NOW will you consider using encryption?
"Is
full disk encryption (FDE) worth it? A recent study conducted by
the Ponemon Institute shows that the expected benefits of FDE exceed
cost by a factor ranging from 4 to 20, based on a reduction in the
probability that data will be compromised as the result of the loss
or theft of a digital device. 'After doing all of the math, Ponemon
found that the cost of FDE on laptop and
desktop computers in the U.S. per year was $235, while the cost
savings from reduced data breach exposure was $4,650.'"
(Related) Find 'em and toss them in
the clink! More on the costs...
September 02, 2012
Paper
- Measuring the Cost of Cybercrime
Measuring
the Cost of Cybercrime. Ross Anderson, Chris Barton, Rainer
Bohme, Richard Clayton, Michel J.G. van Eeten Michael Levi, Tyler
Moore, Stefan Savage
- "In this paper we present what we believe to be the first systematic study of the costs of cybercrime. It was prepared in response to a request from the UK Ministry of Defence following scepticism that previous studies had hyped the problem. For each of the main categories of cybercrime we set out what is and is not known of the direct costs, indirect costs and defence costs - both to the UK and to the world as a whole.
- We distinguish carefully between traditional crimes that are now `cyber' because they are conducted online (such as tax and welfare fraud);
- transitional crimes whose modus operandi has changed substantially as a result of the move online (such as credit card fraud);
- new crimes that owe their existence to the Internet; and
- what we might call platform crimes such as the provision of botnets which facilitate other crimes rather than being used to extract money from victims directly.
- As far as direct costs are concerned, we find that traditional offences such as tax and welfare fraud cost the typical citizen in the low hundreds of pounds/Euros/dollars a year; transitional frauds cost a few pounds/Euros/dollars; while the new computer crimes cost in the tens of pence/cents. However, the indirect costs and defence costs are much higher for transitional and new crimes. For the former they may be roughly comparable to what the criminals earn, while for the latter they may be an order of magnitude more. As a striking example, the botnet behind a third of the spam sent in 2010 earned its owners around US$2.7m, while worldwide expenditures on spam prevention probably exceeded a billion dollars. We are extremely ineffi cient at fighting cybercrime; or to put it another way, cybercrooks are like terrorists or metal thieves in that their activities impose disproportionate costs on society. Some of the reasons for this are well-known: cybercrimes are global and have strong externalities, while traditional crimes such as burglary and car theft are local, and the associated equilibria have emerged after many years of optimisation. As for the more direct question of what should be done, our gures [“gurus? Bob] suggest that we should spend less in anticipation of cybercrime (on antivirus, rewalls, etc.) and more in response - that is, on the prosaic business of hunting down cyber-criminals and throwing them in jail."
“I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!”
(Imagine how shocked I would be if they used unsophisticated, custom
designed software at 10 times the price.)
Software
Meant to Fight Crime Is Used to Spy on Dissidents
September 2, 2012 by Dissent
I’ve noted articles about FinFisher
software by Gamma Group before, but more has come out on how
extensive its use is. Nicole Perlroth reports:
Morgan
Marquis-Boire works as a Google engineer and Bill Marczak is earning
a Ph.D. in computer science. But this summer, the two men have been
moonlighting as detectives, chasing an elusive surveillance tool from
Bahrain across five continents.
What they found
was the widespread use of sophisticated, off-the-shelf computer
espionage software by governments with questionable records on human
rights.
Read more on The
New York Times. Mathew J. Schwartz also covers the story on
InformationWeek.
I needs gooder grammar!
Road To Grammar offers a multitude of
games and quizzes to help you practice your grammar skills in a way
that is fun. The quizzes are broken down by category, so you can
work on exactly the part of grammar you need to practice. In all,
there are 365 quizzes available, so you can do one a day for a year,
and greatly improve your writing skills.
Free is good!
Sound Sunday is a
weekly feature promoting free album downloads. Following last week’s
excursion into Punk Rock, we return to a more quiet theme this week.
This edition explores the different shades of blues and jazz.
Note that name your price albums
can be downloaded for free by entering 0 in the price field.
That said, we strongly recommend you to donate a few dollars for
music you enjoy!
Being a SciFi fan, I'm ashamed to admit
that I missed one or two of these... Fortunately, the library is
online!
The 2012 Hugo Award ceremony has
completed at Chicon 7, and Among Others by Jo Walton has
been given the award for Best
Novel. The Man Who Bridged the Mist by Kij Johnson won
for Best Novella, and The Paper Menagerie won for Best Short
Story. Doctor Who had three nominations for Best Dramatic
Presentation (Short Form), and ended up taking home the award for the
episode "The Doctor's Wife," which was written by Neil
Gaiman and directed by Richard Clark. Season 1 of Game of
Thrones won Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form), edging out
Hugo and Captain America. Ursula Vernon was
awarded the Best Graphic Story Hugo for Digger. See below
for the full list of winners.
The complete list of
nominations is on our 2012
Hugo Award Nominations Page.
For a full breakdown of how all 1922
ballots were cast, check this
PDF.
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