I guess they didn't realize it was tax return
season.
IRS says
experiencing computer failure
The U.S. Internal
Revenue Service said on Wednesday it is experiencing computer failure
across several systems and temporarily cannot accept many taxpayer
returns.
"Several of our
systems are not currently operating, including our modernized e-file
system and a number of other related systems," the IRS said in a
statement.
An invitation to hackers? (They read the same
news sources that I do.) Seems they are accepting this risk based on
“it hasn't been detected yet,” while articles like this tell
hackers how to exploit the weakness.
eBay has no
plans to fix “severe” bug that allows malware distribution
eBay has no plans to fix a "severe"
vulnerability that allows attackers to use the company's trusted
website to distribute malicious code and phishing pages, researchers
from security firm Check Point Software said.
The vulnerability allows attackers to bypass a key
restriction that prevents user posts from hosting JavaScript code
that gets executed on end-user devices. eBay has long enforced the
limitation to prevent scammers from creating auction pages that
execute dangerous code or content when they're viewed by unsuspecting
users. Using a highly specialized
coding technique known as JSFUCK, hackers can work around this
safeguard. The technique allows eBay users to insert JavaScript into
their posts that will call a variety of different payloads that can
be tailored to the specific browser and device of the visitor.
… Update: In an e-mail sent to Ars
after this post went live, eBay officials wrote: [ … ] We have not
found any fraudulent activity stemming from this incident.” [Yet
Bob]
The e-mail added:
[ … ] it's important to understand that malicious content on our marketplace is extraordinarily uncommon, which we estimate to be less than two listings per million that use active content on the eBay marketplace.
A backgrounder to start the conversation in my
Computer Security class.
5 New
Gadgets That Present New Security & Privacy Issues
Local. The story was about the evil of sexting.
Did they need visuals? What could justify this?
Emma Gannon reports:
An NBC station in Colorado sexually exploited a 14-year-old boy by broadcasting a picture of his penis and identifying him in a news story, the teenager claims in court.
Levi Holden, now 16, sued KOAA TV Channel 5 & 30, NBC Universal, Comcast, and six KOAA employees on Jan. 29 in Federal Court.
Read more on Courthouse
News.
The parties dispute whether KOAA was supposed to
keep Levi’s name confidential. But if KOAA really aired a
thumbnail of a picture of his erect penis, I have to wonder what the
hell KOAA’s editors were thinking – even without attribution or
display of any Facebook page, that just seems so… inappropriate.
[Unnecessary. Bob]
No camera, yet.
This
Android-Powered Smart Bathroom Mirror Lets You Do Voice Searches On
Google
With a two-way
mirror, a controller board, a display panel, components, arts and
crafts supplies and a lot of know-how at hand, Googler Max Braun
created the only logical thing to do: a smart Android-powered
bathroom mirror.
The nifty
device offers the date, time and weather through Forecast along with
some news headlines via the Associated Press. It automatically
brings the latest updates and features voice search support. In
other words, it can be considered an early prototype of a Google Now
mirror.
...and submarine nets in the bay.
32-mile-wide
'No Drone Zone' surrounds Super Bowl 50 site on Sunday
Outside of passes from two of the NFL’s biggest
playmakers, not much else should be flying around Levi’s Stadium in
Santa Clara on Superbowl Sunday, the Federal
Aviation Administration said.
Starting at 2 p.m. and lasting until 11:59 p.m.
Sunday, the FAA has issued a temporary flight restriction for most
aircraft -- including drones -- in a 32-mile radius around the
stadium south of San Francisco.
Perspective.
Phones Will
Drive Internet Traffic Past the Zettabyte Mark This Year
… The Visual
Networking Index, a survey of global Internet traffic trends,
predicts that the total amount of Internet traffic will break the
zettabyte barrier this year, and will double again in 2019.
What’s a zettabyte? It’s one billion
terabytes. A terabyte is the amount of storage space you get in an
Apple iCloud account for about $10 a month, or for those who still
think in gigabytes, it’s one trillion gigs. Zettabytes
are bigger than
exabytes, which are bigger than petabytes, which are bigger than
terabytes. It’s one
sextillion bytes, which is a one followed by 21 zeros.
