You didn't think they were immune, did you?
Hackers
steal data from surveillance company
Hackers said they had penetrated Hacking Team's
internal network and stolen more than 400GB of data.
The Italian company said it was working with
police to track down the hackers.
Widely shared online, the stolen data includes a
list of the countries that have bought Hacking Team's main
surveillance tool, Da Vinci, and emails suggesting intelligence
agencies use it to spy on activists and journalists.
… Lists
of passwords and login details for client sites were also revealed.
[Q: Why would
they be logging on to client sites? A: Gathering intelligence. Bob]
… Security expert Graham Cluley said the
company had "no shortage of online enemies around the world".
Its software had been popular with intelligence
agencies in many countries, he said, but he questioned how many would
continue that relationship given that it had been "so seriously
breached".
Human rights group Reporters Without Borders had
named Hacking Team as one of its "enemies of the internet"
because its software was being used in countries that did not have a
"good record on democracy and human rights". [But
paid well. Bob]
Technology makes everyone's job easier!
Edmund H. Mahony reports:
In an effort to recover tens of millions in losses, the insurer for pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is trying to prove that lax control over confidential, computer data by Lilly’s security contractor enabled thieves to use detailed schematics to carry out brazen warehouse burglaries in Enfield and elsewhere across the country.
National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh could go to trial later this month on a suit over a 2010 Lilly warehouse heist in Enfield that could have been plotted in Hollywood. At the time, Lilly’s warehouses were guarded by a combination of Tyco Integrated Security and ADT, which has since split.
[…]
After months of investigation, National Union lawyers Elisa T. Gilbert and Bendan R. O’Brien of The Gilbert Firm in New York assert that they have uncovered evidence of repeated computer breaches and connected them to a computer account used by a former Tyco/ADT manager.
Read more on CTNow.
[From
the article:
Hi-tech thieves armed with inside information cut
through the warehouse roof in the middle of the night, bypassing
arrays of state-of-the-art motion detectors and other security gear.
They backed a tractor-trailer rig into the only one of seven loading
bays not covered by cameras, packed it with $60 million in cancer
drugs and disappeared.
The Enfield heist is believed to have been the
biggest pharmaceutical theft ever and the suit, with its demand for
$45 million in recovery, could provoke self-examination in the cyber
security industry.
… The suit is pending in Miami and last week a
federal judge strengthened National Union's case by ruling that
should the case not settle before trial, the insurer can present
evidence to a jury of three
remarkably similar warehouse robberies in Florida, Texas
and Illinois.
Perhaps this explains why the government does not
want Google, et al. to publish these numbers. The questing is, will
anyone in government ask why they numbers don't match?
Last week, the Administrative Office (AO) of the
US Courts published the 2014
Wiretap Report, an annual report to Congress concerning
intercepted wire, oral, or electronic communications as required by
Title
III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.
News headlines touted
that the number of federal and state wiretaps for 2014 was down 1%
for a total of 3,554. Of these, there were few involving encrypted
communications; and for those, law
enforcement agencies were in most cases able to overcome the
encryption. But there is a bigger story that calls into
question the accuracy of the all of the prior reports submitted to
the AO and the overall data provided to Congress and the public in
the Wiretap Reports.
Since the Snowden revelations, more and more
companies have started publishing “transparency reports” about
the number and nature of government demands to access their users’
data. AT&T,
Verizon,
and Sprint
published data for 2014 earlier this year and T-Mobile
published its first transparency report on the same day the AO
released the Wiretap Report. In aggregate, the four companies state
that they implemented 10,712 wiretaps, a threefold difference over
the total number reported by the AO. Note that the 10,712 number is
only for the four companies listed above and does not reflect wiretap
orders received by other telephone carriers or online providers, so
the discrepancy actually is larger.
Why people believe politicians have no clue...
David
Cameron's proposed encryption ban would 'destroy the internet'
A highly respected cryptographer and security
expert is warning that David Cameron's proposed ban on strong
encryption threatens to "destroy the internet."
Last week, the
British Prime Minister told Parliament that he wants to "ensure
that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to communicate."
…
Business
Insider reached out to Bruce Schneier to discuss the feasibility of
Cameron' proposed ban on "safe spaces" online.
… My immediate reaction was disbelief,
followed by confusion and despair. When I first read about Cameron's
remarks, I was convinced he had no idea what he was really proposing.
The idea is so preposterous that it was hard to imagine it being
seriously suggested. But while Cameron might not understand what he's
saying, surely he has advisers that do. Maybe he didn't listen to
them. Maybe they aren't capable of telling him that what he's saying
doesn't make sense.
(Related) Let's hope they are testing the waters
because they think this might be a stupid idea.
