Who's who for the Internet age? Who
knows who. Who works with who Who is looking to date who.
eHarmony
member passwords compromised
Dating site eHarmony
confirmed today that passwords used by its members were compromised
following reports of references to the site among allegedly stolen
passwords that were posted to a hacker site.
… Earlier today LinkedIn
said that some of its members' passwords were on a list that
ostensibly had 6.5 million encrypted passwords.
(Related) “I can check your bank
account, password, secret questions and pin number – for FREE!”
Do
yourself a favor, don't check if your password was leaked. Ever.
Almost just as fast as the story
started spreading, a link to LeakedIn.org
was being passed around as a way to check if your password was leaked
in the security breach. To figure out if you're affected, LeakedIn
requires you to enter your account password. Your
password is then converted to its SHA-1 equivalent and then is
compared to the list of leaked passwords.
A red light means your password appears
on the list, a green light means you are in the clear. At least, in
theory.
Before you jump at the chance to check
your password, ask yourself if it's really a good idea to enter your
password on some random Web site. The answer should be an
unequivocal no. You have no idea what is really being done
with the information you enter.
If Mommy and Daddy can do this, what
could NSA (or any nation so inclined) do?
… Kids are brilliant when it comes
to the Internet and technology, and if you ask many parents what
their kids are doing on that computer up in their bedroom, parents
wouldn’t even know where to start looking to find out.
Monitor Teenage Computer With Care4Teen
To help those parents, there is a
powerful, free online service available called Care4Teen.
Care4Teen is both an application and an online service. You install
the application on the PC that you want to monitor, and then you can
create an account at the Care5Teen website that serves as your
“dashboard” into all activities that take place on that computer.
… When you first install the
application, you have the option to install it as an Invisible
application so your kids won’t be able to uninstall the app from
the computer.
… Once it’s installed, the first
thing you’ll want to do is select the level of security that you
want to enable. The restricted mode basically blocks all of the
websites in the Care4Teen database where that most parents have
identified as inappropriate for teens. Unrestricted
mode allows everything through, but all websites are still monitored
for inappropriate content – and those URL’s will get logged
whenever such a webpage is identified.
Even more ubiquitous surveillance?
Google
Reveals an Image-Capturing Street View Backpack and New 3-D Maps
Google’s Maps team introduced three
new technologies on Wednesday: a feature to save offline maps in the
Android Maps app, advanced 3-D models of entire cities in Google
Earth, and a new Android-controlled “Street View Trekker”
backpack for capturing Street View images where bikes, cars and
planes can’t go.
… The Trekker is essentially a
miniaturized version of all the gear Google packs into its Street
View cars and tricycles, including a 15-lens camera that can shoot
46MP images.
(Related)
Airtime
curtails privacy for the sake of safety
The way Airtime works is by using
Facebook as its log-in platform. At its basic level, Airtime allows
simple video chat with users' Facebook friends, but take it up a
notch and it lets people chat
with strangers that have common interests.
So, as a way to keep its users safe,
the service takes random secret photos of video
conversations between anonymous users that are then scanned and
reviewed for indecent behavior, according to MSNBC.
One aspect of “lawful”
June 06, 2012
Acting
General Counsel releases report on employer social media policies
News
release: "NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon today
issued a third report on social media cases brought to the agency,
this time focusing exclusively on policies governing the use of
social media by employees. The Operations
Management Memo details seven cases involving such policies. In
six cases, the General Counsel’s office found some provisions of
the employer’s social media policy to be lawful. In the seventh
case, the entire policy was found to be lawful. Provisions are found
to be unlawful when they interfere with the rights of employees under
the National Labor Relations Act, such as the right to discuss wages
and working conditions with co-workers. “I hope that this report,
with its specific examples of various employer policies and rules,
will provide additional guidance in this area,” Mr. Solomon said in
releasing the memo. Two previous memos on social media cases, which
involved discharges based on Facebook posts, issued in January
2012 and in August
2011."
Is the FBI treating New Zealand law
like it only applies to “second class citizens? (Like they do in
the US) Well, yeah. But clearly the NZ government lawyers are
pleading ignorance in many areas – e.g. apparently data isn't
treated like 'real' evidence. If they must return the data, does
that 'taint' their case?
FBI
Illegally Pirated Kim Dotcom’s Data Out of New Zealand,
File-Sharing King Charges
New Zealand lawyers for Kim Dotcom and
associates allege that FBI agents committed an “illegal act” by
cloning data from the file-sharing tycoon’s seized computers and
FedExing it to the United States.
The cloned data was sent overseas just
days after a judge decided a court hearing was needed to work out if
the FBI agents were allowed to take the material, Dotcom’s lawyer
Willy Akel told the High Court of Auckland Wednesday.
