Even gaming has a serious side...
Blizzard.net
hacked
August 9, 2012 by admin
From their official statement:
Even when you are
in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week,
our security team found an unauthorized and illegal
[Is it just me or does that seem redundant? Bob] access
into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to
close off this access and began working with law enforcement and
security experts to investigate what happened.
… We also know
that cryptographically scrambled versions
of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North
American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol
(SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it
extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means
that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a
precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American
servers change their password. Please click this link to change
your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar
passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those
passwords as well.
… As a
reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login
information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your
password.
… Please find
additional
information here.
Ubiquitous surveillance –
Surveillance at any cost? Sounds like a database of video with
location and time stamps to make it searchable. Unclear if they have
other data matching tools.
Stratfor
emails reveal secret, widespread TrapWire surveillance system
Former senior intelligence officials
have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern
facial recognition technology — and have installed it across the US
under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by
Anonymous.
Every few seconds, data picked up at
surveillance points in major cities and landmarks across the United
States are recorded digitally on the spot, then encrypted and
instantaneously delivered to a fortified central database center at
an undisclosed location to be aggregated with other intelligence.
It’s part of a program called TrapWire and it's the brainchild of
the Abraxas, a Northern Virginia company staffed with elite from
America’s intelligence community. The employee roster at Arbaxas
reads like a who’s who of agents once with the Pentagon,
CIA
and other
government entities according to their public LinkedIn profiles, and
the corporation's ties are assumed to go deeper than even documented.
… According to a press release
(pdf)
dated June 6, 2012, TrapWire is “designed to provide a simple
yet powerful means of collecting and recording suspicious activity
reports.” A system of interconnected nodes spot anything
considered suspect and then input it into the system to be "analyzed
and compared with data entered from other areas within a network for
the purpose of identifying patterns of behavior that are indicative
of pre-attack planning.”
… In a 2005 interview
with The Entrepreneur Center, Abraxas founder Richard “Hollis”
Helms said his signature product “can collect information about
people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition,
draw patterns, and do threat assessments of areas that may be under
observation from terrorists.” He calls it “a
proprietary technology designed to protect critical national
infrastructure from a terrorist attack by detecting the pre-attack
activities of the terrorist and enabling law enforcement to
investigate and engage the terrorist long before an attack is
executed,” and that, “The beauty of it is that we
can protect an infinite number of facilities just
as efficiently as we can one and we push information out to local law
authorities automatically.”
… Since its inception, TrapWire has
been implemented in most major American cities at selected high value
targets (HVTs) and has appeared abroad as well. The iWatch
monitoring system adopted by the Los Angeles Police Department (pdf)
works in conjunction with TrapWire, as does the District
of Columbia and the "See Something, Say Something"
program conducted by law enforcement in New
York City, which had 500 surveillance cameras
linked to the system in 2010. Private properties including Las
Vegas, Nevada casinos
have subscribed to the system. The State of Texas reportedly
spent half a million dollars with an additional annual licensing fee
of $150,000 to employ TrapWire, and the Pentagon
and other military facilities have allegedly signed on as well.
If my boss asked me to get your
records, is that sufficient for me to “believe” they are
relevant?
Court
Grants Feds Warrantless Access to Utility Records
August 10, 2012 by Dissent
David Kravets reports:
Utilities must
hand over customer records — which include credit card numbers,
phone numbers and power consumption data — to the authorities
without court warrants if drug agents believe
they are “relevant” to an investigation, a federal
appeals court says.
The Comprehensive
Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 allows the authorities
to make demands for that data in the form of an administrative
subpoena, with no judicial oversight. [Even after the
fact? Bob] In this instance, the Drug Enforcement
Administration sought the records of three Golden Valley Electric
Association customers in Fairbanks, Alaska suspected of growing
marijuana indoors.
Read more on ThreatLevel.
Another “Lawyer Automation”
project?
Finally,
Someone Read the Terms of Service So You Don't Have To
I've yet to find anyone who reads the
terms-of-service contracts that we "agree" to on the
various websites of the world. But now, a group of technologists,
lawyers, and interested parties have created TOS;DR,
a project to create peer-reviewed summaries of all
those documents you will never actually read.
Launched in June, it's a kind of
brilliant and already-useful tool for some of the more heavily
trafficked sites on the web. For example, if you're uploading photos
to TwitPic, you might want to reconsider. They give the site their
worst grade, a "Class E." Why? Well, they have an
easy-to-understand summary right here. If you click on "Read
the Details," you get an extended explanation of these warnings
and can also link back (almost like a Wikipedia page) to the TOS;DR
discussion that led to the thumbs-down.
Red: Stop
Green: Go
Yellow: Go very fast Jeff Bridges in
Starman
New
Technology Means You’ll Never Run Another Yellow Light
There’s a name for that
panic-inducing split second when a traffic light turns yellow and you
have to choose whether to hit the gas or the brake. It’s called
the “dilemma zone,” and a new radar system promises to make it a
thing of the past.
TrafiRadar is a new technology from
Belgium-based Traficon. It combines video and radar vehicle
detection that can control a traffic light, holding a yellow until a
car has crossed an intersection.
While towns that rely on revenue from
red
light cameras might be loath to install the new technology, it
could make intersections safer for all. Currently, drivers in the
dilemma zone can either slam on the brakes and risk a rear-end
collision, or run a red light. TrafiRadar can determine whether a
vehicle needs more time to get through an intersection before the
yellow light turns red, and keep all other traffic stopped until that
car has crossed.
To a hacker, everything is Open
Source...
"Hacker
Highschool is an after school program that teaches students the
best practices of responsible hacking.
The program is open source,
and high schools across the country have begun offering the free
program to students. Hacker Highschool recognized that teens are
constantly taught that hacking
is bad, and they realized that teens' amature understanding of
hacking was the cause of the biggest issues. The program aims to
reverse this negative stereotype of hacking by encouraging teens to
embrace ethical,
responsible hacking."
Perspective
Online
Education Degrees Now Dwarf Traditional Universities
Education degrees earned at online
universities now dwarf those of traditional universities. USA
Today analyzed recent Department of Education data and found
that online education behemoth, the University of Phoenix, awarded
more than twice as many education degrees as its closest
traditional competitor, Arizona State University (5,976 vs. 2,075).
… While ASU still awards the most
bachelor degrees, the other top 4 online universities, 3 of which are
for-profit, hand out far more advanced degrees, which are
increasingly important for hiring and promotion. This, of course,
says nothing about the quality of online degrees.
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