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Boy, 11, hacks cyber-security conf to show weaponization of toys


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2017 May 17, 7:27am   2,711 views  19 comments

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/17/boy-11-hacks-cyber-security-audience-to-give-lesson-on-weaponisation-of-toys

An 11-year-old “cyber ninja” has stunned an audience of security experts by hacking into their Bluetooth devices to manipulate a robotic teddy bear, showing in the process how interconnected smart toys “can be weaponised”.

Reuben Paul, who is in sixth grade at school in Austin, Texas, and his teddy bear Bob wowed hundreds at a cyber-security conference in the Netherlands.

“From airplanes to automobiles, from smartphones to smart homes, anything or any toy can be part of the Internet of Things (IOT),” said the small figure pacing the huge stage at the World Forum in The Hague.

“From terminators to teddy bears, anything or any toy can be weaponised.”

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Folks, we are right on "the eve of destruction" and 1984. But let's just keep posting instead of taking any action to stop the cataclysm.

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1   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 7:48am  

Herb says

From terminators to teddy bears

Note to self: screenplay idea, terminator teddy bears.

2   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 7:49am  

"Smart" has become a marketing term since the military used it in the first Iraq war. Smart toys aren't smart. They are just using wifi because its dirt cheap today. When the cost of a technology comes close to zero, it becomes ubiquitous.

3   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 7:57am  

Herb says

any toy can be weaponised

Even vibrators? This may be the answer to stopping gynocentrism.

4   Strategist   2017 May 17, 8:13am  

Herb says

Boy, 11, hacks cyber-security conf to show weaponization of toys

The CIA needs to hire this kid. He could hack into N Korea and ISIS computers, and make some bombs explode.

5   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 8:17am  

It would be a shame to waste good talent on war, a counter-productive enterprise. War decreases wealth.

6   Patrick   2017 May 17, 8:58am  

In my experience, every story about a boy genius deliberately ignores the boy's context, usually a father or older brother who is actively coaching him. But "11 year old demonstrates things his father taught him" doesn't make good newpaper copy.

7   Strategist   2017 May 17, 9:02am  

Dan8267 says

It would be a shame to waste good talent on war, a counter-productive enterprise. War decreases wealth.

That kid could help Prevent a war by helping to bump off that crazy NK leader.

8   HEY YOU   2017 May 17, 9:23am  

Now's the time for tech geeks to defend a fallible system.
If one creates it another can break it.
If his dad helped,what can a pissed off individual do.
Won't matter to technology geniuses until it bites them in the ass or harms their loved ones.

9   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 9:26am  

Strategist says

That kid could help Prevent a war by helping to bump off that crazy NK leader.

Following that philosophy, he should assassinate Trump.

10   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 9:29am  

rando says

In my experience, every story about a boy genius deliberately ignores the boy's context, usually a father or older brother who is actively coaching him. But "11 year old demonstrates things his father taught him" doesn't make good newpaper copy.

Omg! That's so sexist! That's the patriarchy! It's obviously the mother who taught him everything he knows, and that was hard because teaching boys anything is nearly impossible because they aren't as smart as girls and the only reason they succeed in STEM is because nature and facts have a male bias. Math is a social construct. If I feel that the derivative of x squared is a flower, then that's my personal truth and you should respect it.

11   Strategist   2017 May 17, 9:42am  

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

That kid could help Prevent a war by helping to bump off that crazy NK leader.

Following that philosophy, he should assassinate Trump.

Its not that complicated. Those who are trying to kill us are the bad guys. Those who are trying to protect us are the good guys.

12   Patrick   2017 May 17, 10:02am  

Dan8267 says

Omg! That's so sexist!

OK, sometimes reported "girl tech geniuses" are coached by their fathers as well.

But hardly ever by their mothers.

13   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 10:27am  

rando says

OK, sometimes reported "girl tech geniuses" are coached by their fathers as well.

Red Pill quote of the year.

14   curious2   2017 May 17, 12:14pm  

rando says

In my experience, every story about a boy genius deliberately ignores the boy's context, usually a father or older brother who is actively coaching him. But "11 year old demonstrates things his father taught him" doesn't make good newpaper copy.

Interesting:

"Five-Year-Old Prodigy Discovers Xbox Live Password Vulnerability
***
The child discovered that by simply pressing the space bar multiple times in order to fill up the password field and then hitting Enter, the Xbox One console would grant him access to his dad’s account. Kristoffer’s father Robert Davies, who works in the field of computer security, contacted Microsoft about the flaw, earning his son recognition by the company as a security contributor.

