Observations on articles I read to keep current about technology. My interests are: Privacy, security, business, the computer industry, and geeky stuff that catches my eye.
I don't think I have an agenda beyond my own amusement.
Note that I lump all my comments into a single post. This is not a typical BLOG technique, It's just an indication that I'm lazy.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Explaining to my students why Computer Security is cost
effective. An insider copied and tried
to sell customer data.
There’s an update to an insiderbreach
involving the Czech subsidiary of T-Mobile.
Telecompaper reports
(subscription required) that the Czech data protection watchdog has fined
T-Mobile CZK 3.6 million (approximately $150,000) for not having sufficient
safeguards in place.
Nothing to prevent attacks?More video recording to identify terrorists
after they strike.
…. A country branded by its
dictatorial past, when surveillance was both dreaded and commonplace, Germany
has some of the world’s toughest privacy laws. But after two attacks
claimed by Islamic State and a mass shooting this summer, the government is
pushing to recalibrate the balance between security and anonymity.
NBA holds its first hackathon -- should your company, too?
Companies large and small have already embraced the hackathon as a
way to foster collaboration and innovation, and now the NBA has announced that
it's jumping on board.
Scheduled to take place next month in New York, the NBA's
first-ever event is open to
undergraduate and graduate student statisticians, developers and engineers in the
U.S. who are interested in building basketball analytics tools. Participants will present their work to a
panel of expert judges and an audience of NBA League Office and team personnel.
…Once considered
a decidedly alternative approach, hackathons are becoming a mainstream
corporate tool. The obvious next
question is, should your company get involved?
…There are
actually two different kinds of hackathons: internal ones, where a company's
own staff are the participants, and external ones, which are open to the public.
…How often are
students tasered at school? We don’t know. From the
Huffington Post, a look at school police taser policies/practices and their
effects on students: “Set to Stun.”
…“‘Clickbait’-esque
titles work for academic papers too,” says
Boing Boing.
…Via
The New York Times: “Last year’s law school graduates landed
fewer jobs in private practice than any class in the last two decades,
according to the National Association for Law Placement, which tracks
developments in the legal profession.”
Friday, August 19, 2016
“We didn’t know how to secure our terminals until we were
breached, then we immediately secured our terminals.”
Eddie Bauer Is Latest Retailer Infected With Data Breach
Malware
Just days after hotel operator HEI said 20 of its hotels
had been infected, Eddie Bauer said its 350-or-so stores in the U.S. and
Canada had also been the victim of a malware attack.
Cleaning up the mess won’t be cheap—Eddie Bauer said
Thursday that it had arranged for all customers who made purchases and returns
during this period to get free
identity protection services from Kroll for the next year.
…Eddie Bauer’s
terminals were infected on various dates between January 2 and July 17 of this
year. Since it discovered the infection,
it said, it has strengthened its security.
…“We have been
working closely with the FBI, cybersecurity experts and payment card
organizations, and want to assure our customers that we have fully identified and contained the incident and that
no customers will be responsible for any fraudulent charges to their accounts.”
Data breach index service LeakedSource has told Softpedia
that it has received the full database and source of Leet.cc, a service for creating and running
Minecraft Pocket Edition servers.
According to a LeakedSource
spokesperson, the database includes records for 6,084,276 users that have
signed up with Leet.cc.
For each user, the data included
a username, a hashed password, the registration and last login dates, and a
user ID. For the vast majority of users,
but not for all, there was also an email address associated with their account.
Maker of web monitoring software can be sued, says court
The maker of so-called spyware program WebWatcher can be
sued for violating state and federal wiretap laws, a U.S. appeals court has ruled, in a case that may have broader
implications for online monitoring software and software as a service.
…Awareness
pitches WebWatcher as monitoring software for parents and employers. "All WebWatcher products install easily
in 5 minutes or less, are undetectable (thus tamper proof) and all recorded
data is sent to a secure web-based account which allows you to monitor kids and
employees at your convenience from any computer," the company
says.
…The case also
may have implications for corporate monitoring of employees when those
employees correspond with people outside the company, added Braden Perry,
a regulatory and government investigations attorney with Kansas City-based Kennyhertz Perry.
"If services monitor in 'real-time' even with the
employees’ consent, those that the employee corresponds with may have a cause
of action," he said by email. "This
decision not only places potential liability on the individual using the
service but the service itself."
Hands off?That’s a
new idea in government.(I agree, but
now I’m also suspicious!)
The US government’s fix for airlines’ tech problems is to do
nothing
From the US to UK to India and elsewhere, technical
failures have been plaguing the commercial aviation industry in recent years. We’ve counted 24
major disruptions in the US since 2015. Yet, the US Department of Transportation has
no plans to try to regulate the industry into technical resiliency.
