The Global Economic Damage of Internet Blackouts
Last weekend, cellphones across Iraq lit up with the same
text message. “Dear subscriber,” the
message read in Arabic. “On instructions
from the Ministry of Communications, internet access will be cut off every day
between October 1 and 8, from 6 to 9 a.m. These instructions were issued to every
internet service provider.”
The scheduled blackouts coincided with the third round of
national placement exams for sixth graders in Iraq; the blackouts are intended
to keep students from cheating. The
country has made a habit of interrupting internet access nationwide during the
exams: I wrote about another
episode in detail earlier this year.
Intentional, government-instigated internet blackouts are
becoming more and more common. And when
governments choose to shut off the internet—if not to prevent cheating, then to
stifle political protests, as in Egypt in 2011 or in Gabon just this month,
or ostensibly to fight terrorism, as in Iraq in 2014—the
downtime can have far-ranging consequences. It prevents citizens connecting with the rest
of the world. It can make it difficult
to request emergency services. If a
country’s already experiencing unrest, it can give cover to serious
human-rights abuses.
The type of government that’s willing to darken the
internet for hours or even days on end may not be particularly moved by the
free-speech or human-rights implications of a blackout. But it’s difficult to ignore the side effects
detailed in a new report
from Brookings, which studies the widespread damage even a short hiccup in
connectivity can deal to a country’s economy.
A technique hackers could use to increase the impact of
data they release. In this case they
might change the result of some drug tests.
If they release huge volumes of the private emails of presidential
candidates, what might they change?
Russian Hackers May Have Manipulated Leaked WADA Data
In a statement published Wednesday, October 5, the World
Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) provided an update on investigations into the August
Fancy Bear hack and data leak in
September. FireEye/Mandiant has been
employed to do the forensic investigation. As of Oct. 5, the investigation is 90%
complete and has found no evidence of any additional compromise.
The statement
also suggests that some of the leaked data may have been manipulated by the
hackers before public release. "It should also be noted," says
WADA, "that in the course of its investigation, WADA has determined that
not all data released by Fancy Bear (in its PDF documents) accurately reflects
ADAMS data.
A starting point.
Online or on paper, get the latest FTC identity theft info
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Oct 6, 2016
“Looking for information on dealing with identity theft? The FTC has new and revised identity theft
publications that reflect features of IdentityTheft.gov that make it
easier to report and recover from identity theft. Here’s what’s hot off the presses:
My students had a couple of interesting questions on
Wednesday. Did Yahoo know about the hack
or not? Would it make a difference to
Verizon?
Verizon is pushing for a $1 billion discount off its
pending $4.8 billion agreement to buy Yahoo, several sources told The Post
exclusively.
The request comes on the heels of the web giant getting
bludgeoned by bad news in the past few days.
Yahoo revealed two weeks ago that it had been hacked in
2014 and that users names and passwords for 500
million accounts were swiped.
Then, earlier
this week, it was learned that Yahoo had been ordered by a secret Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court to scan emails for terrorist signatures.
“In the last day we’ve heard that Tim [Armstong] is
getting cold feet. He’s pretty upset
about the lack of disclosure and he’s saying can we get out of this or can we
reduce the price?” said a source familiar with Verizon’s thinking.
Surely all my students know how to do this already?
How to Create Google Alerts
In one of yesterday's posts I mentioned using Google Alerts to track
a topic on the web. A few hours after I
published that post I was asked for clarification about how to create a Google
Alert. In the following video I
demonstrate how to create a Google Alert.
(Related) Do they know about all of these?
The internet is the go-to destination for students
desperate to get ahead on their homework. However, many students aren’t using some of
the best resources that the internet has to offer.
Something for my nephew?
Duolingo’s chatbots help you learn a new language
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