Monday, January 14, 2013

There is a range of intelligence gathering techniques from “open source” to “real James Bond stuff.” Does any of it cross the line into an “act of war” or could I start using my Ethical Hacking class for “Fun & Profit?”
Cybersleuths Uncover 5-Year-Old Spy Operation Targeting Governments
An advanced and well-orchestrated computer spy operation that targeted diplomats, governments and research institutions for at least five years has been uncovered by security researchers in Russia.
The highly targeted campaign, which focuses primarily on victims in Eastern Europe and Central Asia based on existing data, is still live, harvesting documents and data from computers, smartphones and removable storage devices, such as USB sticks, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based antivirus firm that uncovered the campaign. Kaspersky has dubbed the operation “Red October.”
… Kaspersky calls the victims “high profile,” but declined to identify them other than to note that they’re government agencies and embassies, institutions involved in nuclear and energy research and companies in the oil and gas and aerospace industries.
… The attackers, believed to be native Russian-speakers, have set up an extensive and complex infrastructure consisting of a chain of at least 60 command-and-control servers that Kaspersky says rivals the massive infrastructure used by the nation-state hackers behind the Flame malware that Kaspersky discovered last year.


The data is free, but now you have to actually use it.
January 13, 2013
EU - Digital Agenda: Turning government data into gold
News release: "The Commission has launched an Open Data Strategy for Europe, which is expected to deliver a €40 billion boost to the EU's economy each year. Europe’s public administrations are sitting on a goldmine of unrealised economic potential: the large volumes of information collected by numerous public authorities and services. Member States such as the United Kingdom and France are already demonstrating this value. The strategy to lift performance EU-wide is three-fold: firstly the Commission will lead by example, opening its vaults of information to the public for free through a new data portal. Secondly, a level playing field for open data across the EU will be established. Finally, these new measures are backed by the €100 million which will be granted in 2011-2013 to fund research into improved data-handling technologies. These actions position the EU as the global leader in the re-use of public sector information. They will boost the thriving industry that turns raw data into the material that hundreds of millions of ICT users depend on, for example smart phone apps, such as maps, real-time traffic and weather information, price comparison tools and more. Other leading beneficiaries will include journalists and academics."


Perspective. The first question you should ask yourself when buying a computer is, “What am I going to do with it?” Then if you are cheap like me, “What's the cheapest device that will do all that?”
PC Shipments Down 5 Pct In Q4 Pointing To Structural Market Shift: Report
Global PC shipments fell nearly 5 percent in the final three months of 2012, indicating likely structural changes to the market rather than weak demand, Gartner Inc. said.
Analysts at Gartner said the PC industry's problems point to something beyond a weak economy.
Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner said the availability of compelling low-cost tablets caused PC users to shift consumption to tablets rather than replacing older PCs.


Perspective
January 13, 2013
Wayback Machine: Now with 240,000,000,000 URLs
Internet Archives Blog: "Today we updated the Wayback Machine with much more data and some code improvements. Now we cover from late 1996 to December 9, 2012 so you can surf the web as it was up until a month ago. Also, we have gone from having 150,000,000,000 URLs to having 240,000,000,000 URLs, a total of about 5 petabytes of data. (Want a humorous description of a petabyte? start at 28:55) This database is queried over 1,000 times a second by over 500,000 people a day helping make archive.org the 250th most popular website."


I've got a backlog of these to try...
… If you are looking for a web application that you don’t need to install to use, check out the highly user friendly app called Apowersoft Online Screen Recorder.
… You start by visiting the app’s website; you can then click on its initiation button and wait for it to load up. While the first loading time might be slow, subsequent loading times will be significantly lower.
With the app loaded up, its interface can be used to specify what kind of a screencast you want to record – a recording of a particular region, the entire screen, a recording of your webcam, or just a recording around the area of your mouse.
Optionally you can add audio in your video recording. This can be immensely useful if you are making the screencast with the intention of explaining what you are doing.
The output video format of your screencasts is WMV and the app can begin sharing your screencasts online immediately.

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