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SCI/TECH ARCHIVES -- MARCH 2010
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MARCH 22, 2010 -- MARCH 28, 2010 HOW INTERNET DATA MINING CAN STRIP AWAY YOUR PRIVACY
This is ridiculous. If you have lost your privacy online it's because you gave it away. No one forces you to reveal everything about yourself on sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/How privacy vanishes online <> I'm afraid it's too late for privacy. Many so-called "private" records - court files, property records, marriage/birth/death records, newspaper accounts and so forth - were actually "public" but physically difficult to access. You had to go to the county court house, for example, to run records on a property owner, requesting microfiche and sometimes good old-fashioned paper. Same true for newspapers and other archives. Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/How privacy vanishes online SOMETHING TO GOGGLE AT: GOOGLE TV
Actually, it sounds like Google has so much cash on hand that they can go into whatever industry they want. They have simply chosen the ones that seem to make the most sense for a giant electronic/software/information company to infiltrate. With a company of Google's size, they do more than anticipate the future of technology--they create it! Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/Google pushes TV initiative <> While this perhaps will be the best YouTube viewing box ever, I can actually see this box leveraging a lot of information and services that Google provides all while keeping track of what you watch and displaying their own advertisements over the shows you watch. Read the article CNET/Google working on Google TV devices
MARCH 15, 2010 -- MARCH 21, 2010 TRUE TO TYPE: "KEYBOARD KOPS" COULD USE BACTERIA TO IDENTIFY YOU
While this is without doubt fascinating, I wonder what the actual forensic value is; if we have a keyboard, surely there's actual fingerprints on it? If microbial cells fall into the spaces between keys, surely so do our own skin cells which could be used for DNA analysis? Is it just because microbial identification is unique between identical twins that we're interested in this or is there another advantage I'm overlooking? Read the article BOINGBOING/Microbes on keyboards can be used to identify typists <> The late Howard Hughes would not have coped with this (as the scenes in 'The Aviator')! I think near the end he had aides open doors for him, etc. This research besides knowing about the submicroscopic mites living on us (as in our eyebrows) sure makes for funny news--wash up kids! Scrub with the bars of Ivory! Read the article NPR/Bacteria on your fingertips cold identify you <> I can't quite understand how this would be useful for a crime, considering that by just changing your diet, your body will have dramatically different conditions that would support variable microbial communities. Just before a crime, drink only a gallon of water for the 36 hours prior to your act and have a strict diet of only preserved foods (e.g. coming from cans), and then after the crime drink at least a liter ever two hours and eat fresh produce. Easy way to change your microbial profile. Or even, just lick your hands before you touch anything... You'll have your mouth's profile and not the usual finger one... Seems like a method of identifying a person within a certain time frame, but never being able to connect it to an individual that has had the ability to change conditions on their body. Pretty useless for crime then... Read the article MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW/Fingertip bacteria: A promising forensic tool
"FREE MONEY" AND OTHER E-LURES NET SCAMMERS $559.7 MILLION IN 2009
There needs to be some intelligence test before someone logs onto the internet, to make sure that they're capable of understanding basic scams like this. Although it can even happen to the internet savvy I still think that if you remove people who don't understand you shouldn't download or open a random .exe file you receive in your email or those who think that giving $28 to get in a free money list is NOT a scam you'd see a large decrease in the number of people effected.
These attacks are a drain on the time and resources of those who have to deal with the aftermath. If they could 'play' on Internet lite, or even better, not at all, how much time could I save? How much time could every other person with half a brain about the internet save? How many man hours could we recover? Read the article ARS TECHNICA/Losses from Internet crime more than doubled in 2009 <> History repeats itself, only magnified by the levels of technology we currently possess. There's always been grifters, but now the internet helps them make huge killings. Read the article ARS TECHNICA/Losses from Internet crime more than doubled in 2009
MARCH 8, 2010 -- MARCH 14, 2010
"Internet historians believe the Internet would have evolved "very differently if commercial interests had not asserted themselves, particularly at the dawn of the Web, but even in the pre-Web period," Read the article SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/25 Years of .com domain names <> Not so sure the last 25 years have been all that great. Instead of the democratization of power computers are fervently being employed in the obfuscation of power. How many "I agree" buttons have you clicked without reading the legal mumbo-jumbo? We all do it. How much of our lives have we already singed away? Read the article SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/25 Years of .com domain names
WILL THE DESKTOP GO THE WAY OF THE DINOSAUR, AS GOOGLE SAYS?
