Wednesday, June 04, 2014

How do I surveil thee?
Let me count the ways...
Nathan Freed Wessler writes:
A Florida judge has sided with the ACLU to order release of information about police use of “stingrays,” which are invasive surveillance devices that send out powerful signals to trick cell phones into transmitting their locations and identifying information. The Tallahassee judge’s pro-transparency decision stands in contrast to extreme secrecy surrounding stingray records in another Florida court, which is at the center of an emergency motion filed by the ACLU today.
Read more on ACLU.
[From the article:
Late yesterday, the judge ordered unsealing of the entire transcript. The portion that the government had sought to keep secret is here.
… Stingrays can track cell phones whenever the phones are turned on, not just when they are making or receiving calls.
… In this case, police used two versions of the stingray — one mounted on a police vehicle, and the other carried by hand. Police drove through the area using the vehicle-based device until they found the apartment complex in which the target phone was located, and then they walked around with the handheld device and stood “at every door and every window in that complex” until they figured out which apartment the phone was located in.


“Users who take appropriate security measures protect their own privacy.” (Otherwise we read their email to send them appropriate ads.) Or does Google know how to read Google encrypted emails?
Google goads users to use encryption
As much as 50% of e-mail traffic sent from or to Gmail users isn't really private, and Google thinks it should be.
To nudge e-mail providers to make use of already existing encryption, Google on Tuesday published a page telling users which e-mail services support encryption and which do not, based on what it can see of e-mails sent by Gmail's 425 million active users worldwide.
The statistics were posted on Google's Transparency Report. There, users can search by region to see whether their e-mail provider has encryption turned on.


“Information” increases faster than “data?” Is there a point beyond which anyone can learn anything (everything?) about anyone because of the volume of data available on the Internet?
Can computer science and “mosaic theory”– the idea that a large enough collection of data is vastly more revealing than the individual points– help reinterpret Fourth Amendment search and seizure and surveillance protocols?
The answer is yes, according to University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law Professor Renee Hutchins, co-author of a new paper that examines how advances in machine learning technology may change the way courts treat searches, warrants, and privacy issues.
Read more on Newswise.
Related Article:
When Enough is Enough: Location Tracking, Mosaic Theory, and Machine Learning (pdf) by Steve Bellovin, Renee M. Hutchins, Tony Jebara, and Sebastian Zimmeck.


Perspective.
Microsoft Examines Relationship Between Cybersecurity and Socio-Economic Conditions
In the report, “Cyberspace 2025: Today’s Decisions, Tomorrow’s Terrain”, Microsoft predicts that by the year 2025, over 91% of people in developed countries and 69% in emerging countries will be using the Internet, and dependence on the Web will become a reality.
Earlier this year, a report released by the World Economic Forum during its famous annual meeting, outlined different scenarios for how things could look in 2020 based on the “conceivable value created from innovations in technology” that could be affected by global organizations’ ability to defend against cyber attacks.
According to statistics cited by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in its report, technology trends such as cloud computing and big data have the potential to create between $9.6 trillion and $21.6 trillion in value for the global economy. However, the reports notes, if attacker tactics outpace the capabilities of defenders, more destructive attacks will result and spark a wave of new regulations and corporate policies that could slow innovation with a massive economic impact.


A heads-up for my Ethical Hackers.
Your car is a giant computer - and it can be hacked
Most people aren't aware their cars are already high-tech computers. And now we're networking them by giving them wireless connectivity. Yet there's a danger to turning your car into a smartphone on wheels: It makes them a powerful target for hackers.
Interviews with automakers, suppliers and security advisers reveal a major problem with the new wave of "connected" cars: The inside of your car has ancient technology that presents a security risk.
… Cars' computers were built safely enough back in the 1990s, when the car was a closed box. But their architecture won't hold up as we hook them up to the Internet.


Tools & Techniques. Isn't this too broad an interpretation of copyright law? If so, you might want to grab a copy now, before the injunctions start flying. NOTE: Not free and not cheap!
Save Videos From Any Site – Even Netflix – With Applian’s Replay Capture Suite
If you can watch or listen to something, you can record it. All you need is the right tool.
… One Applian program, called Replay Media Catcher, is a video downloader that grabs videos from unencrypted sites like YouTube and Vimeo – but not sites like Hulu and Netflix, which encrypt their files.
Another program, Replay Video Capture, isn’t a downloader at all: it actually records what’s happening on your screen, meaning you can save a copy of any online media – even Netflix or Hulu – without the need to break any encryption.
… “Copyright laws are pretty clear that you’re allowed to record for your own personal use,” says Bill Dettering, CEO of Applian Technologies. This means that if you record something, but don’t share it with others or attempt to sell it, you’re within your rights.


Maybe this is what my students are doing when they should be studying?
Make Money Gaming: 5 Games You Can Get Paid To Play


Because I have students who want to learn stuff we don't teach, yet.
– Education is changing, with great educators from around the world increasingly putting their amazing courses online. SlideRule believes that we all are in the early days of a revolution that will not only increase access to great education, but also transform the way people learn. SlideRule will help you discover the world’s best online courses in every subject.

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