Ellen Nakashima reports:
Social media sites such as Twitter and YouTube would be required to report videos and other content posted by suspected terrorists to federal authorities under legislation approved this past week by the Senate Intelligence Committee. [Oxymoron alert! Bob]
The measure, contained in the 2016 intelligence authorization, which still has to be voted on by the full Senate, is an effort to help intelligence and law enforcement officials detect threats from the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.
Read more on The
Washington Post.
[From
the article:
Google, Facebook and Twitter declined to comment
on the measure, but industry officials privately called it a bad
idea. “Asking Internet companies to proactively monitor people’s
posts and messages would be the same thing as asking your telephone
company to monitor and log all your phone calls, text messages, all
your Internet browsing, all the sites you visit,” said one
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the
provision is not yet public. “Considering the vast majority of
people on these sites are not doing anything wrong, this type of
monitoring would be considered by many to be an invasion of privacy.
It would also be technically difficult.”
[If we
were still looking at a mere 18,000 days of video uploaded to Youtube
every day, (
http://www.reelseo.com/300-hours-video-youtube-advertisers/
) what percentage would you think might contain something that flags
them as “terrorist?” Would the NSA or even the FBI provide a
definitive search algorithm? Bob]
If this was a US law, would it restrict what
politicians can say about other politicians? As I read the bill,
using a video of your opponent making a statement (or misstatement)
could be harassment.
Be Careful
What You Type! Cyberbullying Is Now A Crime In New Zealand
Lawmakers in New Zealand have officially made it
illegal to harass others and engage in hate speech through digital
means. Otherwise known as cyberbullying,
offenders who run afoul of the law face stiff penalties -- up to two
years imprisonment or a fine up to $50,000 for an individual, or up
to $200,000 for a "body corporate," which is a legal entity
like a business, government agency, and so forth.
It's called the Harmful
Digital Communications Bill and it's intended to "deter,
prevent, and mitigate harm caused by individuals by digital
communications, and provide victims of harmful digital communications
with a quick and efficient means of redress." The bill covers
any form of electronic communication, including text messaging,
writing, photographs, pictures, recordings, or any other material
that is communicated electronically.
As for specific content, it's now illegal in New
Zealand to make racist, sexist, and religiously intolerant comments
to a specific person through digital media. It's also illegal to
make disparaging comments about someone's disabilities or sexual
orientation.
This should be simple, shouldn't it? If I own XYZ
Company, the XYZ Blog belongs to the company, but Centennial-Man
belongs to me. Or is it based on what I post?
A Texas man used social media to promote his gun store, posting
politically charged messages that criticized the president and
promoted Second Amendment rights.
But after losing ownership of his suburban Houston
store in bankruptcy, Jeremy Alcede spent nearly seven weeks in jail
for refusing a federal judge's order to share with the new owner the
passwords of the business' Facebook and Twitter accounts, which the
judge had declared as property.
"It's all about silencing my voice,"
said Alcede, who was released in May after turning over the
information. "Any 3-year-old can look at this and tell this is
my Facebook account and not the company's."
Alcede's failed stand charts new territory in
awarding property in bankruptcy proceedings and points to the growing
importance of social media accounts as business assets. Legal
experts say it also provides a lesson for business owners active in
social media.
"If your business is something you feel very
passionately about, it can be hard to separate those things,"
said Benjamin Stewart, a Dallas-based bankruptcy lawyer. "The
moral for people is you have to keep your personal life separate from
your business life."
I probably can't use a drone to monitor my lawn,
but I suspect my wife's horse friends could use them to keep an eye
on the herd.
Farm Use of
Drones to Take off as Feds Loosen Restrictions
… Watching a flying demonstration on
Maryland's Eastern Shore, the Missouri farmer envisions using an
unmanned aerial vehicle to monitor the irrigation pipes on his farm —
a job he now pays three men to do.
"The savings on labor and fuel would just be
phenomenal," Geske says, watching as a small white drone hovers
over a nearby corn field and transmits detailed pictures of the
growing stalks to an iPad.
… Agricultural use of drones is about to take
off after being grounded for years by the lack of federal guidelines.
The Federal Aviation Administration has approved more than 50
exemptions for farm-related operations since January.
Steve would be furious. But my IT Governance
students could learn something here.
People are
starting to call Apple's Safari web browser 'the new Internet
Explorer'
Apple's web browser Safari risks becoming an
outdated program that developers and customers don't use, Ars
Technica argues.
Ars Technica makes a convincing case: Apple isn't
updating its web browser enough, so it's not supporting tools like
certain APIs that web developers use to make sites.
It might not seem like a big problem if Apple
doesn't support every new API and developer tool in use, but it could
mean that developers decide not to test their sites for Safari, which
could mean it eventually becomes an outdated and unsupported browser
like Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Simple:
Follow the cash flow, see whose hands it passes through, then
replace their hands with your hands.
