Chinese APT group Naikon tried to hack in to the WA state government
Keybase is now owned by Zoom (yeah, that Zoom)
There’s now AMD Ryzen mobile CPUs with features similar to Intel vPro
It’s 2020 and we’ve got Doom running on Myki ticket validators
Cheap Bose NC700, Transport Fever, The Sims 4, GTA5, Sonos Playbase & $700 credit towards a new phone on an Optus contract
Check Point Research reckons a Chinese APT group (advanced persistent threats, aka, l33t hax0rz as opposed to script kiddies) going by the name Naikon was fucking around with the West Australian state government. The investigation began after Check Point "observed a malicious email that was sent from a government embassy in APAC to an Australian government entity, named The Indians Way.doc. This RTF file, which was infected (weaponized) with the RoyalRoad exploit builder, drops a loader named intel.wll into the target PC's Word startup folder. The loader in turn tries to download and execute the next stage payload from spool.jtjewifyn[.]com".
While this isn't good, I wouldn't take it personally, these APT groups, particularly Chinese ones, target every government. Naikon tapped Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and Brunei as well as WA. Here's Check Point's full report on Naikon if you're keen.
Keybase is popular with security minded people as a way to verify who they're talking to over the internet. It works well and people enjoyed using it, but it always had an issue with how it would be sustainable long term. They didn't charge money, display ads or collect personal info, so something was gonna have to happen to get Keybase's investors a return.
We've got an answer now: Zoom bought em. For now Keybase's "single top priority is helping to make Zoom even more secure", but "ultimately Keybase's future is in Zoom's hands, and we'll see where that takes us". Reading between the lines, they were probably acquihired and Keybase will be shuttered eventually - but who knows, maybe Zoom will let Keybase do their thing and simply let people pay a fee to support it. Here’s Zoom’s announcement of the Keybase purchase.
AMD announced "Pro" versions of the Ryzen Mobile 4000 CPUs. They're designed to compete with the vPro capabilities of Intel's laptop CPUs catered for enterprise use, with features like encrypting RAM so if someone nicks your laptop they can't steal keys or passwords out of memory (apparently Intel CPUs can't do this) and Pro Manageability, AMD's equivalent of Intel's AMT for remote management with support for Microsoft's Endpoint Manager.
Lenovo simultaneously announced that their entire business laptop lineup will get these new CPUs over the coming months, starting in June. This comment on Anandtech's article sums up the Lenovo range perfectly: E - Economy, T - just get this one, X - poseur level, L - at least it's not an E. The T-series ThinkPads have never let me down.
Thank you to Marcus Jamison who emailed me a link to Doom running on a god forsaken Myki validator machine. Yeah, that's right, some loose unit managed to procure one of those yellow things found all over Victorian public transport you tap your Myki on and hack away at its Windows CE underpinnings long enough to install Doom. I love how the screen is scrawled with TENA (fuck you to whoever does this to every Myki validator in the state) and the area you tap your card on is faded some hundreds of thousands of taps. Hats off to the nerd named zbios for achieving this milestone in Doom Running On Things history.
Bose NC700 headphones (in black or silver) - $499 shipped from PC Byte
Transport Fever (looks like a modern take of Transport Tycoon) is $8 at Gamebillet
Get an Optus $65/m 80GB 24m contract at Harvey Norman and get $700 credit towards a new device
Sonos Playbase - $649 at JB Hi-Fi
The Sims 4 on Xbox One - $12.48 on Xbox Live (a few expansions are half price too, check the Ozbargain comments)
GTA 5 Premium Online Edition for PC - $20.50 at Eneba
🎶 Overdrive - American Sharks
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