Wednesday, August 02, 2017

Again?  Are we sure this has not risen to the level of “enemy action?” 
British Airways apologises for check-in failure
Passengers at Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports had to be checked in manually and faced long queues and delays.
BA said the fault was resolved at about 09:00 BST and its computerised system was now operating normally.
It comes after a power cut led to hundreds of flights being cancelled over the May bank holiday weekend.


Failure to delete data when no longer needed.   
Kevin Collier reports:
When 650 thousand Tennesseans voted in the Memphis area, they probably didn’t expect their personal information would eventually be picked apart at a hacker conference at Caesars Palace Las Vegas.
[…]
But hackers given access to an ExpressPoll-5000 electronic poll book—the kind of device used to check in voters on Election Day—have discovered the personal records of 654,517 people who voted in Shelby Country, Tennessee.
Read more on Gizmodo.


Trying to access US data stored abroad?  Like those Microsoft emails in Ireland.  Will it pass? 
Senate bill would ease law enforcement access to overseas data
Senators introduced bipartisan legislation Tuesday that would create a legal framework allowing law enforcement to access Americans' electronic communications in servers located in other countries.
The International Communications Privacy Act from Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) would also require law enforcement to notify other countries of such data collection on their citizens in accordance with their laws.
The bill also allows law enforcement to get communications regarding foreign nationals in certain instances.

(Related).  Could it be that someone is beginning to understand basic security? 
U.S. senators to introduce bill to secure 'internet of things'
The new bill would require vendors that provide internet-connected equipment to the U.S. government to ensure their products are patchable and conform to industry security standards.  It would also prohibit vendors from supplying devices that have unchangeable passwords or possess known security vulnerabilities.  
Republicans Cory Gardner and Steve Daines and Democrats Mark Warner and Ron Wyden are sponsoring the legislation, which was drafted with input from technology experts at the Atlantic Council and Harvard University.


For my Computer Forensics students?
Alex Hern reports:
A judge’s porn preferences and the medication used by a German MP were among the personal data uncovered by two German researchers who acquired the “anonymous” browsing habits of more than three million German citizens.
“What would you think,” asked Svea Eckert, “if somebody showed up at your door saying: ‘Hey, I have your complete browsing history – every day, every hour, every minute, every click you did on the web for the last month’?  How would you think we got it: some shady hacker?  No.  It was much easier: you can just buy it.”
Read more on The Guardian.


Anything to help…
Microsoft Word has a new trick up its sleeve, and it should help anyone who struggles with the written word.  The new feature is called Read Aloud, and it’s a significant improvement on the previous text-to-speech offerings in Word.  Let’s hope this helps eradicate typos once and for all.
   Read Aloud is a new feature which has arrived as part of the latest Office 365 updates.  Read Aloud does exactly what you’d expect it to do, with Word reading your document back to you.  However, Word can now highlight each word as it’s read aloud right from within your workflow. …   Read Aloud, which is listed under the Review tab, is currently only available to Office Insiders.  However, Microsoft promises it will become widely available to the general population “later this year”.  Which, in Microsoft parlance, means anytime between now and December 31st.

No comments: