Something fishy here...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080813054518248
Employees at Charter told data was stolen
Wednesday, August 13 2008 @ 05:45 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
Cable television operator Charter Communications Inc. is alerting employees, including some in Massachusetts, that their personal information was involved in a security breach that occurred when a number of laptop computers were stolen last month from a Charter media facility in Greenville, S.C.
“There was a break-in in our Greenville, S.C., office, and a number of employee laptops [probably not employee owned... Bob] were taken,” said Marty Richmond, a spokesman for St. Louis-based Charter. “In the process of identifying the information contained on the laptops, [We had no record of the information on the laptops... Bob] we discovered the personal information of about 9,000 current and former employees.”
Source - Telegram
[From the article:
Mr. Richmond declined to say how the laptops were used, why they contained the information [Probably another “we don't know” Bob] and whether the records were encrypted. [If they were encrypted, there was no need to disclose this breach. Bob]
... No customer information was involved, he said. [Interesting that “a number” of computers were being used ONLY to process employee information. Perhaps customer data is handled in India? Bob]
The breakouts are interesting...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080812103928891
Report Details Impact of Identity Theft in California
Tuesday, August 12 2008 @ 10:39 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A comprehensive study exploring the identity theft crisis in California was released today by Identity Theft 911®, a leading provider of identity management solutions. In addition to detailing the increasing diversity of identity-related fraud, the white paper highlights steps that state officials and businesses are taking to combat this growing problem.
... According to study's analysis of the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) complaints, nearly 1.5 million Californians were victims of identity theft in 2007, which is equivalent to 15 Rose Bowl stadiums of spectators having their identities stolen in one year. While stealing phone and utility services, and taking money through checking account takeovers or illegal money transfers, account for a vast majority of identity fraud-related activity, the report finds that certain groups in California are responsible for the continued increase in fraud cases in the state.
Source - The Earth Times Press Release
http://identitytheft911.org/home.htm California white paper: On the front lines of identity theft
Related Not sexy enough?
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/019025.html
August 12, 2008
Study: State AGs Fail to Adequately Protect Online Consumers
News release: "State attorneys general received thousands of consumer complaints of online fraud and abuse in 2006 and 2007 and yet, with the exception of several notable standouts, brought few significant cases in response, according to a report released today from the Center for American Progress and the Center for Democracy and Technology, Online Consumers at Risk and the Role of State Attorneys General."
Related? (The chart is interesting)
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/019030.html
August 12, 2008
Google Reports Virus Email Activity At All Time High In July 2008
Official Google Enterprise Blog: "In July, our Postini datacenters saw the biggest volume of email virus attacks so far in 2008, with a peak of nearly 10 million messages on July 24. One of the more prominent attacks in the month involved a spoofed UPS package-tracking link that was intended to lure recipients into clicking on it and downloading malware. Our zero-hour virus protection technology first started catching these emails on July 20."
Speaking of hacking... (Notice the number of “How to be an ethical hacker” ads surrounding this article...
http://www.physorg.com/news137743962.html
Hackers hacked at infamous DefCon gathering
Published: 07:12 EST, August 12, 2008
... A standing-room crowd cheered admiringly as Tony Kapela and Alex Pilosov showed them how they were "pwned" by a simple technique that could be used to "steal the Internet."
... "It's a nearly invisible exploitation," Kapela said while revealing a hack that exploits fundamental Internet routing procedure to hijack online traffic unnoticed. "A level of invisibility that is unparalled."
The beauty of the technique presented by Alex Pilosov and Kapela is that hackers don't need to break into websites or plant malicious computer code to control and tamper with data travelling the Internet, the presentation showed.
Instead, the Internet is duped into sending people's data to hackers.
CyberWar!!
