Cubase 12 leaked on Steinberg's site

[fmr]

Here's a paste from Visiting Vienna:

Wien or Vienna?
(Wien sign)

If you’re troubled by various roadside signs announcing Wien where you’re expecting Vienna, relax.

Wien is simply the local word for Vienna in Austria. You pronounce it “Veen” (with a V).

So Wien and Vienna are the same place.

A Wiener is a male who comes from Vienna (and, crucially, not a sausage – that’s called a Frankfurter here). A female from Vienna is a Wienerin.

And Berliners are a fruit jelly filled pastry. I'm beginning to think the Germans are very hungry people!

[fmr]

Here's a paste from Visiting Vienna:

Wien or Vienna?
(Wien sign)

If you’re troubled by various roadside signs announcing Wien where you’re expecting Vienna, relax.

Wien is simply the local word for Vienna in Austria. You pronounce it “Veen” (with a V).

So Wien and Vienna are the same place.

A Wiener is a male who comes from Vienna (and, crucially, not a sausage – that’s called a Frankfurter here). A female from Vienna is a Wienerin.

And Berliners are a fruit jelly filled pastry. I'm beginning to think the Germans are very hungry people!

[Freaqpeak]

^

Large professional studios do have Internet connection ... and backup via the network and even use cloudservices.

You can have a secure and stable environment while having an Internet connection - OFCOURSE.

Bedroom studio users with a lot of cracked software are the ones wanting no Internet connection while using their pirated software....... for obvious reasons.

I have always had an Internet connection to my personal DAW since the 90's and also in shared studios... it was never a problem.
You dont even need CPU intensive antivirus or software firewalls. Its all about basic IT knowledge....

Just a quick burn of that strawman.
I have no cracked software, do not pirate, and prefer to have as much disconnect from internet as I can achieve.
And there's a difference between "stable" and optimized.

But why then????
There are zero reasons not to connect to a secure network with todays OS's and chipsets. If you engage in sensitive information (national security, military) sure... but for a simple audio workstation. Do you still make backups on external usb disks and move them physically each day?
Burn CD's? Talk about making life harder than it can be in 2021.
Updating software must be a pain!
If you think connecting an Ethernet cable makes your system unoptimized, you are not going by facts at all, only feelings.. sorry but you will not have more CPU at hand or lower latency by connecting an Ethernet cable to your computer. It is not 1994.
It is so ridicolous if you think about it...

Music-making doesn't make 100% of the audio production industry.
For example, studios that are working on video games or films may prefer to avoid internet connection to avoid a breach or data theft. Even very secretive agencies are hacked and you think that a consumer-grade 'secure network will guarantee you 100% security?
A leak of AAA (or even AA) game or movie can cost a company an enormous amount of money - in that case, having a PC off the grid is really not a big deal.

It doesnt work like that in the real world. I work with IT security on a daily basis. Also where data (video in this case) CANNOT be extracted from a room via any employees. But they still need a network connection to make secure (encrypted) backups. They still need to get updates for their software and licensing servers on the Internet. It's REALLY easy to accomplish this. You can do it in so many ways.

To be clear: for most part it's about the behaviour of people/employees, not the tech itself. When people say they get malware, they have done something wrong themselfs. It's not the tech faults that you opened that attached file from an e-mail, run as admin on your machine, or download crap.

Teach your employees how to behave and restrict some sites/programs if you wish. You can even whitelist which programs that can be executed on a workstation. Still - employees can copy from USB, take photos via the cellphone or whatever. But employees has policy's to follow - that is the single most important factor in security! A clear policy and education, education, education. You can't restrict every possible attack vector or you won't be able to work at all.

Doesn't change the fact that all (serious) businesses use networks for backup and updates. And that includes connections to the Internet as well. We run local update/license-servers as well as cloud-based ones. These are the only sites you can reach from servers/workstations that need to be heavily secured. It's not a problem.

Name me ONE company in media/gaming business that doesn't allow their employees to have an Internt-connection on their workstation.

Also: you can easily restrict the usage of anything BUT Steinbergs servers - if you wish to - on your consumer-grade router. You can restrict things like Dropbox, Facebook, whaver. Whitelisting or blacklisting sites you can visit.

(the infamous Stuxnet that infected Iranian nuclear facilities where hacked via USB dongles btw, the machines had no Internet-connection...)

Consumer-grade or not doesn't really matter if you know what you are doing. Just use open-source router firmware or a simple Raspberry Pie if you don't trust the original firmware.

Solution for paranoid home studio owners:
1. Use a known consumer-based router like above (or a Raspberry Pie as router/firewall)
2. Restrict the firewall rules to deny everything except traffic to "licenses.steinberg.net".
3. You can't do anything on the Internet except verifying the license now. Problem solved.

