Now
I get it. Many top Chinese officers own large firms that supply the
military and the government. Perhaps the government strategy does
not include “trade secrets” but I bet the general's strategy
does.
US
metal firms said targets of Chinese spying
Chinese
hackers allegedly have stolen sensitive economic data from U.S. metal
companies, including U.S. Steel Corp. and Alcoa Inc.
… Victims
of the alleged hacking include U.S. Steel, Alcoa, Allegheny
Technologies Inc. (ATI), Westinghouse Electric Corp. and the United
Steelworkers union, all based in Pittsburgh, the Justice Department
said in a release May 19. Also among the alleged victims was Bonn,
Germany-based solar energy company SolarWorld AG.
Retaliation
or just anti-Microsoft bias?
China
bans government use of Windows 8
… The central
government procurement centre issued the ban on installing Windows 8
as part of a notice on the use of energy-saving products, posted on
its website last week.
The official Xinhua
news agency said the ban was to ensure computer security after
Microsoft
ended support for its Windows
XP operating system, which was widely used in China.
Neither the government
nor Xinhua elaborated on how the ban supported the use of
energy-saving products, or how it ensured security.
… “China’s
decision to ban Windows 8 from public procurement hampers Microsoft’s
push of the OS to replace XP, which makes up 50% of China’s desktop
market,” said data firm Canalys.
Good luck with that,
Sheriff. (You can bet the NSA is watching)
The Erie County, New
York Sheriff Timothy B. Howard doesn’t think residents need
legislative oversight of his use of surveillance technology.
Erie
County Sheriff Timothy B. Howard told legislators Thursday that it is
solely up to the courts – not them – to determine how he may use
cellphone surveillance equipment to track persons of interest.
Howard
told the Legislature’s Public Safety Committee that the Stingray
surveillance device the office has owned since 2008 is used only for
tracking a person’s movements, not for snooping into the content of
phone communications.
But
beyond that, he was polite but defiant in refusing to answer
questions about the equipment, telling legislators, in essence, that
it’s not their business.
“With
no disrespect to this honorable body … the specific use of the
device should be left to the monitoring of the courts and not to the
Legislature or to the media,” he said.
Dressed
in an olive green suit instead of his usual sheriff’s uniform,
Howard said, “Anything we do with the device is subject to review
by the federal or state courts, including by our own County Court,
and that’s where it should be reviewed.”
Read more on The
Buffalo News.
One more “Thing”
that lives on the Internet of Things.
Andrea Peterson
reports:
Fitness
tracking apps and devices have gone from an early adopter novelty to
a staple of many users’ exercise routines during the past few years
— helping users set goals and measure progress over time. Some
employers even offer incentives, including insurance discounts, when
workers sign up.
“There’s
been a tremendous amount of evolution in the app space, both
generally and in the fitness app,” since she joined the Federal
Trade Commission six years ago, Senior Staff Attorney Cora Han
acknowledges. “It’s a completely different landscape.”
But
as several major tech companies appear poised to disrupt that
landscape, privacy advocates warn that consumers aren’t always
aware of how sensitive the data the apps collect can be or what
privacy protections exist. And changes in the privacy policy of
Moves, a fitness tracking app recently acquired by Facebook, have
only amplified those fears.
Read more on Washington
Post.
(Related) Lots
of concern(?) with the Internet of Things.
32
years ago, experts foresaw much of today’s digital world
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on May 19, 2014
“In
a new
Pew Research Center report by Drew
DeSilver, nearly 1,600 technology experts give their thoughts about
how the “Internet of Things” — wearable computers,
processor-embedded products and other digital advances — will alter
society over the next decade. Many (though not all) of the experts
foresee, in the words of the report, “a global, immersive, ambient
networked computing environment” that will change the way we do
everything from stocking our fridges to finding our soulmates. Even
though videotex and teletext never took off the way the report’s
authors thought they would (slow speeds and lack of common standards
being the biggest obstacles), many of their projections will sound
familiar: Blurring of lines separating work and home; Fragmenting of
traditional media; Privacy concerns; Data-based professions;
Electronic banking; On-demand media; New kinds of relationships…”
Sure
to bring another kerfuffle. Interesting that they have “legal”
access but the government doesn't know about it.
Report
– NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on May 19, 2014
By
Ryan
Devereaux, Glenn
Greenwald and Laura
Poitras: The National
Security Agency is secretly
intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every
cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas.
According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden,
the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named
SOMALGET – that was implemented without
the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government.
Instead, the agency appears to have used access
legally obtained in cooperation with the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration to open a backdoor to the country’s
cellular telephone network, enabling it to covertly record and store
the “full-take audio” of every mobile call made to, from and
within the Bahamas – and to replay those calls for up to a month.
