Thursday, November 22, 2018

Krebs gives a full description of the technique used. Sometimes you have to connect with the right person to get a response, or be like Krebs who can tell a large audience about your poor security management.
Brian Krebs reports:
U.S. Postal Service just fixed a security weakness that allowed anyone who has an account at usps.com to view account details for some 60 million other users, and in some cases to modify account details on their behalf.
KrebsOnSecurity was contacted last week by a researcher who discovered the problem, but who asked to remain anonymous. The researcher said he informed the USPS about his finding more than a year ago yet never received a response. After confirming his findings, this author contacted the USPS, which promptly addressed the issue.
Read more on KrebsOnSecurity.com.




Is the idea to guide citizens to good behavior, like a parent rewarding or scolding a child? Or is the idea to protect the state by identifying non-conformists and limiting their interactions? How difficult would it be to do this here, but not make it public? Perhaps controlled by the Citizens Information Agency (CIA)
Beijing to Judge Every Resident Based on Behavior by End of 2020
China’s plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident.
… The Beijing project will improve blacklist systems so that those deemed untrustworthy will be “unable to move even a single step,” according to the government’s plan.
… By the end of May, people with bad credit in China have been blocked from booking more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.
… The tracking of individual behavior in China has become easier as economic life moves online, with apps such as Tencent’s WeChat and Ant Financial’s Alipay a central node for making payments, getting loans and organizing transport. Accounts are generally linked to mobile phone numbers, which in turn require government IDs.
The final version of China’s national social credit system remains uncertain. But as rules forcing social networks and internet providers to remove anonymity get increasingly enforced and facial recognition systems become more popular with policing bodies, authorities are likely to find everyone from internet dissenters to train-fare skippers easier to catch -- and punish -- than ever before.




This seems prudent with everyone trying to redefine monopoly to look just like large tech companies.
Facebook looks like it's preparing for war with Trump after hiring a top Department of Justice antitrust lawyer
Facebook has hired one of the top antitrust lawyers in Silicon Valley, in a sign that the company could be preparing for war with Donald Trump's administration.
Kate Patchen, the chief of the Department of Justice's antitrust division in San Francisco, has joined Facebook as director and associate general counsel of litigation.
Patchen updated her LinkedIn profile earlier this month with the news, which was first spotted by the Financial Times. Business Insider has contacted Patchen and Facebook for comment.




Potential business models for my students?
European Privacy Search Engines Aim to Challenge Google
In the battle for online privacy, U.S. search giant Google is a Goliath facing a handful of European Davids.
The backlash over Big Tech's collection of personal data offers new hope to a number of little-known search engines that promise to protect user privacy.
Sites like Britain's Mojeek , France's Qwant , Unbubble in Germany and Swisscows don't track user data, filter results or show "behavioral" ads.
Qwant is even getting official support. Last month the French army and parliament both said they would drop Google and use Qwant as their default search engine, as part of efforts to reclaim European "digital sovereignty."
Walshe likes Startpage's new "anonymous view" feature, which goes a step further and lets users visit websites anonymously, so they won't be exposed to tracking by websites even after clicking a search result.




I guess I’m still a nerd. This is very cool. Probably not enough to push a 747, but drones for sure, maybe even sailplanes.
Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Moving Parts
… But Barrett and his team figured out three main things to make Version 2 work. The first was the ionic wind thruster design. Version 2’s thrusters consist of two rows of long metal strands draped under its sky blue wings. The front row conducts some 40,000 volts of electricity—166 times the voltage delivered to the average house, and enough energy to strip the electrons off ample nitrogen atoms hanging in the atmosphere.
When that happens, the nitrogen atoms turn into positively charged ions. Because the back row of metal filaments carries a negative charge, the ions careen toward it like magnetized billiard balls. “Along the way, there are millions of collisions between these ions and neutral air molecules,” Barrett notes. That shoves the air molecules toward the back of the plane, creating a wind that pushes the plane forward fast and hard enough to fly.




The really smart ones are in my class.


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