In an interview with local television station KGTV, Kristoffer said that he was “nervous” and that he was afraid his father was going to find out. Robert did eventually find out, but his reaction was not what you might expect – he said that his son’s discovery was “awesome” and called it “pretty cool” that the five-year old found the vulnerability.

Of course, Robert noted that this was not the first time that Kristoffer had demonstrated his technical prowess. At the age of one, he reportedly was able to surpass a cell phone’s toddler lock screen by holding down on the home button. In all, he’s discovered these types of security flaws three or four times, according to Davies."

To recap, the kid is reportedly a "prodigy" for doing things many kids would try, but perhaps nobody would have heard of him if his dad had been a plumber. The dad provided expert credibility and probably a list of corroborating experts. The media reports result from a combination of (a) access, (b) packaging, and (c) marketable storylines.

15   Tenpoundbass   2017 May 17, 12:23pm  

Am I the only one that is asking what malicious activity the Teddy Bear did that would be considered weaponized?

The article makes no mention of any factual statements about the details of what the Teddy Bear did, that question is continuously drowned out by the constant reinforcement that it was a 11 year old Boy.

This is what I call "Scary Clown in the Woods" Science news.

Now that Liberals has finally hijacked all Science discussion.
Every Science journal or report are either one of two formats.

Either it is "Scary Clown in the woods" scary technology designed to scare the shit out of the dumb asses and beg the Ellite Liberals to save us all from the impending doom.
Or
It is the "Wow we can do that already? I thought we were 1000 years away from going to Mars, or reaching fusion and personal back rocket packs that can monitor heart rate and perform open heart surgery mid flight"

This one is the Scary Clown flavor.

16   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 12:44pm  

Tenpoundbass says

Am I the only one that is asking what malicious activity the Teddy Bear did that would be considered weaponized?

According to the Pentagon, spy devices are weapons, especially if they can be used to gather military intelligence or access to other weapons like the nuclear codes. So if some Pentagon employee received a "smart" teddy bear as a valentine's gift from her boyfriend and placed that teddy bear on her desk while she worked, a hacker could use the teddy bear's camera and microphone to capture passwords and anything displayed on her screen or spoken in her presence including highly classified military plans. The Pentagon would most certainly consider this weaponization of a device and would treat it as a very serious matter.

You never could see the big picture.

17   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 12:52pm  

The bottom line is that every high ranking politician and political brass carries around them a multitude of security threats in a small package called a smartphone. The cameras, microphones, and wifi capabilities of these smartphones can be, and certainly are currently being, used to commit both nation-state and corporate spying and espionage.

The problem is becoming exponentially more important as every device is getting a WiFi connection and all devices are becoming more and more interconnected. We live in a new world that is highly interconnected by information infrastructure. And for the past 50 years, security has always been an afterthought, never addressed in release 1.0 of a product. If this does not change, it is inevitable that our national security and safety will be compromised by terrorists getting the nuclear codes, crashing the stock market, overloading the electric grid, or stopping the safety tests of nuclear reactors. If you thought the WannaCry ransomware was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.

These security issues must be taken seriously before the shit hits the fan.

18   Tenpoundbass   2017 May 17, 2:06pm  

Dan8267 says

Pentagon employee received a "smart" teddy bear as a valentine's gift from her boyfriend and placed that teddy bear on her desk while she worked, a hacker could use the teddy bear's camera and microphone to capture passwords and anything displayed on her screen or spoken in her presence

How exactly the tooth is communicating with bluetooth. only someone with in several feet of him would even pick up the BT signal.
Then even then they would have knowledge of how that toy was manufactured to know what hardware it had available to hack.
Now if a smart phone is used to communicate with the toy then it's that smart phone that is being exploited, not the Toy.

If you had the toy and didn't install the app on your phone it would be perfectly safe.

19   Dan8267   2017 May 17, 2:20pm  

Tenpoundbass says

communicating with bluetooth.

Don't assume the underlying technology. It's subject to change. And even bluetooth can be a stepping stone to a WiFi network using a double-hop attack.

Tenpoundbass says

If you had the toy and didn't install the app on your phone it would be perfectly safe.

Think big picture, not just the particular example shown in the story. The example illustrates a larger problem. It's not this particular toy that's the problem. It's the changing nature of our interconnected society.

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