Thursday, March 10, 2016

This website is not run by my Ethical Hacking students. Someone else thought of it first. Great way to identify potential nut cases. If ISIS hadn't made it easy to hack, DHS would have had to create one themselves.
Stuart Ramsay reports:
Tens of thousands of documents, containing 22,000 names, addresses, telephone numbers and family contacts of Islamic State jihadis, have been obtained by Sky News.
Nationals from at least 51 countries, including the UK, had to give up their most personal information as they joined the terror organisation.
Only when the 23-question form was filled in were they inducted into IS.
Read more on Sky News. I cannot believe they named their source on this instead of just describing him.




Actually, there are even more reasons. These will do for now.
Why the NSA is staying out of Apple's fight with the FBI
From the beginning of Apple’s fight with the FBI, there’s been an inconvenient question: why can’t the NSA just break into the San Bernardino iPhone?
… But while the FBI has pulled no punches in going after Apple, the NSA has largely stayed out of the fight. In a judiciary committee hearing last week, FBI Director James Comey said he had asked for a way to open the phone from "anybody who will talk to us" but came up empty. He declined to name the NSA specifically, but the implication was clear. The agency has now denied the FBI even political cover, with Reuters reporting that "several key officials" in the NSA opposed the move against Apple.
… First, there’s good reason to think that the NSA really could help with at least some of the phones that the FBI is looking at. The phone in the New York unlocking case, which has played out in parallel to the San Bernardino trial, is still running iOS 7, making it vulnerable to a $350 lockscreen-breaking device that’s commercially available to law enforcement agencies. The same device could handle at least 11 of the 12 other Apple devices identified as under FBI order. There are plenty of similar tools available, as detailed here, and it’s genuinely unclear why the feds haven’t used them to unlock at least some of the phones. All of the attacks take advantage of bugs that were closed in more recent versions of iOS, and while we still don’t know if there’s an outstanding bug for iOS 9 — that is, a bug that could get into the specific San Bernardino phone at the center of all this — the broader picture is clear. There’s been some bug in the lockscreen protections of every previous version of iOS. It would be foolish to think iOS 9 is the exception.
… A string of exploits isn’t as reliable as a legally mandated backdoor, and it’s a poor substitute. It’s the difference between climbing up your neighbor’s drainpipe and making a copy of his keys. If the FBI really has the legal right to compel Apple’s help — as Comey clearly believes — it would be foolish to settle for exploits like this.


(Related) Now let's not get all fussy. I'm not sure the slope is that slippery. (Although, hackers seem to be able to do this now.)
Could FBI Turn on Cameras and Microphones Next?




For my Computer Security students. New media, old rules.
From Understanding Social Media Risks to Preventing Them
In a recent column, I discussed the importance of opening your eyes to the specific risks that the use of social media can present to your organization. Now that you have a better understanding of these risks, what options do you have to better protect your organization against them?


(Related) Anything to make everyone more aware of security risks.
New FDIC resources target cyber threats and fraud in online and mobile banking
by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Mar 9, 2016
“The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced new resources today to educate bank customers about appropriate steps they can take to help avoid fraud and other cyber threats when banking online or on their mobile devices. The information is being issued in advance of National Consumer Protection Week, March 6-12. As part of an ongoing effort to highlight safe online banking strategies, the FDIC released two new cybersecurity brochures today aimed at consumers and business customers of financial institutions. The brochures include tips to help users protect and maintain their computer systems and data. In addition to expanded cybersecurity information available online, the FDIC also released a special edition of the quarterly newsletter FDIC Consumer News featuring precautions consumers can take at home and when banking remotely using laptops, desktops, smartphones, and other mobile devices. While federally insured financial institutions are required to have vigorous information security programs to safeguard financial data, financial institution customers and businesses also need to know how to steer clear of potential fraudulent situations. The FDIC is using National Consumer Protection Week as an opportunity to remind bank customers about taking appropriate cybersecurity precautions…”




A video for the “Self-Driving” file!
Watch This Google Self-Driving Car Very Slowly Crash Into a Bus




Sometimes a well turned phrase just sticks in your head.
Why Hillary Clinton is unlikely to be indicted over her private email server
… Based on the available facts and the relevant precedents, criminal prosecution of Clinton for mishandling classified information in her emails is extraordinarily unlikely.
My exasperation with Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state is long-standing and unabated. Lucky for her, political idiocy is not criminal.
“There are plenty of unattractive facts but not a lot of clear evidence of criminality, and we tend to forget the distinction,” American University law professor Stephen Vladeck, an expert on prosecutions involving classified information, told me. “This is really just a political firestorm, not a criminal case.”


(Related) Hillary is not the only one.
WV lawmakers suffer stomach illness after drinking raw milk to celebrate legalizing raw milk




At the B School, they taught us that nothing lasts forever. That's why you depreciate assets over their expected lifetime. Failing to plan/budget for replacing assets as they become obsolescent is poor management. A separate “update” fund is just another chance to tie up the government in partisan bickering.
White House Proposes $3B IT Update Fund
The Obama administration is seeking US$3.1 billion for a modernization fund to update federal information technology resources that need to be replaced with more efficient and productive systems.
Initially, the fund would bolster the government's annual spending on IT, which is set for a modest increase to $89.8 billion in the administration's proposed budget for fiscal 2017.




Tools & Techniques. Why would I want to kill Ads you ask? (Also shows how impactive those Ad cookies can be)
Opera's testing a browser that kills ads, accelerating webpage loading by up to 90 percent
Opera's fired a broadside in the web content wars Thursday morning, becoming the first desktop Web browser with built-in ad blocking—and explicitly encouraging users to turn it on as a way of improving their browsing experience.
Competing browsers like Chrome or Firefox assign plugins like AdBlock Plus the task of blocking ads. But with Opera’s 37.0.2162.0 developer build for Mac OS and Windows, it's baked right into the software. Opera claims that turning on the ad-blocking feature can cut page load times by a whopping 90 percent, which PCWorld confirmed using a test build.




Remember those perfect masks they wear in the Mission Impossible movies? This is more like Halloween masks, but the potential is there. (See the video at the end of this article)
Facebook Acquires Face-Swapping App Masquerade: Are You Ready, Snapchat?
Facebook has purchased the face-swapping app Masquerade, also known as MSQRD, treading further on Snapchat territory.




Cute, but I think they are way behind the students.
What Will Online Education be Like in the Future?




Amusing.
Chrome Music Labs open for all ages to experiment with making music
by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Mar 9, 2016
“Music is for everyone. So this year for Music In Our Schools month, we wanted to make learning music a bit more accessible to everyone by using technology that’s open to everyone: the web. Chrome Music Lab is a collection of experiments that let anyone, at any age, explore how music works. They’re collaborations between musicians and coders, all built with the freely available Web Audio API. These experiments are just a start. Check out each experiment to find open-source code you can use to build your own.




Tools & Techniques. Writing, the 21st Century way.
Google's New Docs Feature Might Be The Tool Novelists Have Been Waiting For
… it seems that Google is getting in on the novel game by introducing a tool that makes editing a 55,000 word manuscript – the typical length of a novel – a lot less hectic.
Essentially, the outline tool uses headers to break up a word doc and make it more navigation-friendly in the form of a pane on one side of the page. By clicking on a header in the pane, you can jump to that part of the text without having to spend half the time scrolling up and down to locate it. As per Google, it "intelligently [detect]s the logical divisions within your work," which users can use to "edit or remove these headers as necessary."
The tool is also available in a mobile version.




For my students.
25 Highest Paying Jobs in America for 2016


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