A spokesperson for the DOT told Quartz that the agency is
of the opinion that the high cost of glitches is the only needed deterrent to
prevent future outages.
…According to the
DOT, the combined incentives to avoid losing revenue, keep performance metrics
high and have happy customers are “likely a more effective incentive than
detailed regulations concerning the carriers’ IT systems.” [How Adam Smith-like.Bob]
…Other than
systems that are directly related to aviation safety the department “does not
inspect or regulate airlines’ IT systems,” according to the DOT’s statement.
Nonetheless,
the issues have attracted the attention of members of the US Congress. Two Senators, Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and
Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), have sent letters to US airlines requesting
information about what the carriers are doing to prevent future outages and
how it deals with them when they do.
(Related) Another version of “hands-off?” “We’re going to sanction them, but not really.”
U.S. Grants ZTE Another Extension of Trade-Sanctions Relief
The U.S. government extended a lifting of sanctions
against ZTE Corp.for
the second time, as the Chinese maker of telecommunications equipment works to
repair its reputation after allegedly violating U.S. trade rules.
In a statement Thursday, the U.S. Commerce Department said
its temporary sanctions relief will be extended to Nov. 28, which allows ZTE to
continue working with U.S. suppliers.
…The U.S.
Commerce Department added ZTE to its “Entity List,” a list of foreign groups or
individuals that present risks to U.S. national security or foreign policy
interests.
…But just two
weeks after announcing its sanctions, the U.S. granted ZTE a temporary reprieve
through June 30, saying that the temporary license it was granting ZTE would be
renewable if the Chinese company cooperated fully. In June, the U.S. government extended the
temporary relief through Aug. 30.
Yik Yak completes a pivot away from anonymity with status
messages and a feed of nearby users
In March, the college-centric social network Yik Yak took
a step away from its origins in anonymity by asking users to
create "handles" that they could optionally attach to their posts.
Today the company is eliminating the last traces of anonymity from its app,
requiring users to create handles that will be attached to their activity on
Yik Yak.
…The result feels
much more like a chat app than the Yik Yak of old, which served as a kind of
(anonymous) community bulletin board for discussing in-jokes and campus events.
Droll and his co-founder, Brooks
Buffington, positioned the new version of Yik Yak as a way to help its users
feel more connected to the world around them. But it’s also an acknowledgement of what
founders of social networks have come to accept as a law of gravity: apps that don’t require users to establish a
persistent identity are doomed to fail.Secret,
Ask.fm,
Formspring — each app allowed users to post or send messages anonymously,
and each saw an early spike in users only to fade when their novelty wore off.
It's long been known that secret messages can be included
in music through techniques such as backmasking,
but now a Polish researcher has developed an entirely new approach. By subtly varying the tempo of a particular
type of dance music, he's managed to encode information in a way that's completely
inaudible to human listeners.
If this is the Russians, what is their strategy?Hackers don’t just brag about their
achievements, because that forces the vulnerable companies to fix the holes in
the systems.Disclosing someone else’s
hacking techniques suggests you have other techniques that are equally
successful.But I doubt the NSA would
share first level tools with third parties, so what benefit do the Shadow
Brokers gain?
Cisco And Fortinet Confirm Flaws Exposed By Self-Proclaimed
NSA Hackers
American firewall providers Cisco and Fortinethave
issued warnings and fixes for bugs exposed by the Shadow Brokers, who
claimed this weekend to have breached the Equation Group, believed to be an NSA operation.
Cisco and Fortinet had initially determined there was little of concern in the leak,
but after researchers showed how the respective technologies could be
exploited, the tech firms have taken action to protect customers. That both have come forward adds further
weight to the claims the Shadow Brokers’ leak really does
contain information stolen from an NSA server, indicating the US intelligence agency was attacking American
manufacturers’ security
products without telling the companies.And, as the files were dated between 2010 and
2013, the affected firewalls have been hackable for at least three years.
Innovative and depressing.I see a future for this kid at any Internet company.
Evan Robertson, age 10, took a
science fair project and turned it into a valuable lesson in privacy earlier this
month at rootz Asylum, a kids-only gathering at DEF CON where children can
learn about security in a safe, encouraging environment.
Evan wanted to do something
different for his school project. He
just wasn’t into volcanoes.
“I was thinking about a really
cool project, I didn’t want to do normal stuff,” he explained in an interview
with Salted Hash.
Instead, he asked his dad for
ideas. Several options were discussed,
but eventually (at Evan’s insistence) the two decided to see if people cared
about their privacy and security when connecting to public Wi-Fi.
Evan’s project required a
Raspberry Pi, and the base kit ($75) included almost everything needed to prove
his hypothesis. He created a hotspot
that would offer free internet access to anyone using the SSID of FREE PUBLIC
WIFI, provided the user agrees to a horrendous Terms of Service (TOS).