I bought these last week and the mozzarella was
missing. How do they make these things?
McDonald's
Mozzarella Sticks Are at the Center of a New Lawsuit
Following last
week’s case of the missing cheese – for
which McDonald’s apologized – the company’s mozzarella
sticks are now the subject of a proposed class action lawsuit.
A man in California is seeking $5 million in
damages for him and 40 other customers across the U.S., claiming the
franchise falsely advertised that the sticks were made with
100-percent real cheese, according
to Law360. The suit alleges McDonald’s used starch as a
filler, which would violate FDA guidelines prohibiting the use of
starch in products labeled as “mozzarella cheese.”
For my Data Management students and our ongoing
discussion of the globalization of e-commerce.
Alibaba
Seeks to Gain Foothold in India via Acquisitions
… They could potentially do this by purchasing
a stake in Flipkart LTD, which is India’s largest internet firm.
Flipkart has over 30,000 employees and has been operational since
2007. Flipkart
successfully raised $1 billion worth of investment in July 2014.
As of May 2015, Flipkart was valued at around $15 billion. It has
been reported that the deal will only go ahead if Flipkart is willing
to offer Alibaba a significant discount.
… Alibaba could potentially buy a stake in
Snapdeal instead (another Indian firm.)
(Related) Why?
The
Amazon-Store Mystery
On Tuesday, a routine earnings call hosted by a
mall developer became the call that launched a hundred articles (and
yes, this is one of them) . According
to The Wall Street Journal, Sandeep Mathrani, the CEO of
General Growth Properties, responded to a question about foot traffic
with the surprising answer that Amazon will soon play a role in
attracting shoppers, since the company is aiming to open 300 to 400
physical bookstores. After lots of speculation and a good deal of
anger
displayed by sources within Amazon (who haven’t yet officially
denied the reports), Mathrani
released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying that his comment
“was not intended to represent Amazon's plans.”
For our CJ students. No longer in Beta?
Sunlight
launches Hall of Justice – massive data inventory on criminal
justice across US
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Feb 3, 2016
“Today, Sunlight is launching Hall
of Justice, a robust, searchable data inventory of nearly 10,000
datasets and research documents from across all 50 states, the
District of Columbia and the federal government. Hall of Justice is
the culmination of 18 months of work gathering data and refining
technology. The process was no easy task: Building Hall of Justice
required manual entry of publicly available data sources from a
multitude of locations across the country. Sunlight’s team went
from state to state, meeting and calling local officials to inquire
about and find data related to criminal justice. Some states like
California have created
a data portal dedicated to making criminal justice data easily
accessible to the public; others had their data buried within hard to
find websites. We also found data collected by state departments of
justice, police forces, court systems, universities and everything in
between . “Data is shaping the future of how we address some of our
most pressing problems,” said John
Wonderlich, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation. “This
new resource is an experiment in how a robust snapshot of data can
inform policy and research decisions.”
This one just entered Beta.
GPO
Launches govinfo beta to replace FDsys
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Feb 3, 2016
“The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO)
launches www.govinfo.gov
and ushers in a new, dynamic way for the public to discover and
access Government information on the three branches of the Federal
Government. govinfo is a user-friendly, modernized site that
provides an easy to use navigation system accessible on smartphones,
tablets, laptops and personal computers. GPO receives information
from Federal agencies and organizations in all three branches of the
Government. Its content feeds The Library of Congress’
www.congress.gov
and the Federal Register site. Currently in beta, govinfo will
replace GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) in 2017.
Some key features on govinfo:
-
Mobile-friendly optimized for screen size
-
An ABC list of collections
-
Quick Links to popular publications
-
Related Documents
-
Search by Calendar
-
Shareable social media content
Perhaps the ultimate source of PowerPoint slides!
(We don't need no stinking Shakespeare!)
Epic
‘Frinkiac’ Search Engine Matches Any Simpsons Quote With Its
Still
One site. Fifteen seasons. Three million
searchable screengrabs. This is the wonder that is Frinkiac,
a compendium of Simpsons moments frozen in time, and the
latest, best, most perfectly cromulent way to waste time on the
Internet.
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