I can almost picture the NSA staff meeting: "Let's bait Hacker News randos by issuing an advisory about a nearly internet-wide vulnerability that gives unrestricted access to Windows computers. Then, when they visit our website to learn more, we'll nab them!"
Thanks for taking a bullet for the team on this one, Internet stranger.
Reminds me of the UK UFO trap story. In the UK it's illegal to listen to police on scanners so detectives transmitted a hoax radio message about a UFO landing near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, then arrested several people who turned up at the spot, charging them with illegally using scanners to monitor police radio transmissions.
Sounds slightly similar to the boat sweepstakes story.
Some cops somewhere decided to send a letter to everyone who had a warrant stating they won a boat. To make sure they didn’t immediately run they went through a couple fake formalities like pictures and such until they opened the door to the boat garage. Inside were uniformed officer waiting to make the arrest.
If this was a story on a paywalled site and I had a non paywall link then I would share it for the benefit of others.
Similarly, if a story is on a website owned by paranoid people with a track record of harm I would prefer to read a third party report. I don't believe I am alone in that.
I do!
So here is a third party report for anyone else that views three letter agency URLs as having all the appeal of a trip to a virtual leper colony:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/even-the-nsa-is-urging-windows...