One More Thing

Posted on 26 Aug 2009 at 10:35

 

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Just because a backdoor is open doesn't mean you should wander in and raid the cookie jar, so hackers don't forget those traits that make us human.

First it was computers, then mobile phones. Now hackers have found a way to compromise keyboards. What's going to be the next cyber-security threat? Biscuits?

The vulnerability was announced at a hackers' conference - the kind of event you imagine being organised by the Penguin to attract the attention of Batman. It relies on hijacking the updating of the Mac keyboard's firmware. This will come as a shock to anyone who'd never suspected that a bunch of on/off switches needed updates. A modern Apple keyboard, we're told, has 8K of flash memory and 256 bytes of 'working Ram'. Working on what, exactly? Its forehand? A cocktail called 'Grounds for Divorce'? A doctoral thesis on the signification of pressedness?

Fortunately, keyboard hacking may soon disappear, along with keyboards. It's already possible to type on an iPhone, if you have narrow fingers and what you want to say is largely predictable, so Mischa Barton is sorted. Apple is rumoured to be planning a bigger machine that will avoid much of the awkwardness, although the Send button will still be next to the Delete key to keep things interesting.

But it's only a matter of time before malware catches up. It's an endless arms race between the protectors and the attackers, and we know who makes more money out of it. The Oakland Raiders used to play at the McAfee Coliseum, named after the anti-virus company; you don't see a bunch of rootkit coders sponsoring major league football. Well, unless you count Sony.

Hacking isn't always sophisticated. Gary McKinnon, who can now only be saved from imprisonment in the US if somebody can remember who the British Home Secretary is, was inspired by the film WarGames to hack into American military systems, where he, um, had a look at some things and, er, wrote some messages.

Did McKinnon create and deploy an arsenal of futuristic network-tunnelling virtual spybots? No. He dialled into servers with his modem and looked to see if their administrators had bothered changing the passwords that came with their software. Not even Lars von Trier would make a film out of that.

Some observers have suggested that instead of prosecuting McKinnon, the Pentagon should offer him a job as a security consultant. A clue to the level of good sense in this is provided by the fact that one of those observers is Boris Johnson. Employing McKinnon as a security consultant would be like catching a six-year-old nicking sweets and enrolling him in Hendon Police College. Hackers categorise themselves, according to the level of danger they present, as White Hats, Grey Hats, and Black Hats. Gary was more of a Silly Hat With Ear Flaps And A Little Bell On Top, prancing around whacking random bits of kit with a pig's bladder on a stick. Actually, Gary and Boris have a lot in common.

As I write, Twitter and Facebook have been affected by a concerted attack against services used by the Georgian blogger Cyxymu (you can see why he's not all that well known in the West), coinciding with the anniversary of the Georgian war on South Ossetia, or the Russian war on Georgia, depending on your point of view. Now that's hacking. Bringing down websites used by millions of ordinary people, not for planning manoeuvres but for nattering about nothing in particular, reporting their success in identifying 1980s TV theme tunes and posting poorly focused photos of their sister's baby - this, truly, is an attack on our way of life. But it's not the worst thing to happen in South Ossetia.