For example:
“…You agree to allow your
connecting device to be accessed and/or modified in any way by us, including
but not limited to harvesting of personal information and authentication data,
reading and responding to your emails, monitoring of your input and/or output,
and “bricking” of your device…”
Researchers have presented the
first-ever comprehensive analysis of third-party web tracking across three
decades and a new tool, TrackingExcavator, which they developed to extract and
analyze tracking behaviors on a given web page. They saw a four-fold increase in third-party
tracking on top sites from 1996 to 2016, and mapped the growing complexity of
trackers stretching back decades.
Read more about the research out of U. of Washington on ScienceDaily.
Driving into the future? My students could not believe that Uber was
not making a profit.
With Google, the self-driving car leader, slowly making
progress with its autonomous cars, you’d be forgiven for thinking Uber’s
efforts are far behind and barely visible in its frenemy‘s rearview mirror.
Well think again!
It turns out Uber has been making very rapid progress on
its plan to replace its one million-plus drivers with computers. Bad news if you’re an Uber driver…
In an interview with Bloomberg, CEO Travis Kalanick
revealed that the company is preparing to add self-driving cars to its fleet of
active drivers in Pittsburgh as soon as this month.
(Related) Apparently, Uber does not lead the race.
Helsinki has just sent its new self-driving buses onto
regular roads
China may have its bizarre straddling bus, but Finland is
also moving ahead with plans for a high-tech public transportation system.
We’re talking self-driving buses, with a couple of its
specially designed box-shaped vehicles now tootling along regular roads in
the country’s capital city of Helsinki.
It’s part of a month-long trial, but the fact that they’re
now allowed to mix with regular traffic suggests it may not be too long
before more of the buses hit the city’s streets as part of a permanent
program.
…Helsinki’s new
electric buses, which can carry up to 10 passengers, are the work of
France-based EasyMile, which itself is a joint venture between French automaker
Ligier and Indian robotics firm Robosoft.
World’s largest aircraft just took flight. But, observers are
stuck on what it looks like.
Just before twilight on Wednesday at Cardington
Airfield in Bedfordshire, England, a giant airship took a buzzy first
flight. It was a brief victory lap for
the largest aircraft on the planet. The
aircraft’s maiden voyage lasted for a half-an-hour as the jumbo ship — at 302
feet in length, that’s a fifth longer than the longest jet — circled the
airfield.
The dirigible moved like a slow queenly
wave, somewhat undercut by the fact the ship looks like, well, a butt.
Interesting.It
looks like a consistent 98% of applications are approved.The people denied should certainly know
better.E.g. convicted felons.
Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 2013–14 – Statistical
Tables – Trent D. Buskirk, Ph.D., Regional Justice Information Service,
Joseph M. Durso, Regional Justice Information Service, Ronald J.
Frandsen, Regional Justice Information Service, Jennifer C. Karberg, Regional
Justice Information Service, Allina D. Lee, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, June 30, 2016. NCJ 249849.
“Describes background checks for firearm transfers conducted in 2014, including
partial data for 2013, and presents estimates of firearm applications received
and denied annually since the effective date of the Brady Act through 2014. Tables provide data on the number of firearm
transaction applications processed by the FBI and by state and local agencies,
the number of applications denied, reasons for denial, and estimates of
applications by jurisdiction and by each type of approval system. State-level 2014 estimates are included for
states with local checking agencies.Data
are from BJS’s Firearm Inquiry Statistics (FIST) program, which annually
surveys state and local checking agencies to collect information on firearm
background check activity and combines this information with FBI’s National
Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) transaction data.”
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
The ever increasing dangers of an ever more connected
world.
Special Report: Not so SWIFT - Bank messaging system slow to
address weak points
More than a dozen current and former board directors and
senior managers of SWIFT, the bank messaging system that helps transmit
billions of dollars around the world every day, have told Reuters the
organization for years suspected there were weaknesses in the way smaller banks
used its messaging terminals – but did not address such vulnerabilities.
The sources said that until
February, when hackers tried to steal nearly $1 billion dollars by breaking
into the messaging system at Bangladesh's central bank, SWIFT had not regarded
the security of customer terminals as a priority. Top executives either did not receive
information from member banks about specific attempts to hack the messaging
network, or failed to spot those attempts themselves, the managers said.
(Related) Want our help getting your money back?Drop the lawsuit.
Bangladesh's central bank said it has reversed its plans
to sue the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the SWIFT money transfer
network, and instead intends to seek their help recovering $81 million stolen
by cyber thieves in February.
Indoctrinating
students and assessing their mindset was a hallmark of Nazi Germany. Our kids are being assessed from grade school
through college. This should scare the
crap out of everyone, why is the mass media silent as our gov’t
assesses kids?
