Makes for an interesting Strategy
discussion in the Ethical Hacking class. One obvious reason would be
that they “own” many computers that we don't yet know about.
The creators of the Flame
cyber-espionage threat ordered infected computers still under their
control to download and execute a component designed to remove all
traces of the malware and prevent forensic analysis, security
researchers from Symantec said on Wednesday.
Flame has a built-in feature called
SUICIDE that can be used to uninstall the malware from infected
computers. However, late last week, Flame's creators decided to
distribute a different self-removal module to infected computers that
connected to servers still under their control, Symantec's security
response team said in a blog
post. [Again obvious. If you wanted to study
Flame, you would remove the “self-destruct” option. Bob]
Ubiquitous Surveillance. Something for
Mom, Dad, and the neighborhood stalker... (and apparently there is a
market)
ZenTracker is an application that is
compatible with major smartphones. It allows parents to keep a watch
on their children’s location through their phone. By defining
places on the map, you can also get alerts and notifications by text,
e-mail or Twitter messages as your child leaves or enters that
defined place.
There are two pricing plans for
ZenTracker. The Lite plan is free and supports only up to two mobile
devices with no e-mail, SMS or Twitter alerts. However, the Premium
package supports up to six mobile devices, with every alert and up to
five days of Location history.
God help all mystery writers... If
“could they” becomes “they must” who assumes liability for
failures?
Could
Cops Use Google To Prevent Murder?
At around 3:45 a.m. on March 24,
someone in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., used a mobile phone to Google
“chemicals
to passout a person.” Then the person searched Ask.com for
“making people faint.” Then Google again, for “ways to kill
people in their sleep,” “how to suffocate someone,” and “how
to poison someone.”
The phone belonged to 23-year-old
Nicole Okrzesik. Later that morning, police allege, she and her
boyfriend strangled 19-year-old Juliana Mensch as she slept on the
floor of their apartment. The Google searches, along with
incriminating
text messages between Okrzesik and her boyfriend, came to light
as authorities investigated Mensch’s death. But what if they could
have been alerted to the suspicious-sounding searches immediately?
Could they have rushed to the apartment and saved the girl’s life?
This was inevitable... I can see a
market for video streamed directly to your lawyer's office.
ACLU
Phone App Lets You Shoot the Cops
The New York chapter of the American
Civil Liberties Union has released an Android application allowing
mobile-phone users to easily capture police patdowns on video, which
is then automatically uploaded to the rights group’s servers.
The “Stop
& Frisk Watch” application, which is soon coming to the
iPhone, is in response to the New York Police Department having
stopped,
frisked and interrogated people at least 685,724 times last year
alone. About 87 percent of those stopped were black or Latino, and
90 percent of those stopped were neither ticketed nor arrested.
The app is programmed to work only in
New York City
No problem. We just change that to a
“definite 99 years.”
Court
Halts Law Allowing Indefinite Detention of Americans
A federal judge is blocking legislation
authorizing the government to indefinitely detain without trial an
“individual who was part of or substantially supported” groups
“engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition
partners.”
Tuesday’s decision by a New York
federal judge halts a key terror-fighting feature of the 2011
National Defense Authorization Act and is a blow to the Obama
administration. The government urged U.S. District Judge Katherine
B. Forrest not to adopt a nationwide ban on the measure, saying
the move would be “extraordinary” and “unwarranted”
(.pdf).
But the judge, ruling in a case brought
by journalists and political activists, said the law was too vague
and did not provide clear guidance on whom the government could
indefinitely detain.
“We use words that don't mean what
they mean just as we use laws that aren't really laws and improbable
probable cause and uberpoenas rather than subpoenas...”
Attorney General Eric Holder claimed
during congressional testimony today that internal Justice Department
emails that use the phrase “Fast and Furious” do not refer to the
controversial gun-walking operation Fast and Furious.
Under questioning from Rep. Jason
Chaffetz (R-Utah), who read excerpts of the emails at a House
Judiciary Committee hearing on Justice Department oversight, Holder
claimed that the phrase “Fast and Furious” did not refer to Fast
and Furious but instead referred to another gun-walking operation
known as “Wide Receiver.”
However, the emails refer to both
programs -- "Fast and Furious" and the "Tucson case,"
from where Wide Receiver was launched -- and reveal Justice
Department officials discussing how to handle media scrutiny when
both operations become public
Another technology I get to learn.
Isn't that cool?
"As the self-proclaimed 'cloud
OS for the datacenter,' OpenStack is fast
becoming one of the more intriguing movements in open source —
complete with lofty ambitions, community in-fighting, and commercial
appeal. But questions remain whether this project can reach its
potential of becoming the new Linux. 'The allure of OpenStack is
clear: Like Linux, OpenStack aims to provide a kernel around which
all kinds of software vendors can build businesses. But with
OpenStack, we're talking multiple projects to provide agile cloud
management of compute, storage, and networking resources across the
data center — plus authentication, self-service, resource
monitoring, and a slew of other projects. It's hugely ambitious,
perhaps the most far-reaching open source project ever, although
still at a very early stage. ... Clearly, the sky-high aspirations
of OpenStack both fuel its outrageous momentum and incur the risk of
overreach and collapse, as it incites all manner of competition. The
promise is big, but the success of OpenStack is by no means
assured.'"
Neither Google nor Facebook rules them
all...
It's
a Googly World: A Map of the Planet's Most Visited Websites by
Country
Another way I could consolidate my
handouts and links and videos and...
Booktype
is an open source program for creating ebooks and preparing them for
distribution on Kindle and iBooks. Booktype is designed for
collaborative use by a group of writers. You can update your books
and redistribute them even after your initial publishing date.
To clarify, Booktype
is not a service it's an open source program that you can download
and install on your own server. If you have the skills to manage it,
Booktype could be a good in-house solution for digital publishing.
My Statistics students will hate me for
this...
Attention
Nerds: Here's the Census Bureau API You've Been Waiting For
… The old system for accessing
Census data was called American FactFinder, which, Buckner says, is
fine for an expert, but for a novice, it's just not very intuitive.
"People are used to just Googling and getting an immediate
answer. They don't want to hunt for it," Buckner says. With
the release of the API, the old tools will remain available for
people who have figured out how to use them and are comfortable with
those formats.
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