http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090421114109562
Congress to probe Lime Wire over 'inadvertent sharing'
Tuesday, April 21 2009 @ 11:41 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives has reopened an probe of Lime Wire and other peer-to-peer file sharing firms over the issue of "inadvertent sharing." The move comes nearly two months after it was alleged Iran took advantage of a computer security breach to obtain information about President Barack Obama's helicopter.
CNET News has obtained copies of the letters written by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission asking them for help investigate the recent rash of security breaches caused when people who use P2P software accidental share information on networks like Lime Wire or BearShare.
Source - cnet
Related?
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/e-papertrail-com-watch-over-your-representatives
e-PaperTrail.com - Watch Over Your Representatives
In a nutshell, this is a new site that will empower any citizen of the United States of America to watch the way his elected representatives operate. The site has three main features, and they go by the following names: “Bills & Resolutions”, “From The Floor” and “Head to Head”.
… “Bills & Resolutions” lets the user track the votes of representatives in the Senate and the House, in order to know how the latest legislation is shaping up.
… “From the floor” feature enables anybody to know what the representatives are saying both from the floors of the Senate and the House.
… “Head to Head” functionality will let you compare and contrast the voting history of any two representatives and learn how different their views are.
Sometimes you gotta do something to alleviate the boredom. (I wonder if the FBI surveils all teenage mall activities?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090421221105618
FBI workers charged with being electronic Peeping Toms
Wednesday, April 22 2009 @ 04:53 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The Associated Press reports that two FBI workers [Not agents – where were they? Bob] have been charged with conspiracy and committing criminal invasion of privacy. They are alleged to have used surveillance equipment [Binoculars? Bob] to spy on teenage girls as they undressed and tried on prom gowns at a charity event at a West Virginia mall.
Source - Breitbart.com
Interesting implications for computer searches... “We thought the suspect's computer controlled an evil robot.” What does this do to computer searches at the border?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090421223637713
High Court Curbs Power of Police to Search Cars
Wednesday, April 22 2009 @ 04:56 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The Supreme Court ruled that police couldn't search the car of a person arrested unless the officer's safety was threatened or there was reason to think the car contained evidence of a crime, reviving a constitutional protection against unreasonable searches.
Source - Wall Street Journal
Here's my plan. We buy up a bunch of old phones, then start the rumor that they can be hacked to tap into the President's BlackBerry...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090421163033665
Nokia mystified over criminal bid for old phones
Tuesday, April 21 2009 @ 04:30 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The mystery why cybercriminals want a discontinued Nokia phone isn't getting any clearer.
Hackers have been offering up to €25,000 (US$32,413) in undergrounds forums for Nokia 1100 phones made in the company's former factory in Bochum, Germany. The phone can allegedly be hacked so as to facilitate illegal online banking transfers, according to the Dutch company Ultrascan Advanced Global Investigations.
Source - Computerworld
[From the article:
The 1100 can apparently be reprogrammed to use someone else's phone number, which would also let the device receive text messages. That capability opens up an opportunity for online banking fraud.
In countries such as Germany, banks send an mTAN (mobile Transaction Authentication Number) to a person's mobile phone that must be entered into a web-based form in order to, for example, transfer money into another account. A TAN can only be used once, a security feature known as a one-time passcode.
So big, it looks like organized crime?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090422045231704
Finjan warns two million computers worldwide hit by giant botnet
Wednesday, April 22 2009 @ 04:59 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A cyber gang based in the Ukraine has created one of the largest bot networks the world has ever seen, with at least 1.9 million computers around the world converted into zombie machines.
Source - Silicon Republic
[From the article:
It said that only four out of 39 major antivirus products are capable of spotting the malware.
… The cybercrime server has been in use since February 2009, is hosted in the Ukraine and is controlled by a cyber gang of six people.
… Since the discovery of its findings, Finjan has provided US and UK law enforcement with information about the server. [What would law enforcement be able to do about it? Should they have tools to fight this kind of crime? See the next article... Bob] Finjan has also contacted affected corporate and government agencies to let them know they were part of the infected computer names.
