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Laying Happy Trails

Sep 13, 2018
by Caroline Miller
Black Hat 2018 conference, Dale Evans, hackable satellites, hacker targets, Roy Rogers, self-driving cars, training transfer, voice identification
2 Comments

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans courtesy of google.com

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been adapting to a new computer.  Some mischief-makers attacked my old one.  The new machine has a hard drive the size of a pack of playing cards, and it’s faster, too  The bad news is, I never entirely committed all my passwords  to paper, so I’m having to invent new ones and  making a permanent record. Tedious stuff by my reckoning.

A clerk at my bank suggested I consider using voice recognition instead of passwords.  “What a wonderful idea,” I thought.  But I didn’t sign up as I hadn’t the time.  Lucky me.   After further reading, I’ve discovered those who hack for fun and terror have cracked that technology. They pull a person’s words from places like YouTube to synthesize the voice.  The technique is called training transfer.  From start to finish, the duplicating process takes 10 minutes.

At the 2018 Black Hat conference, techies learned more scary stuff about what hackers are up to. Apparently, nothing electronic is safe. Satellites are hackable , for example. What’s more, their antennas can be weaponized and trained to destroy others of their kind.  Compared to that, messing with voting machines is a piece of cake.  By now, of course, everyone knows smart phones are vulnerable.

What’s most scary is that security systems we use to thwart hackers can turned to the dark side, as well.  Two Kaspersky researchers ran several filters for their  company and came up with tons of data meant to be super secure.   Even guidance systems on airplanes are under constant attack.  Think about that as you fly over Moscow.

Ironically, people are safest in a self-driving car.  The automobile industry has done its homework.  Given their potential liability, it’s not surprising.  I don’t need to be convinced, however. I’d trust a bot over my night vision, anytime. 

I’ll end with a sign-off from simpler days.  “Happy Trails.”  That’s the song Dale Evans and Roy Rogers used to sing at the close of their 1960’s television program.  This is  2018, however.  When you ride the internet today, remember you’ll be leaving behind plenty of trails.

 

Image: google.com

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2 Comments
  1. John Briggs September 13, 2018 at 4:37 pm Reply
    The Roy Rogers show, which ran from 1951 to 1957, sometimes included technological intruders, including land-swindlers who used hidden two-way radios to orchestrate fake news. Con-men used disguises. The big city's slickers pressed in on the simple, shrewd folks who just wanted to run their country lunch counter and ride to the rescue. The country folks' technology behaved like a ranch animal. Nellie Bell, Pat Brady's old jeep, was occasionally a self-driving vehicle, but like a stubborn horse at heart, it ran away from him in more than one episode just to make things interesting. The strange old west of those shows was mixed with technology. What was then seemed like what was now. I've come to know a man who grew up playing in Roy's Victorville kitchen. Perfectly logical.
    • Caroline Miller September 13, 2018 at 4:49 pm Reply
      Ha! Tat's more about the Roy Rogers show than I ever imagined knowing. Eye opening as well.

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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