45,000 Facebook Users Leave One-Star Ratings After Hacker's
Unjust Arrest
Over 45,000 users have left one-star reviews on a
company's Facebook page after the business reported a security researcher to
police and had him arrested in the middle of the night instead of fixing a
reported bug.
… The young man
discovered that he could access BKK's website, press F12 to enter the browser's
developer tools mode, and modify the page's source code to alter a ticket's
price.
Because there was no client or server-side validation put
in place, the BKK system accepted the operation and issued a ticket at a
smaller price.
… The teenager —
who didn't want his name revealed — reported the issue to BKK, but the
organization chose to contact the police and file a complaint, accusing the
young man of hacking their systems.
… BKK management
made a fatal mistake when they brazenly boasted in a press conference about
catching the hacker and declaring their systems "secure." Since then, other security flaws in BKK's
system have surfaced on Twitter. [This flags their system as ‘hackable’ and challenges
hackers at the same time. Probably not a
wise decision. Bob]
Not very subtle. A
clear message from Big Brother, “I don’t trust you.” Will hackers find a way to spoof this
App?
China forces its Muslim minority to install spyware on their
phones
China has ramped up surveillance measures in Xinjiang,
home to much of its Muslim minority population, according to reports from Radio Free Asia.
Authorities sent out a notice over a week ago instructing
citizens to install a "surveillance app" on their phones, and are
conducting spot checks in the region to ensure that residents have it.
… Android users
were instructed to scan the QR code in order to install the Jingwang app that
would, as authorities claimed, "automatically detect terrorist and illegal
religious videos, images, e-books and electronic documents" stored in the
phone. If illegal content was detected,
users would be ordered to delete them.
Users who deleted, or did not install the app, would be
detained for up to 10 days, according to social
media users.
How do we block/detect/mitigate these attacks?
RAND Report: The Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” Propaganda
Model
by on
The Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” Propaganda Model – Why It
Might Work and Options to Counter It, by Christopher Paul and Miriam
Matthews, RAND Corporation
“Since its 2008 incursion into Georgia (if not before),
there has been a remarkable evolution in Russia’s approach to propaganda. The country has effectively employed new
dissemination channels and messages in support of its 2014 annexation of the
Crimean peninsula, its ongoing involvement in the conflicts in Ukraine and
Syria, and its antagonism of NATO allies. The Russian propaganda model is high-volume
and multichannel, and it disseminates messages without regard for the truth. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive,
and it lacks commitment to consistency. Although these techniques would seem to run
counter to the received wisdom for successful information campaigns, research
in psychology supports many of the most successful aspects of the model. Furthermore, the very factors that make the
firehose of falsehood effective also make it difficult to counter. Traditional counterpropaganda approaches will
likely be inadequate in this context. More effective
solutions can be found in the same psychology literature that explains the
surprising success of the Russian propaganda model and its messages.”
Bashing companies with no underlying theory as justification
seems to be a trend. If a company
competes globally, are they automatically too big because they are bigger than
companies that do not go after global markets?
Should
America’s Tech Giants Be Broken Up?
As a former tour manager for Bob Dylan and The Band,
Jonathan Taplin isn’t your typical academic. Lately, though, he’s been busy writing somber
tomes about market shares, monopolies, and online platforms. His conclusion: Amazon.com, Facebook, and Google have
become too big and too powerful
and, if not stopped, may need to be broken up.
Very interesting.
References a University of Colorado Law Library study that suggests that
even the best legal search engines are inadequate if used alone.
New on LLRX – The Real “Black Box” Dilemma of Legacy Legal
Research Tools
by on
Via LLRX – The Real “Black Box” Dilemma of Legacy Legal Research
Tools – Andrew Arruda, CEO/Co-founder of ROSS Intelligence
talks about how new artificial intelligent methods currently under development
to leverage deep learning and neural nets will be game changers in the area of
legal research.
Another “This is good for you” study. Since I drink coffee in the morning, have a
glass of wine in the evening, and read constantly, I might live forever!
Science concurs with librarians about value of reading actual
books
by on
Mic.com – “It’s no secret that reading
is good for you. Just six minutes of reading is enough to reduce stress by 68%, and numerous studies have
shown that reading keeps your brain functioning effectively as you age.
One study even found that elderly individuals
who read regularly are 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than their peers. But not all forms of reading are created
equal. The debate between paper books
and e-readers has been vicious since the first Kindle came out in 2007. Most arguments have been about the sentimental
versus the practical, between people who prefer how paper pages feel in their
hands and people who argue for the practicality of e-readers. But now science has weighed in, and the
studies are on the side of paper books. Reading in
print helps with comprehension. A
2014 study found that readers of a short mystery story on a Kindle were significantly worse at remembering
the order of events than those who read the same story in paperback. Lead researcher Anne Mangen of Norway’s
Stavanger University concluded that “the haptic and tactile feedback of a
Kindle does not provide the same support for mental reconstruction of a story
as a print pocket book does.”
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