Joe and I have had a fascinating debate about the rest of
his post. We agree in principle
that mindset assessments are just wrong for so many reasons, but we wound up in
some gentle disagreement over the legality under federal laws. I think that districts may be able to get away
with these if they obtain prior parental consent. I hope that if asked, parents do NOT consent,
but that’s another story.
As I wrote to Joe in one of our exchanges today, I am
actually all for academic assessments that can tell us whether children are
ready for the next stage of curriculum or if they need additional rehearsal or
remediation for. I don’t want children
being pushed through the system, and such assessments can be used by parents to
argue for more help and services for their child. But:
I draw the line at
social-emotional assessments, which I think schools should ONLY be doing if:
(1) they have empirically validated tools (which they generally don’t have) and
(2) parental consent in advance, and (3) adequate data security and privacy
protections (which they generally don’t have).
Go read Joe’s post and then reply either there or here to
let us know what you think of this issue.
“Dell and Intel have teamed up to create their newest
Future Workforce Study 2016 which reveals how people around the world feel
about how technology is shaping the workplace. Collaborating with Penn Schoen Berland (PSB),
a series of online interviews were conducted across seven target industries,
with adults who work more than 35 hours a week. With advancements in smart workplace
technologies, the time is now to discover how your workforce is truly evolving
and how to be future-ready. Explore the
key takeaways and download the full global study findings…”
Bot architecture?Push content to interested “fans?”
Sports Illustrated Olympics bots now on Facebook, Slack
Sports Illustrated launched bots on Facebook Messenger,
Telegram, and Slack today to share its coverage from the Rio 2016 Summer
Olympics.
An additional bot will launch on Skype later this week.A complete list can be found on the GameOn website.
“Every hour on the hour you are going to be pushed the top
trending Sports Illustrated (SI) Olympics article, [based on] whatever SI
is able to glean from their user data, but if there’s breaking news, immediate
coverage on that will come in between the hours,” said Alex Beckman, CEO of
sports chat company GameOn. GameOn
partnered with Sports Illustrated to create the bot.
Introducing my students to programming without teaching
them programming languages?
Build A Mobile App With No Programming Knowledge With
Codeless Apps
Plenty of people want to create their own smartphone apps,
but don’t necessarily want to learn how to code. These two positions
are not necessarily contradictory, and it’s totally possible to build a basic
mobile app by using a number of drag-and-drop tools.
…When researching
this post, I was surprised at the sheer number of companies offering codeless
app development platforms. Just to
rattle some names off the top of my head, there’s AppGyver’s Composer, Ionic Creator (which
was formerly known as Codiqa),
EachScape, and Shoutem.Each of these products have one thing in
common: they are aimed primarily at business users.
For job seekers looking to make a good first impression, a
working webcam and a tidy room might be the new firm handshake.
First-round job interviews are the latest part of the
hiring process to undergo digitization as companies use video interviews to cut
recruiting costs and times. Cigna Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc.and
International Business Machines Corp.are
among the employers now asking some applicants to log on to a website and
submit video responses to interview questions in lieu of talking with a human. The method has grown in recent years as nearly everyone has access to a laptop or smartphone
with a front-facing camera, and companies say it is an efficient,
fair and inexpensive way to process hundreds of applicants.
“In five years” has always been translated as “assuming a
miracle.”
These Videos Will Give You the Summary of Big Business Books
in Just 4 Minutes
That Elon Musk biography and Peter Thiel's book on
startups have been on your reading list for a while. Will you ever get to them?
For all you procrastinators, or for those who need a
refresher, New York-based Board
Studios has created a series of videos that summarize business books in
four minutes. In them, an artist's hands
are seen taking notes while a narrator offers the gist of books such as Thiel's
Zero to One, Elon Musk and Holacracy.
NSA hacked? Top cyber weapons allegedly go up for auction
An anonymous group claims to have stolen hacking tools
that might belong to the National Security Agency and is auctioning them off to
the highest bidder.
It’s a pretty bold claim, but the
hackers have offered sample files, and some security researchers say they
appear to contain legitimate exploits.
The files were allegedly stolen from the Equation
Group, a top cyberespionage team that may have links to the NSA.
Interesting how useful this would be for intelligence
agencies.It could flag anyone who
contacts known terrorists, for example.
Linux bug leaves 1.4 billion Android users vulnerable to
hijacking attacks
An estimated 80 percent of Android phones contain a
recently discovered vulnerability that allows attackers to terminate
connections and, if the connections aren't encrypted, inject malicious code or
content into the parties' communications, researchers from mobile security firm
Lookout said Monday.
As Ars reported
last Wednesday, the flaw first appeared in version 3.6 of the Linux
operating system kernel, which was introduced in 2012. In a blog
post published Monday, Lookout researchers said that the Linux flaw appears
to have been introduced into Android version 4.4 (aka KitKat) and remains
present in all future versions, including the latest developer preview of
Android Nougat. That tally is based on
the Android
install base as reported by statistics provider Statista, and it would mean
that about 1.4 billion Android devices, or about 80 percent of users, are
vulnerable.
…The vulnerability makes it possible for anyone with an
Internet connection to determine whether any two parties are communicatingover
a long-lived transport
control protocol connection, such as those that serve Web mail, news feeds,
or direct messages. In the event the
connections aren't encrypted, attackers can then inject malicious code or
content into the traffic. Even when the
connection is encrypted, the attacker may still be able to determine a channel
exists and terminate it. The
vulnerability is classified as CVE-2016-5696.
Australian authorities hacked Tor users in the US as part
of a child pornography investigation, Motherboard has learned.
The contours of this previously-unreported hacking
operation have come to light through recently-filed US court documents. The case highlights how law enforcement around
the world are increasingly pursuing targets overseas using hacking tools,
raising legal questions around agencies’ reach.
In one case, Australian authorities remotely hacked a
computer in Michigan to obtain the suspect’s IP address.
“I think that's problematic, because they've got no
jurisdiction,” Greg Barns, an Australian barrister who practices criminal and
human rights law who's also a former national president of the Australian
Lawyers Alliance, told Motherboard in a phone call.
…“The person
would have to have a link to the jurisdiction,” Barns, from Stawell Chambers,
wrote in an email.
He added that authorities might be able to argue that
because the site's owner was Australian, that gives them the greenlight to
conduct overseas searches for other suspects. At one point, The Love Zone server was also reportedly
moved to Brisbane, giving Task Force Argos, the Queensland Police Service
unit that took over the site, access to every private message on the site.
“But they can't simply wander around the world, assisting
other law [enforcement], saying, ‘We're here to help,’” Barns said.
How are we ever going to keep up with all the hacks?
Thousands of Soros docs released by alleged Russian-backed
hackers
Hackers believed to be backed by Russia this weekend
publicly released more than 2,000 documents connected to billionaire Democratic
donor George Soros and his Open Society Foundations.
The documents
detail the ins and outs of Soros’s groups, which have funded a slew of public
health, human rights and education programs around the globe, while also
mounting opposition to hard-right conservatives in the U.S.
Interesting, but I would add a few more criteria.(Maybe just tweaks to the wording?) Similarity to recent hacks in the
industry.Missing “Best Practice”
defense.
Dan Munro had an interesting conversation with Jeff
Williams of Contrast Security at BlackHat, which led to a draft scoring system
for data breaches and corporate responses:
Tone – Is the announcement apologetic and not
blaming? Does it acknowledge that
there should have been better defenses and that the breach should have
been detected and been able to stop the attack?
Timeline – When was the initial break-in? When was it discovered? How long to disclose?
Scope – What information was stolen and what control
was lost?
Size – How many people were affected? How many
servers?
Root Cause – What was the underlying vulnerability
that was exploited? What defenses
are in place and how did the attack bypass the defenses?
Discovery – Who discovered it? Victims? Security firm? Why didn’t you know earlier?
Remedy – Are you really making victims whole? For how long? [Personal Health
Information – PHI is literally lifelong]
Future – What are going to do to prevent
future/similar attacks?
Blame – Did you state or imply that the attack was
“sophisticated” or “advanced?” Did you provide any evidence of that?
Oddities – Were there any oddities to the timeline
not making sense – or details that stretch credulity?
EU plans to extend some telecom rules to web-based providers
The European Union is planning to extend telecom rules
covering security and confidentiality of communications to web services such as
Microsoft's Skype and Facebook's WhatsApp which could restrict how they use
encryption.
The rules currently only
apply to telecoms providers such as Vodafone and Orange.
…"Unlike
telcos, OTT (web-based) are global players that are allowed to commercially
exploit the traffic data and the location data they collect," telecoms
group Orange said in a response to the EU's public consultation on the reform
proposals.
Under the existing
"ePrivacy Directive", telecoms operators have to protect users'
communications and ensure the security of their networks and may not keep
customers' location and traffic data.
This is interesting.Think it could become popular here in the US?
“Private law firms will be hired by
police to pursue criminal suspects for profit, under a radical new scheme
to target cyber criminals and fraudsters. In a pilot project by the City of London
police, the lead force on fraud in England and Wales, officers will pass details of suspects and cases to law firms, which will
use civil courts to seize the money.The force says the scheme is a way of more
effectively tackling fraud – which is now the biggest type of crime, estimated
to cost
£193bn a year. It is overwhelming
police and the criminal justice system. The experiment, which is backed by the
government and being closely watched by other law enforcement agencies, is
expected to lead to cases reaching civil courts this year or early next year. Officers will use the private law firms to
attempt to seize suspects’ assets. If
unsuccessful, police could decide to leave it at that or pursue the case
themselves through the criminal courts…”
Are You Collecting the Right Data? Lessons from American
Apparel
How many Facebook likes and Instagram followers does your
company have? How about memberships, or
downloads? As these numbers grow from
hundreds to thousands to millions, you may assume that your business is riding
high. Apparently your customers love
you, and there are many more to come.
But according to Thoryn Stephens, the chief digital
officer at American Apparel, measurements like these can constitute what he
calls “fake or false metrics.” They may
be distracting you from underlying problems, or untapped potential. Instead,
businesses need to focus on “the true metrics
that drive value,” he said at the recent Wharton Customer Analytics
Initiative Conference.
India’s WhatsApp rival Hike raises $175M led by Tencent at a
$1.4B valuation
India has a new tech unicorn. Hike,
a four-year-old messaging app, today announced that it has closed $175 million
in funding led by new investors Chinese internet giant Tencent and
manufacturing firm Foxconn. The Series D
round values the company at $1.4 billion, founder and CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal
confirmed to TechCrunch.
…Born out of a joint-venture between Bharti and
SoftBank, Hike includes standard messaging app features you’d
expect, alongside free voice calling and a few other twists. It has put emphasis on local
users with features that include a privacy option to hide chat
messages, in case a nosey relative gets hold of your phone as can happen in
India, and the
ability to send messages via SMS to friends who aren’t using the Hike app,
another foreseeable usecase in the country.
…“Every market has two messaging apps that do well,”
[Not sure I’d agree with that.Bob]
he said in an interview with TechCrunch.“There’s one that replaces SMS and one that does a lot more than
that. Hike doesn’t even compete with WhatsApp today, it is used
very actively in addition to other apps.”
The Top 8 Russian Social Networks (And What Makes Them Great)
…This difference
in social media use is of huge importance for brands who use social media sites
for advertising, as it can completely change a marketing strategy that is used
in other parts of the world. That aside, it’s also just interesting to see how
online communication can differ in different parts of the world!
Another point of view on BitChain. Not sure I like where this one is going.(Not all Americans are evil.)
The United Nations Research Institute for Social
Development (UNRISD) – The United Nations Research Institute for Social
Development has released a new paper that explores the potential for digital
currency Bitcoin to facilitate what author Brett Scott describes as ‘truly
empowering social and solidarity-based finance’. “Bitcoin has been ambivalently received by
many in international development circles,” the report states.“Despite this, the question of whether
Bitcoin can be harnessed to build [a] new means of solidarity-based finance
remains unanswered. This paper sketches
out some key issues practitioners should consider when thinking about
cryptocurrency technology.”
The Big Tech Election Stories No One Else Is Covering
…In the case of
both the Clinton email scandal and the DNC email leak -- not to mention the
various whistle-blower events -- what interests me isn't what's been covered
but what hasn't been covered. I'll shine
a light on some of the huge misses from a tech perspective.
If I know when the light will change, my self-driving car
can time itself to hit the intersection at the full (legal) speed!
Audi Traffic Light Timer Tech Counts Down To Green, Further
Enables Texting Road Warriors
…Traffic light
information is an Audi PRIME feature and will allow vehicles to communicate
with the infrastructure in select metropolitan areas throughout the United
States. The service connects to the
internet via LTE to
Traffic Technology Services servers. The
feature will inform drivers of how much time there is left until a light turns
green.
Face to face with my students?That’s another reason to never own a
smartphone!
Google's new video-chatting app is finally here, but the best
feature doesn't work for iPhone users
…The tech giant
first announced the app, Google Duo, at Google IO in May. It's a simple, one-to-one messaging app that
doesn't come with a lot of fanfare — you simply scroll through your contacts to
see who has the app, click, and connect. But as Nick Fox, vice president of Google's
communications division, told Business Insider, that was intentional.
Illustrating why Hillary thought she could not trust the
State Department?
How states use facial recognition to sniff out driver's
license fraud
…Deep learning
makes it easy and cheap to scan millions of photos for duplicates and fraud,
and since it doesn’t involve any extra data collection or access — you just
need to find matching entries, not link them to an identity — privacy groups
see it as one of the more benign forms of facial scanning. Forty-three of the 50 states have used some
form of that technology, with seven of those states adopting the system for
driver’s licenses in the last three years. (The holdouts are California, Missouri, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.)
It will be interesting to see if the Aussies solve this or
elect a government that can. Thoughts
for my Architecture students.Another ‘industry’
using obsolete technology?
