You wouldn't want the US to be a second rate
CyberWar power would you? (How do they stage these just when they
need them?)
Chinese
hackers breach federal government’s personnel office
Hackers working for the Chinese state breached the
computer system of the Office of Personnel Management in December,
U.S. officials said Thursday, and the agency will notify some 4
million current and former federal employees that their personal data
may have been compromised.
The hack was the second
major intrusion of the same agency by China in
less than a year and the second significant foreign breach into U.S.
government networks in recent months. Russia
last year compromised White House and State
Department e-mail systems in a campaign of cyber espionage.
OPM, using new tools, discovered
the breach in April, according to officials at the agency
who declined to discuss who was behind the hack.
Other U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity citing the ongoing investigation, identified the hackers as
being state-sponsored.
(Related) “Patterns” would suggest anything
originating in North Korea and many IP addresses in China.
Without public
notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National
Security Agency‘s warrantless surveillance of Americans’
international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious
computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents.
In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two
secret memos permitting the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet
cables, without a warrant and on American soil, for data linked to
computer intrusions originating abroad — including traffic that
flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the
documents show.
The Justice Department allowed the agency to
monitor only addresses and “cybersignatures” — patterns
associated with computer intrusions — that it could tie to foreign
governments.
I wonder why no law school has created a “New
Technologies and the Law” center to explain how new technologies
might impact the law. Wouldn't the companies who create the
technology be willing to fund it? (And pot holes should be regulated
under the marijuana laws because... Pot!)
From the
see-why-judges-need-to-understand-technology
dept.:
Sean Whaley reports:
The Nevada Supreme Court said Thursday that the state’s wiretap law permits the interception of cellphone calls and text messages even though it has not been updated since 1973.
[…]
But a three-justice panel of the court said Nevada’s law regarding “wire communications” includes cellphones. The court said that “wireless” cellphone communications do involve the use of a wire when the communication reaches a cellular tower and is then transmitted by wire through a switching station to another transmitting tower.
Read more on Las
Vegas Review-Journal.
(Related) Perhaps the Computer Security industry
would help fund such a center...
IoT Poses
Security Challenge to Enterprise Networks
There
are many things in the Internet of Things (IoT); so many that
enterprises are often finding themselves challenged to keep up and
secure them all.
In
a new study from OpenDNS entitled 'The
2015 Internet of Things in the Enterprise Report',
researchers found that IoT devices are common in highly-regulated
industries, even though the infrastructure supporting those devices
has its share of
cracks in it.
"The
traditional approach of designing a strong perimeter and controlling
everything inside of that perimeter just isn’t
possible anymore," said Mark Nunnikhoven, senior research
scientist on the OpenDNS Security Labs team.
Can you really Opt-Out?
Orin Kerr writes:
The federal Wiretap Act is the major privacy law that protects privacy in communications.
[…]
In this post, I want to focus on a particularly tricky and important application of the problem that is raised in a case now pending in the Third Circuit: How does the Wiretap Act apply to surveillance of websurfing? Say a person is surfing the web, and a surveillance device is monitoring the URLs that a person is visiting. When, if at all, can that violate the Wiretap Act? Are the URLs contents or metadata, and if URLs are contents, who are the parties to that communication that can consent?
Read more on The
Volokh Conspiracy.
[From
the Third Circuit article:
Google
and a couple of other Internet companies that use third-party cookies
to track the online behavior of people who use browsers that are
specifically designed and advertised as barring that kind of tracking
are the only defendants in the case, "but this is how systems
across the entire Internet work and whatever ruling this court issues
is going to affect broad swaths of companies and how they interact,"
said Michael Rubin, the Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati lawyer
who represented Google in front of the Third Circuit.
This is a significant change. I can see why many
tech companies would love it.
Emma Woolacott reports:
Under the draft provisions of the latest trade deal to be leaked by Wikileaks, countries could be barred from trying to control where their citizens’ personal data is held or whether it’s accessible from outside the country.
Wikileaks has released 17 documents relating to the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), currently under negotiation between the US, the European Union and 23 other nations. These negotiating texts are supposed to remain secret for five years after TISA is finalized and brought into force.
Read more on Forbes.
Perhaps we should take a look at this?
Chris DiMarco reports:
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is probably best known for the cybersecurity guidelines it released in late 2013, but the organization frequently authors reports on critical issues in the technology space. The NIST recently released a draft of one such report designed to aid federal organizations in processing private citizen information. Now entering a public commenting period that will remain open until July 13, the report, “Privacy Risk Management for Federal Information Systems,” seeks to create a universal vocabulary for discussing the challenges of private data processing, while providing modes of thinking that can be applied as information processing continues to evolve.
