Oh darn. Now congress will go into “we gotta do something” mode and overreact while the under think. If (almost) everyone is in compliance, its the standards that are Inadequate.

Congressional Report: US Power Grid Highly Vulnerable To Cyberattack

"Despite warnings that a cyberattack could cripple the nation's power supply, a U.S. Congressional report (PDF) finds that power companies' efforts to protect the power grid are insufficient. Attacks are apparently commonplace, with one utility claiming they fight off some 10,000 attempted attacks every month. The report also found that while most power companies are complying with mandatory standards for protection, few do much else above and beyond that to protect the grid. 'For example, NERC has established both mandatory standards and voluntary measures to protect against the computer worm known as Stuxnet. Of those that responded, 91% of IOUs [Investor-Owned Utilities], 83% of municipally- or cooperatively-owned utilities, and 80% of federal entities that own major pieces of the bulk power system reported compliance with the Stuxnet mandatory standards. By contrast, of those that responded to a separate question regarding compliance with voluntary Stuxnet measures, only 21% of IOUs, 44% of municipally- or cooperatively-owned utilities, and 62.5% of federal entities reported compliance.'"

Kind of a good news, bad news kind of thing.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/033476.html

May 21, 2013

Pew - Teens, Social Media, and Privacy

Teens, Social Media, and Privacy by Mary Madden, Amanda Lenhart, Sandra Cortesi, Urs Gasser, Maeve Duggan, Aaron Smith. May 21, 2013

• "Teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they have in the past, but they are also taking a variety of technical and non-technical steps to manage the privacy of that information. Despite taking these privacy-protective actions, teen social media users do not express a high level of concern about third-parties (such as businesses or advertisers) accessing their data; just 9% say they are “very” concerned."

Perhaps the old school guys rely too much on technology they reported on when they started their careers (and which is now hopelessly out of date)

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/21/snow-fail-the-new-york-times-and-its-misunderstanding-of-copyright/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Snow Fail: The New York Times And Its Misunderstanding Of Copyright

You remember Snow Fall, don’t you? It was that awesome interactive reporting piece by The New York Times that everyone talked about for a week.

It was called “the future of online journalism.” It was praised as a way for The New York Times to courageously battle back against online upstarts like Buzzfeed and their non-serious cat spreads. Or to not change the company’s fortunes at all.

It even won a Webby! (Oh yeah, and a Pulitzer.)

The New York Times spent months and had an entire team working on the creation of Snow Fall, and it shows. But what if I told you that you could recreate the same interactive experience in just about an hour? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

Well, The New York Times wouldn’t.

Cody Brown, co-founder of interactive web design tool Scroll Kit, did just that.

He recreated the Snow Fall piece using Scroll Kit to show that you didn’t need an army of developers or designers to create the same type of interactive storytelling.

… The video lived there for about a month, Brown tells me, before receiving a letter from The New York Times legal team, demanding that the video be taken down.

Interesting to compare Florida with Colorado. Florida must be really screwed up... Or perhaps Colorado is?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/033475.html

May 21, 2013

Directory of Oversight Agencies

Association of Inspectors General - John Jay College of Criminal Justice: Directory of Oversight Agencies

For my computer security students

Inside the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit

"The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit has been spearheading botnet takedowns and other anti-cybercrime operations for many years, and it has had remarkable success. But the cybercrime problem isn't going away anytime soon, so the DCU is in the process of building a new cybercrime center here, and soon will roll out a new threat intelligence service to help ISPs and CERT teams get better data about ongoing attacks. Dennis Fisher sat down with TJ Campana, director of security at the DCU, to discuss the unit's work and what threats could be next on the target list."