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The Linkielist

Daily Archives: April 9, 2020

Stanislascollege Pijnacker stopt ook met Zoom door ‘beelden die niet door de beugel kunnen’: porno en Hitler snor tijdens Duits

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PIJNACKER – Het Stanislascollege in Pijnacker stopt per direct met het gebruik van de video-app Zoom voor het geven van online lessen. De school heeft meerdere berichten ontvangen van leerlingen, ouders en docenten dat er tijdens de lessen beelden of teksten te zien zijn die niet door de beugel kunnen.

Woensdag besloot het Zoetermeerse Erasmus College ook onmiddellijk te stoppen met Zoom, nadat leerlingen pornobeelden te zien kregen tijdens een online les. Het Stanislascollege heeft zes scholen, verdeeld over Delft, Pijnacker en Rijswijk.

‘In de meeste gevallen lijken de beelden of teksten getoond te worden door personen die niet aan de school verbonden zijn en zich onrechtmatig toegang hebben verschaft tot de les’, schrijft de school in een brief aan ouders.

Hitler-snorretje tijdens les Duits

Volgens regiodirecteur Fons Loogman van Stichting Lucas Onderwijs, waar het Stanislascollege onder valt, zijn er kleine incidenten geweest. ‘Leerlingen sturen een uitnodigingslink door aan derden die dan ook mee kunnen kijken met de les, daar heb je dan geen controle op. Zo is er bijvoorbeeld tijdens een les Duits ergens een Hitlergroet of een Hitler-snorretje getoond.’

Het incident met pornobeelden in Zoetermeer was voor de school in Pijnacker echter de doorslag om te stoppen met Zoom. ‘Daarnaast werden we de afgelopen week al attent gemaakt op berichten uit de ICT-wereld dat Zoom niet veilig is. Zo verzamelen ze informatie, zijn er onveilige beveiligingsstructuren en is het makkelijk te hacken’, zegt Loogman.

Source: Stanislascollege Pijnacker stopt ook met Zoom door ‘beelden die niet door de beugel kunnen’ – Omroep West

Porno tijdens online les van Zoetermeerse school dus stoppen met Zoom

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ZOETERMEER – Leerlingen van een klas van het Zoetermeerse Erasmus College hebben woensdagochtend, tijdens een les via de video-app Zoom, pornobeelden te zien gekregen. De school is onmiddellijk gestopt met het gebruik van Zoom.

‘We snappen dat jullie ontzettend geschrokken zijn’, schrijft de school in een mail aan de betreffende leerlingen. ‘We hebben natuurlijk direct alle Zoom-lessen stopgezet en gaan kijken naar een andere methode om thuis les te geven.’

Directeur-bestuurder Roderik Rot bevestigt dat er pornografische beelden te zien zijn geweest en dat om die reden alle lessen zijn gestopt. ‘Ja, er is één klas geweest, waarbij daarvan kort sprake was.’ Om hoeveel leerlingen het gaat kan Rot niet zeggen: ‘Een klas bestaat nooit uit meer dan dertig leerlingen en meestal is het bij die online lessen zo dat niet alle leerlingen erbij zijn.’ Op de vraag om welke les het ging, wil hij uit privacyoverwegingen niet ingaan. De school bood leerlingen aan om indien gewenst contact op te nemen met een hulpteam, maar daarvan is voor zover bekend door niemand gebruik gemaakt.

Gestopt met online lessen

Het Erasmus College is nu dus meteen gestopt met Zoom. Volgens Rot had de school dat al in gang gezet. Een externe privacyadviseur had al gezegd dat Zoom, onder strikte voorwaarden, te gebruiken was, maar dat hij toch andere programma’s adviseerde. ‘Dus we hebben gisteren de ouders allemaal bericht dat we gaan overstappen naar iets anders. En dat we daar druk mee bezig zijn.’

[…]

ID’s onveilig gedeeld

Volgens het Delftse cybersecuritybedrijf Fox-IT is het onwaarschijnlijk dat Zoom zelf is gehackt. Security-expert Sanne Maasakkers: ‘Zoom is een heel groot softwarebedrijf waar iedere dag veel mensen met de beveiliging bezig zijn.’ Volgens Maasakkers is het aannemelijker dat uitnodigingscodes in handen terecht zijn gekomen van mensen die niet op de vergadering zijn uitgenodigd.

Iedere deelnemer krijgt zo’n ID. Als die niet is beveiligd met een wachtwoord, dan kunnen buitenstaanders inbreken in een Zoom-meeting, wat met een wachtwoord veel moeilijker is, tenzij een deelnemer zelf is gehackt.