Akel said the FBI sent material back to
the States without the New Zealand police having any say in the
matter and that the police force had effectively lost control over
it.
… The NZ government doesn’t deny
the FBI whisked the data out of the country via sneakernet. But
Crown lawyer John Pike, acting for the NZ Solicitor-General, denied
that sending the cloned data overseas was illegal.
According to Pike, the
relevant law only applies to physical material and not information,
even though he acknowledged that information may be the most valuable
thing seized in the January raid of Kim Dotcom’s mansion.
Therefore, he argued, the content of the hard drives could be shipped
overseas to the FBI.
Pike added that the none of the
physical possessions had gone, and that that was the actual subject
of the Solicitor-General’s undertaking.
Justice Winkelmann, who is hearing the
case, may not be swayed by that sophistry, as she said material
irrelevant to the case must be returned to Dotcom.
This was countered by Pike, who says
it was too difficult to know what was relevant and what was not.
Police have no clue what is relevant to the case, Pike said.
“Well, we kinda, sorta tried to do
the right thing.”
IE
10′s ‘Do-Not-Track’ Default Dies Quick Death
The latest proposed draft of the Do Not
Track specification published Wednesday requires that users must
choose to turn on the anti-behavioral tracking feature in their
browsers and software.
That means that Microsoft IE 10, which
the company announced last week will have Do Not Track turned on by
default, won’t be compliant with the official spec. Which means
that tech and ad companies who say they comply with Do Not Track
could simply ignore the flag set by IE 10 and track those who use
that browser. Which means Microsoft has no choice but to change the
setting.
Be careful what you wish for...
Pirate
Bay cordially accepts RIAA's quest for censorship
The Recording Industry Association of
America's CEO, Cary Sherman, testified before Congress today on "The
Future of Audio." Although the minutes of the hearing aren't
yet available, Sherman did publish a statement
of his speech, according to TorrentFreak,
which first reported this news.
In Sherman's statement, he stresses
that online piracy must be stopped and one of the
ways to do this is by having search engines, like Google and Bing,
censor any results that could lead users to sites with illegally
obtained copyrighted material.
… The Pirate Bay, being one of the
biggest proprietors of pirated material, thinks this idea is just
swell, according to TorrentFreak.
This is what it had to say on its blog:
Our competitors at
the Recording Industry A**holes of America is trying to make sure
that the search engines that compete with us have to stop linking
back to us. This is really great news!
Right now about
10% of our traffic comes from these competiting search engines. With
that ban in place that means that our traffic numbers probably will
increase. Users will go directly to us instead and
use our search instead. We'll grow even more massive.
It's really hard to compete with Google, but if they can't index
media search engines like us, we'll be the dominant player in the
end.
Perspective. What would make a $100
degree worth $100? (What makes an online degree worth more than the
paper it's not printed on?)
"Forbes reports on the latest
project of Google Fellow Sebastian Thrun (the proponent of
self-driving cars.) He's moved on to education now, believing that
conventional university teaching is way too costly, inefficient and
ineffective to survive for long. So he
started Udacity, which aims to deliver an
online version of a master's degree for $100 per student. From
the article: 'Udacity’s earliest course offerings have been free,
and although Thrun eventually plans to charge something, he wants his
tuition schedule to be shockingly low. Getting a master’s degree
might cost just $100. After teaching his own artificial intelligence
class at Stanford last year—and attracting 160,000 online
signups—Thrun believes online formats can be far more effective
than traditional classroom lectures. “So many people can be helped
right now,” Thrun declares. “I see this as a mission.”'"
(Related) Let's hope the baseline they
establish is more effective than TSA screening.
"Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano today said the agency will form a
cybersecurity workforce task group that will consider strategies
such as expanding DHS involvement in cyber competitions and
university programs, enhancing public-private security partnerships
and working with other government agencies to develop a more agile
cyber workforce across the federal government. The new task force
will be co-chaired by hacking expert Jeff Moss who now works for the
Homeland Security Advisory Council and Alan Paller is director of
research at the SANS Institute."
I may require my Ethical Hacking
students to use this on their collaborative project...
Hangouts
is Google’s take on chat rooms. Like many times before, Google has
turned a good idea into something incredibly useful, while preserving
simplicity and ease of use and thus making it fantastic.
1. Free Video Chat
With Up To 10 Participants
2. A More
Intuitive Interface
Once you are in a
Hangout that is. … figuring out how to join a Hangout can be a
challenge
3. Integrated Apps
Unfortunately, you
cannot broadcast and save your Hangouts privately.
5. Minimal Setup &
Maintenance Requirements
A little Math humor and the answer to a
very common question.
No comments:
Post a Comment