I would be a lot more comfortable if
this question didn't keep coming up.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/is-it-possible-to-wage-a-just-cyberwar/258106/
Is
It Possible to Wage a Just Cyberwar?
In the last week or so, cyberwarfare
has made front-page news: the United States may have been behind the
Stuxnet
cyberattack on Iran; Iran may have suffered another digital
attack with the Flame
virus; and our military and industrial computer chips may or may
not be compromised by backdoor
switches implanted by China. These revelations suggest that the
way we fight wars is changing, and so are the rules.
This digital evolution means that it
is now less clear what kind of events should reasonably trigger a
war, as well as how and when new technologies may be used.
With cyberweapons, a war theoretically could be
waged without casualties or political risk, [The belief that
“political risk” is minimized or eliminated is freightening,
since war occurs only between two polities... Bob] so
their attractiveness is great -- maybe so irresistible that nations
are tempted to use them before such aggression is justified. This
essay identifies some important ethical issues that
have been upturned by these emerging digital weapons,
which in turn help explain why national cyberdefense is such a
difficult policy area.
“It's like they are one of us!”
Google
to Warn Possible Victims of State-Sponsored Spying
Two years ago, Google took the unusual
move of going public with information that its network had been
hacked and that the intruders were interested in getting into the
Gmail accounts of political activists.
Now the company has taken the
unprecedented move of providing online security warnings for users
who might be the target of state-sponsored spying.
In a blog
post published Tuesday, the company said that for a “subset”
of users who the company believes may be the target of
state-sponsored attacks, they would be providing a message, in black
type on a pink background, that will appear at the top of the user’s
account page.
… This raises the obvious question,
of course–how Google can determine that the activity is
state-sponsored. Google anticipated the question:
“We can’t go into the details
without giving away information that would be helpful to these bad
actors, but our detailed analysis—as well as victim
reports—strongly suggest the involvement of states or groups that
are state-sponsored.”
Ubiquitous surveillance. Perspective.
With the current US population at 311,591,917,
that means there is surveillance on about 1 in 10,000... Sound like
a reasonable number?
"U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen
Smith estimates in a
new paper (PDF) that 30,000
secret surveillance orders are approved each year in U.S. courts.
'Though such orders have judicial oversight, few emerge from any
sort of adversarial proceeding and many are never unsealed at all.'
Smith writes, 'To put this figure in context, magistrate judges in
one year generated a volume of secret electronic surveillance cases
more than thirty times the annual number of
FISA cases; in fact, this
volume of ECPA cases is greater than the combined yearly total of all
antitrust, employment discrimination, environmental, copyright,
patent, trademark, and securities cases filed in federal court.'
He also adds a warning: 'Lack of transparency in judicial
proceedings has long been recognized as a threat to the rule of law
and roundly condemned in ringing phrases by many Supreme Court
opinions.'"
Ubiquitous surveillance. What the well
dressed patrol officer is wearing this year.
Police
Body-Worn Video Evidence Hits the Cloud
With body-worn video cameras only being
used by little more than 6 percent of police nationwide, VIEVU is
looking to make the technology more affordable and practical by
storing video evidence in the cloud.
… Body-worn cameras, about the size
of a pager that clips onto a lapel or belt, are said to be more
effective than in-car cameras, providing a “‘police perspective’
and factual accuracy into critical incidents while dismissing
erroneous ‘eye-witness’ accounts, and offers the only foil
against the staggering monetary lawsuits brought against law
enforcement agencies nationwide,” VIEVU said.
The company cites a study
sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police
(PDF), which finds that in 93 percent of police-misconduct cases
where video is available result in the officer’s exoneration, and
half of complaints are immediately withdrawn when video evidence is
used. It also said 94 percent of citizens support the use of video.
Soon we won't need Lawyers at all!
"It's not unusual for a
freelance Web designer or developer to be burnt when a client refuses
to pay up, citing one excuse or another. And what can you do about
it? If a contract only amounts to a few thousand dollars, litigation
to recover your fee can be far too expensive, and an increasingly
vituperative exchange of emails is often not enough for client and
contractor to come to agreement over who owes whom what. Into this
gap steps judge.me: A start-up
founded by Peter-Jan Celis that aims to provide internet-based,
legally binding arbitration services — a 'small claims court' for
the internet — with a particular eye on settling
the conflicts that arise over freelance development and Web design."
For those of us who occasionally need
to be a Twit...
The Twitter website interface has
undergone a number of changes since its inception, and some would
argue that the current
Twitter interface is all good and dandy.
But then there are others, like me, who
don’t particularly enjoy using Twitter’s home interface. Whether
it’s due to aesthetic reasons (it’s ugly!) or simply a matter of
inconvenience (I have to keep that tab open!), you may want to look
into a more standalone solution – a desktop Twitter client.
These free desktop Twitter clients will
allow you to interact with all of Twitter’s goodness without having
to pop open a new browser tab. These programs run in the background
and continually update with new tweets and messages. And the best
part is that you won’t have to pay a cent.
If you’re looking for Twitter clients
for other platforms, check out these lists for Mac,
Linux,
and the iPad.
Websites for young loopy managers...
It doesn’t really matter how you got
into IT management, you still need to know both how to manage well
and how to lead a team of geeks.
As far as online entertainment goes,
this means your ideal morning RSS feed should contain both management
gems and important news in the world of IT.
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