I’ve been sitting on this one for a while because it
wasn’t clear if any personal info was involved. CBS
had reported that Los Angeles Valley College in
Valley Glen was subject to a cyber attack over the winter break, but it
was not known how large the breach was or its scope.
Now Breitbart is reporting that the
school’s website and email system was taken down on New Year’s Day by
ransomware, and the school paid $28,000 to free hostage data:
1,900 students and faculty were
locked out of their computers with the message: “You have 7 days to send us the
BitCoin after 7 days we will remove your private keys and it’s impossible to
recover your files,” according to the campus newspaper.
It took the college 72 hours of
computer systems freezing up throughout the Valley Glen campus before college
administrators caved and made the payment the day after school had reopened. But even
after the criminals delivered a decryption “key” to unlock LAVC servers, it
will take weeks to unlock every campus computer and try to assess damages.
Read more on Breitbart.
Heads
of intelligence agencies should never use technology without a babysitter. Clearly, they can’t concentrate on security
while surfing the politics of Washington.
Man Pleads Guilty to Hacking Accounts of U.S. Officials
… According to authorities, between
October 2015 and February 2016, the hacker group used social engineering and
other techniques to gain access to the online accounts of U.S. government
officials and their families, and government computer systems. In addition to CIA
director John Brennan, the group also targeted U.S.
spy chief James Clapper, and senior figures in the FBI, the DHS, the
White House and other federal agencies.
The hackers published their victims’ personal details
online and harassed them over the phone.
For
my Data Management students. If this
data is valuable, should Uber sell it to the highest bidder?
Uber is finally releasing a data trove that officials say
will make driving better for everyone
The combative ride-hailing giant Uber is extending an
olive branch to cities — in the form of data that transit wonks have coveted
for years.
The San Francisco-based company shared a vast trove of
transportation data Sunday that it said local officials could use to help cut
down on commute times and improve traffic flow. The data, on a public website that shows the
time it takes to travel between neighborhoods in various cities, is derived
from the company’s extensive logs of trips taken by millions of Uber riders
each day.
… Uber’s move underscores a new power
dynamic emerging among technology companies, researchers and governments. Technology companies, from Uber to Facebook,
hold growing stores of data about user behavior, and officials and academics
want access to it. They believe it
contains valuable insights that could benefit the public.
The challenge for the public interest is that many
technology companies will share data only on their terms
I used to look forward to new technologies introduced at
CES. Now I worry I’ll need a Smartphone
to make coffee and toast in the morning.
(Will people who reach their data limits starve?)
LG threatens to put Wi-Fi in every appliance it introduces in
2017
In the past few years, products at CES have increasingly
focused on putting the Internet in everything, no matter how "dumb"
the device in question is by nature. It's how we've ended up with stuff like this
smart hairbrush, this smart air
freshener, these smart
ceiling fans, or this
$100 pet food bowl that can order things from Amazon.
Now that phenomenon is reaching its logical endpoint:
during the company's CES press conference today, LG marketing VP David
VanderWaal says that "starting this year" all of LG's home appliances
will feature "advanced Wi-Fi connectivity."
I
told you this was coming. (And it’s Block
Chain, not Bitcoin)
Wall Street Clearing House to Adopt Bitcoin Technology
… The company that serves as the back
end for much Wall Street trading — the Depository Trust and Clearing
Corporation, or D.T.C.C. — said on Monday
that it would replace one of its central databases, used by the largest banks
in the world, with new software inspired by
Bitcoin. The organization,
based in New York, plays a role in recording and reporting nearly every stock
and bond trade in the United States, as well as most valuable derivatives
trades.
IBM,
which has been making a big push into blockchain technology, will be leading
the project for the D.T.C.C. and aims to have it fully functioning by early
next year.
Perspective. Increasingly,
I find I have to teach history as well as Computer Science. This Quarter I had to explain to my students
what an LP was.
Streaming Now Officially the Number One Way We Listen to
Music in America
… Overall
on-demand audio streams surpassed 251 billion in 2016–a 76 percent increase
that accounts for 38 percent of the entire music consumption market. Plus, “the on-demand audio streaming share [of
total music consumption] has now surpassed total digital sales (digital
albums + digital track equivalents) for the first time in history.”
As
previously reported by BuzzAngle, there were
more streams on an average day in 2016 than song downloads for the entire year.
(An average of 1.2 billion streams per
day versus 734 million downloads for all of 2016.)
So that’s what that was…
Audubon Online Guide to Identifying Birds
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Jan 8, 2017
If you are at all interested in birding, bird watching,
feeding birds at your feeders, then please take some time to visit this beautiful and educational site. It provides extensively documented information
on specific birds and raptors, including multiple sets of photographs of
species and subspecies, stories about each subject as well as audio of bird
calls, quizzes to test your birding ID skills, as well as teaching us about the
flyways traveled by birds each spring and fall. Birds and raptors are with us regardless of
the seasons or our geographic location – take the opportunity to learn more
about them, and to participate in bird and raptor conservation efforts.
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