Exploitable Backhole Accidentally Left In Some MediaTek-based Phones (ndtv.com) 79
Lirodon writes: MediaTek has confirmed findings by security researcher Justin Case, who discovered that some devices running Android KitKat on MediaTek processors (often used in lower-cost devices) had a debug function, meant to be removed on production devices, accidentally left in by their manufacturer. This hole could be used to trivially gain root access, among other possibilities.
Backhole? (Score:5, Funny)
Did you mean backdoor? Black hole?
Re: Backhole? (Score:2, Funny)
The LHC must be involved...
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Did you mean backdoor? Black hole?
Oh god, this one's going to bring the goatse out.
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Blame GOD, he has put an exploitable backhole into all humans.
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And the joke has only worked amongst people with no knowledge of Greek. No - not "Greek" in the sense of participating in anal sex (like "English" or "French"), but Greek in the sense of reading or writing at least some of the language.
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When did they do that?
In 2620.
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Tried clicking through to see what they meant... but the linked story is about something completely different.
You tried to RTFA? You must be new here.
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I thought they meant something far more dangerous - the backhoe. The ultimate denial-of-service tool.
Remember a few years ago some woman in Georgia took a whole country off the internet?
http://it.slashdot.org/story/0... [slashdot.org]
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
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If you know what I mean....
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Uh huh. An "accident". (Score:1, Insightful)
"Accidentally" at the behest of a nation-state actor. The only real accident was it being discovered. Just like the backdoors in Screen OS, etc.
Backhole? (Score:5, Informative)
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It's called a "backdoor" and here is a link to more information (the link posted in the summary has nothing to do with the backdoor):
Probably whoever came up with "backhole" didn't want to use "backdoor" because they felt that, since doors aren't naturally occurring, describing this security vulnerability as a "door" means that it must have been put there intentionally. Whereas, in fact (as near as I can tell), this vulnerability is due to a software error, albeit seemingly an failure of release management rather than programming per se. Thus, "hole" instead of "door".
That said, I'd like to leave our distinguished editor Timothy with t
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My opinion is, if a hole suddenly occurred in the back side of your house/apartment, and people started using it as a way in or out, it would actually make sense to call it the backdoor instead of the backhole. Also, backhole sounds dirty.
Backhole? Are the editors even trying? (Score:1)
Backhole?
Are you kidding me?
Are the editors even trying?
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I kind of like Backhole better. Better represents the feeling you get when someone uses it against you.
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Backhole?
Are you kidding me? Are the editors even trying?
I thought it was a brilliant improvisation, much more accurate how the whole relationship works. Maybe then our general population will finally care if we call them backholes, eh?
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Trying to start a meme perhaps.
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Are the editors even trying?
Are the editors even plural?
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Are the editors even plural?
Well, in English, "zero" usually uses the plural form for nouns and verbs.
Nice system (Score:2)
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Near as I can tell it has something to do with 8K video. Glad to see the new owners keeping up the tradition of not checking any submissions for spelling/grammar/content/errors.
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LOL, I let Chrome translate it for me, and I got this:
Which tells me letting Chrome translate stuff from Japanese is a terrible idea.
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Asian languages never translate well. For some reason Russian translation works great. With current technology why is machine translation so poor? You can't tell me with services like Siri and Cortana that we can't have better translations.
Re:Nice system (Score:5, Insightful)
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Asian languages never translate well. For some reason Russian translation works great. With current technology why is machine translation so poor? You can't tell me with services like Siri and Cortana that we can't have better translations.
Because asian languages don't map well to English to begin with. Japanese at least uses far fewer words with very many potential meanings, and it's great for humans since we know the context. But if I told you to turn "cloud go here strength west", you'd struggle quite a bit to not add extra detail the author never said and still make a fluid sentence. Magnify by that a hundred fold because a machine doesn't even have basic intuition, and I'm actually suprised by how it sort results in somewhst readahle se
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In some ways yes, but apparently in some ways no.
Years ago a friend was taking German classes, and apparently it has subject/verb stuff which can be at the end of sentences.
So one example of how it fell apart was a place in which the speaker went on for a long time, and the translator just stopped ... because without knowing what was at the end of the long-winded sentence it was impossible know what to say next. It was a lot of stuff whi
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That being said, I'm surprised by the poor quality of German. English and German are even in the same family linguistically speaking...
They might be in the same language family, but that is because they have the same primary root language. In the case of English, there was the initial celtic language, similar to Welsh, that would have had some parts assimilated into the versions of Saxon & Angle that merged into the pre-Norman tongue. Then there were the Normans, speaking French, a derivative of Latin with some input from ancient Gaulish, another celtic language. They also influenced the development of English, both it's lexicon and pr
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I posted that link in a story about the first 8k studio recordings of TV shows. I have no idea how it got into this story. I hope they still post my 8k story though, even if TFA is in Japanese.
Yeah, machine translation sucks.
Backhole? (Score:3)
Makes it sound like the device has an anus! I don't want that in my pocket!
No way! (Score:1)
ATTN: BIZX OVERLORDS (Score:5, Funny)
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When will people learn their history correctly? Armstrong's actual words were "FRIST MOONWALK!!!".
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What kind of parents..... (Score:2, Funny)
Justin Case, we should patch it anyway.
It's an alias (Score:2)
I know the guy. Justin Case is NOT his real name. (I don't know what it is, I remember seeing him acknowledged by his real name once but I forget what it is, but I do know that it's not his real name - but many people think it is.)
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That's believable.
I actually know a family, last name Case. (unrelated)
And the mother of this family sometimes jokingly states that she almost named her son Justin.
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Being Monday, I made the same reading mistake at first, thinking, "Wow, hackers got some powerful tools. Darth Vader would be proud."
To get to the gist of it (Score:3)
What devices are affected?
Is this something actually dangerous, or something that only a security researcher can exploit in theoretical conditions?
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Justin Case? (Score:3)
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Justin Case? (Score:2)
Backhole or Backhoe? (Score:2)
I have to admit that when I first read the headline, my mind processed it as
Exploitable Backhoe Accidentally...
I figured that some nitwit had decided that large construction machinery needed to be part of the Internet of Things, and that the expected outcome had come to pass.
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I actually had to read it twice. I was really confused.