How large a part it played is open for debate.
Still, plenty of lessons for my Computer Security students.
Death by
leaks: Russian hacking helped sink Clinton 2016 campaign
In September 2015 an FBI cybersecurity agent
called up the Democratic National Committee, just gearing up for the
coming presidential election, to report that Russia-linked hackers
had penetrated their network.
The
agent was passed on to the help desk, where his message died.
… in March 2016 hackers from the military
intelligence agency, the GRU, broke into computers of the DNC and the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, using phishing
techniques against staffer emails – including the account of
campaign chairman John Podesta – and inserting malware to keep the
access open.
And they began sweeping up gigabytes worth of
materials.
- Hacking ignored until too late -
Is this Instagram’s fault or did users fail to
RTFM.
Instagram
users mistakenly believe new question feature is anonymous
Instagram’s constant kamikaze launch of new
features, in which they desperately try to hold on to their sizeable
but fickle user-base by throwing new story modes and face filters at
them, installed an interesting new question and answer function this
week.
The feature is similar to sites like Ask.fm and
the now-defunct Formspring, where users could ask anonymous questions
of each other, with the answers made public. Some people used these
sites to secretly tell someone they had a crush on them, or ask
something they’d be too frightened to say in public, but they also
became hotbeds of high school bullying and were
blamed for a spate of suicides.
The big difference with Instagram’s version of
the feature, is that the questions aren’t anonymous, you
can see which of your followers asked it – although this isn’t
made explicit. In fact Instagram
confuses users by telling them that if their question is shared,
their username won’t be displayed.
It’s true that if the person you’re sending a
question to decides to share your question publicly, your username is
removed. However, what is not made clear is that the recipient is
still able to see your username.
Good use, bad use; can you tell them apart?
Facial
Recognition Cameras Challenged in Britain
Police in Britain are testing cameras that scan
faces in public spaces and match
them in real-time to the faces of wanted criminals. On
Friday, Big Brother Watch, a London-based civil liberties group, said
it would seek to stop the use of these cameras, lest Britain become a
surveillance state, like China.
As early as next week, Silkie Carlo, the director
of Big Brother Watch, said the group’s attorneys will challenge the
use of the cameras in a process known as judicial review in Britain’s
High Court.
“Our legal challenge will be the first in the
world against the police use of automated facial recognition,”
Carlo said in a telephone interview.
… The plaintiffs say that police use of the
technology is unlawful and a violation of human rights. They say the
technology has a chilling effect on democracy and freedom of
expression and erodes the right to privacy.
… “There is no legal basis for it,” Carlo
said.
Perspective. So my Computer Security class is
learning to secure smartphones.
The PC
Industry (Barely) Grew for the First Time in 6 Years
Both Gartner and IDC agree that the PC industry
grew—if very slightly—in the quarter ending June 30, the first
that’s happened in years.
I’ll have a deeper analysis of this situation
for Premium members soon. But to be clear, this does not mean that
the PC industry is “back,” or that we will now see growth in
subsequent quarters, let alone this or future calendar years.
“PC shipment growth in the second quarter of
2018 was driven by demand
in the business market, which was offset by declining
shipments in the consumer segment,” Gartner’s Mikako
Kitagawa wrote,
noting that consumer PC
market is still shrinking at an alarming rate thanks to smartphones.
A national health system. What could possibly go
wrong?
My Health
Record: privacy, cybersecurity and the hacking risk
From Monday, Australians will have three months to
opt out of a new digital medical record that can hold on to
information for up to 30 years after they die.
The digital record, called My Health
Record, will be
automatically set up for every Australian unless they opt out
before 15 October.
It will track Australians’ allergies, medical
conditions, previous or current medication, test results and anything
else that is uploaded by your doctor – and share it between medical
providers.
Doctors say it will improve the quality of care
but others are urging people to opt out due to privacy and
cybersecurity concerns.
(Related)
My Health
Record systems collapse under more opt-outs than expected
Australians attempting to opt out of the
government's new centralised health records system online have been
met with an unreliable website. Those phoning in have faced
horrendous wait times, sometimes more
than two hours, often to find that call centre systems were down
as well, and staff unable to help.
The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA), which
runs the My Health Record system, is reportedly telling callers that
they weren't expecting
the volume of opt-outs.
… Cannold, a research ethicist and health
regulator, said she'd like to see government prove
the value of My Health Record, as well as their capacity to keep
it secure, before she opts in to have one. The system should also be
designed to allow users to withdraw their record at any time.
Currently, opting out merely marks your data as "unavailable",
while actually keeping it on the system until 30 years after your
death.
… "I can absolutely categorically state
that none of the apps and none of the use of the My Health Record
data will be able to be sold to third parties – that's absolutely
prohibited," he said.
And yet earlier this month, the My Health Record
partner app HealthEngine
was caught doing exactly that.
We know full well that prohibiting something
doesn't mean it won't happen.
Perspective. Is China at or near a tipping point?
Will the rest of the world follow?
The banking
regulator reminds businesses to accept cash payments even as mobile
payment transactions reached a record US$12.8 trillion
Perspective.
In about 20
years, half the population will live in eight states
… The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service
of the University of Virginia analyzed
Census Bureau population projections to estimate each state’s
likely population in 2040, including the expected breakdown of the
population by age and gender.
… Eight states will have just under half of
the total population of the country, 49.5 percent, according to the
Weldon Cooper Center’s estimate. The next eight most populous
states will account for an additional fifth of the population, up to
69.2 percent — meaning that the 16 most populous states will be
home to about 70 percent of Americans.
… 30 percent of the population of the country
will control 68 percent of the seats in the U.S. Senate. Or, more
starkly, half the population of the country will control 84 percent
of those seats.
A resource for my students.
NIH NNLM
Gov Doc/Database: Data Thesaurus
“Data
Thesaurus: All – Welcome to the Data Thesaurus, a resource
connecting and defining concepts, services, and tools relevant to
librarians working in data-driven discovery. A definition, relevant
literature, and web resources accompany each term along with links to
related terms. Search by term or keyword on the right or browse the
70 terms below.”
Did I remember that quote correctly? Often I add
my own interpretation.
The Open
Library – Search Full-Text within 4M+ Books
The
Open Library Blog: “Open Library now lets you search inside the
text contents of over 4M books. Many book websites, like Amazon and
Goodreads, give you the ability to search for books by title and
author, but they don’t make it easy to find books based on their
contents. This type of searching is called “Full-Text Search”…
When you search across 40M documents, it can be a challenge to find
the one you’re looking for. One feature which Open Library has
been missing is a way to limit Internet Archive’s full-text search
to only include results from books on Open Library. So for the last
two years, Open Library has patiently waited to take full advantage
of full-text search for its users. Earlier this week, Giovanni
Damiola (@giovannidamiola) released an improvement to our
full-text search engine which lets us get around this historical
limitation — and so we jumped on this opportunity to improve our
search on openlibrary.org! With the help of Razzi
Abuissa, Open Library volunteer, and Mek,
Open Library’s project lead, you can now search inside more than 4M
Open Library books…”
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