Related
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/22/0153242&from=rss
Botnet Expert Wants 'Special Ops' Security Teams
Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 22, @08:02AM from the if-wishes-were-horses dept. Security
CWmike writes
"Criminal cybergangs must be harried, hounded and hunted until they're driven out of business, a noted botnet researcher said as he prepared to pitch a new anti-malware strategy at the RSA Conference in SF. 'We need a new approach to fighting cybercrime,' said Joe Stewart, director of SecureWorks' counterthreat unit. 'What we're doing now is not making a significant dent.' He said teams of paid security researchers should set up like a police department's major crimes unit or a military special operations team, perhaps infiltrating the botnet group and employing a spectrum of disruptive tactics. Stewart cited last November's takedown of McColo as one success story. Another is the Conficker Working Group. 'Criminals are operating with the same risk-effort-reward model of legitimate businesses,' said Stewart. [Haven't they always done so? Bob] 'If we really want to dissuade them, we have to attack all three of those. Only then can we disrupt their business.'"
Related
http://www.itworld.com/security/66647/botnets-reasons-its-getting-harder-find-and-fight-them
Botnets: Reasons It's Getting Harder to Find and Fight Them
by Bill Brenner
April 20, 2009, 09:11 AM — CSO — The perpetual proliferation of botnets is hardly surprising when one considers just how easy it is for the bad guys to hijack computers without tipping off the users.
Botnets have long used a variety of configurations, in part to disguise their control mechanisms -- see What a Botnet Looks Like. But as user-friendly but insecure applications continue to become available -- especially social networking programs used by the non-tech-savvy -- hackers have an ever growing number of security holes to choose from. They're also getting smarter about building resilient architectures, according to botnet hunters who have monitored recent activity.
Here are four reasons the botnet fight is getting harder, and what to do about it:
Related? Secure techniques should come with a guarantee...
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/man-sues-bank-o.html
U.K. Man Sues Bank Over 'Phantom' Withdrawals from Chip-and-PIN Account
By Kim Zetter April 21, 2009 11:30:00 AM
… After the Halifax bank refused to restore $3,100 that Alain Job says was stolen from his account, he filed suit last year and is set to state his case in court on April 30.
The case highlights the fragility of the chip-and-PIN security scheme that was launched in the UK in 2004 and became mandatory nationwide in early 2006. The system was supposed to have resolved questions about who was liable when funds were withdrawn from accounts, since only someone who possessed both the card and the PIN could theoretically make a withdrawl.
… But security experts have found several ways for criminals to clone the chips or fool ATMs into thinking a fake card is authentic. And the cards have another flaw. In order to be compatible with ATMs in the U.S. and elsewhere that read only magnetic-stripe cards, UK cards have a backup magnetic stripe on them. Thieves can still obtain the account number from the magnetic stripe using a skimmer installed on an ATM and then use a camera hidden in the ATM kiosk to capture the customer's PIN as he or she types it on the keypad.
Another security tip
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10224449-83.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
F-Secure says stop using Adobe Acrobat Reader
by Elinor Mills April 21, 2009 2:42 PM PDT
With all the Internet attacks that exploit Adobe Acrobat Reader people should switch to using an alternative PDF reader, a security expert said at the RSA security conference on Tuesday.
Of the targeted attacks so far this year, more than 47 percent of them exploit holes in Acrobat Reader while six vulnerabilities have been discovered that target the program, Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of security firm F-Secure, said in a briefing with journalists.
What's the next “Big Thing?”
http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/dual-perspectives/2009/04/20/The-End-of-the-Cell
The Future of the Phone: The End of the Cell
by Douglas Wolk
Wired.com reports: Soon "anytime minutes," "roll-over minutes," and even your mobile-phone contract will seem as quaint as the corner pay phone.
… Most Americans now have mobile phones, and a Nielsen Mobile report last year found that nearly one in five of us have cut the cord, abandoning our landline service entirely. Danny Kessler of Tempe, Arizona, is one of those people, except he has gone the next step: He recently gave up his cell-phone contract too. no hermit: He's a 27-year-old personal-safety instructor who has to be in touch with his clients. He just does all his telephoning via the internet. Today Kessler is an anomaly, but internet telephony (a.k.a. voice-over-internet-protocol, or VoIP) is in a position to dominate the phone business of the future just as mobile usurped the throne of the hard-wired handset.
… According to a recent Yankee Group report, 5.2 percent of Americans already use VoIP as their primary home phone.