When Netscape hit the scene in the early 90's the pundits (and Netscape leaders) predicted the demise of PC software. Why would you need software running on a PC or a Mac when you can access everything from your browser? These predictions of the death of the PC have been around for nearly 20 years and I don't think we're any closer to that happening now then we were then. The Web is an amazing thing. There are many things that the Web can do as good or better than applications running on a PC or Mac. But that does not mean that the world is moving toward a Web-only world. To me, the best thing for users is a combination of software running locally on PC/Mac's, phones, TV's etc. AND Web-based services. It's the combination that provides the most value. Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/Google:Desktops will be irrelevant in three years <> I'll happily give up my desktop the day I get a wide screen projection through my glasses, can manipulate a virtual keyboard by gestures or speech, accurately interpreted every time, and when the mobile device has enough computing power and graphics capability to run my favorite games with full video speed and surround sound. Will that be available in 3 years? If so, I'm ready to toss the PC. But, I remember the promises of the "video phone" and the flying car, which if I'm not in error were due about 1984 or something. Oh well, nice to dream a dream. The movie 2001 should kick in about 2050, so I suspect this deal will be coming around then too. Have fun, future boys. Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/Google:Desktops will be irrelevant in three years <> There's something psychologically anchoring about sitting down at a desk and getting some work done. Sitting down at a desk allows me the room to have paper documents at my side and my work phone next to me (I bet they'll say work phones are becoming irrelevant, too!). Although I appreciate my iPhone and definitely count it as another tool in my arsenal, it is only a tool. Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/Google:Desktops will be irrelevant in three years PINNED DOWN: MARIPOSA BOTNET THAT INFESTED 12.7 MILLION COMPUTERS
[*Mariposa = Butterfly, in Spanish] Protecting against attack is always the defensive game. You have to win every time, they only have to win once. It's a great truism that the best form of defense is attack; however, in this arena, it needs specialist knowledge, and strong interfaces to the active part of law enforcement to actually mount an offensive. The average corporate/organisation doesn't have the time, or the contacts to do this effectively, so we need a group, such as the ones investigating and coordinating the investigation and bust in the article to act as the 'digital army' protecting us from the electronic barbarian hordes. Every corporation is the equivalent of a village with wooden palisades and a local militia (at best). We need a more highly trained, specialised and funded group to protect the greater scope. Read the article THE REGISTER/Authorities dismantle botnet with 13 million infected PCs
Here's one reason botnets thrive: In addition to the fact that the perpetrators are likely to get away with it, per one article [cbsnews.com], They face up to six years in prison if convicted of hacking charges.. 6 years max? For hacking 12 million computers? Ignoring the intrusions, how much did it cost the victims in labor and downtime to fix it? Hundreds of millions? And add to that the damage they did with the botnet; I don't know what this one did, but it could be spam, DDoS attacks, stolen personal info, extortion, etc. I don't understand why the U.S. government doesn't treat these wide-spread, expensive crimes as a priority. Given the scale of these crimes, there should be a large task force pursuing them. I get the sense they are looked on as computer problems, not crimes. Read the article SLASHDOT/Mariposa botnet beheade
MARCH 1, 2010 -- MARCH 7, 2010 SNAKES ALIVE! A 65-MILLION-YEAR-OLD FOSSIL REVEALS DINO EGG-EATING SERPENT
It does make sense that there would be some flooding before a land slide and storms do frighten animals that can hear thunder. Snakes cannot hear but instead sense vibration. Maybe it was too focused on the impending meal to realize it was about to be buried under a avalanche of mud. Either way it’s all speculation. The fact is they found a snake next to some dinosaur eggs and the only time you will presently find a snake next to eggs that don’t belong to it are when it is about to feed on said eggs. Not that far of a stretch of the imagination. Read the article WIRED SCIENCE/67-million year old snake fossil found eating dinosaur eggs <> This is an amazing find. It's usually very difficult to prove exactly what ate what where long-extinct animals are concerned, unless you get lucky with stomach contents. Even then you can't be sure whether the meal was actively hunted or scavenged Read the article NEW SCIENTIST/Dino-eating snake killed in action
EYE ON THE PUPIL: PROBING A SCHOOL'S WEBCAM SPYING
I think a lot hinges on what is decided in this case. With all this evidence, if this isn't ruled against, if this behavior isn't outright condemned and outlawed in public schools (regardless of notification to parents) where the student does not even have the recourse of using his own personal property, I'd say, without meaning to sound too dramatic, that the entire country will suffer for it. Schools have a moral obligation to set a good example and become a place of learning about fairness and justice, in addition to the explicit curriculum. When they do not, when they become unjust dictatorships, they fail their students, the parents and indeed, the entire country, for that will be the example the next generation will carry with them onto adulthood and into the work field. Read the article STRYDE HAX BLOG/The spy at Harriton High <> Using this type of technology to monitor what kids are doing in the classroom, on school grounds, is one thing. Using it to peep on what anyone does in the privacy of their own home is crossing an obvious line, and is absolutely inexcusable. Read the article INFOWORLD/When schools spy on their students bad things happen
<> I am an IT Administrator and this is absolutely NOT the way that stolen laptops are recovered. The idea that you would turn on a camera and see where the laptop is, is absolutely absurd. The way stolen laptops are recovered is by sending location information based on the location where the laptop connects to the internet. This would be the most inefficient and ridiculous method of trying to recover a laptop that you could come up with. I don't buy that story at all. Also for the people talking about the constitution and the bill of rights please find me the right to privacy in any of those documents. We do have the right to privacy but that is not where it is found. Read the article PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS/Students seem largely unfazed by spying case
<> From a security professional standpoint we have the only fact that matters: in their press release the school has admitted that they did NOT follow rule #1. They did NOT fully disclose their monitoring to their customers. Maybe - depending on this wording or that, depending on this lawyer or that, depending on this judge or that - such full disclosure would have helped them more or less in the coming days. But if they didn't fully disclose then they have jumped defenseless into the lions' den.
Read the article ARS TECHNICA/FBI, grand jury now probing school's webcam spying
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