Facebook
Inc (FB) Collects “Headless Chickens” To Change News Forever
Facebook Inc is about to ramp up the publication
of Instant Articles, a feature that has caused a rift among, and
inside, media companies. So far just five of the pieces have been
published, but the firm is set to start putting 30 pieces a day out
there, and it could start as soon as this week.
…
Instant Articles will bring news pieces
directly
to the Facebook platform. That means that outlets using the
service, which include The New York Times, and Buzzfeed
among others, will likely rely on Mark Zuckerberg’s team for a
huge amount of traffic and as revenue.
The move is a key one for Facebook. Right now
when a person sees a news item on their feed clicking the link sends
them to a webpage where ads are not controlled by Facebook, they’re
controlled by the news site itself and often
involve money being sent to arch-rival Google Inc.
Keeping users inside of its own app will allow
Facebook to reap a larger part of the profit from the traffic it
sends through its site. A note from Evercore Partners published on
June 4 showed that Facebook refers the same amount of traffic to top
content makers as Google, and it was about to pass
the search giant out.
For my researching students.
Amplifying
the Impact of Open Access: Wikipedia and the Diffusion of Science
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Jul 5, 2015
“With the rise of Wikipedia as a first-stop
source for scientific knowledge, it is important to compare its
representation of that knowledge to that of the academic literature.
This
article approaches such a comparison through academic references
made within the worlds 50 largest Wikipedias. Previous studies have
raised concerns that Wikipedia editors may simply use the most easily
accessible academic sources rather than sources of the highest
academic status. We test this claim by identifying the 250 most
heavily used journals in each of 26 research fields (4,721 journals,
19.4M articles in total) indexed by the Scopus database, and modeling
whether topic, academic status, and accessibility make articles from
these journals more or less likely to be referenced on Wikipedia. We
find that, controlling for field and impact factor, the odds that an
open access journal is referenced on the English Wikipedia are 47%
higher compared to closed access journals. Moreover, in most of the
worlds Wikipedias a journals high status (impact factor) and
accessibility (open access policy) both greatly increase the
probability of referencing. Among the implications of this study is
that the chief effect of open access policies may be to significantly
amplify the diffusion of science, through an intermediary like
Wikipedia, to a broad public audience.” Misha
Teplitskiy, Grace
Lu, Eamon
Duede (Submitted on 25 Jun 2015).
My students get Prime for free (for at least 6
months)
Amazon
celebrating 20th birthday with sale to rival Black Friday
Amazon has announced that it will be celebrating
its 20th birthday this month by launching a one-day sale extravaganza
featuring more products on offer than are available on Black Friday.
The catch is that the deals will only apply to Prime members.
… The date will be July 15th, Amazon's 20th
birthday, and the sale will feature offers on products from across
Amazon's vast catalogue.
… it is worth noting that you will be able
to use the 30-day free trial of Prime to get access to the Prime
Day offers.
Could be related to the Amazon article. (Love
that Tweet!) (Digest Item #2)
Beware
Greeks Bearing Credit Cards
The Greeks have been bankrupt 6 times in 150
years. like they want to be #donaldtrump
At the time of writing, Greece is suffering a
rather complicated financial crisis which threatens to plunge Europe
into crisis. Other Europeans are trying to help by funding
a bailout through an Indiegogo campaign, but the country needs
billions of dollars rather than mere millions. Suffice to say,
things aren’t looking good.
One of the unforeseen consequences of Greece’s
financial crisis is Greeks being barred
from involvement with the online economy. This is due to the
capital control laws recently enacted, which are designed to prevent
people moving all of their money from Greek banks to overseas
accounts.
The capital control laws also prevent Greeks from
making credit card payments to other countries. Unfortunately, this
means that Greeks who pay for services from Apple and other foreign
companies have encountered problems, with monthly
subscription fees blocked from going through.
Losing access to PayPal and the ability to buy
music on iTunes obviously isn’t the biggest problem being faced by
the average Greek citizen right now. However, it is annoying, both
for the affected users and the companies involved. And the whole
thing is further damaging Greece’s international reputation.
Perspective. Education didn't work. Prevention
was too expensive. Apparently no one bothered to measure the health
of the uninsured. (Or maybe they expect the government to kick in
half the premium?)
Health
insurance companies around the country are seeking rate increases
of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under
the Affordable
Care Act turned out to be sicker than expected.
… Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market
leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23
percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in
Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota,
according to documents posted online by the federal government and
state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance
executives.
A most valuable travel guide.
Here’s
What a Beer Will Cost You, From Kiev to Geneva
Dilbert provides a (slightly exaggerated)
illustration of “Asynchronous warfare.”
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