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/12/191255&from=rss
Russia and Georgia Engaged In a Cyberwar
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 12, @03:10PM from the who-shot-first dept. Security Government The Internet The Military
doctorfaustus writes
"I first picked this up in bits and pieces last week off Daily Rotation. A more in-depth story is available at ZDNet, which reports 'a week's worth of speculations around Russian Internet forums have finally materialized into a coordinated cyber attack against Georgia's Internet infrastructure. The attacks have already managed to compromise several government web sites, with continuing DDoS attacks against numerous other Georgian government sites, prompting the government to switch to hosting locations to the US, [Does that make us Allies or Innocent bystanders? What does the Geneva Convention say about CyberWar? Bob] with Georgia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs undertaking a desperate step in order to disseminate real-time information by moving to a Blogspot account.' There is a question whether the computer work is being done by the Russian military or others. ZDNet's story offers further analysis of the attacks themselves and their origins. Some pretty good reporting."
And reader redbu11 contributes the news that Georgia seems to be censoring access to all Russian websites, as confirmed by a Georgian looking glass/nslookup tool. The access is blocked on DNS level (Italy censored the Pirate Bay in the same way). Here are a couple of screenshots (in a language other than English) as of Aug 12th 5:40 pm: www.linux.ru nslookup — FAIL, www.cnn.com nslookup — OK.
ComputerWorld guy CWmike adds "In an intriguing cyberalliance, two Estonian computer experts are heading to Georgia to keep the country's networks running amid an intense military confrontation with Russia. Poland has lent space on its president's Web page for Georgia to post updates on its ongoing conflict with Russia. Estonia is also now hosting Georgia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site."
Maybe it's not CyberWar
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10016152-83.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Kids, not Russian government, attacking Georgia's Internet, says researcher
Posted by Robert Vamosi August 13, 2008 6:00 AM PDT
Related
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/12/1616237&from=rss
Military Spends $4.4M To Supersize Net Monitoring
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday August 12, @12:45PM from the because-its-august dept. The Military Security
coondoggie writes
"Bigger, better, faster, more are the driving themes behind the advanced network monitoring technology BBN Technologies is building for the military. The high-tech firm got a $4.4 million contract today from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop novel, scalable attack detection algorithms; a flexible and expandable architecture for implementing and deploying the algorithms; and an execution environment for traffic inspection and algorithm execution. The network monitoring system is being developed under DARPA's Scalable Network Monitoring program which seeks to bolt down network security in the face of cyber attacks that have grown more subtle and sophisticated."
Related? Fortunately the US would never do anything like this... Oh, wait!
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080813054954656
Swedish surveillance law 'breaks EU rules'
Wednesday, August 13 2008 @ 05:49 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A lawyer at the European University Institute in Florence has reported Sweden's new surveillance law to the European Commission.
Lawyer Robin Lööf believes the law -- which allows the National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets Radioanstalt - FRA) to intercept all calls, emails and phone text messages crossing Swedish borders -- to be in clear breach of fundamental rights governing the movement of goods and services in the European Union.
Source - The Local
Related Tools & Techniques (Why should the hackers be the only ones who know how easy this is?) Perhaps this should be a class project...
http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Tap_a_Phone_Line
Tap a Phone Line
In the real world, setting up a wiretap is actually a snap. Regardless of which side of the law you're on, here are the steps to becoming a landline hacking super sleuth:
One of my students mentioned these in a presentation. I had forgotten them – thought it might be worth a reminder... (See, I do learn/relearn in these classes)
http://infotech.aicpa.org/Resources/Privacy/Generally+Accepted+Privacy+Principles/
Generally Accepted Privacy Principles
What happens when Digital Rights Management gets too aggressive?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/12/1120235&from=rss
Massive VMware Bug Shuts Systems Down
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday August 12, @09:49AM from the at-least-it-only-shut-down-the-virtual-ones dept. Bug Technology
mattmarlowe writes
"Imagine if Red Hat released a version of Linux, and after it was deployed, customers noticed that any processes with a start date of today would refuse to run? Well, that's what happened to VMware... a company that wants nearly all server applications running in virtual machines within a matter of years."
Supposedly a fix will be available... in 36 hours.
[From the article:
Apparently, there is some bug in the vmware license management code. VMware is scrambling to figure out what happened and put out a patch.
There is a major discussion going on in the vmware communities about it: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/162377?tstart=0
How does the IOC “own” this video? What could China offer (or threaten) to induce them to take this action?
