These
are trivial, unless they happen to you. Do you have a procedure that
would defeat this type of crime?
Far
North council scammed out of $100,000 after supplier's email hacked
The
Far North District Council has ramped up its cyber security systems
after being scammed out of just over $100,000 by computer hackers.
The
cyber-attack occurred last December, when one of its Auckland-based
supplier's emails was hacked and the council received a request to
change the supplier's bank account details.
The
council implemented the change and paid $100,600.30 into the
fraudulent bank account over the holiday period.
… "We
have since added extra measures to our verification process and these
will significantly reduce the likelihood of this type of fraud
occurring again."
The
evolution of hacking crime. Is your data worth more to a crook than
it is to you?
Sodinokibi
Gang Starts a New Trend Among Ransomware Operators by Launching an
Auction Site
The
mantra of having a data backup to protect oneself from ransomware
attacks has gone for a
toss. Today, ransomware gangs have upped their tactics by
stealing their victims’ data and in some cases auctioning it off on
dark web markets with an intent to make quick money.
A
(video) podcast. There is a transcript.
Does
conscious AI deserve rights?
Does
AI—and, more specifically, conscious AI—deserve moral rights? In
this thought exploration, evolutionary biologist Richard
Dawkins,
ethics and tech professor Joanna
Bryson, philosopher
and cognitive scientist Susan
Schneider,
physicist Max
Tegmark,
philosopher Peter
Singer,
and bioethicist Glenn
Cohen all
weigh in on the question of AI rights.
Technically,
access is a yes or no decision.
If
there’s anyone’s amicus brief on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
(CFAA) I’d want to read, it would be Orin Kerr’s. Today, he is
submitting an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on a big CFAA case:
Nathan
Van Buren v. United States of America.
From
his brief, the “INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE” section:
Orin S. Kerr is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He has written extensively about 18 U.S.C. § 1030, known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). His experience includes working as a lawyer in CFAA cases fromthe prosecution side, criminal defense side, and civil defense side; testifying about the law before congressional committees; and helping to draft amendments to it. The interest of amicus is the sound development of the law.
Here’s
just one paragraph to hopefully encourage you all to read the whole
brief:
This case asks the Court to settle what makes access unauthorized—in the words of the statute, either an access “without authorization” or an act that “exceeds authorized access.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2). The question is hard because two different theories of authorization exist. The first theory, based on technology, is universally accepted. The second theory, based on words, is deeply controversial. This case asks whether CFAA liability is limited to the first theory or if it also extends to the second theory.
You
can read his brief here.
Perspective.
Cognitive
Electronic Warfare Could Revolutionize How America Wages War With
Radio Waves
The
U.S. military, like many others around the world, is investing
significant
time and resources into
expanding its electronic
warfare capabilities across
the board, for offensive and defensive purposes, in
the air. at
sea,
on
land,
and even
in space.
Now, advances in machine
learning and artificial intelligence mean
that electronic warfare systems, no matter what their specific
function, may all benefit from a new underlying concept known as
advanced "Cognitive Electronic Warfare," or Cognitive EW.
The main goal is to be able to increasingly automate and otherwise
speed up critical processes, from analyzing electronic intelligence
to developing new electronic warfare measures and countermeasures,
potentially in real-time and across large swathes of networked
platforms.
Over
the Horizon,
an online journal that officers and academics from the U.S. Air
Force's Air Command and Staff College established, published an
interesting piece on the principles behind Cognitive EW and the
potential benefits of its application on July 3, 2020. The article,
which Air Force Major John Casey wrote, is worth
reading in full.
Perspective.
Covid is getting expensive.
Economists
Think Congress Could Create An Economic Disaster This Summer
Congress
has less than a month to hammer out a deal on the next round of
stimulus before expanded
unemployment benefits expire.
State and local governments are starting
to feel the pinch of
budget shortfalls. And while the U.S. got
a piece of (relatively) good news in
last week’s jobs
report,
which featured an unemployment rate 2.2 percentage points lower in
June than it had been in May, the economy has been thrown back into
chaos in the meantime, with a
number of states pulling
back on their reopenings amid spiking COVID-19 infections and
hospitalizations.
Our
newest survey
of economists highlights
just how consequential governmental decisions over the next month may
be: On average, these economists think that a refusal by Congress to
extend unemployment benefits or bail out state and local governments
is just as likely to hurt the economy as local economies staying open
in spite of COVID-19 spikes — or even closing because of the virus.
(Related)
Another look at Covid economics.
The
Great Innovation Deceleration
The
rise of the West is often traced back to the Black Death of the
mid-1300s, which killed over 40% of Europe’s population. For
example, some historians think that the resulting labor scarcity
increased the bargaining power of peasants in the West, which led to
the end of serfdom and to higher standards of living but failed to
bring about institutional change in the East.
Many
parallels between COVID-19 and the Black Death have been drawn, but
most of them are unhelpful. In a medieval economy, fewer people
meant more land per person and a higher income for the average
citizen. The opposite is true in today’s knowledge-based economy,
since ideas are non-rivalrous and, unlike land, can be used by
everyone simultaneously.
Perspective.
Is this worth $98?
Walmart’s
Amazon Prime competitor will launch in July
Walmart+
will cost $98 a year and include same-day delivery of groceries, fuel
discounts, and other perks.
Culture
for shut-ins.
The
Voyage Complete – Remarkable Reading of The Rime of The Ancient
Mariner
University
of Plymouth – The Arts Institute – The
Ancient Mariner Big Read –
“The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner is
a founding fable of our modern age. We are the wedding guests, and
the albatross around the Mariner’s neck is an emblem of human
despair and our abuse of the natural world. Yet in its beautiful
terror there lies a wondrous solution – that we might wake up and
find ourselves saved. Art knows no boundaries. The
Ancient Mariner Big Read is
an inclusive, immersive work of audio and visual art from the 21st
century that reflects the sweeping majesty and abiding influence of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 18th century epic poem.