Brief rant on the cost of bandwidth (nothing to do with the price)
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/21/1951212&from=rss
A Layman's Guide To Bandwidth Pricing
Posted by timothy on Tuesday April 21, @04:18PM from the don't-grant-local-monopolies dept.
narramissic links to IT World's A Layman's Guide to Bandwidth Pricing, writing
"Time Warner Cable has, for now, abandoned the tiered pricing trials that raised the ire of Congressman Eric Massa, among others. And, as some nice data points in a New York Times article reveal, it's good for us that they did. For instance, Comcast says it costs them $6.85 per home to double the internet capacity of a neighborhood. But the bit of the Times article that we should commit to memory is this: 'If all Time Warner customers decided one day not to check their e-mail or download a single movie, the company's costs would be no different than on a day when every customer was glued to the screen watching one YouTube video after another.'"
Related?
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/22/1211253&from=rss
The Road To Terabit Ethernet
Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 22, @08:43AM from the more-is-better dept. Networking
stinkymountain writes
"Pre-standard 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet products — server network interface cards, switch uplinks and switches — are expected to hit the market later this year. Standards-compliant products are expected to ship in the second half of next year, not long after the expected June 2010 ratification of the 802.3ba standard. Despite the global economic slowdown, global revenue for 10G fixed Ethernet switches doubled in 2008, according to Infonetics. There is pent-up demand for 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet, says John D'Ambrosia, chair of the 802.3ba task force in the IEEE and a senior research scientist at Force10 Networks. 'There are a number of people already who are using link aggregation to try and create pipes of that capacity,' he says. 'It's not the cleanest way to do things...(but) people already need that capacity.' D'Ambrosia says even though 40/100G Ethernet products haven't arrived yet, he's already thinking ahead to terabit Ethernet standards and products by 2015. 'We are going to see a call for a higher speed much sooner than we saw the call for this generation' of 10/40/100G Ethernet, he says."
Interesting, but unlikely. Yes, the technology is getting better, but that's no indication that students can or will use it.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/21/170202&from=rss
BYU Prof. Says University Classrooms Will Be "Irrelevant" By 2020
Posted by timothy on Tuesday April 21, @01:12PM from the not-into-job-security dept. Education Communications
dragoncortez writes
"According to this Deseret News article, University classrooms will be obsolete by 2020. BYU professor David Wiley envisions a world where students listen to lectures on iPods, and those lectures are also available online to everyone anywhere for free. Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free. He says, 'Higher education doesn't reflect the life that students are living ... today's colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed.' In the world according to Wiley, universities would still make money, because they have a marketable commodity: to get college credits and a diploma, you'd have to be a paying customer. Wiley helped start Flat World Knowledge, which creates peer-reviewed textbooks that can be downloaded for free, or bought as paperbacks for $30."
Another tool to use in my quest to know more and more about less and less.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/feedmil-com-a-search-engine-for-feeds
Feedmil.com - A Search Engine For Feeds
There is a long tail of feeds dong the rounds, and that comes as no surprise really. The vast majority of sites on the web today come complete with a RSS feed, and it is impossible to keep track of every single one. That happens for the simple reason that we can’t keep track of every site that surfaces, not even if we are interested in a given topic. That is why a search portal like this one has some intrinsic value – it will let you look up feeds that you might really like, and that would go unnoticed otherwise.
Sounds like Google is heading towards a social network? Sounds like a good way to establish the fact that I do own the Brooklyn Bridge and that it is for sale!
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/now_you_can_change_what_google_says_about_you.php
Now You Can Change What Google Says About You
Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / April 21, 2009 1:01 PM
… Starting today, searchers who enter only the word "me" in the search box will be given an opportunity to set up or edit their Google Profile.
When someone searches for a name that matches a Google Profile, that profile may now be displayed at the bottom of the search results page.
Curious factoid # 6799 (and by the way, I'm doubling what I charge for this blog!)
http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-us-now-has-more-paid-bloggers-than-lawyers-2009-4
U.S. Now Has Almost As Many Paid Bloggers As Lawyers
Henry Blodget|Apr. 21, 2009, 7:15 AM
More: Slate cofounder Scott Rosenberg digs around these numbers and finds reasons to be skeptical.
Some startling numbers pumped out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: The U.S. now has almost as many paid bloggers as lawyers.
Something for all my tech classes...
http://laptoplogic.com/resources/64-things-every-geek-should-know
64 Things Every Geek Should Know
April 21, 2009 at 03:04:28 AM, by Blair Mathis
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