Is security so trivial a concept that Secret documents are no more important than yesterday's newspaper, or is there another factor at work? (see next article)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4115588.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084
Intelligence official suspended over al-Qaeda file left on train
Sean O’Neill and Jill Sherman From The Times June 12, 2008
Secret files on the al-Qaeda threat and the Iraqi security forces were left on a train by a senior intelligence official, the Cabinet Office said yesterday. Last night the department said that the man at the centre of the investigation into the loss of the documents had been suspended from his job.
The government documents were in an orange cardboard envelope, which was left on a commuter train between Waterloo Station in London and Surrey on Tuesday.
A passenger picked it up, realised what was inside and passed the contents to the BBC, which last night handed the documents to police.
... The official believed to have left the documents on the train is a senior civil servant working in the Cabinet Office’s intelligence and security unit.
Related? Discrimination or not, what the hell are they thinking? Perhaps we should offer a class: “How to look dumb on your Police Aptitude Test?”
METRO NEWS BRIEFS: CONNECTICUT; Judge Rules That Police Can Bar High I.Q. Scores
Published: September 9, 1999
A Federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a man who was barred from the New London police force because he scored too high on an intelligence test.
In a ruling made public on Tuesday, Judge Peter C. Dorsey of the United States District Court in New Haven agreed that the plaintiff, Robert Jordan, was denied an opportunity to interview for a police job because of his high test scores. But he said that that did not mean Mr. Jordan was a victim of discrimination.
Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected.
Mr. Jordan, 48, who has a bachelor's degree in literature and is an officer with the State Department of Corrections, said he was considering an appeal. ''I was eliminated on the basis of my intellectual makeup,'' he said. ''It's the same as discrimination on the basis of gender or religion or race.''
G8 nations talk ID crime at annual summit
Ministers from the Group of Eight nations hear that some estimates put the cost of ID crime in the U.S. at $50 billion last year and at $100 billion in Europe
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service June 12, 2008
... Recognizing the growing sophistication of criminals and the increasing importance of identity documents in our ever-more digital lives the ministers discussed the issue for a little over an hour at the summit in Tokyo. [Well, that should solve the problem,,, Bob]
Coming soon to a cell phone near you!
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001455.html
419 SMS scams
Posted by Mikko @ 14:31 GMT
There's a ongoing SMS / email fraud underway.
How long before this is located on one of the archive sites and made available to everyone?
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kozinski12-2008jun12,0,6220192.story
Judge suspends L.A. obscenity trial after conceding his website had sexual images
By Scott Glover, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 12, 2008
A closely watched obscenity trial in Los Angeles federal court was suspended Wednesday after the judge acknowledged maintaining his own publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos.
Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, granted a 48-hour stay in the obscenity trial of a Hollywood adult filmmaker after the prosecutor requested time to explore "a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a . . . sexually explicit website with similar material to what is on trial here."
In an interview Tuesday with The Times, Kozinski acknowledged posting sexual content on his website. Among the images on the site were a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. He defended some of the adult content as "funny" but conceded that other postings were inappropriate.
Kozinski, 57, said that he thought the site was for his private storage and that he was not aware the images could be seen by the public, although he also said he had shared some material on the site with friends. After the interview Tuesday evening, he blocked public access to the site.
... Kozinski has a reputation as a brilliant legal mind and is seen as a champion of the 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression. Several years ago, for example, after learning that appeals court administrators had placed filters on computers that denied access to pornography and other materials, Kozinski led a successful effort to have the filters removed. [That is unlikely to help in his defense.. Bob]
... Before the site was taken down, visitors to http://alex.kozinski.com were greeted with the message: "Ain't nothin' here. Y'all best be movin' on, compadre."
Related? Using “scientific” research in defense?
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080610-bikini-effect.html
The Bikini Effect Makes Men Impulsive
By Robin Nixon, Special to LiveScience posted: 10 June 2008 ET
... It wasn't that the men were simply distracted by their sexual arousal, which caused them to choose more impulsively. On the contrary, they exhibited improved cognition and creativity after exposure to sexy stimuli.
Status of the ubiquitous surveillance society in the UK
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/018573.html
June 11, 2008
Report on the "Surveillance Society" by the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee
UK House of Commons, Home Affairs Committee, A Surveillance Society? Fifth Report of Session 2007–08 Volume I Report, together with formal minutes Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 20 May 2008.
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee - A Surveillance Society? Fifth Report of Session 2007–08, Volume II, Oral and written evidence, Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 20 May 2008.
"We call on the Government to give proper consideration to the risks associated with excessive surveillance. Loss of privacy through excessive surveillance erodes trust between the individual and the Government and can change the nature of the relationship between citizen and state. The decision to use surveillance should always involve a publicly-documented process of weighing up the benefits against the risks, including security breaches and the consequences of unnecessary intrusion into individuals’ private lives. Our Report sets out a series of ground rules for Government and its agencies to build and preserve trust. Unless trust in the Government’s intentions in relation to data collection, retention and sharing is carefully preserved, there is a danger that our society could become a surveillance society. The potential for surveillance of citizens in public spaces and private communications has increased dramatically over the last decade, making it possible for what the Information Commissioner calls “the electronic footprint” we leave in our daily lives to be built up into a detailed picture of our activities. This has prompted growing concern about a wide range of issues relating to the collection and retention of information about individuals."