(you can do this with Windows built-in firewall as well - or a free third-party firewall software, but I would recommend using your external router/firewall instead, for many reasons).

If you need to update any programs, just temporarly open up native-instruments.com or whatever, do the updates and then deny the traffic again.

Man, you wrote this essay for nothing. You just had to read this part properly: "For example, studios that are working on video games or films may prefer to avoid internet connection to avoid a breach or data theft".
I didn't say that I know who is working this way, I just gave you an example of reasoning why somebody may prefer to be off the grid.

Ps. it's nice that you're working in IT security. I work in the video game industry. If you need to know how certain companies are working internally, you'll have to search the internet for official statements because this kind of information is not shared freely by random employees on public forums just like that.

I get you. I'm not looking for a fight, I'm just saying its complete paranoia that anyone would not allow specific traffic from a specific licence-server (license-data being sent to Steinberg in this case) - but instead disconnecting the whole network (and then get other issues like lack of network backup/network storage).
For small companies it would work fine, but for AAA companies there's no chance this is a thing.
Using a firewall to block EVERYTHING except license-data to specific servers is safe. You can't surf the net, users can't download anything etc. But the license checks works.

So again what I am saying is: just block everything in your firewall except the specific license-servers IP-adresses and the problem is solved.

A supply-chain attack via the license-servers is highly improbable.
Supply-chain attacks via update-servers is a thing though, still improbable with audio software, but anyway it would also affect people even if they download updates on a another computer and install via USB sticks... since the files are infected already.

[Dunbar]

...it would also affect people even if they download updates on a another computer and install via USB sticks... since the files are infected already.

If the DAW is offline, permanently, it doesn't matter if the files contain backdoors.

[jens]

And Berliners are a fruit jelly filled pastry. I'm beginning to think the Germans are very hungry people!

All jolly fun until you start calling someone from Vienna a German...


Btw.: despite their name "Hamburgers" aren't really a German speciality, so...

[vurt]

And Berliners are a fruit jelly filled pastry. I'm beginning to think the Germans are very hungry people!

All jolly fun until you start calling someone from Vienna a German...


Btw.: despite their name "Hamburgers" aren't really a German speciality, so...

or made of ham.

[jens]

a pair?
one causes me enough problems!

Tell me about it - I have three, so having only two seems like a relief to me...

im surprised you can find underwear thats comfortable

I didn't say they're all in the same place...

[jens]

And Berliners are a fruit jelly filled pastry. I'm beginning to think the Germans are very hungry people!

All jolly fun until you start calling someone from Vienna a German...


Btw.: despite their name "Hamburgers" aren't really a German speciality, so...

or made of ham.

True

[VitaminD]

And the Earl of Sandwich was from England.

Yet there is no sand in sandwiches.

[vurt]

And the Earl of Sandwich was from England.

Yet there is no sand in sandwiches.

try picnicking on a windy beach.

[VitaminD]

And the Earl of Sandwich was from England.

Yet there is no sand in sandwiches.

try picnicking on a windy beach.

Then I haven't been eating sandwiches authentically.

[vurt]

And the Earl of Sandwich was from England.

Yet there is no sand in sandwiches.

try picnicking on a windy beach.

Then I haven't been eating sandwiches authentically.

an authentic english sandwich experience involves scabby legged pigeons and gulls harassing you.

[VitaminD]

And the Earl of Sandwich was from England.

Yet there is no sand in sandwiches.

try picnicking on a windy beach.

Then I haven't been eating sandwiches authentically.

an authentic english sandwich experience involves scabby legged pigeons and gulls harassing you.

And sand in your sandwich, apparently.

All of these factors have lead me to conclude that I do not want to experience the authentic English sandwich.

[vurt]

And the Earl of Sandwich was from England.

Yet there is no sand in sandwiches.

try picnicking on a windy beach.

Then I haven't been eating sandwiches authentically.

an authentic english sandwich experience involves scabby legged pigeons and gulls harassing you.

And sand in your sandwich, apparently.

All of these factors have lead me to conclude that I do not want to experience the authentic English sandwich.

shame

oh, i forgot to add drizzle too. or if it's summer, torrential rain.

[VitaminD]

And the Earl of Sandwich was from England.

Yet there is no sand in sandwiches.

try picnicking on a windy beach.

Then I haven't been eating sandwiches authentically.

an authentic english sandwich experience involves scabby legged pigeons and gulls harassing you.

And sand in your sandwich, apparently.

All of these factors have lead me to conclude that I do not want to experience the authentic English sandwich.

shame

oh, i forgot to add drizzle too. or if it's summer, torrential rain.

It's too organic and au naturel for my tastes!