Outsourcing has risks.
Hackers
Stole Data on 15 million T-Mobile Customers
… T-Mobile says as many as 15 million people
may have been affected by the data breach, an attack that didn’t
compromise T-Mobile’s own systems but rather those of its credit
partner — the data vendor and credit bureau Experian. To be clear,
the hack hurts even non-subscribers to T-Mobile — credit applicants
who for whatever reason ultimately went with another service.
Experian says no credit card or banking data was
stolen as part of the attack, which began
in September 2013 and wasn’t discovered until two years later, on
Sept. 15.
But just because your financial information may be
safe doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of your personal information
is secure: names, addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates and
driver’s license and passport numbers were all leaked. Some of
this data was encrypted, but Experian’s encryption may have been
compromised, according to T-Mobile.
T-Mobile is offering two years of free credit
monitoring to those who think they may have been affected. But
it’s no small irony to note that the credit monitoring service is
being provided by none other than Experian itself. [Makes
me wonder why. Bob]
Experian says its own consumer credit database
“was not accessed” in the incident, but the
fact that any systems run by Experian were breached at all is
problematic: Experian is one of the major credit scoring
agencies in the country, and it safeguards vast amounts of data on
everyday Americans.
Just so someone can say, “I did that!” It's a
shame they can't see the damage they're doing.
Gigabytes
of user data from hack of Patreon donations site dumped online
Hackers have published almost 15 gigabytes' worth
of password data, donation records, and source code taken during the
recent
hack of the Patreon funding website.
The data has been circulating in various online
locations and was reposted
here by someone who said it wasn't immediately possible to
confirm the authenticity of the data. Security researcher Troy Hunt
has since downloaded the archive file, inspected its contents, and
concluded that they almost certainly came from Patreon servers. He
said the amount and type of data posted by the hackers suggest the
breach was more extensive and potentially damaging to users than he
previously assumed.
You don't see many hacks like this one. Clearly a
Linux fan.
Someone Has
Hacked 10,000 Home Routers To Make Them More Secure
Most router malware just sits on your home network
and uses the device to launch further attacks. In particular,
infected routers are useful for generating power for distributed
denial of service (DDoS) attacks, where servers are flooded with
traffic from hacked machines.
But there’s a curious kind of malware (if you
can call it that) going around that not only cleans the device of
other infections but even encourages users to update their passwords,
according to research from security giant Symantec.
The Wifatch software, now resident on at least
10,000 routers running the
Linux operating system, runs across a peer-to-peer
network. When it discovers that a potentially vulnerable Telnet port
– a port typically used to control functions on the device and is
often protected with default, crackable passwords – Wifatch shuts
it down. It then asks the user to change passwords and update the
firmware on the router. Furthermore, Wifatch has a module that tries
to remove “well-known families of malware targeting embedded
devices”.
Symantec researcher, Mario Ballano, suspects a
“white hat” vigilante might be behind the malware.
A complement to “Best Practice” reports. This
is a list of things you need to fix, fast. Unfortunately...
Study
Analyzes Corporate Security Practices Across Industries
Clint
Gibler,
a software security engineer at NCC Group’s Domain Services
division and the author of the study, detailed the findings on
Wednesday at the Virus Bulletin conference in Prague.
Running
a commercial scanner on the systems of 100 organizations across ten
industry verticals between February 2014 and May 2015 revealed a
total of 908,000 security issues. The sectors analyzed by the
researcher include charity, energy and utilities, financial services,
health, IT, leisure and media, public sector (education and local),
retail, and transport.
… Once
affected companies were notified about the existence of the flaws,
the vulnerable Linux packages were all updated within a 20 week
timeframe. On the other hand, only 75 percent of Microsoft patches
were applied in a similar timeframe, with 10 percent of the Microsoft
product issues being left unresolved even after a year.
… The
complete report will become available in the coming days. [I'll
keep an eye out. Bob]
What could possibly go wrong?
This
Creepy, Yelp-Like App Lets You Rate People Like Restaurants
Ever get the urge to rate your friends and
colleagues like restaurants, stars and all? Exposing their
strengths, but more likely their flaws, for all to see on the
unforgiving and unforgetting Internet...forever?
Sadly, there’s an app for that. It’s called
Peeple and
it’s scheduled to go live in the Apple App Store in late November –
that is, if the bitter backlash swirling virally around it doesn’t
torpedo the catty reputation tool first.
… To use the controversial free app, you have
to be 21 and have a Facebook account, and there’s no cowardly
hiding behind anonymity. You must use your real name. You also need
to know someone’s cell phone number to add them to Peeple’s
database, which is straight creepy in our book.
(Related) Perhaps this article will help me
understand this generation?
Digital
Romance: The Teens Get It
On Thursday, the Pew Research Center released a
report titled “Teens, Technology, and Romantic Relationships.”
… Fifty percent of teens have expressed
interest in someone by friending them on Facebook or another
social-media site, and 47 percent by commenting on or liking a post.
Pew characterizes these interactions as “entry-level” digital
flirting, often used by teens who have never dated before. But even
for the older and more experienced, I think, they remain ways of
dipping a toe in the ocean of romantic possibility while leaving
yourself room to safely withdraw.
Well you wouldn't expect him to blame the Internet
he invented or global warming, which he also invented.
Al Gore
Blames the 2016 Election's Craziness on Television
… Speaking at the 2015 Washington Ideas Forum
on Thursday, Al Gore did blame a technology for the race’s
unpredictableness—but not the one people might think of.
… “Television pushed the printing press off
of center stage, and now—still—the politicians spend 75 percent
of their money on 30-second TV ads,” he said. “Political
candidates have to spend three-quarters of their time begging rich
people for money to get into the television square.”
And then, said Gore, “human nature being what it
is,” politicians wind up thinking more about the interests of
donors than the interests of constituents.
Well, that's one way to look at it. But I bet
John Galt would be a rider.
The
socialist case for Uber
Imagine that a left-wing union activist from
Glasgow dreamed up an idea for a workers' ride-sharing cooperative.
In this thought experiment, let's give this business a
liberal-friendly name, "PeopleCar."
PeopleCar would not only help low-income folks get
lifts to work cheaper, but it would be structured as a wealth-sharing
collective in which 75% of the money made by the business would go
directly to the workers running it. And it would be environmentally
friendly because it reduces the number of cars on the road, reduces
the demand for new cars, and the company would encourage its staff to
use electric or hybrid vehicles.
Best of all, it's self-sustaining and massively
popular with the workers who use it.
PeopleCar would be hailed as a huge success. Its
founders would be heroes. You would love PeopleCar.
That company already exists in real life. It is
called Uber.
But people
on the left hate Uber, because they want to show solidarity with
traditional taxi drivers.
Uber operates exactly the way I just described it,
but instead of "PeopleCar" it has an unfortunate
Nietzschean moniker which makes it sound like it is run by Nazis. It
was founded by a shamelessly aggressive Ayn
Rand fan named Travis Kalanick. He is not a bearded
leftist from Scotland, the current home of British socialism. He
comes from San Francisco, the current home of rapacious capitalists.
Well, I find it interesting. (And I liked the
book “The Martian” too)
The
Martian, and the Rise of Serial Publishing
With the rise of the Internet, it’s never
been easier to self-publish your own book. There are plenty
of services out there that make
it easy for new authors to sell their work.
This has led to a resurgence in serially published
books, with The Martian, now a major motion picture, being
the prime example.
Rethinking existing technologies. Brilliant.
This
Bladeless Razor Has Raised More Than $2 Million On Kickstarter
The Skarp razor uses a small laser to cut through
hair very close to the skin and claims to do so without any
irritation. The device looks like a traditional razor and using a
AAA battery, the device will last for about a month, according to the
crowdfunding campaign description.
The $89, $139 and $159 early bird specials are
sold out, so to pre-order the Skarp now costs $189.
(Related) Find out who owns that old technology?
Patent
Searching Guide
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Oct 1, 2015
Via Amy Riegelman – University of Minnesota:
Patent
Searching Tutorial – includes Google Patents and USPTO Patent
Database.
Same question every quarter.
What’s
the Best Way to Run Multiple Operating Systems on Your PC?
“Why is it always testing with you evil
per-fessers?”
The
Essential Guide to Mobile App Testing
About time! I start my Spreadsheet class on
Tuesday.
Microsoft
Office 2016: A Big Upgrade for Small Business
Office
2016 is finally available for Windows...
I wonder if I could place a couple of students
there or even in the Colorado legislature?
A handful of technologists are slated to embed
with members of Congress next year as part of a fellowship at New
America's Open Technology Institute.
In its infancy, the the program will only place
about three individuals with technology backgrounds into
congressional offices. But the Open Technology Institute said it is
the first of "several new projects" in the area.
… "Congress is struggling to keep up with
technology in part because it doesn’t have a pipeline for tech
talent. TechCongress will change that," Moore said in a
statement.
… The
fellowship starts in January and the application
deadline is at the end of the month. The program pays $52,500 over
nine months.
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