Depressing.
Could it be true?
It’s Too
Late to Protect the 2018 Elections. But Here’s How the U.S. Can
Prepare for 2020.
… America’s adversaries believe that it is
still both safe and effective to attack U.S. democracy using American
technologies and the freedoms we cherish.
And why wouldn’t they believe that? In some
ways, the United States has broadcast to the world that it doesn’t
take these issues seriously and that any perpetrators of information
warfare against the West will get, at most, a slap on the wrist.
When
is an attack not an attack? When it’s a test. But an unauthorized
test is an attack, isn’t it? Does anyone at the DNC know what is
going on?
Attack on
DNC Part of Simulated Phishing Test
A
recent phishing
attack aimed at the Democratic National Committee’s voter
database was actually part of a simulation, researchers and
representatives of the Democratic Party confirmed.
Cybersecurity
firm Lookout this week came across a custom
phishing website apparently aimed at the Democratic National
Committee (DNC), specifically its VoteBuilder service.
The
phishing site mimicked a login page of NGP VAN, a technology provider
for the Democratic Party, and was hosted by DigitalOcean.
Lookout
immediately notified the DNC, NGP VAN and DigitalOcean, and the
phishing page was removed within hours, before any credentials were
compromised. The FBI was also informed and an investigation was
launched.
However,
after further analysis, the DNC now believes the fake website was
actually created by a third-party as part of a “simulated phishing
test on VoteBuilder.”
“The
test, which mimicked several attributes of actual attacks on the
Democratic party's voter file, was not
authorized by the DNC, VoteBuilder nor any of our vendors,”
explained Bob Lord, the DNC’s chief security officer.
A tough nut to tackle, because of all the nuts.
Fanning the
Flames of Hate: Social Media and Hate Crime
Müller, Karsten and Schwarz, Carlo, Fanning the
Flames of Hate: Social Media and Hate Crime (May 21, 2018).
Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3082972
or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3082972
“This paper investigates the link between social
media and hate crime using Facebook data. We study the case of
Germany, where the recently emerged right-wing party Alternative für
Deutschland (AfD) has developed a major social media presence. We
show that right-wing anti-refugee sentiment on Facebook predicts
violent crimes against refugees in otherwise similar municipalities
with higher social media usage. To further establish causality, we
exploit exogenous variation in major internet and Facebook outages,
which fully undo the correlation between social media and hate crime.
We further find that the effect decreases with distracting news
events; increases with user network interactions; and does not hold
for posts unrelated to refugees. Our results suggest that social
media can act as a propagation mechanism between online hate speech
and real-life violent crime.”
Looks like this Harvard-connected firm is
analyzing everything.
Despite policies
banning surveillance, it is unclear how effective Facebook and others
can be at preventing trusted third-parties from misusing user data.
Crimson Hexagon, a Boston data analytics company,
raised some eyebrows last week when it announced that its access to
the firehose of user data from Facebook and Instagram had been
reinstated—after being suspended and investigated by the social
media giant for alleged misuse of data for surveillance purposes.
The reinstatement, which began earlier this month,
followed “several weeks of constructive discussion and information
exchange,” said Dan Shore, Crimson’s chief financial officer.
But the companies didn’t specify the results of the inquiry or
explain why access was restored, raising more questions about how
Facebook and other platforms police third parties like Cambridge
Analytica and Crimson Hexagon.
… Crimson has also relied extensively on
Twitter data, and has collected so many tweets—over a trillion
since 2010—that Twitter relies
on the company’s services to analyze its own network.
Implications for the Internet of Things?
Win!
Landmark Seventh Circuit Decision Says Fourth Amendment Applies to
Smart Meter Data
The Seventh Circuit just handed down a landmark
opinion, ruling 3-0 that the Fourth Amendment protects
energy-consumption data collected by smart meters. Smart meters
collect energy usage data at high frequencies—typically every 5,
15, or 30 minutes—and therefore
know exactly how much electricity is being used, and
when, in any
given household. The court recognized that data from
these devices reveals intimate details about what’s going on inside
the home that would otherwise be unavailable to the government
without a physical search. The court held that residents have a
reasonable expectation of privacy in this data and that the
government’s access of it constitutes a “search.”
… in its decision, released last week, the
Seventh Circuit wisely recognized that smart meters and analog meters
are different
Perspective.
We Still
Love Email, But We’re Spreading the Love with Other Channels
Adobe:
“Our love for the inbox remains, but our preference for engagement
on other channels has increased. That’s one of the findings in our
fourth annual consumer
email survey of over 1,000 white-collar workers in the U.S.
According to the survey, which looked at how consumers are
communicating across email and other channels, time spent checking
personal email is up an impressive 17 percent year-over-year (YoY).
Consumers are checking personal email an average of 2.5 hours on a
typical weekday. On top of that, they’re spending an average of
3.1 hours checking work email. All this time means people have
integrated email into nearly every part of the day. Ninety percent
of respondents check personal email during work. Eighty-five percent
check it before they get to work, and nearly a quarter take a look
before they even get out of bed in the morning. People even check
personal email while watching TV (60%), using the bathroom (40%),
talking on the phone (35%), working out (16%), and even driving
(14%). Why is email so ingrained in our lives? One reason may be
that it’s so manageable—we can sort, file, filter, and generally
get things done. It’s also a known, safe quantity. We’re
familiar with how to make email work for us, and we feel confident
about the privacy of our data…”
Wally demonstrates how to “manage up.”
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