Source: Porno tijdens online les van Zoetermeerse school: ‘Onwaarschijnlijk dat Zoom is gehackt’ – Omroep West

Nee, het is niet echt ‘gehackt’ in die zin dat het zo’n slechte beveiliging heeft dat je gewoon een  ID in kan voeren en daar lukraak porno naar kan sturen.

Trump signs executive order to support moon mining, tap asteroid resources

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The water ice and other lunar resources that will help the United States establish a long-term human presence on the moon are there for the taking, the White House believes.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order today (April 6) establishing U.S. policy on the exploitation of off-Earth resources. That policy stresses that the current regulatory regime — notably, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty — allows the use of such resources.

This view has long held sway in U.S. government circles. For example, the United States, like the other major spacefaring nations, has not signed the 1979 Moon Treaty, which stipulates that non-scientific use of space resources be governed by an international regulatory framework. And in 2015, Congress passed a law explicitly allowing American companies and citizens to use moon and asteroid resources.

The new executive order makes things even more official, stressing that the United States does not view space as a “global commons” and sees a clear path to off-Earth mining, without the need for further international treaty-level agreements.

The executive order, called “Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources,” has been in the works for about a year, a senior administration official said during a teleconference with reporters today. The order was prompted, at least in part, by a desire to clarify the United States’ position as it negotiates with international partners to help advance NASA’s Artemis program for crewed lunar exploration, the official added. (Engagement with international partners remains important, the official said.)

Artemis aims to land two astronauts on the moon in 2024 and to establish a sustainable human presence on and around Earth’s nearest neighbor by 2028. Lunar resources, especially the water ice thought to be plentiful on the permanently shadowed floors of polar craters, are key to Artemis’ grand ambitions, NASA officials have said.

The moon is not the final destination for these ambitions, by the way. Artemis is designed to help NASA and its partners learn how to support astronauts in deep space for long stretches, lessons that will be key to putting boots on Mars, which NASA wants to do in the 2030s.

“As America prepares to return humans to the moon and journey on to Mars, this executive order establishes U.S. policy toward the recovery and use of space resources, such as water and certain minerals, in order to encourage the commercial development of space,” Scott Pace, deputy assistant to the president and executive secretary of the U.S. National Space Council, said in a statement today.

President Trump has shown considerable interest in shaping U.S. space policy. In December 2017, for example, he signed Space Policy Directive-1, which laid the groundwork for the Artemis campaign. Two other directives have aimed to streamline commercial space regulation and the protocols for space traffic control. And Space Policy Directive-4, which the president signed in February 2019, called for the creation of the Space Force, the first new U.S. military branch since the Air Force was stood up in 1947.

Source: Trump signs executive order to support moon mining, tap asteroid resources | Space

Attackers can bypass fingerprint authentication with an ~80% success rate

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For decades, the use of fingerprints to authenticate users to computers, networks, and restricted areas was (with a few notable exceptions) mostly limited to large and well-resourced organizations that used specialized and expensive equipment. That all changed in 2013 when Apple introduced TouchID. Within a few years, fingerprint-based validation became available to the masses as computer, phone, and lock manufacturers added sensors that gave users an alternative to passwords when unlocking the devices.

Further Reading

Bypassing TouchID was “no challenge at all,” hacker tells Ars

Although hackers managed to defeat TouchID with a fake fingerprint less than 48 hours after the technology was rolled out in the iPhone 5S, fingerprint-based authentication over the past few years has become much harder to defeat. Today, fingerprints are widely accepted as a safe alternative over passwords when unlocking devices in many, but not all, contexts.

A very high probability

A study published on Wednesday by Cisco’s Talos security group makes clear that the alternative isn’t suitable for everyone—namely those who may be targeted by nation-sponsored hackers or other skilled, well-financed, and determined attack groups. The researchers spent about $2,000 over several months testing fingerprint authentication offered by Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Huawei, and three lock makers. The result: on average, fake fingerprints were able to bypass sensors at least once roughly 80 percent of the time.

The percentages are based on 20 attempts for each device with the best fake fingerprint the researchers were able to create. While Apple Apple products limit users to five attempts before asking for the PIN or password, the researchers subjected the devices to 20 attempts (that is, multiple groups of from one or more attempts). Of the 20 attempts, 17 were successful. Other products tested permitted significantly more or even an unlimited number of unsuccessful tries.

Tuesday’s report was quick to point out that the results required several months of painstaking work, with more than 50 fingerprint molds created before getting one to work. The study also noted that the demands of the attack—which involved obtaining a clean image of a target’s fingerprint and then getting physical access to the target’s device—meant that only the most determined and capable adversaries would succeed.