SOMALGET is part of a broader NSA program called MYSTIC, which The
Intercept has learned is being used to secretly monitor the
telecommunications systems of the Bahamas and several other
countries, including Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya. But while
MYSTIC scrapes mobile networks for so-called “metadata”
– information that reveals the time, source, and destination of
calls – SOMALGET is a cutting-edge tool that enables the NSA to
vacuum up and store the actual content of every conversation in an
entire country.”
Hah!
A mere $15.9 million? That'll teach him!
Ousted
Target CEO: $15.9 million severance
Target
cut about $8 million from former CEO Gregg Steinhafel's 2013 pay
package after ousting him from the job. But he is still making $13
million for his work last year and walking away with a severance
package totaling $15.9 million.
You
should listen to these guys.
McKinsey
– Strategic principles for competing in the digital age
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on May 19, 2014
Digitization
is rewriting the rules of competition, with incumbent companies most
at risk of being left behind. Here are six critical decisions
CEOs must make to address the strategic challenge posed by the
digital revolution. May 2014| byMartin Hirt and Paul Willmott,
“Staggering amounts
of information are accessible as never before—from proprietary big
data to new public sources of open data. Analytical and processing
capabilities have made similar leaps with algorithms scattering
intelligence across digital networks, themselves often lodged in the
cloud. Smart mobile devices make that information and computing
power accessible to users around the world. As these technologies
gain momentum, they are profoundly changing the strategic context:
altering the structure of competition, the conduct of business, and,
ultimately, performance across industries. One banking CEO, for
instance, says the industry is in the midst of a transition that
occurs once every 100 years. To stay ahead of the unfolding trends
and disruptions, leaders across industries will need to challenge
their assumptions and pressure-test their strategies.”
For
my Computer Security students.
Invincea
Releases Free Malware Discovery and Analysis Tool
Invincea,
a provider of endpoint security solutions that leverage secure
virtual containers to protect against advanced malware and other
threats, has released a free malware discovery and analysis tool for
the forensics analysts and incident responders.
Dubbed
Invincea
Research Edition, the solution includes licenses of Invincea
FreeSpace -which creates a secure virtual container around web
browsers and their plug-ins -- PDFs and documents such as Microsoft
Excel, Word and PowerPoint and features advanced behavioral-based
detection proven to spot known, unknown and zero-day malware.
For
the Digital Design students.
http://www.bespacific.com/metropolitan-museum-initiative-provides-free-access-400000-digital-images/
Metropolitan
Museum Initiative Provides Free Access to 400,000 Digital Images
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on May 19, 2014
“Thomas P. Campbell,
Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced
today that more than 400,000 high-resolution digital images of
public domain works in the Museum’s world-renowned collection may
be downloaded directly from the Museum’s website for non-commercial
use—including in scholarly publications in any media—without
permission from the Museum and without a fee. The number of
available images will increase as new digital files are added on a
regular basis. In making the announcement, Mr. Campbell said:
“Through this new, open-access policy, we join a growing number of
museums that provide free access to images of art in the public
domain. I am delighted that digital technology can open the doors to
this trove of images from our encyclopedic collection.” The
Metropolitan Museum’s initiative—called Open Access for Scholarly
Content (OASC)—provides access to images of art in its collection
that the Museum believes to be in the public domain and free of other
known restrictions; these images are now available for scholarly use
in any media. Works that are covered by the new policy are
identified on the Museum’s
website with the acronym OASC. (Certain works are not available
through the initiative for one or more of the following reasons: the
work is still under copyright, or the copyright status is unclear;
privacy or publicity issues; the work is owned by a person or an
institution other than the Metropolitan Museum; restrictions by the
artist, donor, or lender; or lack of a digital image of suitable
quality.)”
(Related)
Smarthistory:
Learn About World Famous Art & Paintings Through Khan Academy
Videos [Stuff to Watch]
Most of us are able to
recognise a world famous painting or sculpture when we see it, but
we’re not so good at recalling the story, history or much about the
artist behind the piece. Smarthistory from the Khan
Academy fills in the blanks for you, with more than 100
educational short videos prepared for the Google
Art Project.
With more than 100
videos produced, there’s plenty of free education on here to vastly
expand
your knowledge of the art world. And thanks to the Google Art
Project, you can study all of the featured works in detail at your
own leisure too – just click the headings below.
Could
be amusing to have my students create these.
– was
created to provide educators with a quick way to create
gameshow-style boards for test reviews in the classroom.
Traditionally, these are created (tediously) using posterboard,
chalkboards, or dry-erase markers on an overhead slide. The review
questions are usually even written on a separate sheet of paper. With
FlipQuiz, questions are displayed on-screen and boards are saved for
later use.
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