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/12/1127220&from=rss
YouTube Yanks Free Tibet Video After IOC Pressure
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday August 12, @11:16AM from the ioc-is-not-very-nice dept. Censorship Politics
RevWaldo writes
"The International Olympic Committee filed a copyright infringement claim yesterday against YouTube for hosting video of a Free Tibet protest at the Chinese Consulate in Manhattan Thursday night. The video depicts demonstrators conducting a candlelight vigil and projecting a protest video onto the consulate building; the projection features recent footage of Tibetan monks being arrested and riffs on the Olympic logo of the five interlocking rings, turning them into handcuffs. YouTube dutifully yanked the video, but it can still be seen on Vimeo. (Be advised; there is some brief footage of bloody, injured monks.)"
Are we going mad? Is there something in the water in Massachusetts that makes people ignorant? “I don't understand it, therefore it's evil!”
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/12/182243&from=rss
Home Science Under Attack In Massachusetts
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 12, @02:10PM from the and-the-yellow-phthalate-too dept.
An anonymous reader tips a guest posting up on the MAKE Magazine blog by the author of the Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments. It seems that authorities in Massachusetts have raided a home chemistry lab, apparently without a warrant, [hard to get with no hint of a crime... Bob] and made off with all of its contents. Here's the local article from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
"Victor Deeb, a retired chemist who lives in Marlboro, has finally been allowed to return to his Fremont Street home, after Massachusetts authorities spent three days ransacking his basement lab and making off with its contents. Deeb is not accused of making methamphetamine or other illegal drugs. He's not accused of aiding terrorists, synthesizing explosives, nor even of making illegal fireworks. Deeb fell afoul of the Massachusetts authorities for... doing experiments... Pamela Wilderman, the code enforcement officer for [the Massachusetts town of] Marlboro stated, 'I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation.' Allow me to translate Ms. Wilderman's words into plain English: 'Mr. Deeb hasn't actually violated any law or regulation that I can find, but I don't like what he's doing because I'm ignorant and irrationally afraid of chemicals, so I'll abuse my power to steal his property and shut him down.'"
For those of us old enough to remember 78s... Grab them before the ghost of Mozart claims copyright and shuts him down! Some in ARABIC, JAPANESE, and GREEK
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/12/211218&from=rss
Digitizing Rare Vinyl
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 12, @10:55PM from the quarter-taped-to-the-tone-arm dept. Music
eldavojohn writes
"While the RIAA is busy changing its image to a snake eating its own tail, one man is busy digitizing out-of-print 78s. 'There's a whole world of music that you don't hear anymore, and it's on 78 RPM records,' he stated to Wired. Right now, you can find about 4,000 MP3s on his site, with no digital noise reduction implemented yet."
For you Kindle users? This might be useful, but I'm not sure it searches better than a Google Advanced Serch, limited to PDF extensions.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/pdfgeni-com-find-pdf-books
PDFGeni.com – Find PDF Books
If you have ever tried to search for books using the most common search engines, then you know that actually finding one can be tough. Thankfully, there is Pdfgeni.com. Through this search engine, you’ll be able to search the web for PDF files, and nothing else.
... One great thing about the site is that you can preview the files before downloading them. This allows you to see if the book you found is the one you were looking for. The preview loads really quickly and should serve as an alternative for anyone who doesn’t want to download the texts, and needs them for quick reference. Allowing to preview the files is a great feature that makes the site a lot more useful.
Free is good! Warning! Don't give this to your kids! It could turn them into GEEKS! Carnegie Mellon University does some neat things every once in a while...
Alice
Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.
History!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10015817-60.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
August 12, 2008 4:29 PM PDT
Do you remember where you were when this happened?
Posted by Charles Cooper 17 comments
Sometimes when you look at the calendar, well, it's better not to look in the first place.
So it is that today marks an anniversary guaranteed to freak out a good percentage of you who remember this event: Twenty-seven years ago today IBM introduced its first personal computer. Twenty-seven years! Take a deep breath and say thanks for the memories, I guess. (Hey, it's better than the alternative!)
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