A Dilbert I should send to the Boards of Directors
of every company suffering a major security breach.
I’ve been pounding number 5 into my Computer
Security students. New technology developers do not study history,
especially the history of computer security.
WSJ – The
6 Laws of Technology Everyone Should Know
Professor
who summarized the impact of technology on society 30 years ago seems
prescient now, in the age of smartphones and social media –
“Three decades ago, a historian wrote
six laws to explain society’s unease with the power and
pervasiveness of technology. Though based on historical examples
taken from the Cold War, the laws read as a cheat sheet for
explaining our era of Facebook, Google, the iPhone and FOMO. You’ve
probably never heard of these principles or their author, Melvin
Kranzberg, a professor of the history of technology at Georgia
Institute of Technology who died
in 1995. What’s a bigger shame is that most of the innovators
today, who are building the services and tools that have upended
society, don’t know them, either. Fortunately, the laws have been
passed down by a small group of technologists who say they have
profoundly impacted their thinking. The
text should serve as a foundation—something like a Hippocratic
oath—for all people who build things…”
-
‘Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral..’
-
‘Invention is the mother of necessity…’
-
‘Technology comes in packages, big and small…
-
‘Although technology might be a prime element in many public issues, nontechnical factors take precedence in technology-policy decisions…’
-
‘All history is relevant, but the history of technology is the most relevant…’
-
‘Technology is a very human activity…’
Some thoughts for my Computer Security students.
An editorial by the New York Times editorial board
begins:
How hard should it be
for the police to get hold of reams of data showing every place
you’ve been for months?
The Supreme Court will
confront that question on Wednesday when it hears oral arguments in
one
of the biggest Fourth Amendment cases in years.
In 2013, Timothy
Carpenter was convicted of being the ringleader behind a series of
armed robberies of cellphone stores in and around Detroit, and was
sentenced to almost 116 years in prison. His conviction was secured
in part based on 127 days of location data that his cellphone service
provider turned over to the police, showing that his phone had been
in the vicinity of several of the robberies.
Read more on the New
York Times.
[From
the editorial:
As a federal judge in a separate case put
it, “A person who knows all of another’s travels can deduce
whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the
gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical
treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups
— and not just one such
fact about a person, but all such facts.”
It’s for your own good?
Rebecca Hill reports:
The UK’s Court of Appeal has ruled that the body that oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies cannot be held subject to a judicial review under active laws.
In a judgment handed down yesterday, the court rejected an argument from campaign group Privacy International that aimed to use case law to back up its the right to appeal a decision from the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
Read more on The
Register.
What is the thinking here? Is there ever a good
reason to NOT tell hacker targets?
FBI Didn't
Tell Americans Targeted By Russians For Emails: AP
The FBI
failed to notify scores of U.S. officials that Russian hackers were
trying to break into their personal Gmail accounts despite having
evidence for at least a year that the targets were in the Kremlin's
crosshairs, The Associated Press has found.
Nearly 80 interviews with Americans targeted by
Fancy Bear, a Russian government-aligned cyberespionage group, turned
up only two cases in which the FBI had provided a heads-up. Even
senior policymakers discovered they were targets only when the AP
told them, a situation some described as bizarre and dispiriting.
… Three people familiar with the matter —
including a current and a former government official — said the FBI
has known for more than a year the details of Fancy Bear's attempts
to break into Gmail inboxes. A senior FBI official, who was not
authorized to publicly discuss the hacking operation because of its
sensitivity, declined to comment on timing but said
that the bureau was overwhelmed by the sheer number of attempted
hacks. [That
would seem to make it even more important to let potential victims
know. Bob]
Could be
useful. Know when to vent and to whom.
IssueVoter
supports direct communications between voters and elected officials
FastCompany:
“A site called IssueVoter
is designed to make it much simpler to follow what elected officials
are doing, easily share opinions about proposed bills, and track the
results of votes. “I use this analogy: When you hire someone, and
you pay and promote them, you get to see their work and evaluate the
work they’re doing,” says Maria Yuan, IssueVoter founder and CEO.
“But when we vote for someone we don’t necessarily see the work
they’re doing, yet we do continue to reelect our elected
officials.” Before a vote, the site sends users targeted alerts
outlining the arguments for and against the bill. After reading the
details, users can click a simple “oppose” or “support”
button to send their representative’s office an anonymous message
with their opinion. (Contrary to some stereotypes, legislators do
care what voters think about issues–and staffers keep tallies of
constituent sentiment).
Via IssueVoter:
… You can share an issue on your favorite
social network, without revealing your personal opinion. Act on
issues that don’t make headlines. We don’t only tell you about
what is breaking the news; we check for updates every hour to make
sure you have the latest information. Become an informed voter.
Would this
work in other industries?
HBS – How
Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com
Harvard Business School: “Ryan
Raffaelli set out to discover how independent bookstores managed to
survive and even thrive in spite of competition from Amazon and other
online retailers. His initial findings reveal how much consumers
still value community and personal contact.”
“When Amazon.com burst onto the nascent online
retail scene in 1995, the future seemed bleak for brick-and-mortar
independent bookstores—which already faced competition from
superstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders. Indeed, between
1995 and 2000, the number of independent bookstores in the United
States plummeted 43 percent, according to the American Booksellers
Association (ABA), a nonprofit trade association dedicated to the
promotion of independent bookstores. But then a funny thing
happened. While pressure from Amazon forced Borders out of business
in 2011, indie bookstores staged an unexpected comeback. Between
2009 and 2015, the ABA reported a 35 percent growth in the number of
independent booksellers, from 1,651 stores to 2,227… Here are some
of Raffaelli’s key findings so far, based on what he has found to
be the “3 C’s” of independent bookselling’s resurgence:
community, curation, and convening…”
Includes
instructions for removing metadata…
10
Microsoft Word Hacks For Legal Professionals
“When you’re working hard to meet tight
deadlines, you don’t have time to painstakingly bold every title in
your document or fiddle with mysterious formatting inconsistencies at
the 11th hour. Word can do more than you think. There are plenty of
options for getting the program to work for you so that you always
meet your deadlines and are confident in the accuracy of your
documents. Here
are 10 simple Microsoft Word features that every lawyer should know…”
Cheaper
than a new computer?
Dealing with clickbait.
You’re on Facebook. You see a clickbait title
you can’t resist. You click on it only to discover you have to
click through 20 different pages just to see the whole article.
Annoying, right?
Luckily, there are a few easy to use tools out
there that can quickly convert an annoying slideshow article into one
convenient and easy-to-read page.
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