Friday, October 05, 2012

This should be a good seminar. Drones are in the news too often and like all new technologies, there are no “Best Practices” for controlling their use. And where else can you get a seminar and lunch for a mere $20?



I feel left out. I didn't get a warning.
Google Warns Thousands Of Users About Potential State-Sponsored Cyber Attacks
According to the NYTimes, tens of thousands of users have seen the following message pop up on their Gmail, Chrome browser, or Google home page: “Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer.”
To be perfectly clear, this message doesn’t mean that a successful attack was made on your account. It simply means that you likely have messages in your inbox containing malicious links or attachments, that are intended to eventually capture your password and/or information.


Stupidity is a gift that lasts forever (or until the courts are done with you)
Florida AG Confirms PC Surveillance Tool Investigation
October 5, 2012 by Dissent
Mathew J. Schwartz followed up on the FTC action against DesignerWare, LLC, and uncovered some interesting details about the firm’s bankruptcy and legal woes. As this blog was the first to report, DesignerWare filed for bankruptcy in March 2012. Schwartz found out, though, that they are facing problems on multiple fronts:
DesignerWare’s bankruptcy filing listed the following creditors as holding the largest unsecured claims against it: the Florida Office of the Attorney General Economic Crimes Division, Brian and Crystal Byrd, the California Attorney General Office, the California Department of Justice eCrime Unit, the Texas Office of the Attorney General Consumer Protection Division, and the Federal Trade Commission.
In other words, DesignerWare appears to be, or to have been, the subject of multiple states’ investigations, and at least one of those investigations remains ongoing.
Read more on InformationWeek.


Okay, this isn't working. I think what we need is “A Hackers Guide to Privacy” If the combined efforts of DHS, NSA, DoJ, CIA, FBI and M.O.U.S.E. can't find certain hackers, it is likely the advertisers can't either.
Privacy Advocates and Advertisers at Odds Over Web Tracking
October 5, 2012 by Dissent
Kevin J. O’Brien reports:
An effort to develop an easy way for consumers around the world to avoid being tracked and targeted by Internet advertisers appeared to hit an impasse Thursday, as privacy advocates and industry representatives accused each other of scuttling the process.
The closed-door meeting organized by W3C, the global standards group that promotes good governance of the Internet, failed to produce a consensus on how to allow consumers to simply and effectively declare their “do not track” preferences on Web sites. The talks foundered on main issues like the extent and types of data that advertisers could continue to collect even after consumers indicated they no longer wanted to be followed.
Read more on The New York Times.


It's hard for anyone (even a Mark Zuckerberg) to know the global impact of “trivial” changes to your App. Update: Okay, maybe not a problem...
Some more bad news has hit the Facebook front today. It’s being reported that Facebook is scanning its users’ private messages and searching for links to Facebook fan pages. Once it finds these links, Facebook supposedly automatically likes the pages for you without asking for your permission to do so.
UPDATE: Facebook has reached out to us and commented about this issue: “Absolutely no private information has been exposed and Facebook is not automatically Liking any Facebook Pages on a user’s behalf… Many websites that use Facebook’s ‘Like’, ‘Recommend’, or ‘Share’ buttons also carry a counter next to them. This counter reflects the number of times people have clicked those buttons and also the number of times people have shared that page’s link on Facebook. When the count is increased via shares over private messages, no user information is exchanged, and privacy settings of content are unaffected. Links shared through messages do not affect the Like count on Facebook Pages.”

(Related)
Can you be jailed for a Facebook 'Like' in the Philippines?
… Yet those who fear that this Cybercrime Act might be a nasty piece of work suggest that under it, it's possible for even a Facebook "Like" to be construed as libel and bring on a 12-year jail penalty.


An attempt at “Here's what you should do” is better than “Here's what you didn't do” any time...
European Data Protection Supervisor Issues New Opinion On Proposed European Regulation Of eIDs And Trusted Services
October 5, 2012 by Dissent
Mark Young writes:
In a new opinion on the Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on electronic identification (“eID”) and trusted services, the European Data Protection Supervisor (“EDPS”) has called, amongst other things, for security measures that trust service providers must apply to their services to be specified directly in legislation rather than left to the Commission to define at a later stage. The EDPS has also called for additional data privacy safeguards, higher security controls to apply to authorities that issue eIDs, more detailed mechanisms on how to ensure that eIDs and trust services are interoperable at EU level, and for data breach notification requirements under this proposal to be aligned with requirements under the e-privacy Directive and proposed new data protection Regulation.
Read more on InsidePrivacy.


A paper on ISO27001 (Best Practices for Security Management)
IT Governance Publish Cyber Security White Paper To Coincide With European Cyber Security Month
To coincide with the European Cyber Security Month, IT Governance (the European governance, risk management and compliance experts) have published a white paper on cyber security, which is now available to download from http://www.itgovernance.eu/t-iso27001.aspx.


Looks like they don't want to spend the time and money after all...
Google Says It Won’t ‘Manually’ Review YouTube Vids for Infringement
Google-owned YouTube on Thursday corrected a statement it made the day before, and now says the company will not manually review copyright-infringement claims before its system automatically blocks disputed footage.
The mishap occurred when Thabet Alfishawi, rights management product manager for YouTube, wrote in a YouTube blog post: “We’ve improved the algorithms that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed.”
But what he meant to say was that some of the automatic matches will be sent to be reviewed “by the content owner” — not by Google, the search giant said Thursday.


