On a Tuesday night last October in Olympia, Wash., 911
operator Jennifer Rodgers stared at the list of incoming calls on her screen.
Normally, one or two calls at a time would trickle in at
this hour. At 9:28 p.m., they began
stacking up by the dozens like lines on an Excel spreadsheet.
An alarm alerting operators to unanswered 911 calls filled
the room. It almost never sounds more
than once. Tonight, it was going off
constantly.
Ms. Rodgers had no idea what was happening. People in Olympia, a city of about 50,000 an
hour’s drive south of Seattle, and the surrounding county were dialing 911 and
hanging up before their calls were answered. Then they were dialing 911 again.
After about 15 minutes, a girl stayed on the phone long enough
for Ms. Rodgers, a 911 operator for 15 years, to say through her headset:
“Don’t hang up! Don’t hang up!”
“We didn’t mean to call 911!” the operator recalls the
girl saying. “I’m not touching the
phone! I’m not doing anything! I don’t know how to make it stop!”
For at least 12 hours on Oct. 25 and Oct. 26, 911 centers
in at least a dozen U.S. states from California to Texas to Florida were
overwhelmed by what investigators now believe was the largest-ever cyberattack
on the country’s emergency-response system.
… Federal and
state officials have worried that America’s aging 911 system is vulnerable to
hackers. The October cyberattack
confirmed those fears and sent investigators scrambling to answer two
questions: Who launched it? And why?
How my Computer Security students should start their
Budget process.
What’s Your Data Worth?
In 2016, Microsoft Corp. acquired the online professional
network LinkedIn Corp. for $26.2 billion. Why did Microsoft consider LinkedIn to be so
valuable? And how much of the price paid was for LinkedIn’s user data — as
opposed to its other assets? Globally,
LinkedIn had 433 million registered users and approximately 100 million active
users per month prior to the acquisition. Simple arithmetic tells us that Microsoft paid
about $260 per monthly active user.
Did Microsoft pay a reasonable price for the LinkedIn user
data? Microsoft must have thought so —
and LinkedIn agreed.
Speculation or wishful thinking?
Trump Inherits a Secret Cyberwar Against North Korean
Missiles
I guess it is in their power to bypass the warrant.
FCC grants emergency waiver to combat Jewish center bomb
threats
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced
Friday it had issued an emergency waiver to allow law enforcement to
temporarily access caller-ID information for those making anonymous threats
against Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) across the country.
How my students can cause disruption and become extremely wealthy!
How Insurers Can Protect Against Digital Disruption
The U.S. insurance industry is among the largest in
the world, with net premiums written totaling $1.2 trillion in 2015, according
to the Insurance Information Institute.
… A Gartner report
showed that “only 12% of insurance business and IT leaders consider their
organizations to be digitally progressive, while most believe that their
organizations are digital beginners or intermediate, at best.”
… In 2015, more
than $800 million in risk capital was invested in insuretech startups, according to Tradestreaming.
Pascal Bouvier, venture partner at Santander InnoVentures,
told Tradestreaming that the profit and growth
opportunities in insurance technology are “immense” because “the industry has
barely been touched as of yet by [digital] disruption.”
Another ‘take’ on Internet access. Probably would not work here.
Wifi Dabba wants to help stores in India provide low-cost
internet access
… as incumbent
network providers battle among themselves and outside third-parties struggle to
break in, the cost of the internet remains unreachable for many people. Wifi Dabba
is a startup with a mission to bring low-cost internet access to India,
starting in retail stores.
… By installing
Wi-Fi access points at small merchant locations such as tea stalls and
bakeries, customers can purchase internet time the same way as baked goods and
beverages. “In India, there is a tea
stall or a bakery every 100 yards in every city. [In the US,
that would be Starbucks. Bob]
There are an estimated 50 million such
micro-businesses in the country.
Is this the right thing to do or the ‘far left’ thing to
do?
Massachusetts might tax self-driving cars to prevent the rise
of 'zombie cars'
Introduced in late January, the twin bills would tax
self-driving cars per mile and allow large municipalities to ban them
altogether, the Northeast-focused news website Metro reported.
… The proposal is
meant to curtail the rise of "zombie cars," or driverless
vehicles that drive in circles waiting for a customer instead of parking, Lewis
told The Boston Globe.
… The bill also
requires self-driving cars to be marked as autonomous vehicles, be
zero-emission vehicles if they weigh less than 8,500 pounds, store data
required by the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, and have a panic
button.
As far as I can see, they view Snap as just another
channel. Disappearing has nothing to do
with it, it’s how long teenagers watch Snap (hours per day).
NBCUniversal invests $500 million in Snap's IPO
Comcast Corp's NBCUniversal
has invested $500 million in Snapchat owner Snap Inc, according to a memo on
Friday, its latest move aimed at driving digital growth as more viewers go
online for their favorite content.
Like other traditional U.S.
media companies, NBCU is pushing more into digital media, and over the past 18
months it has invested $400 million in online publisher Buzzfeed and $200
million in Vox Media, operator of The Verge and Recode news.
… NBCUniversal
has already launched entertainment programs such as The Voice, SNL and E! News'
The Rundown on Snapchat, and said in its memo that it expects to launch more
shows on the disappearing-message app in the coming weeks.
We’ve already paid for it, why not see if we can use it?
NASA grants free access to its technologies in latest
software release
NASA has released its 2017-2018 software catalogue free of
charge to the public, without any royalty or copyright fees.
… This third edition of the
publication has contributions from all the agency’s centres on data
processing/storage, business systems, operations, propulsion and aeronautics. …
Each catalogue entry is accompanied with a plain language description of what
it does.
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