http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20081013045550187
Data “Dysprotection:” breaches reported last week
Monday, October 13 2008 @ 04:55 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee.
Source - Chronicles of Dissent
For my Spreadsheet class...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2008101307204117
Indonesia's blunder on privacy
Monday, October 13 2008 @ 07:20 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
Amid concern on privacy and security on the Internet, Indonesian Ministry of Education put up a database of students online in details and down-loadable files. There are at least 36 million students database listed on the website in the excel files containing names, date and place of birth and addresses!
Source - Toekang IT blog, cnet Asia
...and if she doesn't have copies, there's always that kid in Tennessee...
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/1747220&from=rss
Court Rules That Palin Must Save Yahoo Emails
Posted by timothy on Sunday October 12, @03:19PM from the hope-yahoo's-ok-with-that dept. The Courts Data Storage Government Privacy United States
quarterbuck writes
"An Anchorage judge has ruled that Governor Sarah Palin must save her emails, as they were apparently used for state business. Last week a Tennessee man was arrested over hacking one of her Yahoo email accounts. The Washington Post also reports that Sarah Palin, her husband, and officials had set up email accounts known only to each other."
“We didn't mean voluntary voluntary, we meant manditory voluntary.”
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20081013071050248
UK: 'ID card guinea pig' pilots ready to call in lawyers
Monday, October 13 2008 @ 07:10 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) union has warned it may seek a judicial review of the government's ID cards scheme to prevent pilots being forced to carry identity cards.
... "[The review] would be on the basis that we are told repeatedly by ministers that the ID card scheme is voluntary but how can it be voluntary if we stand the prospect of losing our jobs?" he said.
Source - Silicon.com
Meanwhile back in the US, we're turning off Congressional e-mail because Congress doesn't want to be bothered...
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/019537.html
October 12, 2008
Commission consults on how to put Europe into the lead of the transition to Web 3.0
News release, September 29, 2008: "Europe could take the lead in the next generation of the Internet. The European Commission today outlined the main steps that Europe has to take to respond to the next wave of the Information Revolution that will intensify in the coming years due to trends such as social networking, the decisive shift to on-line business services, nomadic services based on GPS and mobile TV and the growth of smart tags. The report shows that Europe is well placed to exploit these trends because of its policies to support open and pro-competitive telecom networks as well as privacy and security. A public consultation has been launched today by the Commission on the policy and private sector responses to these opportunities. The Commission report also unveils a new Broadband Performance Index (BPI) that compares national performance on key measures such as broadband speed, price, competition and coverage. Sweden and the Netherlands top this European broadband league, which complements the more traditional broadband penetration index used so far by telecoms regulators."
The Commission Communication on Future networks and the Internet
Press factsheet: Broadband Performance Index - Monitoring high-speed Internet access in the EU
GO India! Meanwhile back in the US: I had to disconnect the phone to stop all those political ads. Seems I live in (at least) 12 congressional districts...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20081013071800712
In: TRAI disconnects more than 10,000 telemarketers' phones news
Monday, October 13 2008 @ 07:18 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
New Delhi: Telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, (TRAI) has disconnected 10,051 telephones of telemarketers for repeatedly violating the 'National Do Not Call Registry' (NDNC) a database of telephone numbers of subscribers who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial calls, that was operationalised on 12 October 2007.
Source - domain-b.com
Includes support for Office 2007 formats.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1211224&from=rss
OpenOffice.org 3.0 Is Officially Here
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 13, @08:30AM from the who-needs-office-anyway dept. Software
SNate writes
"After a grinding three-year development cycle, the OpenOffice.org team has finally squeezed out a new release. New features include support for the controversial Microsoft OOXML file format, multi-page views in Writer, and PDF import via an extension. Linux Format has an overview of the new release, asking the question: is it really worth the 3.0 label?"
Crime does pay?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1217216&from=rss
Yahooo Hacker 'Mafiaboy' Eight Years On
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 13, @09:15AM from the cashing-in-on-your-crimes dept. Security IT
An anonymous reader writes
"Eight years ago Mafiaboy (Michael Calce) knocked Yahoo offline. Today he he works as a legitimate security consultant and has just published a book documenting his criminal career and offering advice on how people can protect themselves from people like him on the Internet."
For your Security manager: Time to upgrade!
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/1724230&from=rss
Elcomsoft Claims WPA/WPA2 Cracking Breakthrough
Posted by timothy on Sunday October 12, @02:12PM from the it-budget-excuse-par-excellence dept. Graphics Security Wireless Networking Hardware
secmartin writes
"Russian security firm Elcomsoft has released software that uses Nvidia GPUs to speed up the cracking of WPA and WPA2 keys by a factor of 100. Since the software allows them to network thousands of PCs, this anouncement effectively signals the death of wireless networking in business networks; any network handling sensitive data should start using VPN encryption on machines connecting over Wi-Fi networks, or stop using these networks altogether."
IT Strategy: The pendulum swings again. This doesn't happen in all industries at the same time. While some are centralizing others are decentralizing – and for exactly the same reasons – control! (The comments reflect the various arguments...)
