Friday, July 30, 2010

Asymmetric by policy only, not by capability.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20012121-281.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

U.S. military cyberwar: What's off-limits?

The United States should decide on rules for attacking other nations' networks in advance of an actual cyberwar, which could include an international agreement not to disable banks and electrical grids, the former head of the CIA and National Security Agency said Thursday.

… One option would be for the larger G8 or G20 nations to declare that "cyberpenetration of any (financial) grid is so harmful to the international financial system that this is like chemical weapons: none of us should use them," he said at the Black Hat computer security conference here.

Another option would be for those nations to declare that "outside of actual physical attacks in declared conflicts, denial of service attacks are never allowed and are absolutely forbidden and never excused," and a consensus would "stigmatize their use," said Hayden, who's now a principal at the Chertoff Group. Nations "do not do it and they do not allow it to happen from their sovereign space."



The perils of “Pushed” updates. First, give away really useful Apps that everyone “has to have!” Second, activate Big Brother mode. Third, analyze the data and identify targets. Forth, Boom!

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/07/29/1545238/Android-Data-Stealing-App-Downloaded-By-Millions?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Android Data Stealing App Downloaded By Millions

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 29, @12:04PM

"A wallpaper utility (that presents purloined copyrighted material) 'quietly collects personal information such as SIM card numbers, text messages, subscriber identification, and voicemail passwords. The data is then sent to www.imnet.us, a site that hails from Shenzen, China.'"

[From the article:

“Even good apps can be modified to turn bad after a lot of people download it,” MaHaffey said. “Users absolutely have to pay attention to what they download. And developers have to be responsible about the data that they collect and how they use it.”

… The app has been downloaded anywhere from 1.1 million to 4.6 million times. The exact number isn’t known because the Android Market doesn’t offer precise data.



Securing you phone.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20012144-245.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Can your calls be intercepted? This tool can tell

A researcher released software at the Black Hat conference on Thursday designed to let people test whether their calls on mobile phones can be eavesdropped on.

The public availability of the software, dubbed Airprobe, means that anyone with the right hardware can snoop on other peoples' calls, unless the target telecommunications provider has deployed a patch that was standardized about two years ago by the GSMA, the trade association representing GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) providers, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States.

Most telecommunications providers have not patched their systems, cryptography expert Karsten Nohl said.

… Airprobe offers the ability to record and decode GSM calls. When combined with a set of cryptographic tools called Kraken, which were released last week, "even encrypted calls and text messages can be decoded," he said.



A humbling perspective, with an interesting graphic.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/07/29/2345248/2-Chinese-ISPs-Serve-20-of-World-Broadband-Users?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

2 Chinese ISPs Serve 20% of World Broadband Users

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 29, @10:46PM

"If you need a reminder of just how big China is—and just how important the Internet has become there—consider this stat: between them, two Chinese ISPs serve 20 percent of all broadband subscribers in the entire world and both companies continue to grow, even as growth slows significantly in more developed markets. Every other ISP trails dramatically. Japan's NTT comes in third with 17 million subscribers, and all US providers are smaller still. 'The gap between the top two operators and the world's remaining broadband service providers will continue to grow rapidly,' said TeleGeography Research Director Tania Harvey. 'Aside from the two Chinese companies, all of the top ten broadband ISPs operate in mature markets, with high levels of broadband penetration and rapidly slowing subscriber growth.'"



Does this suggest the young are delusional?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024831.html

July 29, 2010

Why and How the Millennial Generation Is the Most Pro-Government Generation and What This Means for Our Future

The Generation Gap on Government - Why and How the Millennial Generation Is the Most Pro-Government Generation and What This Means for Our Future, by Guy Molyneux and Ruy Teixeira, with John Whaley July 2010

  • "Young Americans today across the ideological spectrum share a far more favorable view of the federal government than do their elders. Importantly, this so-called Millennial Generation may hold the key to reversing historic declines in public confidence in government—the major finding from a new survey commissioned by the Center for American Progress... Young adults are particularly receptive to a reform agenda that would strip wasteful spending and focus on improvements in the delivery of government services. Millennials will reward politicians who adhere to these principles with their votes, young respondents say."



Confirming my suspicions.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/so-called_digital_natives_not_media_savvy_new_study_shows.php

So-Called "Digital Natives" Not Media Savvy, New Study Shows

A new study coming out of Northwestern University, discovered that college students have a decided lack of Web savvy, especially when it comes to search engines and the ability to determine the credibility of search results. Apparently, the students favor search engine rankings above all other factors. The only thing that matters is that something is the top search result, not that it's legit.

… Another interesting finding from the study involved the use of Wikipedia. Perhaps because of teachers' insistence over the years that the user-generated encyclopedia is not a credible source of information, only a third of the students used Wikipedia to search for answers when given particular tasks. This is a drop from earlier studies (like Raine & Tancer, 2007) which showed Wikipedia use at 46% among students.

Other popular trusted sources included SparkNotes (a study guide site), WedMD, Planned Parenthood, CNN, BBC, Microsoft (specifically Encarta and Office-related resources) and those sites with a .gov or .edu extension. Some students even thought that .org domain name meant a site was inherently trustworthy - they weren't aware that the .org extension can be freely registered just like .com and is not for nonprofit use only, as may have originally been intended.



Info-graphic

http://www.intac.net/the-perils-of-the-internet/

The Perils of the Internet



For my Computer Security (and other) students

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024827.html

July 29, 2010

National Cyber Security Alliance launches Web portal for 2010 National Cyber Security Awareness Month

News release: "The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), a public-private partnership focused on educating a digital citizenry to stay safe and secure online, today launched its National Cyber Security Awareness Month Web portal with information on events, activities, promotions and educational materials to be used in preparation for the online safety month to be held in October. Anyone – family, employers, consumers, teachers, and students – interested in online safety is encouraged to access the portal, and all materials are free to use."

[From the site:

Free materials to support your awareness efforts and valuable links to other organizations.

Safety tip sheets for a variety of online settings



Tools & Techniques Free app.

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/anti-theft-mobile-recover-stolen-cell-phone/

Anti Theft For Mobile: Recover Lost/Stolen Cellphone & Protect Your Data

I have come across a number of phone apps that provide great security for iPhones and Android based smartphones. There are 3 basic features these security apps offer: the ability to know where your phone is when lost, the ability to remotely lock your phone and the ability to remotely wipe all of your phone’s data.

Finally a security application containing all these features has been made for Symbian OS, Windows and Android phones; this app is F-Secure Anti Theft for Mobile. [Did I mention, it's free? Bob]

Similar tools: WaveSecure and BuddyWay.



Tools & Techniques I should use this in my website classes, and probably lots of other classes.

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/bounce-annotate-share-comments-website/

Bounce: Tool For Marking & Annotating Websites

On the site’s homepage, you will see a bar where you need to enter the URL of the site you want to comment on. After entering the URL and submitting it, Bounce captures a screenshot image of it and then opens the image in an editable panel.

From the controls in the panel, you can create a red box anywhere on the image and leave comments within the red box. You can do this as many times as you want, adding as many comments as you want.

Clicking a ‘save’ button in the top right of the editing panel gives you the URL which you can share with people. Visiting the URL will take them to your annotated page.

www.bounceapp.com

Similar tools: A.nnotate, Asterpix, BubblePly, Co-ment, PicBite and MiddleSpot.

Also read related articles:

Top Web Annotation Tools: Annotate+Bookmark+Collaborate

Annotate Web pages you visit with Mystickies

The Commentor- A Visual Online Collaboration & Annotation Tool.

No comments: