Friday, April 11, 2014

Perspective Actually a “suspicions confirmed” article.
More Than Half of Enterprise Employees Receive No Security Training: Survey Finds
A new study by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) indicates more than half of enterprise employees may not receive any security awareness training.
In a survey of 600 employees sponsored by security training firm Security monitor, 56 percent of employees said they did not get security or policy awareness training from their organizations. This lack of training, the report argues, often results in policy violations and other risky behavior. For example, 33 percent said they use the same password for both work and personal devices. Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed said they store work information in the cloud, where enterprises sometimes do not have the same level of visibility or control over data.
In addition, 58 percent of the survey's participants said they store sensitive information on their mobile devices - a potentially problematic figure given that 30 percent also admitted to leaving mobile devices unattended in their vehicles. Some 35 percent said they have clicked on an email link from an unknown sender.

(Related)
Just One-Third of Organizations Discover Breaches on Their Own: Mandiant
Based on Mandiant’s investigations, breaches were discovered in 229 days on average in 2013 vs. 243 in 2013. While these improvements are a positive, it still means attackers are still spending 2/3rds of the year inside an organization’s network before being discovered.
In 2012, 37 percent of organizations detected breaches on their own; this number dropped to just 33 percent in 2013.
The full report is available online in PDF format.

(Related) Also says something about how big “Big Data” really is...
What Is Eating Up The World’s Bandwidth?
Here’s an interesting bit of trivia: streaming services make up 65 percent of all Internet traffic during peak hours, one third of which is attributed to Netflix. According to this infograph by WhoIsHostingThis.com, Internet traffic will probably surpass the zettabyte threshold – or 83 exabytes per month – in 2015. By 2017, that figure will rise to 120 exabytes a month.


Why that's barely time to send out tickets from those “Red Light” and “Speeding” cameras!
DutchNews.nl reports:
Government plans to store footage of car number plates for up to four weeks to help solve ‘serious crimes’ may conflict with European privacy law, legal experts say in Thursday’s Trouw.
On Tuesday, the European court of justice said government schemes to store private individual’s phone and internet data is illegal because of the implications for privacy.
This may also apply to justice minister Ivo Opstelten’s plans to store car number plate information, lawyers told Trouw.
Read more on DutchNews.nl.


This could be interesting. The same picture in any of the supermarket tabloids would pass unremarked.
Katherine Heigl Lawsuit to Explore Nature of Corporate Tweets (Analysis)
… The actress is upset that the drug store [Duane Reade] posted on Twitter and Facebook a paparazzi photo of her carrying the chain's shopping bags. She's suing in New York federal court with claims that the defendant has violated the false advertising provision of the Lanham Act, as well as New York civil rights statutes protecting use of likenesses for purpose of trade.
… It's likely that as the case proceeds, Duane Reade will put up a First Amendment defense that will attempt to protect its social media postings as expressive rather than commercial speech. Thus, the nature of how corporations tweet will be subject to a judge's analysis.
… In Heigl's complaint (read here), she attempts to put Duane Reade into the realm that's outside the boundaries of free speech.


Nothing new?
Joe Arnold reports:
A bill aimed at protecting the personal data of both Kentucky consumers and students was signed into law Thursday by Governor Steve Beshear (D-Ky).
Sponsored by Rep. Steve Riggs (D-Louisville) with an amendment sponsored by Sen. Mike Wilson (R-Bowling Green), the bipartisan legislation (House Bill 232) requires businesses to notify consumers if a data breach reveals personally identifiable information.
[...]
The General Assembly also agreed to additional language from Republican Senate Bill 89, which protects student information from use by software vendors.
Websites such as Facebook and Google generate revenue by selling user information to advertisers. The legislation prevents those companies from harvesting students’ private information, such as test results or practice assignments, for the purpose of marketing products to school systems.
SOURCE: WHAS11.
Related: House Bill 232.


Is there a “you can't change your mind” law?
US regulators warn Facebook, WhatsApp to keep privacy promise
… In a letter to both Facebook and WhatsApp, the federal trade commission (FTC) said that WhatsApp has made clear privacy promises to consumers, and that both companies have told consumers that after any acquisition, WhatsApp will continue its current privacy practices.
“We want to make clear that, regardless of the acquisition, WhatsApp must continue to honour these promises to consumers,” the FTC said and warned the two companies that anything other than this would be considered to be in violation of the US laws.
In 2011, Facebook settled FTC charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep its privacy promises.
Under the terms of the FTC’s order against the company, it must get consumers’ consent before making changes that override their privacy settings, among other requirements, an official release said.
The FTC letter notes that before making any material changes to how they use data already collected from WhatsApp subscribers, the companies must get affirmative consent.


I would never have considered this a problem. Am I wrong? Is there ever an issue if the staff functions share?
US Says Cybersecurity Sharing Not an Antitrust Issue
Officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission said they issued formal guidance telling companies that there would be no antitrust issues from the sharing of technical information about cyber attacks, malware or similar threats.
"Some companies have told us that concerns about antitrust liability has been a barrier to being able to openly share cyber threat information with each other.


I can remember early Science Fiction speculating that the government would have drones delivering the mail because it was so much cheaper than people. Today the reality seems to be that corporations are doing the “government's job” for profit – and doing it cheaper than the government could.
Amazon’s Bezos: We have eighth generation drones in the works
… If Bezos gets his way, Amazon’s compact unmanned "octocopter" will be delivering shoe-box sized parcels across the US well before the five-year timeline he initially outlined.
While some saw Bezos' announcement of its drone project last December as a publicity stunt, he's reassured investors in his 2013 Letter to Shareholders that he's deadly serious about getting the delivery service off the ground.
… Amazon said on its FAQ page for Prime drones that it hopes the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will have set rules for drones "as early as sometime in 2015". So far the FAA has only acknowledged that drones could be useful in some commercial and civilian scenarios, and is weighing up what minimum safety requirements it would need to support them.
The FAA's caution is with good reason. A drone being used to film a triathlon in Western Australia last week was responsible for hospitalising a competitor after the vehicle fell about 10 metres and struck her on the head. According to the drone's operator, the device, which operated on the 2.5GHz frequency, was hacked by someone channel hopping. An illegal unmanned drone in NSW also had a near-collision with a Westpac rescue helicopter earlier this month.
Bezos noted that Amazon's drones are the pointy-end of its wider international delivery services, including its partnership with the US Postal Service for Sunday deliveries; its "last-mile" distribution network in the UK and bike couriers in India and China.


To coin a phrase, this is about e-state planning. (Or is it e-Estate?)
– helps you build your digital legacy. If you have important files in clouds such as Dropbox, iCloud or Google Drive and don’t want them to be lost, Tellmebye lets you designate heirs to them. Receiving birthday notifications or people still posting on your wall after your death is not pleasant for anyone. Avoid situations like this and exercise your right to be forgotten in a fast, efficient and practical way.


I'm just guessing here, but I'd say the demand for an inexpensive 3D Printer is fairly strong.
Updated: Micro $299 3D Printer Passes $2M On Kickstarter In 3 Days
The consumer-focused, low-cost Micro 3D printer that’s currently raising money on Kickstarter to get its prototype to market, has pushed passed the $2 million mark in pledged crowdfunds — just three days after the campaign kicked off.
… The Micro maker’s original fundraising target — of $50,000 — was pledged in just 11 minutes.

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