Are Attacks Against SWIFT Acts of Cyberwar?
… In a report
posted today, BAE Systems warns of the difficulty
in making positive attribution to cyber attacks. Nevertheless, it gives enough clues for any
reader to point the finger ultimately at North Korea. For example, BAE Systems first suggests a very
strong likelihood that the same group is behind both the Bangladeshi and
Vietnam breaches using malware based on msoutc.exe. This it then links to 'a larger toolkit
described in US-CERT Alert TA14-353A.'
(Related) Is this more or less critical than a bank?
German Spy Service Says Russia Behind Major Cyber Attacks
Germany's domestic secret service said Friday it had evidence that Russia
was behind a series of cyber attacks, including one that targeted the German
parliament last year.
The operations cited by the BfV intelligence agency ranged
from an aggressive attack called Sofacy or APT 28 that hit NATO members and
knocked French TV station TV5Monde off air, to a hacking campaign called
Sandstorm that brought down part of Ukraine's power grid last year.
This could get strange.
I don’t have to give them my password or tell them which of the hundreds
of social media tools I use. How will
they determine which are mine and which belong to students who create a post in
my name?
The government has released a first-ever social media
policy for background investigations, which will scan what applicants have
posted on Facebook, Twitter and other sites to determine their trustworthiness.
Read
the full story on the Washington Post, and see the policy
document.
Why would they need to do this? Does it make them feel more James
Bond-like?
Philly Police Admit They Disguised a Spy Truck as a Google
Streetview Car
The Philadelphia Police Department admitted today that a
mysterious unmarked license plate surveillance truck disguised as a Google Maps
vehicle, which Motherboard first
reported on this morning, is its own.
In an emailed statement, a department spokesperson
confirmed:
“We have been informed that this unmarked vehicle belongs
to the police department; however, the placing of any particular decal on the
vehicle was not approved through any chain of command. With that being said, once this was brought to
our attention, it was ordered that the decals be removed immediately.”
… “For one, I
would think it's highly illegal to have Google's markings on there, but that's
another issue entirely,” Worf said. “But
it boils down to the fact that most people at first glance wouldn't recognize
an ALPR system if they saw it, and for those that do, they likely wouldn't know
what Google would be doing with one.
“Frankly, what I don't get is why they felt a need to hide
something like this. It certainly makes one question the motive for doing
so," he added.
“It’s certainly concerning if the city of Philadelphia is
running mass surveillance and going out of its way to mislead people,” said
Dave Maass, a former journalist and researcher at the nonprofit advocacy group
Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Will this give them a significant ‘competitive advantage?’
Large law firm licenses IBM Watson technology
by Sabrina I. Pacifici on May 13, 2016
[Note – not affiliations whatsoever – just interesting
announcement] – “ROSS Intelligence is proud to announce that AmLaw100 law
firm BakerHostetler has agreed to retain use of ROSS Intelligence’s artificial
intelligence legal research product, ROSS Intelligence Co-Founder Andrew Arruda
officially announced the partnership at Vanderbilt Law School’s “Watson, Esq.”
conference in Nashville, Tennessee in April. BakerHostetler will license ROSS for use in its Bankruptcy, Restructuring and
Creditors’ Rights team. The
ROSS platform is built upon Watson, IBM’s
cognitive computer. With the support of
Watson’s cognitive computing and natural language processing capabilities,
lawyers ask ROSS their research question in natural language, as they would a
person, then ROSS reads through the law, gathers evidence, draws inferences and
returns highly relevant, evidence-based candidate answers. ROSS also monitors the law around the clock to
notify users of new court decisions that can affect a case. The program continually learns from the
lawyers who use it to bring back better results each time…”
Obama will need to send in the Army. Imagine all the government agencies that
could be replaced by contractors doing their job better and cheaper! Government would become a Libertarian
dream.
Phoenix airport mulling use of contractor instead of TSA
Phoenix’s busiest airport could cut ties with the TSA in
the wake of a baggage-screening system breakdown that caused travelers a
massive luggage delay, city officials said Friday.
Deborah Ostreicher, the city’s assistant aviation
director, said Thursday’s chaos at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was
the latest in a growing list of frustrations with the Transportation Security
Administration.
She also cited long wait times and a lack of a TSA
PreCheck process.
… Calling the
current level of service “unacceptable,” Ostreicher said officials are
reviewing several options to improve things for travelers.
“One of those options is to utilize a contractor to
provide security as some other airports have done,” Ostreicher said in a
statement.
Phoenix is not alone. The world’s busiest airport in Atlanta and the
New York/New Jersey region’s airports are also scrutinizing their relationship
with TSA.
This is actually for my Architecture class. If they can’t build it secure, no one will
trust it.
Privacy fears 'deterring' US web users from online shopping
Almost half of American households with at least one
internet user have been "deterred" from online activity recently
because of privacy or security concerns, a survey has said.
Their concerns had stopped them either using online
banking or shopping or posting on social media, the survey by a Department of
Commerce agency said.
The study asked 41,000 households about their activity in
the past 12 months.
A US official said mistrust about privacy was causing
"chilling effects".
The agency that carried out the study, the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), called for encryption
and security to be improved.
[You might
find it here, I couldn’t:
If I program this right, I can flunk all my students at
the push of a button!
Amazon Rolls Out $20 Programmable Dash Button For IoT
Tinkering, Promptly Sells Out
We’ve all seen Amazon’s Dash buttons; the little Wi-Fi
connected devices that allow you to quickly reorder products without even
having to visit Amazon’s website.
… The AWS IoT
Button isn’t meant for restocking your pantry, bathroom or laundry room —
instead, it’s destined to integrate into your digital life to automate tasks.
… If you’d like to
learn more about AWS IoT Button, Amazon has a handy step-by-step tutorial that walks you through setting
up the device and integrating it into your workflow. But first of all, you’ll have to get your
hands on one, which at this time is unfortunately a bit hard to do. Amazon has already sold out of the $20 device after less than a day on
the market.
Amazon likely didn’t realize what a hot commodity it had
on its hands and is going to need to crank up the production numbers pronto to
appease tech fiends that are quickly embracing the IoT movement.
Just in time for our 3D Printing class. (Includes “Build Your Own Printer” links)
5 of the Coolest 3D Printed Arduino
Projects
Another silly Saturday.
Hack Education Weekly News
… Trump’s
presidential campaign co-chair describes
The Donald’s higher education platform: “getting government out of student
lending, requiring colleges to share in risk of loans, discouraging borrowing
by liberal arts majors and moving OCR to Justice Department.”
… “Frustrated with how
colleges have handled their claims of sexual abuse, more students are turning
to social media to publicize their cases,” Inside Higher
Ed reports.
… Famed tech
startup accelerator program Y Combinator is launching HARC,
the Human Advancement Research
Community. The mission is to copy
the old Xerox PARC model and to “ensure human wisdom exceeds
human power, by inventing and freely sharing ideas and technology that allow
all humans to see further and understand more deeply.”
… “Dropbox’s new
education tier has most of its business features for a third of the price,” says
The Next Web.
Wally illustrates perfect (circular) logic.
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