Last week, the Internet dodged a major nation-state attack that would have had catastrophic cybersecurity repercussions worldwide. It’s a catastrophe that didn’t happen, so it won’t get much attention—but it should. There’s an important moral to the story of the attack and its discovery: The security of the global Internet depends on countless obscure pieces of software written and maintained by even more obscure unpaid, distractible, and sometimes vulnerable volunteers. It’s an untenable situation, and one that is being exploited by malicious actors. Yet precious little is being done to remedy it...
Some cheerful urbanism news this week. It is especially great to see how Paris is progressing. For a fun nerdy read, have a look at the tic-tac-toe implemented in printf, or the floppy history. Engineering How to measure your cloud carbon footprint [Podcast] - nice open-source tool. Backdoor in XZ Utils That Almost Happened - Schneier weighs in too. The Turing Police say “X Wins” - tic-tac-toe implemented in a single printf.