Security News Update for October 4, 2024
China Starts Flying Homegrown (Likely Cloned) US, EU Airplanes
For those people who don’t think that China’s theft of foreign intellectual property is a problem, China has started delivering Chinese made COMAC C919 passenger jets. These compete with the Boeing 737 Max and Airbus A320 neo. China’s big three airlines have ordered a hundred planes each. If you assume, for scoping that a 737 Max costs $100 million, these 300 planes represent $30 billion in lost revenue to the US and EU. They already have 1,000 planes on order by various countries, so you do the math. That is a big impact. Credit: Reuters
OMG, Playstation is Down
The Playstation Network suffered a global meltdown Monday night. Users were greeted with a message like “the connection to the server timed out” or “an error has occurred”. The Playstation Network Status Page confirmed the outage, which they say started at 7:21 PM (no time zone, so maybe local time here). No indication of whether this is a technical glitch or a hack. Credit: Bleeping Computer
Another Fatality From Hurricane Helene – Electric Cars Catch Fire, Burn Down Houses
EVs, such as, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, the Tesla above, and salt water from Hurricane Helene are reported to have burned down a dozen homes. Officials are worried that the batteries used in everything from electric golf carts to cars can short circuit from the salt water from hurricanes and start fires. In a hurricane it is unlikely the fire department would even try to put out a fire like this and it could potentially catch other nearby homes on fire too. Years ago airplanes had fires in their cargo holds as a result of lithium batteries overheating changing federal rules about transporting such batteries on passenger planes. Last year 3,000 cars from Germany caught fire. 500 EVs were among the cargo. The crew had to abandon ship after they were unable to put out the fire. There is no simple solution. Credit: Cybernews
NASA Astronauts Can Vote From Space
Astronauts at the space station have a way to vote in November, although it is pretty convoluted. They request an absentee ballot and fill it out.sentenc Then it is encrypted so that only the county clerk can decrypt it. Their vote is uploaded to the space station’s computers and transmitted via NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites. From there it is sent to a ground station in New Mexico (still encrypted), then to mission control and finally to the astronaut’s county clerk. Likely, the most expensive ballot ever cast. Credit: Cybernews
Former Mesa County (Colorado) Election Official Tina Peters Sentenced to 9 Years
Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was responsible for running the elections for 140,000 residents, was sentenced to almost 9 years in prison for inviting in a private hacker into the secure area (using a badge stolen from another employee) where election machines are loaded after making a subordinate turn off security cameras. She is an election denier and got into fights with the judge. She was taken into custody in the court room. Credit: ABC News
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