Hackers follow
the activities (achievements) of other hackers. But China isn't
South Korea, so I don't expect them to change their mind.
Chinese
Hacks May Be a Challenge to Real-Name Registration
December 27, 2011 by admin
C. Custer writes that the recent
release of so many old (and large!) Chinese databases might be
politically motivated as a challenge to China’s real-name
registration policy:
The data released
on the internet last week was already widely available in hacking
circles, according to Wan Tao, the founder of a popular hacking
online community. Wan told the Dongfang Daily that the
reason the data looks so old (most of the information released
involves pre-2009 usernames and passwords) is that it is old.
Apparently, the databases have been floating around in hacker
circles for some time, and hackers told the paper that whoever
released the data must have done it for fun, as there is no way
anyone could make money from such an old, widely-circulated database.
Fun, or to make a
point about the increasing focus on real-name registration systems,
which China’s biggest microblogs have
already put into place. Wan told the Dongfang Daily that
the release of the data could potentially be understood as a
challenge to the emphasis on real-name registration systems; a
(relatively) victimless way of demonstrating that storing people’s
real identities on web servers might have unintended consequences.
“Excessively emphasizing real-name registration has risks,” said
Wan, “and at present, risk assessment has not been sufficient.”
Read more on Penn-Olson.com.
Although it’s purely speculative, it
would make sense as a motive, as we saw South Korea
walk
back from its real-name registration policy after some very huge
hacks there this year.
You have to
wonder if these little design flaws are deliberate...
"There is a newly
discovered vulnerability in the WiFi Protected Setup standard
that reduces the number of attempts it would take an attacker to
brute-force the PIN for a wireless router's setup process. The flaw
results in too much information about the PIN being returned to an
attacker and makes the PIN quite weak, affecting the security of
millions of WiFi routers and access points. Security researcher
Stefan Viehbock discovered
the vulnerability (PDF) and reported
it to US-CERT. The problem affects a number of vendors'
products, including D-Link, Netgear, Linksys and Buffalo. 'I noticed
a few really bad design decisions which
enable an efficient brute force attack, thus effectively breaking the
security of pretty much all WPS-enabled Wi-Fi routers. As all of the
of the more recent router models come with WPS
enabled by default, this affects millions of
devices worldwide,' Viehbock said."
An interesting
take on those “extended service plans” After two years, most
electronic devices are obsolete, so why would you (pre) pay someone
to fix or replace it? If AT&T had sold these would they still be
repairing rotary dial phones?
Italy
Fines Apple $1.2 Million Over AppleCare Sales
Today, Italy’s
antitrust body has fined Apple, Inc. $1.2 million (900,000 euros) for
pushing customers to buy its AppleCare
Protection Plan without adequately disclosing the support that
already comes with their device. In Italy, companies
are actually required by
law to provide two years of free support to customers,
which, according to the Italian Antitrust Authority, was not clearly
explained to Apple customers either online or at the point-of-sale.
… This
is not Apple’s only legal trouble in the EU. The company is also
involved in patent
litigation with Samsung and in a
price-fixing case with e-book publishers.
Lawyers and
social in the same sentence?
December 27, 2011
Survey:
Social Media in the Legal Sector
"Vizibility
and LexisNexis recently conducted a survey to help shed light on the
use of social media in legal services marketing. To illustrate the
findings, the results have been released as an infographic, available
below. View the announcement here.
The research suggests a high degree of reliance on broadly defined
social media marketing programs, with 81% of survey participants
reporting they already use social media marketing tools and another
10.1% saying they plan to deploy social media marketing elements
within six months. Furthermore, reliance on social media tools and
how they’re measured differ significantly by firm size. The survey
found that a clear majority of participants consider social media an
important part of their overall marketing strategy, with nearly half
(48.5%) reporting that social media is “somewhat important” while
another 31% believe the tools are “extremely important” to their
total marketing efforts. Click a preview below to view the
infographic at full size. The infographic is available in both black
and white
versions."
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