[…]For more on the “Privacy Risk Management for Federal Information Systems Framework” draft and to submit comments, visit NIST.gov.
Read more on LegalTech
News (sub. req.)
Perhaps you should not use social networking
without thinking about the possible downside. This is about as far
from a “Like” as you can get.
A general suggested at an event that the Air Force
was able to target an attack on a building used by the Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) based on a single social media post,
according to an account published
by Defense Tech.
“It was a post on social media to bombs on
target in less than 24 hours,” Gen. Hawk Carlisle said during an
Air Force Association event. “Incredible work when you think
about.”
“The guys that were working down out of
Hurlburt, they’re combing through social media and they see some
moron standing at this command. And in some social media, open forum,
bragging about the command and control capabilities for Daesh, ISIL.
And these guys go: ‘We got an in.’ So they do some work, long
story short, about 22 hours later” the building had been destroyed
by a strike, he said.
… Social media platforms have moved to suspend
users associated with the group, but the authors of the Brookings
paper found those were not successful on a broad scale.
“Account suspensions do have concrete effects in
limiting the reach and scope of ISIS activities on social media,”
they wrote. “They do
not, at the current level of implementation, eliminate those
activities, and cannot be expected to do this.” [Think
of this a permanent suspension. Bob]
Interesting. How long does it take to review 200
man-years of code?
Microsoft
is going to let governments look at its source code in a special
office to prove spies can't use it
Microsoft has opened a special office in Brussels
that will allow European governments to dig through its source code
in search of any backdoors that could allow foreign spy agencies to
intercept information.
Microsoft posted
on its blog that it's launching the special office to support a
"high level of openness and cooperation" with European
governments, who are deeeply suspicious of the online surveillance
conducted by the US's NSA.
…
It
already has one transparency center in Washington, but this is the
first of its kind to be opened in Europe.
… Apple did something similar in China when it
allowed the government to inspect its products in search of NSA
backdoors, amid fears that Apple products could be used by the US
government to spy on Chinese citizens. CEO Tim Cook reportedly agreed
in December 2014 that Apple would comply with Chinese "security
audits"
A clear indication that China is becoming a
regional problem.
Manila
"gravely concerned" over reported Chinese warning shot at
sea
The
Philippines on Friday expressed concern over reports a Chinese
warship has fired a warning shot on a Filipino fishing boat near a
reclaimed reef in the disputed South China Sea, Manila's defence
minister said.
China
has been rapidly expanding its occupied reefs in the Spratly
archipelago, alarming other claimants, and drawing sharp criticism
from the United States, Japan and European States.
"If
indeed this happened, it is a cause of grave concern." Defence
Minister Voltaire Gazmin told journalists in a text message from
Tokyo, where he joined a four-day state visit by Philippine President
Benigno Aquino.
China
claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in
ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Brunei,
Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also have overlapping claims.
(Related)
Japan to
Provide Patrol Vessels to Philippines
The Japanese government is providing more maritime
equipment to its neighbors, as part of moves by U.S. regional allies
to forge closer security ties in response to China’s
aggressive behavior in the Western Pacific.
On Thursday, Philippine President Benigno Aquino
III, who is on a state visit to Japan this week, signed a deal with a
Japanese shipbuilder to buy a fleet of 10 patrol vessels. Tokyo will
provide a low-interest loan worth ¥19 billion ($150 million) to pay
for the ships, marking a significant shift in Japan’s foreign aid
program focused until now on infrastructure projects.
Math stuff for my Math (and Excel) students.
Thoughts
this week
Excel
is my favourite Microsoft program both for its use in Mathematics
teaching and for data analysis. In 2013 at the TSM
Conference I was very
fortunate to meet and be trained by Mike Hadden. I had already
discovered and often used Mike’s
Excel files for my teaching; in 2013 thanks to Mike I
discovered the joys of Excel macros which save me a serious number of
hours in my job!
Mike
now has a blog where you can find out more about his
Excel
files for teaching (scroll down) and
also learn
more about macros – have a look at the
Macro Recorder Demo.
For the Toolkit
The Mega
Guide to Media File Conversion Tools in Windows
We don't teach our students how to use technology
to communicate properly.
10 Simple
Tips to Elevate Your Small Business Emails
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