Zack Whittaker reports:
A security research firm has
released details of a “critical” flaw in a security tool, despite being
threatened with legal threats.
Munich-based ESNC published a security
advisory last week
detailing how a remotely exploitable bug in a security tool, developed by
auditing and tax giant PwC, could allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access
to an affected SAP system.
[…]
The corporate giant argued that
ESNC shouldn’t have had access to the software in the first place, as it wasn’t
a licensed partner.
“ESNC did not receive authorized
access or a license to use this software. The software is not publicly available and was
only properly accessed by those with licenses, such as PwC clients working with
trained PwC staff,” said the spokesperson.
Read more on ZDNet.
This is yet another reminder of why the federal statute,
CFAA, needs to be updated and to include protection for researchers.
Interesting, if true. I would wager that the courts would not be
amused.
Uber encrypts its computers from afar when the government
raids its offices, a lawsuit claims
When government agents raid Uber's offices, the
company springs into action with an immediate response: it shuts everything
down and encrypt all its computers.
That's according to a court declaration by former employee Ward
Spangenberg, who served as Uber's forensic investigator until last February. Spangenberg was fired by Uber and is
now suing the ride-hailing startup for age discrimination, whistleblower
retaliation, and defamation.
WWTD: What will Trump do?
Google Signs Deal With Cuba to Speed Services
Alphabet Inc.’s
Google completed a deal with Cuba to place computer servers on the island to
speed Google services there, a pact that officials hurried to complete before President Barack Obama leaves office next
month.
… The Google
servers in Cuba will store content such as popular YouTube videos, allowing the
content to be delivered more quickly to Cuban users. The move is the latest to improve internet
access for the country of 11.2 million people, which has long been one of the
world’s most isolated nations.
… Google, which
has long had an obsession with the speed of its internet services, operates
servers around the globe to accelerate speeds for local users, including in
Greenland, Somalia, Yemen and the Gaza Strip, said Doug Madory, an
internet-infrastructure analyst at Dynamic Network Services Inc. The
shortlist of countries without Google servers includes China, Iran, Syria and
North Korea, among others, Mr. Madory said.
An amusing question, but I don’t think it’s a very serious
threat.
Is Trump's Twitter account a national security threat?
Intelligence and defense specialists believe the
president-elect's use of the popular and powerful social media network is
already being used by foreign agencies to analyze his personality, track his
habits and detect clues about what to expect from a Trump-led American
government.
I’ll tuck this one away for my Computer Security students.
Careers in security, ethical hacking and advice on where to
get started
Not sure I want my toaster talking back to me.
Microsoft is bringing Cortana to fridges, toasters, and
thermostats
Microsoft is planning to allow fridges, toasters,
thermostats, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices to access Cortana.
… “This will
enable you to build devices with displays, so you get that immersive Cortana
experience,” explains Microsoft program manager Carla Forester. “Any kind of
smart device with a screen can now take advantage of Cortana.” Microsoft wants device makers to use a screen
to get the full Cortana UI, and the company is providing fridges, thermostats,
and toasters as example devices that we’ll likely see in the future.
Short answer? No.
Bulletproofing America
According to a recent poll by the Associated Press, 60
percent of Americans worry that they or a family member might die in a mass
shooting. Statistically speaking, we’d
do better to fret about septicemia and car accidents, but it’s not hard to find
the source of the outsize concern: From 2000 to 2006, an average of six
“active-shooter incidents” took place in the United States each year; in the
following seven years, that number nearly tripled—with one occurring, on
average, every three weeks.
Am I reading this right?
“We can tell you’re a crook just by looking at you?” Will they be looking at members of
Congress?
Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Dec 12, 2016
Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images,
Xiaolin Wu, Xi Zhang (Submitted on 13 Nov 2016 (v1), last revised 21 Nov 2016
(this version, v2)) arXiv:1611.04135 [cs.CV] (or arXiv:1611.04135v2 [cs.CV] for
this version)
“We study, for the first time, automated inference on criminality based solely on still face images.
Via supervised machine learning, we
build four classifiers (logistic regression, KNN, SVM, CNN) using facial images
of 1856 real persons controlled for race, gender, age and facial expressions,
nearly half of whom were convicted criminals, for discriminating between
criminals and non-criminals. All four classifiers perform consistently well and
produce evidence for the validity of automated face-induced inference on
criminality, despite the historical controversy surrounding the topic.
Also, we find some discriminating
structural features for predicting criminality, such as lip curvature, eye
inner corner distance, and the so-called nose-mouth angle. Above all, the most important discovery of
this research is that criminal and non-criminal face images populate two quite
distinctive manifolds. The variation
among criminal faces is significantly greater than that of the non-criminal
faces. The two manifolds consisting of
criminal and non-criminal faces appear to be concentric, with the non-criminal
manifold lying in the kernel with a smaller span, exhibiting a law of normality
for faces of non-criminals. In other
words, the faces of general law-biding public have a greater degree of
resemblance compared with the faces of criminals, or criminals have a higher
degree of dissimilarity in facial appearance than normal people.” [If you don’t
look like us, you’re a criminal? Bob]
A resource for us non-lawyers too. Good on ya, Sabrina!
BeSpacific joins ABA Top 100 Blawgs 2016
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Dec 12, 2016
“BeSpacific NEW:
“No one better has her finger on the pulse of the legal information world than
Sabrina Pacifici, law librarian and author of the blog BeSpacific,” writes
blogger Robert Ambrogi. “Launched in
2002, BeSpacific is one of the longest-running legal blogs and, remarkably,
Sabrina seems more prolific today than ever. She posts multiple items every day, covering
the gamut of law, technology and knowledge discovery and topics ranging from
cybersecurity to legal research to government regulation to civil liberties to
IP and more. For me, BeSpacific is one
of my daily must-reads and has been for 14 years straight.”
Many thanks to the American Bar Association, to master
legal tech blogger Bob Ambrogi, and to the readers of beSpacific. I look forward to sharing another 14 years of
research through my site. And I hope to
hear from you as well – – please send me your news, idea, links and
information that will help us contribute positive impact on issues the
encompass law and technology during these most turbulent and challenging of
times.
- Additionally – Expert Institute Award Best Legal Tech Blog 2016 Contest – BeSpacific – 3rd Place.
Yep, that’s just how the Martians do it!
The Map That Lets You Listen to the Radio Everywhere
… Radio Garden, which launched today, is a
similar concept—a way to know humanity through its sounds, through its music. It’s an interactive map that lets you tune
into any one of thousands of radio stations all over the world in real time. Exploring the site is both immersive and a bit
disorienting—it offers the sense of lurking near Earth as an outsider. In an instant, you can click to any dot on the
map and hear what’s playing on the radio there, from Miami to Lahore to Berlin
to Sulaymaniyah and beyond.
My students will probably love this. Not sure I will.
New Wikipedia mobile and desktop reader
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Dec 12, 2016
Yes everyone uses Wikipedia, so try this: “An
award-winning beautiful interface for Wikipedia. Used by over 100,000 people worldwide, Wikiwand
overhauls Wikipedia’s interface, making it more convenient, powerful and
beautiful.” It will surprise you – try
it – available for iPhone, Android, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.
Future employment for my students? Only if they do better at math! A Jersey boy makes good?
A hot $1 billion hedge fund is building computers to predict
how human traders will act
… Quant funds have
historically analyzed data using mathematical techniques to search for patterns
of trends. The idea here is that quants
can pick up on relationships between financial assets that human traders miss
out on.
That model is outdated, according to Narang. Quants funds don't generate returns by being
smarter, and picking out trends before everyone else, but by predicting what everyone else is going to do.
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