monadnocks

The attribution that's generally more valid is careful combing through the techniques, malware code, etc. and comparing it with samples from previous work. Yes, locations can be easily spoofed. Also, it's pretty easy to pivot through a hacked network within a target area so your attack source says "Indiana" but that's just the poor folks who were hacked before you. For DDoS attacks, it's really irrelevant where they originate from, I think. You can ban prefixes and it does filter out some of the noise. There's an article floating out there about one of the Ukrainian hackers who just rented Google cloud space to run his bots. It's not so much the DDoS attacks that US and allies need to worry about, it's things like wiper ware (ask Sony about that), tool theft (ask the NSA about that one although that was a leak), data theft and SCADA attacks. Water systems? Utilities? GPS data? There's a lot of worrisome things to think about.

tl;dr: Yes, it's possible to have likely attribution but it takes time, talent and a lot of work. There are groups that are part of a nation state. https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/who-is-fancy-bear/ There are groups that are affiliated with nation states. The Conti ransomware gang has been cited as being affiliated with the Russian government, for instance. https://thehackernews.com/2022/03/conti-ransomware-gangs-internal-chats.html And the Ukraine has enlisted a host of individuals to hack on their behalf. https://threatpost.com/russia-leaks-data-thousand-cuts-podcast/178749/ I would not want to work on a blue team at the moment. I can tell you that the people that I know who work in cybersecurity are very busy these days.

So we're not taking a bunch of high schoolers to MGM. If there is a discount to be had with the hotels, I'm probably interested. We can't book hotels with minibars in the rooms or where you have to travel through a casino to get to the restaurant or entrance, for example. Thank you for offering to look!

Good to know! The two hotels we looked at on TripAdvisor that had 4.5 stars were in Holyoke. We'll take them off the list.

Anyone have advice staying near West Springfield? I help lead a high school robotics team and we last weekend we competed at WNEU. Drove only once through Armory Street and Saint James to the university; thank you Waze. Driving a large truck full of equipment on this drive was subpar. Our 4 star Hampton Inn (tripadvisior.com) in West Springfield had the sounds of dirt bikes? drag racing? going on past midnight. With a pre-8AM start of 12 hours of competition, this was not what we were looking for. Also, if that's a 4 star hotel, I really don't want to end up at a 3 star. We'll probably return to West Springfield in April for a larger competition (80 teams) which will be at the Big E. I'm trying to find the best intersection between a decent hotel, not too far from the venue and relatively safe. One adult suggested the La Quinta Inn on Congress Street in Springfield but I'm not sure about the area. Our tool boxes generally look like we bought everything a power tool company offers plus a couple of hundred pounds of assorted other stuff. I'm thinking we might not wanting to parking trucks in some of these areas. Any advice? West Springfield (Candlewood Suites)? Holyoke (Fairfield Inn or Homewood Suites)? Thanks for any help!

We have 5" too.

Even something as basic as aluminum has already had pricing go up substantially over a year and I expect it to soar even more. Intellectually, it's going to be very interesting watching this all play out. As a consumer, it's going to change some things. As an investor, I wish I had more time to really inhale all the data and analysis.

Last winter we bought a Bolt (yes, the halt and catch fire car). This fall, with no indication that energy prices would be any weirder than they were then, I locked electricity rates in for three years. At the moment, we're trying to try drive it most of the time. The whole solar panel idea is also good but not sure given our location if it would be truly useful in terms of generation, never mind ROI.

That works too. Putin's history, the history of being overrun., etc.

SANS webcast on Ukraine and cybersecurity: Realistically, looking for lack of traffic from notable cybersecurity firms / people might be a better indicator of how bad it might be. There's a lot of vulnerabilities out there. Anyone remember the Bangladesh and SWIFT hack? It's not just the financial sector either. There's a ton of issues in other sectors.

Money. Ukraine has resources Russia wants: Black Sea resources, factories, rail lines, transportation systems, agricultural commodities. And history. And the fact that Putin's beyond terrible.

Works for me.

It's -4 already here. -2 is the predicted low. heat goes brrrrr

I'm still in an online meeting. Drinking sounds like a good option.

There are still events that will be re-scheduled: school games, for instance.

I hadn't realized that he had passed away until I read your post. I don't know much of what he's taught but the little I do resonates.

I'm so sorry. It's unbelievably difficult to go through. If you can try to take care of yourself too.

Yes! I am looking forward to fall, even though it's going to bring a lot more work and stress.

I can safely say that we got torrential rain tonight. It’ll be interesting tomorrow to see the extent of the erosion, etc.

I was at Costco today along with what felt like half of New England. I'd say about 90% of the people were wearing masks. And given the wide range of people - elderly man slowly making his way through the bakery all the way down to the couple with their two very young children - I'd hazard a guess that at least some people there either were ineligible for vaccines or had immune systems that weren't in the best of shape. (Or had family members with the same constraints and were trying not to bring home something besides beer and burgers.) Remember going to large conferences and expecting to get Con Crud? Either from the plane, the dry air, the crazy hours and bad food or just being mashed in with 25K people? Maybe it won't be so prevalent if there's some basic hygiene like hand washing and limiting the number of people completely mashed into a space. I'm looking at you DefCon in 2019 - minimum of ten minute waits to ride the freight elevator because the regular elevators were so overloaded. Or my last robotics conference where one of the ballroom talks was so full that people were literally sitting on the floor so that they could hear it.

Small world! My parents used to live on Plumtree Road in Springfield. Their neighbors called to tell them about the tornado coming; they had seen it from their attic windows. My old high school got hit that day. That neighborhood (north side of Plumtree Rd.) definitely took some damage. Luckily my folks were OK and stayed with my sister for a while. I think their power was out? The house was fine, thank goodness.

Unlike many of you.. I never met James in person. And in one of those strange Internet ways, I do feel like I knew him in some ways. As so many said, his energy and positivity for so many things was such a hallmark. Even though many of James' blockbuster storms never came to pass, I did read his posts, cheering him on, hoping that he'd get the snowbanks he wished for. Rest is peace, James.

On Friday I was driving through upstate New York and it was pretty toasty. The car thermometer read 91-94 for pretty much until we got close to Albany. As a northern New Englander, I'm completely OK with the Memorial Day weekend forecast. It'll be terrific for doing hours of work in the garden.

One of our local towns is having town meeting outside, Saturday at 9 AM. Want to bet it goes quickly?