For your Security Geek...
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/06/malware_silently_alters_wirele_1.html
Malware Silently Alters Wireless Router Settings
A new Trojan horse masquerading as a video "codec" required to view content on certain Web sites tries to change key settings on the victim's Internet router so that all of the victim's Web traffic is routed through servers controlled by the attackers.
According to researchers contacted by Security Fix, recent versions of the ubiquitous "Zlob" Trojan (also known as DNSChanger) will check to see if the victim uses a wireless or wired hardware router. If so, it tries to guess the password needed to administer the router by consulting a built-in list of default router username/password combinations. [Always change the default password Bob] If successful, the malware alters the victim's domain name system (DNS) records so that all future traffic passes through the attacker's network first. DNS can be thought of as the Internet's phone book, translating human-friendly names like example.com into numeric addresses that are easier for networking equipment to handle.
... The other, more important reason this shift is scary is that a Windows user with a machine infected with a Zlob/DNSChanger variant may succeed in cleaning the malware off an infected computer completely, but still leave the network compromised. Few regular PC users (or even PC technicians) think to look to the router settings, provided the customer's Internet connection is functioning fine.
... Sunbelt also found that if there are multiple machines using the same router, all of the systems connected to that router will have their traffic hijacked. [At least the whole family Bob]
... Relatively few people ever change the default username and password on their wireless routers. [This site provides a list of all those default passwords Bob]
... Specific, manufacturer-based video tutorials on how to secure your wireless router are available at this link here. [This site tells you how to change them Bob]
If there was ever a program that needed to be reverse engineered and published as open source, this is it – although I don't see how we could make it mandatory... On the other hand, think of the applications for controlling the behavior of second class citizens!
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/12/0310200&from=rss
Microsoft Applies For "Digital Manners" Patent
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 12, @04:54AM from the what-mouse-do-you-use-for-salad dept. Microsoft Patents
SirLurksAlot writes
"Ars Technica reports that Microsoft has recently applied for a patent for a technology which would attempt to enforce manners in the use of cell phones, digital cameras, DVRs and other digital devices. According to the article the technology could be used to bring common social conventions such as 'No flash photography' and 'No talking out loud' to these devices by disabling features or disabling the device entirely. The article also points out that the technology could be implemented in situations involving sensitive equipment, such as in airplanes or hospitals. The patent application itself is also an interesting read, as it describes a number of possible uses for the technology, including 'in particular zones to limit the speed and/or acceleration of vehicles, to require the use of lights, to verify an indication of insurance coverage and/or current registration, or the like.' While this technology could certainly be of interest to any number of organizations one has to wonder how the individuals who own devices which obey so-called 'Digital Manners Policies' would feel about it."
Hardware hacking: “Because we copyright the (software/music/video) you can't modify your (iPhone/CD player/VCR)”
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080612/0055131385.shtml
Mod Chips Found Legal In The UK
from the mod-away dept
For many years, we've wondered why some folks considered the process of mod chipping to be illegal. After all, if you own a device, why shouldn't you be able to modify it? It's not illegal to modify your computer, so why would it be illegal to modify a game console? Well, thanks to the DMCA in the US, the question wasn't entirely clear -- because console makers use encryption, they consider any modification to be a circumvention of that encryption, and the DMCA has that pesky anti-circumvention clause. In the US, it's become even more bizarre, with federal officials taking up the cause and fining mod chippers while claiming (seriously) that mod chipping was a national security issue.
Luckily, it looks like the courts in Europe are a lot more reasonable about all of this. A few years back, we noted that an Italian court ruled that mod chips were perfectly legal. And, now, a tipster alerts us to the news that a UK appeals court has found the same thing, tossing out all of the charges against a mod chip seller, noting that mod chips do not circumvent copy protection systems. Not only that, but the defendant was awarded legal fees. This is a big deal, as the lower court had found the guy, Neil Higgs, guilty for selling mod chips he had imported from Hong Kong. So, now that's Italy and the UK that recognizes modifying your gaming consoles shouldn't be illegal. Anyone else?
This will no doubt evolve from an Elisa-like text chat to full motion 3-d video interaction (as soon as the Holodeck starts working properly) Meanwhile, it still might be interesting.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/virsona-com-breathing-life-into-the-dead/
Virsona.com - Breathing Life into the Dead
Although historical legends such as Abe Lincoln and Marilyn Monroe are long dead and gone, social media company Virsona has brought them back to life as revived virtual personas. Virsona resurrects the dead and breathes life into fictional characters via their interactive chat platform. You can actually chat with famous figure via what is essentially instant messaging. The characters learn to interact as more information about them is input into the database—this can be done by any registered community member. Thus, as you ask the digital persona questions, it will answer using the information programmed into it. Each figure has a wiki like data sheet page, where you can find out vital facts such as birth date and place, along with accomplishments and education. Users can also create their own virsonas for departed pets and loved ones. [Okay, that's weird... Bob]
If you have an interest/specialty you should try Google Trends... I searched for 'eDiscovery' and got evidence that the world changed late in 2006.
Google Trends
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