“Even so, this level of success rate means that we have a very high probability of unlocking any of the tested devices before it falls back into the PIN unlocking,” Talos researchers Paul Rascagneres and Vitor Ventura wrote. “The results show fingerprints are good enough to protect the average person’s privacy if they lose their phone. However, a person that is likely to be targeted by a well-funded and motivated actor should not use fingerprint authentication.”

Source: Attackers can bypass fingerprint authentication with an ~80% success rate | Ars Technica

Google Bans Zoom Videoconferencing Software From Employees’ Computers

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Google has banned the popular videoconferencing software Zoom from its employees’ devices, BuzzFeed News has learned. Zoom, a competitor to Google’s own Meet app, has seen an explosion of people using it to work and socialize from home and has become a cultural touchstone during the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week, Google sent an email to employees whose work laptops had the Zoom app installed that cited its “security vulnerabilities” and warned that the videoconferencing software on employee laptops would stop working starting this week.

“We have long had a policy of not allowing employees to use unapproved apps for work that are outside of our corporate network,” Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News. “Recently, our security team informed employees using Zoom Desktop Client that it will no longer run on corporate computers as it does not meet our security standards for apps used by our employees. Employees who have been using Zoom to stay in touch with family and friends can continue to do so through a web browser or via mobile.”

Source: Google Bans Zoom Videoconferencing Software From Employees’ Computers

Germany Flies in Seasonal Farm Workers Amid COVID-19 Efforts – yeah I thought they wanted to keep out the immigrants or something?

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Two planeloads of Eastern European farmhands arrived Thursday in Berlin and Duesseldorf amid strict precautions to protect the country from the new coronavirus, as an ambitious German program to import thousands of seasonal agricultural workers got underway.

Seasonal workers had been caught up in the country’s ban on travel after the outbreak of the coronavirus. That left a massive deficit in personnel available to pick asparagus, which has already sprouted, and plant other crops in German fields, where some 300,000 such workers were employed last year.

Most came from Eastern European countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Hungary, where wages are much lower than in Germany, which is Europe’s largest economy.

Under the new program, workers need to fly to the country in controlled groups — to prevent the possible infection of others en route — and are subject to medical checks upon arrival. They then must live and work separately from other farmhands for two weeks, and wear protective gear.

Announcing the program, Agriculture Minister Julia Kloecker said it was a “pragmatic and goal-oriented solution” that would allow up to 40,000 seasonal workers into the country in April, and another 40,000 in May. She said the hope was to find an additional 20,000 over the two months among Germany’s own unemployed, students or resident asylum seekers.

“This is important and good news for our farmers,” she said. “Because the harvest doesn’t wait and you can’t delay sowing the fields.”

Ahead of time, interested workers have to register online and have their information checked by federal police. Farmers needing help register online with Eurowings, the airline contracted to bring the workers in, saying when they’re needed and where.

So far, 9,900 people had registered for April and another 4,300 for May.

Flights are then organized to bring in groups, and the first group of workers, 530 people from Romania, arrived on Thursday in Duesseldorf and Berlin, Eurowings said. Further flights were already planned to Duesseldorf, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Nuremberg and Frankfurt.

Source: Germany Flies in Seasonal Farm Workers Amid COVID-19 Efforts | Time

Rocket Lab proves it can recover a rocket in mid-air by catching it with a helicopter

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Last year, Rocket Lab announced that it would attempt to reuse the first stage of its Electron rocket. The company’s goal is to catch the stage as it falls back towards the ocean by plucking it out of mid-air with a helicopter. While that’s ambitious, a video released today shows that Rocket Lab may not be too far off. The clip shows one helicopter dropping an Electron test stage and another hooking the stage’s parachute with a grappling hook and towing it back to land.

Rocket Lab pulled off this stunt in early March. One helicopter dropped the Electron test stage over open ocean in New Zealand. A second helicopter caught it, on the first attempt, at around 5,000 feet.

Next, Rocket Lab will attempt to recover a full Electron first stage following a launch. It won’t pull that from the air but will retrieve the rocket stage after it lands in the ocean. A parachute will help slow its descent, and like previous versions, it will include instrumentation to “inform future recovery efforts.” That mission is planned for late 2020.

Of course, catching a rocket stage after an actual launch is a lot different than catching one that’s dropped neatly by a helicopter. But the feat is a key milestone, as Rocket Lab’s plans to reuse the rockets depend on this recovery method. If it’s successful, Rocket Lab will be able to lower costs, and in theory, that may lead to more launches.

Source: Rocket Lab proves it can recover a rocket in mid-air | Engadget