This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/french-supermarket-chains-cyberattack-forced-115141288.html
This is a poetry of stupid and the hackers are the least guilty party here. Lets start with the obvious. Why freezers needs to be visible, why do they need to be remotely managed, why is not this done on dedicated internal network, why do they need firmware updates. How did we get to the point where a device that should be pid controller, compressor and alarm can be hacked.
To make you feel better - all of your nice EVs are also permanently connected and I doubt that there is air gap between the infotainment and the firmware of the battery pack. Someday someone will be able to accelerate or set on fire EV remotely. And probably soon.
There are widespread rumors that intelligence agencies have had the ability to remotely hijack cars since the early 1990s.
I mean, they can't. To remotely hijack a car, the engine, brakes, and steering need to be under computer control. Otherwise there's simply nothing to hijack. You can do it with a modern car (mid-2010s or later), but in the early 1990s they still had carburetors and cable-driven throttles.
If the engine is under computer control you could shut it down remotely. You could plausibly do that with an early 2000s car (if it has a modem on board, which it won't, but which I guess the CIA could sneak in there if they wanted), but I wouldn't call shutting it down to be "hijacking". It's only the cars that have things like active braking and lane assist where the computer even has enough control over the car to plausibly be capable of e.g. driving you into a tree on purpose.
After the Hezbollah pager detonation, can you really say that it won’t? I highly doubt the Mossad is the first intelligence agency in the world to ever sneak things into the supply chain for various reasons. There were rumors Intel was putting secret spying hardware in at the chip level in the late 90s.
There's been a recent (if less literal) blow-up in crypto spheres because a hardware wallet provider, shortly after being sold to an investor, pretty clearly seems to have begun implanting cell hardware.
In a much less sophisticated manner, to be fair. There's a fun question about whether that says they were the first, or whether it says they were the dumbest.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link