Not so sophisticated... Our Scouts
didn't think enough to send our Recruiters out to offer Ethical
Hacking scholarships (Which are NEVER based on grades..)
CA:
Students busted for hacking computers, changing grades
January 29, 2012 by admin
Iain Thomson reports:
Three high school
juniors have been arrested after they devised a sophisticated hacking
scheme to up their grades and make money selling quiz answers to
their classmates.
The students are
accused of breaking into the janitor’s office of California’s
Palos Verdes High School and making a copy of the master key, giving
them access to all the classrooms. They then attached keylogging
hardware to the computers of four teachers, and harvested the
passwords needed to access the central files of the school network.
They then used
that access to change their grades slightly, nudging them up by
increments so that all three got As. At the time they were caught,
keyloggers were found on three other teachers’ systems, indicating
the group was expanding its efforts.
Read more in The
Register.
Did I miss this as it happened? Why
would any firm help a hacker?
"The SEC has filed charges
against a trader in Latvia for conducting a widespread
online account intrusion scheme in which he manipulated the
prices of more than 100 NYSE and Nasdaq securities by making
unauthorized purchases or sales from hijacked brokerage accounts.
The SEC also went after four online trading firms and eight
executives who are said to have helped the hacker make more than
$850,000 in ill-gotten funds. The SEC's actions occurred on the same
day that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) issued
an investor alert and a regulatory notice about an increase in
financially motivated attacks targeting email."
[From the article:
The SEC alleges that Igors Nagaicevs,
who has not been served with the charges due to the fact he is
overseas, broke into online brokerage accounts more
than 150 times over the last 14 months, [Must be easy to do. Did
the SEC send out alerts? Bob]
… To make matters worse, four firms
were charged with allowing the transactions, because they did not
register Nagaicevs as a legitimate broker. Each of
the trading firms provided him online access to trade directly in the
U.S. markets through an account held in the firm’s name.
“These firms provided unfettered
access to trade in the U.S. securities markets on an essentially
anonymous basis,” said Daniel M. Hawke, Chief of the SEC’s Market
Abuse Unit.
“Security, it's not just for desktops
anymore...”
"Kate
Murphy writes that as cellphones have gotten smarter, they have
become less like phones and more like computers, and that with more
than a million phones worldwide already hacked, technology experts
expect breached, infiltrated or otherwise compromised
cellphones to be the scourge of 2012. Cellphones
are often loaded with even more personal information than PCs,
so an undefended or carelessly operated phone can result in a
breathtaking invasion of individual privacy as well as the potential
for data corruption and outright theft. But there are a few common
sense ways to protect yourself: Avoid free, unofficial versions of
popular
apps that often have malware hidden in the code, avoid using
Wi-Fi in a Starbucks or airport which leaves you open to hackers, and
be wary of apps that want permission to make phone calls, connect to
the Internet or reveal your identity and location."
Pickens continues: "One common
ruse is a man-in-the middle attack when a target receives a text
message that claims to be from his or her cell service provider
asking for permission to 'reprovision' or otherwise reconfigure the
phone's settings due to a network outage or other problem. Don't
click 'O.K.' Call your carrier to see if the message is bogus. For
the more paranoid, there are supersecure
smartphones like the Sectéra Edge by General Dynamics,
commissioned by the Defense Department for use by soldiers and spies
which may soon be available to the public in the near future. 'It's
like any arms race,' says mobile security consultant Michael Pearce.
'No one wins, but you have to go ahead and fight anyway.'"
“In order to save the data we had to
destroy the data.” Didn't we find this strategy a bit lacking back
in the late 60's? Anyone think this might help define the rights of
honest customers who happen to get caught up in the netting of other
fish?
MegaUpload
data could be erased Thursday, says report
The Associated
Press reports that in a letter filed last Friday in the
MegaUpload piracy case, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern
District of Virginia said Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications
Group--companies MegaUpload hired to store data--may begin deleting
that data come Thursday.
MegaUpload's assets
have been seized by the government, and its bank accounts have
been frozen, Hence, MegaUpload can no longer pay companies like
Carpathia and Cogent for their services, the AP reports.
… Many millions of people worldwide
have allegedly used
MegaUpload's cyberlocker service to store and access unauthorized
copies of TV shows, feature films, songs, porn, and software.
But some customers used MegaUpload for above-board practices like
sharing large (and legal) files and backing up legitimate files.
The TSA is going global (Teachers
Strip-search Anyone?)
NZ:
Principals want power to search students
January 30, 2012 by Dissent
Sam Thompson reports:
Principals want
the power to search students for weapons and drugs this year.
Thousands of
students are heading back to school this week.
President of the
Secondary Schools Principals Association Patrick Walsh says
guidelines were developed last year, but he wants the Education Act
changed.
“Two give
schools specifically the power of search and seizure, issues around
weapons in schools and students bringing in drugs in schools are not
going away and we believe that would act as an important deterrent.”
