http://www.databreaches.net/?p=5809
Blue Chip FTP Logins on Server
June 28, 2009 by admin Filed under Breach Incidents, Of Note
Security researchers have found a treasure chest of FTP passwords, some from high profile sites, on an open cybercrime server.
Jacques Erasmus, CTO at security tools firm Prevx, stumbled across a site where a Trojan is uploading FTP login credentials captured from compromised machines. So far, Erasmus has found logins for ftp.bbc.co.uk, ftp.cisco.com, ftp.amazon.com, ftp.monster.com and, even security sites including ftp.mcafee.com and ftp.symantec.com along the extensive list of more than 68,000.
Other login credentials refer to the Bank of America, one of the few organisations PrevX has had time to notify directly at the time of writing.
Initial investigations suggest the logins were swiped during the last two weeks and that at least some remain valid.
Read more on The Register.
[From the article:
Erasmus explained that the FTP login data is getting uploaded by a variant of the zbot Trojan onto a server hosted in China, where they are stored in plain text and thus potentially open to all and sundry to find and abuse.
Global Warming! Global Warming! “We're the government and we're here to help you do whatever we want!”
EPA Quashed Report Skeptical of Global Warming
Posted by timothy on Saturday June 27, @07:50PM from the just-some-random-nutjob dept. censorship earth usa politics science
theodp writes
"CNET reports that less than two weeks before the EPA formally submitted its pro-carbon dioxide regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty 'decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.' In an e-mail message (pdf) to a staff researcher on March 17, the EPA official wrote: 'The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward...and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.' The employee was also ordered not to 'have any direct communication' with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and was informed his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic. In a statement, the EPA took aim at the credentials of the report's author, Alan Carlin (BS Physics-Caltech, PhD Econ-MIT), describing him as 'not a scientist.' BTW, the official who chastised Carlin also found himself caught up in a 2005 brouhaha over mercury emissions after top EPA officials ordered the findings of a Harvard University study stripped from public records."
This should put IBM's “analyze data while it's still encrypted” tool into perspective.
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/021690.html
June 27, 2009
CDT's Health Privacy Project Releases Paper on De-identification of Personal Health Data
News release: "CDT's Health Privacy Project released a paper advocating the need for stronger standards for "de-identified" personal health information when used for medial research, to promote public health, or other specialized purposes. The paper notes that stronger standards are needed to ensure the "de-identified" data cannot be re-identified in order to maintain patient privacy and build trust in the health care system. CDT's paper makes several policy recommendations on how to strengthen current de-identification standards found in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Act and increase the use of anonymized data for many health care purposes."
The world is always changing. Sometimes we even notice the changes. Isn't Facebook proposing a “least common denominator” world view?
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/06/27/1411242/The-Battle-Between-Google-and-Facebook?from=rss
The Battle Between Google and Facebook
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday June 27, @10:52AM from the friend-request-denied dept.
A story at Wired delves into the ongoing struggle between Google and Facebook to establish their competing visions for the future of the internet. "For the last decade or so, the Web has been defined by Google's algorithms — rigorous and efficient equations that parse practically every byte of online activity to build a dispassionate atlas of the online world. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query this 'social graph' to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire — rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search. It is a complete rethinking of how we navigate the online world, one that places Facebook right at the center. In other words, right where Google is now." A related article at ReadWriteWeb suggests that while Facebook's member base is enormous, the company hasn't taken advantage of its influence as well as it should have, though the capability for it to do so still exists.
“Dude, if they mess with us, we're gonna nuke 'em!”
http://technology.canoe.ca/2009/06/26/9946416-ap.html
North Korea embraces Twitter
By Kwang-Tae Kim, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEOUL, South Korea - It's best known as the place to tell millions what you had for breakfast. But dispatches from North Korea's state news agency have begun popping up on Twitter.
… User "kcna-dprk" had more than 2,800 followers - and was following the profiles of nearly the same number of Twitter users, including one who identified himself as Kim Jong Il - North Korea's absolute leader.
In his bio, he describes himself as "the ruler of North Korea. I like leading, chillaxin', inventing things, and following my dreams. I'm better at everything than you."
Probably most Music industry executives have gone to business school, so I can say with some confidence that it wasn't what they were taught that caused them to resent/reject Napster. It was what they failed to learn.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86508/bpi-exec-industry-shouldnt-have-fought-napster/
BPI Exec – Industry Shouldn’t Have Fought Napster
It may have taken 10 years for one executive to come up with this revelation, but the head of the British Phonographic Industry, or BPI, has recently admitted that the industry shouldn’t have fought Napster, but rather, engaged it. Who knows? At this rate, maybe another executive will think that the industry should consider a truce between it and file-sharers by the year 2019.
Tools & Techniques ...and you thought texting while driving was a distraction.
http://io9.com/5303332/two-augmented-reality-technologies-that-are-about-to-change-the-world
Two Augmented Reality Technologies That Are About To Change The World
By Annalee Newitz, 5:39 PM on Sat Jun 27 2009
Augmented reality is a technology futurists and scifi authors like Vernor Vinge have been talking about for decades. Now the tech has matured and is entering the market. Two videos of new products show you the near future.
Tools & Techniques
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/untiny-extract-original-link-short-url/
Untiny: Extract the Original URL Behind The Short URL
There are countless online URL shortening services nowadays (bit.ly, tr.im and others ) that turn long URLs into short ones, so that you can share them on Twitter, due to 160-character limit. However, some of these URL shorteners are blocked in a number of countries while the original URls are not.
Untiny is useful service that lets you view the original URL behind the short URL, so even if the short URL might be blocked you can still access the original URL it points to.
Tools & Techniques Make plagiarism easier! (They also sell a PDF password remover...)
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/convert-that-pdf-back-into-an-editable-word-document/
How to Convert PDF to an Editable Word Document [Windows]
Jun. 27th, 2009 By Karl L. Gechlik
… You need to download the application and submit your email address to get a free registration code.
Without registering, the program will only convert 3 pages.
[From the website:
ou can convert encrypted and password-protected PDF files to Word documents with PDF to Word Converter.
For my math students
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/graphing-calculator-complex-graph-creator/
Graphing Calculator: Create Complex Graphs Online
Remember when you were in school and you had to spend hours while trying to come up with complex graphs for those weird sin and cos equations? Well, with the internet at your service you no longer need to do that. E-tutor’s Graphing Calculator is a complex graph creator which would create those graphs for you in one click and you just need to copy them in your notebooks. They also provide some detailed instructions on solving a system of equations by graphing.
For my website students (when it comes out of beta)
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/kalooga-online-image-galleries/
Kalooga: Find Images By Searching Web Image Galleries
Previously we have reviewed number of services that let you find images online, some allowed you to search images by color, other by similarities or even by face. Today I came across another image search tool Kalooga which instead of searching single images specializes in finding web image galleries. Since gallery pages are usually maintained by someone who is an expert or an enthusiast on the subject matter, the images tend to be highly relevant.
… Watch demo video here.
Check out Kalooga @ www.kalooga.com
Geek humor?
http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/if-google-were-your-roommate-video/
If Google Were Your Roommate… (Video)
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