Wednesday, July 23, 2014

We should be so lucky – only 22.6 million!
Updated breach estimate and scope:
Education services provider Benesse Corp. said personal data on 22.6 million customers were stored on a smartphone owned by the Tokyo systems engineer under arrest on suspicion of theft and illegal copying of customer data.
While announcing the figure Monday, Benesse, a subsidiary of Benesse Holdings Inc., said the stolen information — the worst data leak in Japan’s history — also included customer data on its group firms’ online-shopping website Benesse Life Smile Shop and message board website Benesse Women’s Park.
Read more on Japan Times.


Would this play out the same way in the US?
Martin Evans reports:
A schoolgirl has received a police caution after texting an explicit photograph of herself to her boyfriend, it has emerged.
The teenager sent the image via her phone, but after the couple had a row, he forwarded it to his friends.
Police were called in because she was under the age of 18 and therefore both were committing an offence of distributing an indecent image of a child.
Both received a caution but police are now warning other teenagers they could end up on the sex offenders register if they send explicit pictures of themselves via text messages or social media.
Read more on The Telegraph.
[From the article:
The letter tells schools and parents that any child aged ten or over can be found guilty of the offence and that images will remain on the Internet once they are uploaded.
… Nottinghamshire County Council anti-bullying coordinator Lorna Naylor said: “Most young people do not see sexting as a problem and are reluctant to talk to adults about it because they're afraid of being judged or having their phones taken away.


At last! An App that lets my lawn mower talk to my refrigerator! All my dreams have been realized!
New software platform gets real-time with the Internet of Things
… According to Gartner estimates, the IoT will include 26 billion units by 2020, and by that time, IoT product and service suppliers will generate incremental revenue exceeding $300 billion (£223bn), mostly in services.
A new company Octoblu is looking to exploit this potential by announcing a new IoT platform for real-time connections and communication management across a range of applications, people and physical devices.
It uses Meshblu, an open source machine-to-machine messaging software that connects existing devices to each other by providing a common platform, through a variety of protocols, regardless of vendor. This can be used for the discovery, control and management of any API-based software application, any hardware, or appliance, or social media network - connecting devices through a range of protocols across a common platform.


You may have a right to be forgotten, but I have a right to write stuff you want everyone to forget. Said another way: “I have more rights than you!” Exceptions: pointing out who the second class cizens really are.
Media companies expressed concern about the impact that proposed changes to EU data protection laws will have on the way they handle personal information at a recent industry debate hosted by ITN and the Media Society.
However, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said that a current exemption to the application of some data protection rules that apply in the UK was “safe”, despite it not being explicitly provided for under the proposed EU General Data Protection Regulation, according to a report by Hold the Front Page.
Read more on Out-Law.com.


For my Ethical Hackers. How do we inject “It's the other guy's fault” data into this system?
Black Boxes” in Passenger Vehicles: Policy Issues
by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Jul 22, 2014
CRS – “Black Boxes” in Passenger Vehicles: Policy Issues - Bill Canis, Specialist in Industrial Organization and Business; David Randall Peterman, Analyst in Transportation Policy July 21, 2014.
“An event data recorder (EDR) is an electronic sensor installed in a motor vehicle that records certain technical information about a vehicle’s operational performance for a few seconds immediately prior to and during a crash. Although over 90% of all new cars and light trucks sold in the United States are equipped with them, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is proposing that all new light vehicles have EDRs installed in the future. Under previously adopted NHTSA rules, these devices have to capture at least 15 types of information related to the vehicle’s performance in the few seconds just before and immediately after a crash serious enough to result in deployment of airbags. EDRs have the potential to make a significant contribution to highway safety. For example, EDR data showed that in several cases a Chevrolet Cobalt’s ignition switch turned the engine off while the car was still moving, causing the car to lose power steering and crash; the data directly contributed to the manufacturer’s decision to recall 2.6 million vehicles. EDR data could also be used, sometimes in conjunction with other vehicle technologies, to record in the few seconds before an accident such data as driver steering input, seat occupant size and position, and sound within a car. [I wonder what they do with this information if there has not been a crash? Bob] The privacy of information collected by EDRs is a matter of state law, except that federal law bars NHTSA from disclosing personally identifiable information. The privacy aspects of EDRs and the ownership of the data they generate has been the subject of legislation in Congress since at least 2004.”


Links to some well done slides summarizing Big Data.
10 Views of Big Data
The definition of Big Data is simple -- it’s the collection of large amounts of information. Going deeper, we include the ability to manipulate this data through analysis. It’s not a storage issue; it’s a transaction and analytics issue. If storing massive data were the point, we wouldn’t be obsessing about big data. The point is using data from a wide range of sources -- sensor data, demographic info, physical qualities -- to detect patterns and make decisions based on the knowledge derived from those patterns.


This is the same technology that allowed police to find the heat from marijuana “grow lights.” What new intrusions can we expect from iPhone users?
Flir Systems Piggybacking New Thermal-Imaging Camera on the Smartphone
For Andy Teich, the chief executive of Flir Systems Inc., Apple Inc.'s iPhone is more than a mobile device. It's a gateway to the mass market.


For my student geeks. If you like the globe, grab the free software that generated it.
Earth – an animated map of global wind and weather
by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Jul 22, 2014

(Ditto)
The Linux Advantage: 5 Websites You Should Head To For Learning Linux
… Whether you’ve been putting off Linux for years or you’re just hearing about it for the first time, there are ample reasons to start today. Want to try now? These resources will get you started.

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