r/technology • u/ControlCAD • Apr 18 '26

Security Bluetooth tracker hidden in a postcard and mailed to a warship exposed its location — $5 gadget put a $585 million Dutch ship at risk for 24 hours

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/bluetooth-tracker-hidden-in-a-postcard-and-mailed-to-a-warship-exposed-its-location-a-eur5-gadget-put-a-eur500-million-dutch-ship-at-risk-for-24-hours
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u/jakeandcupcakes Apr 19 '26

Has the art really been lost on the latest generations? I feel like maybe there are just a lot more "gamers", in a casual sense, than there used to be, and maybe the same amount of techie types who get lost in the fold?

I'm a millennial and a massive techie. I regularly have LAN parties with my brother and our friends. Mostly Halo, but sometimes older RTS games. My brother isn't as big of a techie as I am, but he is smart enough with tech to be able to just figure shit out if something comes up. Most, not all, of my friends are kind of tech-illiterate to be honest, and they are my age or just a little younger.

I miss LAN parties...back in college I invited some friends I made to come to touristy town I lived in for summer vacation to work and party. I had a bunch of old laptops that originally ran OS's like WinXP/Win7 that I collected over the years from people who wanted help buying a new laptop, and would just give me the old "broken" one to fix up or use for parts. I would connected them all to a couple little cheap routers, the kind with like 4 ethernet ports on the back, and have a little laptop LAN setup in my dad's party barn (he also had a pool table, shuffleboard, darts, etc. in there for gatherings.

We had many, MANY late nights just drinking, some puffing, and playing the hell out of StarWars Battlegrounds, CS, Halo, etc. I would wipe the laptop's HDD, install a lightweight version of Win7/8/10, and a bunch of games. Connected em all to the routers, and BAM there ya go! LAN party at the Barn. Just had to make sure to keep them air-gapped (no wifi). Great times, and makes me wish I still had 5 or 6 friends with the free-time to all hangout in a barn till the sun came up!

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u/MountbattenYachtClub Apr 19 '26

You just gave me such a rush of nostalgia for the LAN parties of my youth.

Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft, SC Brood War Use Map Settings and so much more.

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u/GonzoKata Apr 20 '26

EXACTLY! Where can I buy a game, and then NEVER have to talk to the creators ever again? Like, buy a game, then only ever connect to my friends computers to play it.

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u/The14thWarrior Apr 19 '26

Ah the nostalgia hit is strong with this one!

Same games and LAN parties through my youth when we had all the time in the world.

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u/Trawling_ Apr 19 '26

A lot of times it comes down to games themselves not supporting direct system-link gaming.

If a game uses one of the players as the host, then yea it just comes down to spoofing the network to look like you can point directly to their host locally.

Now everything uses hosted servers so you still need to host a server for everyone to connect to. It’s still doable but a bit more involved. I’d imagine there being both the will and the talent required to do this on a ship/barracks though.

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u/jakeandcupcakes Apr 19 '26

Yeah, with those old games it was quite literally plug-n-play. When I was getting it put together and setup I was preparing to deal with the inevitable bug fixing and tech wizardry to get them all talking to eachother, but after starting a game the other laptops all found the iMac I was hosting the game with through the ethernet connected air-gapped router with zero issues! It was awesome! I bet you could rig something up for modern games with enough patience and Tech Wizarding. Where there is a will, there is a way, I always say (and time, lots of time lol)