Big
Brother needs to know when agents of Eurasia and Oceania are
conspiring against Eastasia.
China
may be targeting Hong Kong protesters with spyware, U.S. firm says
The
Chinese government might be using smartphone applications to spy on
pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, a U.S. security firm said.
The
apps are disguised as tools created by activists, said the
firm, Lacoon Mobile Security. It said that once downloaded, they
give an outsider access to the phone's address book, call logs and
other information.
Trust
no one.
Graham
Cluley writes:
… from time to time, firms find themselves in the position of
admitting that they have messed up massively with potentially
disastrous consequences for their business and their innocent
customers.
What makes it even worse, however, is when the company that has
fallen woefully short really should have known better.
One such company which can offer no reasonable excuses is iThemes,
the “one-stop shop for WordPress themes, plugins and training.”
Read
more on State
of Security.
For
my Computer Security students.
Europol
Analyzes Cybercrime Services Industry
The
European Cybercrime Center (EC3) at Europol has published its
Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (iOCTA) for 2014. The
role of the report is to keep decision makers informed on the
cybercrime threats affecting governments, businesses and citizens in
the European Union.
…
The
iOCTA also focuses on the Crime-as-a-Service business model, which
facilitates a wide range of cybercriminal activities. The widespread
availability of DDoS, botnet, malware, data theft and
password-cracking services has led to the increasing involvement of
traditional organized crime groups in cybercriminal operations.
One
perfect example is the operation in which a Netherlands-based drug
smuggling ring hired
hackers to infiltrate the computer systems used to control
shipping containers at a port in Belgium. By hacking into the port's
systems, the group was able to identify the location of containers
loaded with drugs, and had its drivers pick them up before the
legitimate hauler got to them.
…
The
complete iOCTA
report can be browsed online or downloaded in PDF and ePub
formats.
(Related)
May have broader implications (e.g. The
Internet of Things)
FDA
Publishes Cybersecurity Guidance for Medical Device Manufacturers
The
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a set of
recommendations for manufacturers for managing cyber-security risks
and protecting patient health and information.
The
guidance is titled 'Content
of Premarket Submissions for Management of Cybersecurity in Medical
Devices' and recommends that manufacturers consider cybersecurity
risks as part of the design and development of medical devices and
submit documentation to the FDA about those risks and the controls in
place to mitigate them. The guidance also recommends manufacturers
submit their plans for providing updates to operating systems and
software.
"There
is no such thing as a threat-proof medical device," said Suzanne
Schwartz, director of emergency preparedness/operations and medical
countermeasures at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological
Health, in a statement.
… In
particular, medical devices
that are capable of connecting to another device or the Internet are
more vulnerable to security threats, the guidance notes.
In its recommendations, the FDA stresses the importance of
authentication controls and detection.
It's
a well thought out policy, until someone points out that it's not.
Facebook
makes peace with gays over 'real names'
Facebook
on Wednesday vowed to ease its "real names" policy that
prompted drag queen performers to quit the social network and sparked
wider protests in the gay community and beyond.
The
huge social network, facing a planned street protest in San Francisco
this week, apologised in a bid to quell the simmering dispute over
its enforcement of the policy.
Facebook
executives and representatives of the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and
transgender communities said they found a solution acceptable to both
sides, allowing people to use assumed names, subject to verification.
"The
spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic
name they use in real life," Facebook chief product officer
Chris Cox said in a blog post.
"For
Sister Roma, that's Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that's Lil
Miss Hot Mess."
Cox
said Facebook would come up with improved tools to "authenticate"
legitimate users such as those who sparked the protest.
Is
this a joke? I'll need to check their modeling assumptions but I
find it difficult to believe that turbines a mere 120 meters tall
would do much to reduce storms that top out at 60,000 feet.
Wind
Turbines Could Take the Punch Out of Hurricanes
If
78,000 giant wind turbines had been positioned off
the coast of New Orleans in 2005, they not only could have provided a
lot of electrical power, they also would have sucked so much energy
out of Hurricane Katrina that the storm surge would have been cut by
71% and wind speeds would have been reduced by as
much as 57%, according to a Wall Street Journal
report of a study that relied on computer modeling. Large arrays of
offshore wind turbines, although expensive to build, could take
enough energy out of the wind to break the “feedback loop” of
wind speed and wave heights that makes hurricanes so destructive, the
scientists say.
[The
report:
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WindHurricane/HurricTurbPaperNatCC.pdf
[Supplementary
material:
For
all my students. (Form good homework habits now, use them on the job
later.)
5
Ways to Work from Home More Effectively
For
my geeks with a spare computer...
How
To Download Windows 10 Now
Windows
10 is now available to download, with Microsoft inviting people
to join the Windows Insider Program and help test the new operating
system. If you’re technically proficient with a PC then head to
previews.windows.com to
get started. However, as this is only the Windows 10 Technical
Preview, a very early version of the OS, you should bear a few things
in mind before signing up.
The
Windows 10 Technical Preview is likely to be buggy, and prone to
crashing your computer. Therefore, back everything up before
downloading it. This includes your current Windows install, as
rolling back to a previous version of Windows will not be easy. So,
ensure you have an installation or recovery disk ready before going
anywhere near Windows 10.
Better
than PowerPoint?
Microsoft
launches Sway, a new tool for composing and presenting ideas
Have
a killer idea?
Microsoft
wants to make it easy to turn it into a presentation. The company
unveiled a new product called Office Sway
today that provides users with a canvas to document their ideas and
then go on to share them with other people.
It’s
a free, web-based app that Microsoft says will work on mobile devices
(through a native app) and desktop browsers. Users get started by
creating a title for their project, and can then add text, images and
video to it. Here’s a video that shows how it all works:
…
In addition, the presentation component of Sway encroaches on the
territory of Haiku
Deck and Jackson
Fish Market’s Slide Bureau app, which are both designed to take
user information and make it easy for them to build a presentation.
Right
now, Sway is in an invite-only preview. People interested in signing
up can visit Sway.com and get their
email on the list.
I
love lists. (and if I had a Smartphone I'd probably take the time to
read this one.)
The
App 100: The World's Greatest Apps
There
are over 1.3 million apps in Apple's App Store, and another 1.3
million in Google's Play store, so finding your next app can be
overwhelming. We live and breathe apps for a living, so we've
sifted through them to tell you which are the best.
This
could be amusing.
How
to Use Classtools.net to Create a Fake Text Message Exchange
Russel
Tarr, owner of Classtools.net, has developed and published a bunch of
great tools over the years. One of my favorite of those is the Fake
SMS Generator. The Classtools Fake SMS Generator is free to use
and does not require students to register to use it. In the video
below I demonstrate how to create a fictitious text message exchange
between historical characters.
As I
mentioned in the video, the Fake
SMS Generator could also be used to create visuals for lessons on
cyber-safety and etiquette.
Now
that we've analyzed all that data, how do we present it?
Easily
Add Charts to Infographics With Easelly
Easel.ly
is an online tool for creating infographics. I've reviewed a couple
of times in the past on this blog. The latest
update to Easelly introduced a tool for creating charts to
incorporate into your infographics. The chart creation tool is a
drag-and-drop option that can be found in the Easelly toolbar.
Easel.ly provides a canvas on which
you can build your own infographic by dragging and dropping pre-made
design elements. You can use a blank canvas or build upon one of
Easel.ly's themes. In addition to using the built-in creation tools
you can upload your own graphics to include in your infographic.
Your completed infographic can be exported and saved as PNG, JPG,
PDG, and SVG files.
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