For my Ethical Hackers: May be easier
than hacking into each site...
"A new service in the cyber
underground aims
to be the Google search of underground Web sites, connecting
buyers to a vast sea of shops that offer an array of dodgy goods and
services, from stolen credit card numbers to identity information and
anonymity tools. From the story: 'A glut of data breaches and stolen
card numbers has spawned dozens of stores that sell the information.
The trouble is that each shop requires users to create accounts and
sign in before they can search for cards. Enter MegaSearch, which
lets potential buyers discover which fraud shops hold the cards
they're looking for without having to first create accounts at each
store.'"
TED talk
Mikko
Hypponen: Three types of online attack
Cybercrime expert Mikko Hypponen talks
us through three types of online attack on our privacy and data --
and only two are considered crimes. "Do we
blindly trust any future government? Because any right we
give away, we give away for good."
I am not sure there is a reasonable
debate on this topic. I am certain this is not a solution.
SOPA,
Internet Regulation and the Economics of Piracy
Earlier this month, I detailed
at some length why claims about the purported economic harms of
piracy, offered by supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
and PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA), ought to be treated with much more
skepticism than they generally get from journalists and policymakers.
My own view is that this ought to be
rather secondary to the policy discussion: SOPA and PIPA would be
ineffective mechanisms for addressing the problem, and a terrible
idea for many other reasons, even if the numbers were exactly
right. No matter how bad last season’s crops were, witch burnings
are a poor policy response. Fortunately, legislators
finally seem to be cottoning on to this: SOPA now appears to be
on ice for the time being, and PIPA’s own sponsors are having
second thoughts about mucking with the Internet’s Domain Name
System.
That said, I
remain a bit amazed that it’s become an indisputable premise in
Washington that there’s an enormous piracy problem, that it’s
having a devastating impact on US content industries, and that some
kind of aggressive new legislation is needed tout suite to
stanch the bleeding. Despite the fact that the Government
Accountability Office recently
concluded that it is “difficult, if not impossible, to quantify
the net effect of counterfeiting and piracy on the economy as a
whole,” our legislative class [i.e. those who
dictate to common citizens Bob] has somehow determined
that—among all the dire challenges now facing the United
States—this is an urgent priority. Obviously, there’s
quite a lot of copyrighted material circulating on the Internet
without authorization, and other things equal, one would like to see
less of it.
Khan Academy explains SOPA in a short
video...
SOPA
and PIPA : What SOPA and PIPA are at face value and what they could
end up enabling
(Related) Next, Congress will move to
Copyright the Constitution so no citizen can argue that it protects
them without paying a “reasonable” fee...
Supreme
Court Says Congress May Re-Copyright Public Domain Works
Congress may take books, musical
compositions and other works out of the public domain, where they can
be freely used and adapted, and grant them copyright status again,
the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
In a 6-2 ruling, the court said that,
just because material enters the public domain, it is not “territory
that works may never exit.” (.pdf)
… Writing for the majority, Justice
Ruth Ginsburg said “some restriction on expression is the inherent
and intended effect of every grant of copyright.” But the top
court, with Justice Elena Kagan recused, said Congress’ move to
re-copyright the works to comport with an international treaty was
more important.
… In dissent, Justices Stephen
Breyer and Samuel Alito said the legislation goes against the theory
of copyright and “does not encourage anyone to produce a single new
work.” Copyright, they noted, was part of the Constitution to
promote the arts and sciences.
(Related) Just to be fair, here's
another view...
Why
I pirate
It's a long way from “The Emperor's
New Clothes” (thank God) but it may be a start...
January 18, 2012
House
of Representatives House Launches Transparency Portal
Sunlight
Foundation: "Making good on part of the House of
Representative's commitment to increase congressional transparency,
today the House Clerk's office launched http://docs.house.gov/,
a one stop website where the public can access all House bills,
amendments, resolutions for floor consideration, and conference
reports in XML, as well as information on
floor proceedings and more. Information will ultimately
[Translation: We should think about planning a future schedule to
consider the need to address this, maybe... Bob] be
published online in real time and archived for perpetuity. The Clerk
is hosting the site, and the information will primarily come from the
leadership, the Committee on House Administration, the Rules
Committee, and the Clerk's office. The project has been driven by
House Republican leaders as part of an push for transparency.
If not perfect, at least it's a
start...
January 18, 2012
Google
Launches Good to Know Campaign for Internet Safety
"Google’s Good
to Know campaign aims to help people stay safe on the Internet
and manage the information they share online. The website and ads
provide easy to use tips and advice on online security, help on
understanding the data users share and tools they can use to manage
their data. Written in clear language and featuring practical
examples to illustrate complex security and privacy issues, the
website and advertising campaign aim to empower users to tackle their
online security concerns and make more informed decisions about their
internet use. The U.S. campaign includes adverts in newspapers, on
public transport and online. Download
all print ads – (PDF)."
Clearly, this is where we are heading.
Also clear, I don't like it.
Sci-Fi-Infused
Videos Show Off Keiichi Matsuda’s Vision of the Future
From a live blog of the Apple education
event introducing “iBooks 2”
why books are not good. Not portable,
not searchable, not current, not interactive.
Integrating databases into textbooks,
being able to search LexisNexus for example inside a textbook could
be a very powerful academic tool and has great business potential.
Very interactive. But what if you want
to focus on reading text? Going into portrait mode changes layout.
Will be interesting to see what Apple
comes up with for citations. With variable layout and text size, pin
point citations are a problem - one Amazon is trying to cope with
still on Kindle.
In the iBooks store, there's a new
textbook category
iBooks 2 is an app you download from
app store to iPad. It's free.
But how do you create these books? He
says t here's a new application called iBooks Author
There are templates, like math or
science books.
We know alot of people
have great content already written, he says, so you can drag word
files into the system, it scans through, looks at styles, and fills
out pages from book.
If you can write code in javascript and
html you can create your own interactive widgets.
Students keep textbooks
forever. [If the “books” point to sites on the Internet, the
textbook can be constantly updated!!! Bob]
Apple turned to many partners to make
it great, he says. Pearson, McGraw Hill Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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