Census 2016: A case study in the confluence of failure
With continuous cuts to its funding, alongside an
arrogant, dispassionate attitude towards the community and a systems provider
that couldn't get the simple things right, it's little wonder the 2016
Australian Census turned into an absolute debacle.
…"It's the
government that have made cuts to ABS staff and the ABS budget. It's the government that failed to explain the
changes that were happening prior to Census night. It's the government who said it was all going
well."
In February last year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics
(ABS) thought about moving
to a 10-year Census cycle, such were its IT woes and need to save money
after "efficiency dividends" were imposed on it by governments of
both stripes.
Former chief statistician Brian Pink warned in the 2013
ABS annual report that ageing infrastructure and reduced budgets from the
government had the potential to "seriously compromise" the agency's
sustainability. It also certainly did
not help that Pink's role as chief statistician was left vacant for over a
year.
For my Data Management students. Last published 16,000 Internet years ago!
White House – OMB: [July 26, 2016] “the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) …releas[ed] an update to the Federal Government’s
governing document for the management of Federal information resources: Circular
A-130, Managing Information as a Strategic Resource. The way we manage information technology (IT),
security, data governance, and privacy has rapidly evolved since A-130 was last updated in 2000.In today’s digital world, we are creating and
collecting large volumes of data to carry out the Federal Government’s various
missions to serve the American people. This
data is duplicated, stored, processed, analyzed, and transferred with ease. As government continues to digitize, we must
ensure we manage data to not only keep it secure, but also allow us to harness
this information to provide the best possible service to our citizens. [This] update to Circular A-130 gathers in one
resource a wide range of policy updates for Federal agencies regarding
cybersecurity, information governance, privacy, records management, open data,
and acquisitions. It also establishes
general policy for IT planning and budgeting through governance, acquisition,
and management of Federal information, personnel, equipment, funds, IT
resources, and supporting infrastructure and services.
Google Fiber To Go Wireless? Underground Fiber Optic Cables
Proving Too Expensive And Time-Consuming
The Google Fiber unit of Alphabet could be looking at
going wireless, as the cost and time associated with installing underground
fiber optic cables for the high-speed broadband internet service is slowing
down the business.
…for most cases,
Google Fiber is looking to use wireless technology to connect homes to the
service as opposed to underground fiber optic cables. In other cases, Google would be looking to
lease existing fiber networks or ask the cities or power companies to build out
the networks themselves.
Google Fiber, which looks to provide customers with up to
100 times the speed of typical broadband internet connections, is running into
trouble with the so-called last mile, which is where the network is brought directly
into the homes and buildings of the service's clients. Getting through this last mile usually
involves tearing up the streets and digging up nearby sidewalks, which is a
huge burden in the construction of the network. As such, the exploration on looking for a
wireless solution to go over the last mile has started.
First secure the rights to the content, then find an
appropriate delivery method?
Twitter and its live NFL games might be coming to Apple TV
Twitter is reportedly negotiating with Apple to bring the
Twitter app to Apple TV — a move that would give the streaming platform's
millions of users access to upcoming NFL games. The talks have been reported
by The New York Timesas part of the social media platform's
plans to broaden its appeal using live sports. (NFL content is already available on Apple TV
for paying NFL Game Pass subscribers, but games aren't live streamed in the US.)
Back in April, Twitter beat out rivals such as Facebook to
secure the rights to live stream a number
of NFL games, and has since signed similar deals with Wimbledon, the MLB,
the NBA, and the NHL.
Isn’t this to be expected?Who would want overnight delivery of 2X4s?
Do-it-yourself chains Home
Depot Inc.and Lowe’sCos. appear to have built a retail oasis
mostly walled off from the reach of online behemoth Amazon.com
Inc.
…Home Depot says
just 25% of its business—smaller, easy-to-ship items like power drills and
small hand tools—faces tough online competition.
That doesn’t mean either chain is immune to Amazon. A UBS survey in June found that 11% of
consumers planning a home improvement project themselves planned to buy
something from Amazon. That is far
behind the 36% who said they planned to shop at Home Depot and the 21% at
Lowe’s, but up from just 7% a few months back.
It really does take time to learn how to use a new technology
properly.
Personal details and bank account
information for employees of as many as 300 UK companies may have been
compromised as part of a data breach at Sage, the UK software group.
[…]
On Friday, the Newcastle-based
group notified around 200 of its current UK business customers that their
information — including employee bank account details and salary information —
may have been affected by a data breach.
One person familiar with the situation told the Financial Times
that a Sage employee’s internal login details were used to gain unauthorised
access to protected data in recent weeks, prompting an investigation by the
company. The police and the Information
Commissioners Office are understood to be involved in the investigation.
My students need to understand this so they can Architect
it, govern it, secure it, and hack it.