Mr Walsh says
believes they can maintain the rights of students against blanket
searches.
Read more on NewsTalkZB
“What do you expect when your mere
scientific facts contradict my brilliant political opinion?”
Remember, if they fire you before you blow the whistle, it's not
retaliation... Is it?
FDA
workers sue agency over monitoring personal e-mails
January 30, 2012 by Dissent
Ellen Nakashima and Lisa Rein report:
The Food and Drug
Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of
its own scientists and doctors after they warned
Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that posed
unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show.
The surveillance —
detailed in e-mails and memos unearthed by the scientists and
doctors, who filed a lawsuit against the FDA in U.S. District Court
in Washington this week — took place over two years as the
plaintiffs accessed their personal Gmail accounts from government
computers.
Read more in The
Washington Post.
What your strategy is should match what
your strategy seems to be... Perhaps a dialog with your customers
BEFORE you spring draconian measures on them would be a friendlier
approach? If you are selling an ongoing service, why do all your
customers think they purchased a product?
"Studios and publishers are
fighting back hard against the used game market, with the upcoming
title Kingdoms
of Amular, the latest to declare it will use a content lock. In
this case, KoA ups the ante by locking out part of the game that's
normally available in single-player mode. Gamers exploded, with many
angry that game content that had shipped on
the physical disc was locked away and missing, as
well as being angry at the fact that content
was withheld from used game players. One forum
thread asking if the studio fought back against allowing EA to lock
the content, went on for 49 pages before Curt Shilling, the head of
38 Studios, took to the forums himself. His commentary on the
situation is blunt and to the point. 'This is not 38 trying to take
more of your money, or EA in this case, this is us rewarding people
for helping us! If you disagree due to methodology, ok, but that is
our intent... companies are still trying to figure out how to receive
dollars spent on games they make, when they are bought. Is that
wrong? if so please tell me how.'"
'cause laws is laws even (especially?)
when no two people can agree on their meaning...
January 29, 2012
Code
of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries
"The Association of Research
Libraries (ARL) announces
the release of the Code
of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries
2012, a clear and easy-to-use statement of fair and reasonable
approaches to fair use developed by and for librarians who support
academic inquiry and higher education. The Code was developed in
partnership with the Center for Social Media and the Washington
College of Law at American University. Winston Tabb, Johns Hopkins
University Dean of University Libraries and Museums and President of
ARL, said, “This document is a testament to the collective wisdom
of academic and research librarians, who have asserted careful and
considered approaches to some very difficult situations that we all
face every day.”
(Related) See what I mean?
"Mitt Romney's campaign is
airing an ad that is basically 30 seconds lifted from an NBC News
broadcast and NBC
is trying to stop them from using the ad. I found it interesting
that the Romney campaign is invoking fair use to defend the ad.
Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said 'we believe it falls within fair
use. We didn't take the entire broadcast; we just took the first 30
seconds.'"
A subtle change that points to the
Cloud?
Meet
Bill Gates, the Man Who Changed Open Source Software
… As more and more applications
move from local data centers to “cloud” services such as Amazon
Web Services and, yes, Microsoft Azure, the economics
of software are shifting. In the past, businesses paid
companies like Microsoft for software and loaded it on their own
servers. Now, businesses pay to use online services instead. In
offering open source software atop Azure, there’s a clear way for
Microsoft to actually make money.
“With Azure, we make money from
compute and storage and bandwidth,” says Hilf, who now oversees
Azure. “We want to offer as many types of
applications and as many types of systems as we can, so
they can help that flywheel spin…. We don’t see [Node.js] on
Azure as altruistic. We see it as a way to drive
business.”
… Yes, Microsoft is demanding —
and in many cases, receiving royalties — from companies selling
devices that run Android, an operating system based on Linux. This
shows that its place in the world remains
complicated. Though it’s moving to the web, it is still very
much a company that makes money selling software — and it still has
an interest in protecting this business. But these battles aren’t
always what they seem. Android isn’t as
much an open source project as a Google project.
The world is not black and white. And
neither is the world of software. Not everyone realizes this. But
Bill Gates did. And Microsoft is the better for it.
(Related) So, does he really get it?
(And why do we need a national database of student and teacher
information?)
"Discussing U.S. education in
his 2012
Annual Letter, Bill Gates notes the importance of 'tools and
services [that] have the added benefit of providing
amazing visibility into how each individual student is
progressing, and generating lots of useful data that teachers can use
to improve their own effectiveness.' Well, Bill is certainly putting
his millions where his mouth is. The Gates Foundation has ponied up
$76.5 million for a
controversial
student data tracking initiative that's engaged Rupert
Murdoch's Wireless Generation to 'build the open
software that will allow states to access a shared,
performance-driven marketplace of free and premium tools and
content.' If you live in
CO, IL, NC, NY, MA, LA, GA, or DE, it's coming
soon to a public school near you."
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