Sinclair TV stations disrupted across the US in apparent ransomware attack
therecord.media
therecord.media
(For those unfamiliar: because of the voice of the Collective - https://youtu.be/c5rlAjuwdLQ?t=106 )
The article addresses this:
> The attack could have been isolated, but many sections of the Sinclair IT network were interconnected through the same Active Directory domain, allowing the attackers to reach broadcasting systems for local TV stations.
Sorry if this question seems presumptive, but isn't it actually extremely easy to boycott both of these companies? I would be surprised to learn I have consumed any of their products in the past year, and I haven't even been deliberately trying to boycott either of them.
(I live in the United States, but I don't buy bottled water, candy, or watch local television.)
For instance, cheerios, golden grahams, digiorno pizza, jacks pizza, lean cuisine, gerber, maybeline makeup brands, some shampoo brands, etc…
It’s definitely possible, but it’s a rabbit hole and isn’t as easy as “i won’t buy nestle hot chocolate.”
Honestly, I understand the can of worms this might open, but a part of me thinks the parent company name should have to be on all products–transparency so we have something closer to information symmetry. It’s more difficult than I think it should be to buy ethically.
We hear all the time “If you don’t like what a company is doing, then vote with your dollars.” But then we see how many companies have a multi-tier web of subsidiaries which can sometimes feel like they’re obfuscating intentionally. I don’t mean to imply they’re all intentionally obfuscating but it sure feels like that sometimes.
My response to Nestle was a "me personally" thing which probably doesn't apply to most other people - I don't really buy branded junk food, almost everything I eat I prepare myself from fresh ingredients. I read through the Wikipedia list [1] and didn't see any brands I've purchased this year.
But you're quite right that I was wrongly exaggerating by saying it was easy to boycott Nestle. I should have just emphasized that it's possible to boycott Nestle (if you know what the subsidiaries are), and easy (I think?) to boycott Sinclair.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nestl%C3%A9_brands
Nestle owns a lot of brands in the "ingredients" space too, unless you mean you are making everything from scratch. Buitoni pasta, Maggi bullions and soup bases, Carnation condensed and powdered milks, and Garden Burger meat alternatives are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
I'm similar to you -- make most of my own meals and don't really consume snack food and drink. Even all of the "prepared ingredient" type stuff that I buy (dried pasta, sauces) tend to be non-Nestle brands, so I really have to wonder if it's a lack of imagination that prompts people to claim that it's hard to avoid Nestle.
Of course, I'm in the UK (London) and not the USA, so maybe it's different? But I have a hard time understanding why it would be.
Edited to add: I also have a recent infant, to whom I've (again, without even trying) avoided feeding any Nestle products.
Every dentist I've ever been to has given me an Oral-B toothbrush at the end of my visit. Oral-B gives free stuff to dentists with the understanding that when they give it to their patients, it will have the connotation of an endorsement and the patients will go on to buy these things themselves.
I remember as a kid our family doctor would give my mother little samples of things that various pharmaceuticals had given him. Can't recall what they were, some kind of herbal remedy or naturopathic thing probably.
Isn't Maybelline a subsidiary of L'oréal rather than Nestlé?
https://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/our-company/answers/nature...
They also did a huge media blitz in poorer countries to convince mothers that their formula was far superior to breast milk.
They’d give new mothers samples of formula and tell them it’s healthier and safer for their babies. Just enough that by the time it ran out the mother’s milk hadn’t come in and breastfeeding would be extremely difficult or impossible to start. Then start charging for formula.
Similar tactics to drug dealers, but most drug dealers I’ve dealt with had more of a social conscience than that.
Do you boycott any Nestle products at all? Or are you saying you might miss one, and so boycott none of them?
It is extremely easy to boycott Sinclair by not purchasing any TV service or watching TV channels.
It is almost as easy to boycott Nestle since the packaging for almost all brands states the parent company’s name somewhere on the back under the ingredients.
If it does not, you can also search the brand and find the ownership relatively quickly on Wikipedia or the company’s About Us page.
Most entertaining memory I have of their incompetence: after the acquisition my boss no longer had permission to approve payment of bills, it had to go through corporate. So my boss called and emailed for months to get payments approved for our internet, phone service, etc., keeping a thorough record of all of the times he had asked to get our bills paid. Fast foward to about 4 months after the aquisition and suddenly our long distance phone service stops working. We contact the phone computer and find it's because of non-payment (we already suspected as much thanks to all the late notices we received). Corporate flips their lid, attempts to blame my boss for it, and he just sends them the dozens of emails and refers them to the dozens of calls he made record of. No idea who (if anyone) took the heat for it at corporate after that.
Second story, we hired a new senior network engineer. Turns out he knew even less about networking than me and the other guy on the helpdesk. But the technical competency part of the interview process was administered by, you guessed it, someone in corporate IT. At least we were able to get the guy fired within a few weeks of him starting, and the guy at corporate who passed him had some major egg on his face. This was shortly before I left though so I don't know if anything more came of it. I only stayed for about a year after the merger.
Would we all be talking about how incompetent all these home owners are for not having basic home security.
Particularly for HN, I feel like we should be discussing how to attack the attackers - and less victim blaming.
One less itch for my brain to scratch - thanks!
In this case, being live, the operator would be firing the break themselves. If they missed the break due to gross negligence, they'll probably lose their job (or at least be reprimanded). But, if the fault happened due to technical malfunction, or if they happened to be dragged away from the console by their supervisor, then they'll just make the spots good and move on.
Why is the broadcasting system on a network connected to anything else and if it most be: Why are those computers allowed to run anything but a few whitelisted application?
.. because that's how the programmes come in, over the internet?
> Why are those computers allowed to run anything but a few whitelisted application?
This is almost impossible to achieve, and doesn't help when the malware is running in the address space of the target process.
Companies keep behaving like their critical systems isn’t that important and then they’re suprised when it goes wrong. At the same time they keep paying for useless audits done by accountants who will happily sign off on the security because there’s a firewall and anti-virus software installed.
There is so much room for improvement in pretty much any field using computers.
hope they get clipped for tens of millions, hundreds of millions even better.