Linux exploit gives any user full access in five seconds
If you need another reason to be paranoid
about network security, a serious exploit that attacks a nine-year-old Linux
kernel flaw is now in the wild. The
researcher who found it, Phil Oester, told V3 that the attack is "trivial to
execute, never fails and has probably been around for years." Because of its complexity, he was only able to
detect it because he had been "capturing all inbound HTTP traffic and was
able to extract the exploit and test it out in a sandbox," Oester said.
A follow-up on the OPM breach.
Inside the Cyberattack That Shocked the U.S. Government
What is that saw about not being able to cheat an honest
man? (and I learned a new word: spruiked)
Kelly Burke reports:
A government employee who
duped some of Sydney’s leading law firms by selling the personal details of 130
injured paramedics pocketed more than $200,000 before walking out of court with
a good behaviour bond.
NSW Ambulance’s former injury
management co-ordinator Waqar Ahmad Malik gained access to a list of injured
paramedics the NSW Government feared might sue for compensation. The list included medical records and
psychiatric assessments.
Malik then spruiked the data to legal firms who could access the
potentially money making list via paid membership to an “advisory panel”.
Read more on Daily
Telegraph.
Has blockchain arrived?
Major banks trade cotton using blockchain in a move that
could transform a major industry
Wells
Fargo and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia
(CBA) have used blockchain – the technology that drives bitcoin – to process
and execute a shipment of cotton from the U.S. to China, in a move that could
provide a big breakthrough for the future of international trade.
… Typically this
process would require large amounts of paper work, back-and-forth communication
between all parties via email or fax, and the need to ensure everybody's
records are up-to-date and the same.
Blockchain and so-called "smart contracts" can
remove the need for all of this. When
the bales of cotton arrive at the port and are scanned, this automatically
triggers the smart contract to execute the terms, which would involve
transferring the ownership of goods and authorizing payment. This happens because there is a single
document agreed on by all parties and that is only completed once a certain
action has taken place.
Perspective. Convergence seems to require every technology to
try to be everything to everyone.
Facebook lets you make voice and video calls with Windows 10
app update
Don’t just send text messages and stickers to your
Facebook friends and family — voice and video call them, too. A long awaited update to the Facebook Windows 10 app now
allows users to go beyond the basic Messenger functionality, and it works just
like Messenger on Android and iOS. There’s
a phone icon in the top right corner of your screen within a chat, and when the
person you’re trying to reach is active, you can call them.
This means you no longer have to go to Messenger.com or
Facebook.com on your Windows device in order to make a voice or video call via
Facebook.
(Related)
Messaging apps are now bigger than social networks
Users around the world are logging in to messaging apps to
not only chat with friends but also to connect with brands, browse merchandise,
and watch content. What were once simple
services for exchanging messages, pictures, videos, and GIFs have evolved into
expansive ecosystems with their own developers, apps, and APIs.
Chat apps boast a number of distinct characteristics that
make their audiences particularly appealing to businesses and marketers,
including their size, retention and usage rates, and user demographics. The combined user base of the top four chat
apps is larger than the combined user base of the top four social networks. Chat apps also have higher retention and usage
rates than most mobile apps. Finally,
the majority of their users are young, an extremely important demographic for
brands, advertisers and publishers.
This could be useful.
EveryCRSReport.com is making 8,255 CRS reports available to
the general public
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Oct 23, 2016
“Congressional Research Service reports are the best way
for anyone to quickly get up to speed on major political issues without having
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are relied upon by academics, businesses, judges, policy advocates, students,
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important policy issues. The reports are
not classified and do not contain individualized advice to any specific member
of Congress. (More: What is a CRS report?) Until today, CRS reports were generally
available only to the well-connected. Now,
in partnership with a Republican and Democratic member of Congress, we are
making these reports available to everyone for free online. A coalition of public interest groups,
journalists, academics, students, some Members of Congress, and former CRS
employees have been advocating for greater access to CRS reports for over
twenty years. Two bills in Congress to
make these reports widely available already have 10 sponsors (S. 2639 and H.R. 4702, 114th Congress) and we urge Congress to
finish the job. This website shows
Congress one vision of how it could be done.
What does EveryCRSReport.com include? EveryCRSReport.com includes 8,255
CRS reports. The number changes
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