Envisioning Bitcoin’s Technology at the Heart of Global
Finance
A new report from the World Economic Forum
predicts that the underlying technology introduced by the virtual currency
Bitcoin will come to occupy a central place in the global financial system.
A report
released Friday morning by the forum, a convening organization for the global
elite, is one of the strongest endorsements yet for a new technology — the
blockchain — that has become the talk of the financial industry, despite the shadowy
origins of Bitcoin.
…Unlike existing
financial ledgers or databases used by banks and other institutions, the
blockchain is updated and maintained not by a single company or government. Instead it is run by a network of users. It’s akin to the way Wikipedia is maintained
by users around the globe.
Initially, bank executives shied away from endorsing
Bitcoin because it had been used for drugs and crime. Now, however, many have focused on ways to
create blockchains without using Bitcoins for transactions in any way.
This is
attractive because blockchains — or “distributed ledgers,” as they are often
described — could offer a new way to move money and track transactions across
borders and other networks in a more secure, transparent and effective way than
the current system.
…Most banks have
already put together blockchain working groups and released research
reports hailing the potentially transformative effect of the technology.
But few
real-world uses of the blockchain have come to fruition
“Updated in 2016, the GTD World Map: 45 Years of Terrorism
displays the concentration and intensity (combining fatalities and injuries) of
terrorist attacks that occurred worldwide across 45 years of data.”
This could take longer to resolve than the 30-Years War!
Megaupload’s Dotcom to appeal U.S. forfeiture of assets ruling
…A three-judge
panel of the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled two to one on Friday that
Dotcom could not recover his assets because by remaining outside the U.S., he
was a fugitive, which disentitled him from using the resources to fight his
case.
Dotcom’s lawyer Ira P. Rothken said his client would seek
a review of the decision in front of the full bench and, if necessary, petition
the Supreme Court.
“This opinion has the effect of eviscerating Kim Dotcom’s
treaty rights by saying if you lawfully oppose extradition in New Zealand, the
U.S. will still call you a fugitive and take all of your assets,” Rothken said
in an email to Reuters received on Sunday.
…A New Zealand
court ruled in December he could be extradited, but an appeal hearing has been
set for later this month.
…In the Federal
Court judgment, Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory wrote Dotcom and his
co-defendants’ reasons for staying in New Zealand – because of jobs,
businesses, and families – were “utterly unpersuasive.”
Maturity models can compel your leadership to action
…While not
advocating any particular tool, the maturity-model assessment family in general
is geared to a cybersecurity program assessment as opposed to a risk or a
threat assessment. Most models present a
common set of industry-vetted, best practices in cybersecurity. These may go even further, matching your
status to industry maturity levels.
…Why go through
all this work? Maturity models can help
you to paint a clear and compelling picture of the gap between threat and
preparation -- not only for infrastructure defenders, but for your management
when it’s time to request resources.
By The Time Wal-Mart Catches Up With Amazon, There Will Be No
Neighborhood Stores
Wal-Mart is getting serious about catching up with Amazon.
Very serious, forging the right
partnerships and amassing the right talent and resources to compete effectively
against the e-commerce leader.
…Wal-Mart has a
reputation for paying very little compensation—barely above minimum wage — to
its low-skill floor employees. But it
pays big bucks to recruit and retain talent for its eCommerce division, where
starting salaries can be as high as $149,000 a year, according to a recent
Glassdoor survey.
Our students put together portfolios and invite potential
employers to come in and listen to their presentations.Perhaps we should put together digital
portfolios and allow global access via the Internet?
FreshGrade Offers Free Webinars About Digital Portfolios
FreshGrade
is a digital portfolio platform that has quickly risen in popularity over the
last eighteen months. The learning slideshow feature in FreshGrade is one of the many
features that has helped it become popular amongst teachers and students.
FreshGrade
is offering a series of free webinars to help teachers learn more about
creating and using digital portfolios in the new school year. Obviously, the webinars will feature the tools
in FreshGrade, but some of the concepts in the first two webinars could be applied
to just about any digital portfolio tool. The first two webinars are already available
to watch on demand. The rest of the webinars start next week. To watch the recorded webinars just visit this page, select a webinar, then complete the registration
and the recording will be available to you almost instantly.
I live in Centennial Colorado. (I'm not actually 100 years old., but I hope to be some day.) I'm an independant computer consultant, specializing in solving problems that traditional IT personnel tend to have difficulty with... That includes everything from inventorying hardware & software, to converting systems & data, to training end-users. I particularly enjoy taking on projects that IT has attempted several times before with no success. I also teach at two local Universities: everything from Introduction to Microcomputers through Business Continuity and Security Management. My background includes IT Audit, Computer Security, and a variety of unique IT projects.
