What
kind of third-party vendor would need access to Home Depot's
self-checkout machines? Have they never heard of separation of
duties?
Home
Depot Hackers Got in Via a Vendor, Took E-Mails, Too
No
one expected the news to get better on the Home Depot (HD)
hack, and it hasn’t. Providing further details on Thursday of the
playbook that hackers used to break into its systems, Home Depot
disclosed that hackers
stole 53 million e-mail addresses, on top of the data for 56 million
credit cards...
The
hackers used stolen credentials from a third-party vendor to enter
the retailer’s network, Home Depot said in a press release. A
third-party vendor was also the point of entry in last
year’s breach at Target (TGT),
which exposed some 40 million cards.
The
hackers navigated Home Depot’s system to get to its self-checkout
machines [which
apparently had no firewalls or other access controls... Bob]
in the U.S. and Canada and then deployed malicious software to steal
card numbers, the statement said.
…
Home Depot confirmed a breach of credit-card information at its
stores on Sept. 8, six days after security blogger Brian Krebs
reported signs of a hack. [Two
months later, and they are still finding more problems? Bob]
…
The hackers went for the 7,500 self-checkout lanes because those
machines’ reference names in the computer system clearly
identified them as payment terminals, [Why
make it hard for the hackers? Bob] while some 70,000
standard registers were identified only by number, according to the
Journal.
Read
this article! I need someone to help me make sense of it. Will
lawyers like this (since apparently I'll need a few just to access
the Internet)
If
current leaks
are correct, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may be on
the brink of not only undermining hope for strong, enforceable and
legally sound network neutrality rules, but may also be taking steps
that would ultimately
disrupt the very principles that have governed the way the Internet
has always worked.
The
press reports do not explain what the new proposal would fully entail
(in part because the ideas from which the latest proposal appears to
be derived are complicated and new), but it could mean that Internet
users would be swept into new
relationships with Internet service providers (ISPs) they've never
interacted with in the past. Based on what we do know
from the press reports, we
are deeply concerned about this new proposal in several
respects: its ability to actually protect against blocking,
discrimination and fees for prioritized access; the relative strength
of the legal underpinnings the FCC would use to implement those
protections; and, importantly, the ripple effects that such a
proposal might have across the Internet and around the globe.
For
Internet users, this approach would place
their ability to access the legal content of their choosing on the
shakiest of legal grounds, using a legal theory that can
only incidentally afford that protection. Moreover, every
piece of traffic sent (an email to a friend, a response to
a click on a website, a streaming video on YouTube) could
trigger a new legal relationship with an ISP on the other
side of the world.
Reports
suggest that the proposal flows from one or more ideas in the record.
One begins
with the recognition that two separate and legally distinct
relationships exist in the exchange of traffic
…
But the FCC may also be looking toward a second, similar
proposal in the record that would recognize a simultaneous and
congruous relationship among "remote hosts" and end users,
and would leave the relationship between broadband providers and end
users unregulated, while imposing protections instead on the
relationship between the broadband providers and these newly defined
"remote hosts." In contrast to the relationship created by
the first proposal, the much more esoteric one created here would not
be directional, and would
cover every interaction on the Internet where traffic is exchanged.
I'll
need some student “volunteers” to test the functionality...
Office
Apps on iOS Are Now Free, Sort of
Microsoft
finally brings real functionality to Office programs to iOS and
Android devices for free. That means, starting today (Nov. 6), you
won't need an Office 365 subscription to edit documents in the cloud.
The
update breaks out each program (Word, Excel and Powerpoint) into its
own app. All the apps are compatible with Dropbox integration for
cloud storage. While iOS users can take advantage of the new apps
today, Android fans will
have to wait until early 2015 for Microsoft to bring over
the new Office apps.
…
What's the catch, you ask? Some advanced features such as adding
columns and custom tables are still only available to Office 365
subscribers. In Word, you can change fonts, but changing a document
from portrait to landscape format requires a subscription, as does
Presenter view in PowerPoint.
(Related)
Apparently, so does Microsoft.
Microsoft
seeks testers for Office on Android tablets
Microsoft
today began taking registration requests from Android tablet users
for a beta of Office for Google's mobile operating system.
The
final version, which Microsoft dubs "general availability,"
will be available in early 2015, Microsoft said, without naming a
specific date or month. Meanwhile, the preview will be offered to
those invited to the beta program within the next 7 days.
On
the form
potential preview participants were asked to fill out, Microsoft said
that users must have an Android tablet with a screen size between
7-in. and 10.1-in. be running Android 4.4, aka KitKat; and forgo any
OS updates during the time they use the preview.
For
my students who read with their ears... Competition in good!
Scribd
Adds Audiobooks To All-You-Read Library, Piling Pressure On Amazon
Scribd
doesn’t take kindly to being cribbed.
In
July, the San Francisco company woke up to find that Amazon.com
had imitated one of its core services, introducing an
all-you-can-read book subscription service that rivaled the “Netflix
for books” model pioneered by Scribd and fellow competitor Oyster.
With “Kindle Unlimited,” the Seattle retailer made it a selling
point that it had more titles than the little guys, as well as
something the others didn’t have: more than 2,000 audiobooks.
On
Thursday, that distinction is no more as Scribd launched its own
audiobook vertical, a collection that will feature 30,000 titles at
no extra charge to subscribers.
(Related)
Meanwhile, Amazon is headed off in another (Privacy ignoring)
direction... Perhaps this speaker will read your books to you. If
this device starts talking with other IoT devices, it could control
your house! “I'm sorry Bob, I can't allow you to open the
refrigerator door.”
Amazon
Takes on Siri With 'Echo,' a Speaker You Can Talk To
…
Amazon.com (AMZN)
has launched "Amazon Echo," a speaker you leave
on all day and give it voice directions, like Siri on an
Apple (AAPL)
iPhone.
As
well as taking commands such as "Play music by Bruno Mars"
or "Add gelato to my shopping list," Amazon said the device
accesses the Internet
to answer questions such as "When is Thanksgiving?" and
"What is the weather forecast?"
Amazon
said the speaker, which runs on Amazon Web Services, continually
learns a user's speech patterns and preferences.
Users
start the speaker up saying the wake up word, "Alexa."
TV
over the Internet. CNN was first on Cable. Will being first help
CBS win the market?
CBSN:
About the streaming network
CBS
News and CBS Interactive today launched CBSN,
the first digital streaming news network that will allow
Internet-connected consumers to watch live,
anchored news coverage on their connected TV and other devices.
At launch, the network is available 24/7 and makes all of the
resources of CBS News available directly on digital platforms with
live, anchored coverage 15 hours each weekday.
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