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0557215&from=rss
New York Times Says Thin Clients Are Making a Comeback
Posted by timothy on Monday October 13, @02:01AM from the dialectic-materialism dept
One of the seemingly eternal questions in managing personal computers within organizations is whether to centralize computing power (making it easy to upgrade or secure The One True Computer, and its data), or push the power out toward the edges, where an individual user isn't crippled because a server at the other side of the network is down, or if the network itself is unreliable. Despite the ever-increasing power of personal computers, the New York Times reports that the concept of making individual users' screens portals (smart ones) to bigger iron elsewhere on the network is making a comeback.
Another IT strategy: When markets crash, it is cheaper to buy companies with oil reserves than to explore for new oil. Same with Market Share...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10063951-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Who needs an open-source strategy? You do
Posted by Matt Asay October 11, 2008 2:33 PM PDT
It's no surprise that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is on the prowl to acquire more companies, as reported by CNET, given that it gives him a chance to go shopping on the cheap.
.If times are tough, there are other opportunities...including making acquisitions that cost less....[A]cquisitions that we've been looking at for some time are less expensive for us.
Yet another IT Strategy: Cheaper than $100 laptops and it includes power and Internet.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10063733-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
NComputing lands big India deal
Posted by Ina Fried October 13, 2008 2:00 AM PDT
Redwood City start-up NComputing, whose technology uses the power of a single PC to power up to seven computing terminals, is set to announce on Monday that it has started the process of equipping 5,000 schools in India with its technology.
NComputing will provide about 50,000 students [more like 50,000 PCs Bob] with access to the Internet as part of the deal, which will use two PCs in each computer lab to power 10 terminals at schools in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The deal itself is part of a $100 million effort that includes operating and powering the lab for five years, as well as all the needed gear. NComputing's chunk of that is about $2 million.
For my Security Process Engineering class
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/10/threat_modeling_1.html
October 13, 2008
Threat Modeling at Microsoft
Interesting paper by Adam Shostack:
Abstract. Describes a decade of experience threat modeling products and services at Microsoft. Describes the current threat modeling methodology used in the Security Development Lifecycle. The methodology is a practical approach, usable by non-experts, centered on data ow diagrams and a threat enumeration technique of 'STRIDE per element.' The paper covers some lessons learned which are likely applicable to other security analysis techniques. The paper closes with some possible questions for academic research.
For my Small Business classes: Location, location, location.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/zoomprospector-com-business-relocation-tool
ZoomProspector.com - Business Relocation Tool
The placement of a business is no easy matter – actually, it can determine the viability or not of a specific venture. Bearing this in mind, it is useful to have a tool like ZoomProspector at hand.
This web-based service (which has just come out of private beta) enables the interested party to find the best location for a given business by weighing up a myriad of aspects and factors.
The site makes for both a community and a property search. The former takes into consideration communities that exactly match the location requirements that the user specifies beforehand. Moreover, a ranked list of communities that best match a concrete business can be displayed. It is important to mention that communities that have a population that amounts to less 65,000 individuals are not taken into account.
For its part, the featured property search lets the user set down criteria like State, property type and minimum and maximum size of the premises. An interactive map is included as well for browsing convenience.
Finally, the site also features an advanced search tool that seems to merge together the two search options that have been just described, as both geography and community qualities are considered.
No doubt they have solid scientific research backing these tests – perhaps from the RIAA legal department?
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/spies-launch-cy.html
Spies Launch 'Cyber-Behavior' Investigation
By Noah Shachtman October 12, 2008 | 11:27:00 AM
A while back, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said it wanted to start reviewing wannabe spies' "cyber behavior," before they handed the spooks security clearances. Suspect activities might include "social network usage," "compulsive internet use," "distribution of pirated materials," and "online contact with foreign nationals," the ODNI said.
Back when I was a kid, we didn't have eyes, so we didn't watch music videos... (Why no Classical Videos? “Boppin' with Bach,” “Moving with Mozart,” “”Rocking wid Ravel”)
http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/j1vebox-com-watch-music-videos-online
J1VEBOX.com - Watch Music Videos Online
There is a preponderance of music video sites on the web, and they just keep on rolling along. A new contender is the J1VEBOX website. This particular portal has all the usual goodies and features, namely a large archive that can be accessed with ease and features that make for community interaction.
The featured database of artists can be searched using the provided tool. This returns not only exact matches but also approximate results. Of course, it is also possible to browse by category, and these include “Best Rock Songs”, “Hip-Hop”, “Pop” and “Latin” to name just a few. In addition to that, video files of note are spotlighted under the “Top Videos” and “New Videos” headings. These are also spotlighted on the main page, alongside the “Video of the day”.
Oh the horror! (...and we're so easily detected by satellite!)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/1931233&from=rss
Baldness Gene Discovered — 1 In 7 Men "At Risk"
Posted by timothy on Sunday October 12, @04:30PM from the see-wikipedia-on-caucasian_race dept. Biotech It's funny. Laugh. Science
FiReaNGeL writes
"Researchers conducted a genome-wide association study of 1,125 Caucasian men who had been assessed for male pattern baldness. They found two previously unknown genetic variants on chromosome 20 that substantially increased the risk of male pattern baldness. They then confirmed these findings in an additional 1,650 Caucasian men. 'If you have both the risk variants we discovered on chromosome 20 and the unrelated known variant on the X chromosome, your risk of becoming bald increases sevenfold. What's startling is that one in seven men have both of those risk variants.'"
So maybe gene therapy will finally have a real purpose.
No comments:
Post a Comment