Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes? “Security Theater”
Airport
security devices can be hacked, says researcher
…
On his own time, Billy Rios of Qualys Security said he purchased
some of the hardware and software used by the Transportation Security
Administration.
At a
talk at this year’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, he revealed
details about several vulnerabilities he was able to find, most
notably in the device entrusted to detect trace levels of drugs and
explosives.
The
machine, the Morpho Itemiser, is set up so that the technician level
password is hardcoded in.
It’s
a common practice for a range of devices, one aimed at making it
easier for technicians to get in and do maintenance, but it’s
become taboo among security advocates because it also makes it easier
for machines to be hacked.
…
His findings, he said, show TSA is not properly vetting the products
it uses for security.
What
does this have to do with academics? Will they monitor what the kids
had for breakfast? Have they had their shots or been treated for
cuts and bruises that indicate abuse? How long was the TV on last
night? Where does it stop? Can parents make it stop?
Diane
Cho reports:
Washington County public school officials announced that, with the
start of the new school year in just two weeks, they will be using
new software to monitor students’ social media posts.
The county will be one of only four school districts in the nation to
enlist a new software program called Social Sentinel that tracks
social media accounts for certain keywords.
To those that question the legality of such monitoring in the face of
privacy rights, school officials said the software uses “geofencing”
protocol to only track posts that are made while the student is on
school property.
Read
more on WJLA.
[From
the article:
School
officials said the goal is to protect student safety. Examples of
such posts that will be tracked include those that feature keywords
like "kill," "bomb" and others.
School
officials said they will also be consulting with parents and members
of student government for feedback on what additional keywords should
be added to the watch-list.
Threats
will be flushed out, officials added - if a keyword is caught, the
post will be read to check for threats of violence, bullying or
harassment, reference to using drugs or alcohol, references to
weapons, and the like.
“Take
my picture, feel my wrath!” It's merely paranoia, but in this case
the paranoids have guns.
Tim
Cushing writes:
Here’s what exercising your First Amendment rights gets you in
certain parts of the US. Photographer Jeff Gray has been filming
cops and photographing public structures, as well as documenting the
reactions of law enforcement to his activities.
The Department of Homeland Security apparently felt Gray was enough
of a “threat” that it opened
an investigation on him. After scrutinizing publicly-available
information (like Gray’s own YouTube account), it came to the
conclusion that his activities were completely protected… it just
didn’t like the way he acted.
[...]
Now, Gray has obtained more information that shows law
enforcement officers are still trying to find some way to shut down
his protected activities.
Read
more on TechDirt.
I
have driven through Massachusetts – they do drive like terrorists.
(Colorado shares this information too according to the “document.”)
sosadmin
writes:
The state of Massachusetts is one of fifteen
states sharing drivers’ license images and data with federal
agencies including the CIA and Department of Defense, a newly
disclosed federal government document
shows.
The document, which boasts about “strategic
accomplishments” of the National Counterterrorism Center’s
Directorate of Terrorist Identities, is published to support a new
story
on The Intercept about
the government’s bloated watch-listing and terror database systems.
Read
more on PrivacySOS.
This
sounds worse than our sanctions.
Moscow
bans Western food imports; Russian quits as Ukraine rebel chief
…
Moscow imposed a one year ban on all meat, fish, dairy, fruit and
vegetables from the United States, the 28 European Union countries,
Canada, Australia and non-EU member Norway.
Russia
has become by far the biggest consumer of EU fruit and vegetables,
the second biggest buyer of U.S. poultry and a major global consumer
of fish, meat and dairy products.
Does
this really surprise anyone?
$619
billion missed from federal transparency site
A
government website intended to make federal spending more transparent
was missing at least $619 billion from 302 federal programs, a
government audit has found.
And
the data that does exist is wildly inaccurate, according to the
Government Accountability Office, which looked at 2012 spending data.
Only 2% to 7% of spending data on USASpending.gov
is "fully consistent with agencies' records," according to
the report.
…
The Department of the Interior did not report spending for 163 of
its 265 assistance programs because, the department said, its
accounting systems were not compatible with the data formats required
by USASpending.gov.
The
White House itself failed to report any of the programs it's directly
responsible for. At the Office of National Drug Control Policy,
which is part of the White House, officials said they thought HHS was
responsible for reporting their spending.
For
more than 22% of federal awards, the spending website literally
doesn't know where the money went. The "place of performance"
of federal contracts was most likely to be wrong.
For
my geeky students. Please do not drool on the keyboards.
IBM
Unveils a ‘Brain-Like’ Chip With 4,000 Processor Cores
…
Most efforts to mimic the brain have focused on software, but in
recent years, some researchers have ramped up efforts to create
neuro-inspired computer chips that process information in
fundamentally different ways from traditional hardware. This
includes an ambitious
project inside tech giant IBM, and today, Big Blue released a
research paper describing the latest fruits of these labors. With
this paper, published in the academic journal Science, the
company unveils what it calls TrueNorth, a custom-made “brain-like”
chip that builds on a simpler experimental system the company
released in 2011.
TrueNorth
comes packed with 4,096 processor cores, and it mimics one million
human neurons and 256 million synapses, two of the fundamental
biological building blocks that make up the human brain.
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