[sf-lug] email/communication: Re: How I learned that my modem/WiFi router had been corrupted

Thu May 31 11:32:30 PDT 2018

Some background on what this issue probably was (is):

https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/05/VPNFilter.html

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 6:41 AM, Michael Paoli <
Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Uhm, ... I think (possibly among other things?), what we've got (meta)
> going on here is some miscommunication (maybe mostly? misinterpretation?,
> though well intended).
>
> Anyway, some reference bits, bit 'o commentary, and ... more
> reference bits:
>
> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
>> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] How I learned that my modem/WiFi router had been
>> corrupted
>> Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 21:15:43 -0700
>>
>
> Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):
>>
>>     This is at the request of Rick Moen who asked for this.
>>>
>>
>>
>> No, I most certainly didn't.
>>
>> I asked you:  'Your so-called 'DSL modem' just got pwned:  How do you
>> figure that happened, Bobbie?'  I then made a pretty decent (IMO)
>>
>
> There's also (slightly earlier) in the thread:
> "No, you really didn't.  You said that Cloudfare advised that the Netgear
> had been pwned, but nothing about how."
>
> And also taking a (somewhat) broader context ... most notably general
> SF-LUG list context and general history, and commonly more technical
> person(s) often asking much more specifically/directedly
> (and perhaps my not-so-accurate and definitely not exactly verbatim)
> paraphrasing of such, more pointed questions at least roughly like:
> "What exactly did you see/observe and do / not do?  E.g. specific
> commands/responses, diagnostics, log messages, etc.?"
> And more generally as opposed to and tease out separately from what
> many users often (mis-)report ... notably often having not
> recorded in detail what happened, not specifically cited (relevant) log
> bits, etc., but rather having seen something they believed was anomalous,
> being in position of not well (or certainly not fully) understanding what
> had occurred, having some question(s) about it or needing/wanting help,
> waiting some bit, then attempting to regurgitate from wetware (human memory
> is far from perfect) what they think they remembered doing/observing and
> often significantly to heavily biased/distorted by what they *think*
> is going on or happened, and reporting that, which is often a highly
> incomplete, ambiguous, and often quite inaccurate representation of
> not only what did/didn't happen, but also any original actual observations.
> E.g. user sees some (relatively) cryptic error message that has little
> to no meaning to them (other than they surmise that something didn't
> work).  Then hours/days later, they report on it ... without having
> recorded it, and quite biased by their interpretation of what they
> think happened and a highly incomplete (and often substantially
> incorrect) recollection of what diagnostic they saw or what they
> observed.  Then based upon *that* they're asking folks for help ...
> when what is often highly important is, e.g. much more highly accurate
> information on exactly what was done / not done, observed,
> exact/specific diagnostics, etc. - not some highly rough and
> often very inaccurate partial representation thereof.
>
> So ... given *that* quite common context, I think in this case,
> attempt was made to answer *that* type of question/request ...
> notably "exactly" (or perhaps as feasibly as possible well after
> the fact, and perhaps without much of it having been captured
> earlier in great detail) what was in fact observed/seen/done (at
> least in response), checked, not checked, etc.
>
> And, some of the ways the questions/requests were done and added on to
> may have confused the question at least a wee bit, e.g., would seem
> in attempt to clarify (at least as it was placed) the earlier
> "just got pwned:  How do you
> figure that happened"?
> There was follow-on ... well, to show it in that context:
> "
>
>> important point.  Your so-called 'DSL modem' just got pwned:  How do you
>>> figure that happened, Bobbie?
>>>
>>
>> I detailed that previously.
>>
>
> No, you really didn't.  You said that Cloudfare advised that the Netgear
> had been pwned, but nothing about how.
> "
>
> So, that latter bit ..., notably:
> "Cloudfare advised that the Netgear
> had been pwned, but nothing about how"
> Well, ... even in that context, I see at least two possible quite different
> ways of interpreting that.  Especially if one takes the later as an
> attempted
> clarification or adjustment to the earlier.
> Could interpret it as: "How did it get pwned?" - which is what I presume
> was quite intended.
> But could also quite interpret it as: "How did Cloudfare advise
> that it got pwned?" - or even more loosely, "How, up to/through
> the Cloudfare notification, did one come to discover/learn it got pwned?"
> I'm guestimating from the thread, that the later interpretations weren't
> what was intended, but how the question(s) got interpreted and responed
> to.
>
> Anyway, just guestmating that may well be how the question/response track
> appeared to have gone relatively off-track - or at least not mutually
> meeting expectations there.
>
> Yes, email can be hard.  Things are more likely to go off-track or be
> misinterpreted (or missed, etc.) too.  Things can be ambiguous or
> misinterpreted.  Sure, email has many advantages too ... but even
> some of those "advantages" can be double-edged swords also.
> Can often dump lots of detail/verbiage/text/data/bytes into email.
> That can (help) clarify ... and/or overwhelm ... and to the extent
> of the latter, folks may miss or fail to take in key points (or even
> not read them at all! - or portions thereof).
>
> Anyway, just sayin' ... I'm guestimating that is - at least in that
> wee bit and specific instance, where that communication probably
> went rather off-track there - not that that's at all what anyone was
> trying or intending to do, ... but ... sometimes it happens.
>
> references:
> http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013199.html
> http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013198.html
> http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013197.html
> http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013189.html
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> sf-lug mailing list
> sf-lug at linuxmafia.com
> http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/sf-lug
> Information about SF-LUG is at http://www.sf-lug.org/<br>
> Related Information <br>
> http://www.shallowsky.com/blog/<br>
> http://explainshell.com/ <br>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/attachments/20180531/462e3eb5/attachment-0001.html>