Friday, July 25, 2014

Ethical Hackers please note: “Ignorance is bliss!” But, not for he ignorant.
Aaron Mamiite reports:
A website that tracks and shows the locations of cats through pictures posted on the Internet is revealing online privacy issues.
Owen Mundy, an assistant professor of art at Florida State University, used cat pictures and a supercomputer to build the “I Know Where Your Cat Lives” website, which pinpoints the locations of the cats found in the pictures.
The issue, however, lies in the fact that as the website traces the location of the cat, then the location of the cat’s owner is revealed as well.
Read more on TechTimes.


The most difficult (and risky) part of online theft is “conversion” – turning that electronic swag into cash.
Cybercrime Goes Offline: The Role of Bitcoins In Ransom and Extortion


Amusing. “We don't know what we're doing, but we're gonna regulate it anyway!” “Report” or “publicly disclose?” Who needs to know and what do they need to know?
David Fagan, Susan Cassidy, and Catlin Meade write:
As an indicator of the continuing focus of government authorities on cybersecurity breaches and potential notification requirements, certain contractors for the federal government may soon face new rapid reporting requirements for successful network penetrations. Specifically, President Obama signed the 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act (“2014 IAA”) into law on July 7, 2014, starting a 90-day clock under Section 325 of the Act for the Director of National Intelligence (“DNI”) to promulgate regulations for “cleared intelligence contractors” to report the successful penetration of their networks and information systems.
Read more on Covington & Burling InsidePrivacy.


If not, how can you protect it?
Marlisse Silver Sweeney reports:
It’s like Hansel and Gretel, reversed. Bryant Storm, on Wolters Kluwer Law & Health Blog writes, “each day, most of us leave behind a trail of data that can be used to construct a detailed health profile.” This is perhaps scarier than any wicked witch wanting to bake you alive and eat you.
Storm bases this conclusion on a recent report from the California Healthcare Foundation, which found that data is “exploding.”
Read more on Law Technology News.


Google wants me to be just another Thing on the Internet. (and if they don't like something they can Cntl-X it and Cntl-V in whatever they do like.)
Google Defines Typical Healthy Human
Google has begun a new project aiming to define what constitutes a healthy human being. The project, called Baseline Study, is being run by the Google X research arm, previously responsible for Google Glass, Google’s self-driving cars, and contact lenses which measure glucose levels.
Baseline Study will see Google collect “anonymous genetic and molecular information,” initially from 175 people but eventually thousands of others. This data will be used to identify what makes a healthy person, with biomarkers which lead to ill health used to both detect diseases earlier and create better treatments for them.
This is a hugely ambitious project which could lead to better preventative measures enabling us all to live longer. Unfortunately, making that happen means giving ever more data to the behemoth that is Google. And we’re not talking names and addresses here, but the genetic information of specific individuals. Nope, that isn’t scary in the slightest.


Like Siri, only creepier?
How Cortana Became The “Other Woman” In My Life
What’s most surprising about all of this is that this stunning digital personal assistant is just as interested in me as I am in her. After all, she has a little notebook full of details about me.
She started filling it in when we first met, back when I first activated her after upgrading to the Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview.


I doubt it will pay their tuition, but my students may like it anyway.
Sick of Facebook and Twitter? Get paid for social networking on Bonzo Me and Bubblews
Two new social networks are aiming to give the likes of Facebook and Twitter a run for their money, by paying their users.
Bonzo Me, which went live earlier this month, and Bubblews, a site that officially launched last week, following an extensive period of beta testing, want to transform the social networking landscape.


There's an App for that! (When they make one that repels students, I'll buy a smartphone!)
Now You Can Repel Mosquitoes With An App
Weary of spraying sticky mosquito repellent on your arms? Sick of the bug spray stench? Then this app is for you: introducing Anti Mosquito, the app that releases a high-pitched sound unheard by humans but extremely irritating to mosquitoes.
According to the description of the app on Google Play, mosquitoes really don’t like certain sonic frequencies, and “most humans” won’t hear the sonic frequencies emitted by the app.


There's an App for this too! (Lots of NFL teams are using this App)
The Broncos App


For my students, especially those who could only get through the first three suggestions.
Reclaim Your Focus: 5 Ideas To Deal With Short Attention Spans

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