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Russia Is Conducting a Massive Cyber Attack

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One of the reasons refusing to run Voxel/XVortex (yes, it's the same guy) firmware on my routers. He's Russian, doesn't open source his changes, violates licenses, rips off other's people work (in case of XWRT), no one knows what he does behind closed doors, etc. The last one is what really worries me.

Not trying to imply corporations are any better, but I'd rather trust Netgear's stock firmware than that of a suspicious random Russian who modifies firmwares for routers and posts them to forums
 
Replace "Russia" with any country name, and that would still be true. Or did people already forget the treasure trove of exploits the CIA were sitting on, and which got leaked last year?

Singling out the Russians here is wrong. It's a far more widespread problem.
 
RMerlin said:
Replace "Russia" with any country name, and that would still be true. Or did people already forget the treasure trove of exploits the CIA were sitting on, and which got leaked last year?

Singling out the Russians here is wrong. It's a far more widespread problem.
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What you say is undoubtedly true, but this announcement has to be viewed in the context of recent world events regarding chemical weapons.
 
RMerlin said:
Are you sure?


Sent from my P027 using Tapatalk
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I can't be 100% sure but here's my "evidence" (note the quotes)

XVortex is generally known to be a Russian person
XVortex has great interest in Netgear products
XVortex doesn't publish his changes
XVortex's English is very similar to Voxel's

Voxel uses a Russian version of Office to create his Readme.docx document. The "Author" metadata of that document is in Russian. Coincidence?
Voxel has great interest in Netgear routers
Voxel also doesn't publish his modifications
Voxel's English is very similar to that of XVortex

Not trying to expose anyone or blame, hurt, humiliate, yada, yada. Just that I see a lot of similarity between the two. Even so, I can't be 100% sure
 
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@RMerlin

as I said, don't have 100% evidence, just a lot of suspicions and pointed out why. If he's not the same person, I'm fine with that and being wrong.

Still, the fact he uses a Russian version of Office makes me very nervous. Call me biased but I don't trust the Russians. They're virtually always against anything the West does or proposes and are not shy of trying to prevent it. And now in the news with all the Russian hackers... gee, a guy can become paranoid for a lot less :)
 
microchip said:
gee, a guy can become paranoid for a lot less
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And this doesn't?

microchip said:
the fact he uses a Russian version of Office makes me very nervous.
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One of my most trusted technical reference with whom I often discuss firmware development stuff is Russian. Better not use my firmware then (or even stock Asuswrt either, as I know some of his code also ended up in it after being added to my own firmware)...

Propaganda works both ways. The US (and other Western countries) also have their fair share of it.
 
RMerlin said:
And this doesn't?
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Sure, that too.

Devices that I need only locally (Smart TVs, BD players, Printers, Receivers) have their Internet connection completely blocked in my router.

All the hacking attempts and data harvesting is getting over my head, especially on "Smart" devices where you have to agree to their terms or else a lot of functionality won't work. I had to agree to Samsung's terms on my TV or its DLNA app wouldn't work. My Panasonic TV, when I turn its Internet connection on, displays ads in its menus/interface and I'm sure it sends stuff back too
 
microchip said:
Sure, that too.

Devices that I need only locally (Smart TVs, BD players, Printers, Receivers) have their Internet connection completely blocked in my router.

All the hacking attempts and data harvesting is getting over my head, especially on "Smart" devices where you have to agree to their terms or else a lot of functionality won't work. I had to agree to Samsung's terms on my TV or its DLNA app wouldn't work. My Panasonic TV, when I turn its Internet connection on, displays ads in its menus/interface and I'm sure it sends stuff back too
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All you can do is keep your systems up to date , that or turn everything off and not use the internet.
Paranoia leads to delusions.
Russia and America are both lead by asshats , it doesn't mean that the entire population of both those countries follow suit.
If you keep your head down and stop poking the hornets nest life will be a lot better.
 
The comments in this thread are just racist. (I am not Russian)

All countries have state sponsored attacks to hack electronics. Period.

Just because the news says Russia is state sponsoring an attack doesn't mean you should be weary of all Russian coders.

You don't want to run code that's closed source. More power to you.

You don't want to run code programmed by someone of X nationality, awesom, but keep that preference to yourself, as you are just spreading prejudice.

Grasping at straws and assuming two members are the same person because they are both Russian is plain wrong.

Do want me to put my nationality up in my profile to see if you can trust me? That sounds rediculous.

Have fun reading this thread.

https://w00tsec.blogspot.com/2014/07/hacking-asus-rt-ac66u-and-preparing-for.html?m=1

The ASUS router mentioned is going to be used as a prime example of how NOT to secure IoT devices. The Russians are going to have a field day.
 
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AndreiV said:
All you can do is keep your systems up to date , that or turn everything off and not use the internet.
Paranoia leads to delusions.
Russia and America are both lead by asshats , it doesn't mean that the entire population of both those countries follow suit.
If you keep your head down and stop poking the hornets nest life will be a lot better.
Click to expand...

All I can do is block Internet access for the devices that don't need it, which has another effect of not sending data to f.ex Samsung and Panasonic.

I don't use any "Smart" stuff on these devices except for the DLNA client which only needs local access and no Internet

There is clinical paranoia and there is healthy paranoia ;)
 
adampk17 said:
Racist? As far as I’ve ever heard being Russian or American isn’t a race. Perhaps the thread is nationalist. A small but important distinction.
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Not jumping down at semantics arguments at the whole ethnicity vs race distinction. You know what I meant.

It's prejudice plain and simple.

Im not a SJW, I do poke fun at stereotypes, but prejudice is ugly.
 
Racist was not the intent of this thread.

Smart devices. I was wondering if an AppleTV would be more secure than a smart TV. It seems so to me. It makes sense to me that Apple would be more up on security than a TV manufacture. Any comments?
 
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