Saturday, May 25, 2013

Apparently Stuxnet gave them some ideas and taught them some sophisticated techniques.
New Computer Attacks Traced to Iran, Officials Say
American officials and corporate security experts examining a new wave of potentially destructive computer attacks striking American corporations, especially energy firms, say they have tracked the attacks back to Iran.
… The goal is not espionage, they say, but sabotage. Government officials describe the attacks as probes looking for ways to seize control of critical processing systems.


For my Ethical Hackers
"We've pointed out some problems with Twitter's new two-factor authentication. For example, since just one phone number can be associated with an account, Twitter's two-factor authentication won't work for organizations like the Associated Press, The Onion, or The Guardian. They were hacked; they could still be hacked again in the same way. However, security experts indicate that the problem is worse than that, a lot worse."


I'm for anything that helps hold down the cost of my 3-D printed Gattling gun.
"A UC Berkeley group, in a bid to drive down the costs of 3-D printing, has been focusing on more natural materials such as salt, wood, ceramics and concrete (the last two, while not naturally occurring, are made of naturally occurring components). The use of these materials create new avenues for architecture, such as printing buildings. Professor Ronald Rael, the head of the project, stated that these materials and the designs they enable will require new IP protections — 'This is going to require some IP protection for designs, so if you design architecture in the computer, you're protected, just as music and movies are.' I wonder if he's ever heard of design patents?"


Change, the only constant.
From Arrested Development to Dr. Who, How Binge Watching Is Changing Our Culture
Never mind the fact that Arrested Development is coming back this weekend as a revived fourth season of a show that ended six years ago — yes, six years ago, which is a lot in today’s cultural time. (To put that in perspective, just remember that 2006 was the same year that Twitter was founded. And that Foursquare, Google Plus, Instagram, Pinterest, and the recently acquired Tumblr didn’t even exist yet.)
Instead, let’s focus on the fact that all 15 episodes of the new season are being released all at once — precisely at midnight tomorrow, exclusively on Netflix. This is interesting because just one month ago, Netflix was touting its House of Cards “binge watching” strategy of original content released all at once. Not only did people really gorge on a bunch of episodes, but Netflix shares were up 19 percent after its last earnings report. Instead of losing momentum for the show in one bang, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings observed that several months later “huge numbers” of viewers were just starting the series every week.


History, for my Intro to IT students.
The First Long-Distance Telegraph Message, Sent This Day in 1844: 'What Hath God Wrought?'


Inevitible?
MOOC University
… The latest bit of MOOC-news comes from the Georgia Institute of Technology, which just last week announced that, in partnership with Udacity and AT&T , it will offer a full-on master’s degree in computer science in MOOC format — or rather, Georgia Tech College of Computing Dean Zvi Galil corrected me, a “MOOC 2.0” format. The program begins in 2014, and seems worth keeping an eye on. Galil certainly isn’t shy about its potential: “We’re doing it because we want to lead the revolution,” he tells me.

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