Time Warner Shutting Off Austin Accounts For Heavy Usage.
Interesting article about how the US is planning on handling the aging security infrastructure in the US. The issue has become more pressing lately because of high-profile breaches that have garnered peoples’ attention towards how safe not only the government is; but their personal data on government computers as well. More here:
