Thursday, November 12, 2020

Another change in strategic Computer Security thinking.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-urges-users-to-stop-using-phone-based-multi-factor-authentication/

Microsoft urges users to stop using phone-based multi-factor authentication

The Microsoft exec cites several known security issues, not with MFA, but with the state of the telephone networks today.

Weinert says that both SMS and voice calls are transmitted in cleartext and can be easily intercepted by determined attackers, using techniques and tools like software-defined-radios, FEMTO cells, or SS7 intercept services.





Too much disclosure to catch on? Perhaps California could add this to their next Privacy law update…

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/11/privacy-nutrition-labels-in-apples-app-store.html

Privacy Nutrition Labels” in Apple’s App Store

Apple will start requiring standardized privacy labels for apps in its app store, starting in December:

Apple allows data disclosure to be optional if all of the following conditions apply: if it’s not used for tracking, advertising or marketing; if it’s not shared with a data broker; if collection is infrequent, unrelated to the app’s primary function, and optional; and if the user chooses to provide the data in conjunction with clear disclosure, the user’s name or account name is prominently displayed with the submission.
Otherwise, the privacy labeling is mandatory and requires a fair amount of detail. Developers must disclose the use of contact information, health and financial data, location data, user content, browsing history, search history, identifiers, usage data, diagnostics, and more. If a software maker is collecting the user’s data to display first or third-party adverts, this has to be disclosed.
These disclosures then get translated to a card-style interface displayed with app product pages in the platform-appropriate App Store.

The concept of a privacy nutrition label isn’t new, and has been well-explored at CyLab at Carnegie Mellon University.





Settle yes, but what should you settle for?

The FTC Zoom Case: Does the FTC Need a New Approach?

As I mentioned yesterday on DataBreaches.net in noting the FTC settlement with Zoom, two commissioners dissented from the settlement — and they dissented because they felt that the settlement didn’t do enough to protect or serve consumers.

Prominent privacy scholars Daniel Solove and Woody (Woodrow) Hartzog have written about their dissents and the settlement in a new piece, The FTC Zoom Case: Does the FTC Need a New Approach?

As scholars who have been supportive of the FTC’s approach in the past, they continue to support the use of settlements as opposed to costly and protracted litigation, but they do agree with the dissenting commissioners that certain recommendations should be implemented.

Read their commentary on LinkedIn.





A very interesting perspective.

JAIC Chief Asks: Can AI Prevent Another 1914?

What does the three-star director of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center worry about? “Let me start in 1914,” said Lt. Gen. Michael Groen.

Yes, 1914 – I see the look on your face,” Groen told the moderator of an online forum Friday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

1914 was the last time great powers went to war after decades of relative peace, using radically new technology they didn’t really understand. Back then, Groen said, the result was infantry with bayonets and cavalry with lances trying to charge machine gun nests, futilely pitting muscle power against mechanical power. In the 21st century, he fears, “the Information Age equivalent of… lancers riding into machine guns” is using traditional command, control, and planning processes against an adversary using artificial intelligence, pitting human brainpower against machine speed.



(Related)

https://www.militaryaerospace.com/sensors/article/14187088/radar-jet-fighter-artificial-intelligence

Britain's Tempest sixth-generation jet fighter will have high-speed radar, artificial intelligence (AI)

The companies building the United Kingdom's Tempest sixth-generation fighter aircraft have revealed some of the enabling technologies that be part of the new plane, including a radar system designed to handle as much data per second as a city.

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

11 Nov. 2020 – Under development for the Royal Air Force (RAF), the Tempest will be one of the first sixth-generation jet fighter aircraft. It's designed to complement current combat craft like the F-35 Lightning II and the Typhoon fighters starting in the mid-2030s until the older warplanes are retired in the 2040s.

The stealth fighter will be able to carry hypersonic missiles and control drone swarms, and produce large amounts of electricity so it can power laser weapons.

Along with this, the twin-engine, delta-wing Tempest will have reconfigurable artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber-hardened communications that enable it to act as a flying command and control center, where the pilot acts more as a supervisor than as a dog fighter.





Because gold is boring?

https://www.bespacific.com/retail-might-be-struggling-but-the-rich-are-buying-rare-books/

Retail Might Be Struggling, But the Rich Are Buying Rare Books

Bloomberg via MSN: “Even as independent bookstores struggle to survive, rare books and manuscripts have proven a rare bright spot in the industry. “It’s almost like two businesses,” says Kenneth Gloss, the owner of Brattle Book Shop in Boston. “As far as the general used-book business, it’s been off.” His third floor of rare and antiquarian books, though, is doing nearly as well as it ever has. “People are at home, the stock market is doing well, so people with spare funds are sitting home, bored and buying a lot of books,” Gloss says. The same phenomenon has occurred in categories as disparate as jewelry and classic cars. Rich people are still rich, and they’re still spending serious amounts of money on things that bring them joy—and perhaps, a return on investment later. The market for extremely rare books has been healthy for years, dealers say, but quantifying its ups and downs is difficult, because “if you’re talking about a book with many comparables over time, you’ve missed the top of the market,” says Darren Sutherland, a specialist in Bonham’s rare books department in New York.”



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