...and this continues to amuse me. Apparently this isn't the slam-dunk the RIAA thought it was.
The case against Kim Dotcom and his website Megaupload continues to confuse and astound many people who are following the trial. The New Zealand Herald claims to have obtained details showing that telecom engineers working for a technology services company called Gen-I have found evidence that Dotcom’s Internet connection at his mansion in New Zealand was being monitored weeks before the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau admits to.
… During Dotcom’s quest to achieve the number one ranking in the game, staff at Gen-I began an investigation looking into the amount of time it took the Internet signal from the mansion to reach offshore Xbox servers. The amount of time that it took data from Dotcom’s Xbox to reach the Xbox server increased from 30 ms to 180 ms, which is a huge increase for a gamer.
Engineers for the ISP used a Trace Route search and discovered that the Internet signal from Dotcom’s home was being diverted inside New Zealand. During the course of the investigation engineers determined that where the Internet traffic had previously needed two hops to reach the servers, it was now taking five. The indication from the investigation is that authorities in New Zealand may have been spying on Dotcom for longer duration than it has previously admitted to sparking new cries for investigation into the government’s surveillance efforts in the case.

(Related) Please ask: “How much did the RIAA pay you?”
MegaUpload users will get their day in court
U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady will hold another hearing to help him determine what to do with the digital files owned by MegaUpload users.
… O'Grady has already heard arguments from MegaUpload, the U.S. Attorney, Goodwin, and the Motion Picture Association of America about what should be done with the files. The MPAA and the government have argued that much of what is stored on MegaUpload's servers is pirated movies, music, and other media.
The judge appears to be stumped about what to do with the data.
"Upon thorough review of the arguments before the Court," O'Grady said in court documents, "and careful consideration of the applicable law, the Court finds that it is unable to reach a conclusion as to this matter without an evidentiary hearing."
Ira Rothken, the Silicon Valley attorney in charge of MegaUpload's worldwide defense told CNET that he believes this will present an opportunity for MegaUpload to call select U.S. officials to testify.
"Megaupload will be filing papers with the court to specially intervene," Rothken said, "considering that it is only the Internet service provider that, under applicable privacy laws, is the only party that can access the data and coordinate return to consumers."


Perspective Computers (at least computing) is cheap!
"Readers of Entertainment Weekly might be shocked to find their magazine is a good bit heavier than normal this week. US-based broadcaster CW placed an ad in Entertainment Weekly which uses a fully-functional 3G Android device, a T-Mobile SIM card, and a specialized app to display short video advertisements along with the CW Twitter feed. Writers at Mashable were willing to geek out with a Swiss Army knife and a video camera to give us all the gory details as they tore it down piece-by-piece to discover the inner workings of CW's new ad."


Making the world safe for pancakes!
"Remember the tragic maple syrup heist? Police have seized more than 600 barrels of maple syrup they say are related to the missing syrup. It was transported back to Quebec via a 16 tractor trailer, heavily guarded (and presumably heavily armed) convoy Wednesday."


For my Math (and other) students... But mostly Math...
Friday, October 5, 2012
Backpack TV Adds Video Playlists Matched to Books
Back in May I wrote about a start-up company called Backpack TV. Backpack TV is a video site that is creating libraries of free academic videos arranged according to subject area, topic, and video length. This week they added a bunch of new libraries. Backpack TV now offers videos aligned to commonly used Algebra, Biology, and Calculus textbooks. And according to the email I received from them, there are plans for more topics and textbooks to be added in the future.
If you're looking for some video content to support the textbooks that you have in your mathematics or science department, take a look at Backpack TV.


Might be a useful “handout” creator...
Collect a number of Wikipedia articles and create your own eBook.
… There’s absolutely no need for you to create a Wikipedia account, and in addition to PDF and ODT you can download a reflowable EPUB or a Kiwix file.
The process really couldn’t be easier, so there’s no reason not to try it out. Right now. Open a second browser window and play along at home.


This seems to match my opinions (bias?) so it is not likely to be correct. Still, I'd like to find similar studies...
Union Square Ventures, a New York City-based venture capital firm, announced yesterday that it was opening up its research and sharing some of its hypotheses about tech startup markets and by extension its investment-making decisions.
And most importantly in this case, educators should pay attention here because the first sector that USV has opted to open its research into is education.
USV’s Hypotheses about the Business of Online Education
USV has published both a Google Doc with its “overview of online education” as well as a list of its hypotheses about the sector. These are:
1. We’re skeptical a business model that charges for content will work at scale and in the long run.
2. We expect education platforms that offer vertical content and/or specific education experiences will be more successful than horizontal platforms, though we think credentials and careers offer two opportunities for horizontal aggregation
3. Without credentialing or careers, online education seems aspirational and removed from the day-to-day of many people.


While the US is trying to figure out why Johnny can't pass standardized tests...
Estonia Drives Robotics and Coding Education With Smartlab Hobby Groups, Backed By Microsoft
The Baltic country of Estonia — known as the birthplace of Skype and a go-to market for tech companies in the U.S. and elsewhere needing developers — is making another IT investment so that younger generations can keep growing that reputation. Today, it announced Smartlab, a public/private partnership with companies including Skype’s now-owner Microsoft, which will see the creation of hobby groups for 10-19 year olds to get instruction in robotics, programming and mobile app and web design.
… This follows on from another program announced in September, in which the Estonian government said that it would start teaching students to code from first grade (aged seven).
… Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people, has numbers to back up that programs like this could help its economy. It’s produced stats that indicate that each IT job creates “twice the added value for Estonia compared to the average in other economic spheres.”

No comments: