Wednesday, April 03, 2019

When things go wrong, there is often a simple explanation. Or many simple explanations.
Arizona Beverages knocked offline by ransomware attack
The company, famous for its iced tea beverages, is still rebuilding its network almost two weeks after the attack hit, wiping hundreds of Windows computers and servers and effectively shutting down sales operations for days until incident response was called in, according to a person familiar with the matter.
More than 200 servers and networked computers displayed the same message: “Your network was hacked and encrypted.” The company’s name was in the ransom note, indicating a targeted attack.
It took the company another five days before the company brought in incident responders to handle the outbreak, the source said. Many of the back-end servers were running old and outdated Windows operating systems that are no longer supported. Most hadn’t received security patches in years.
A day after the attack hit, staff found the backup system wasn’t configured properly and were unable to retrieve the data for days until the company signed an expensive contract to bring in Cisco incident responders. A spokesperson for Cisco did not immediately comment. The company’s IT staff had to effectively rebuild the entire network from scratch. Since the outbreak, the company has spent “hundreds of thousands” on new hardware, software and recovery costs.
The ransomware infection, understood to be iEncrypt (related to BitPaymer) per a screenshot seen by TechCrunch, was triggered overnight on March 21, weeks after the FBI contacted Arizona to warn of an apparent Dridex malware infection. The FBI declined to comment, but the source said incident responders believed Arizona’s systems had been compromised for at least a couple of months.
Dridex is delivered through a malicious email attachment Once the implant installs, the attacker can gain near-unfettered access to the entire network and can steal passwords, monitor network traffic and deliver additional malware.




A security question. Why was all that older data on the web?
WSB-TV reports:
Georgia Tech says more than a million people’s personal information may have been exposed after someone gained “unauthorized access” to a web application.
Officials said the breach impacts 1.3 million people, including “some current and former faculty, students, staff and student applicants.” They do not know what information was taken from the system, but it may include names, addresses, Social Security numbers and birth dates.
It’s a massive number considering the school’s current enrollment is just under 27,000 students plus faculty.
Read more on WSB And keep in mind that this is not Georgia Tech’s first breach. If you search this site for “Georgia Tech,” you’ll find a number of other incidents that have been noted on this site — and those are only the ones that I know about. There could be more, and probably are more.




We don’t need to wait for AI to find errors like this.
Exclusive: Boeing software engaged repeatedly before crash - sources
Boeing anti-stall software on a doomed Ethiopian Airlines jet re-engaged as many as four times after the crew initially turned it off due to suspect data from an airflow sensor, two people familiar with the matter said.
It was not immediately clear whether the crew had chosen to re-deploy the system, which pushes the nose of the Boeing 737 MAX downwards, but one person with knowledge of the matter said investigators were studying the possibility that the software had kicked in again without human intervention.




Includes a model of Good Machine Learning Practices.
FDA developing new rules for artificial intelligence in medicine
The Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it is developing a framework for regulating artificial intelligence products used in medicine that continually adapt based on new data.
The agency’s outgoing commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, released a white paper that sets forth the broad outlines of the FDA’s proposed approach to establishing greater oversight over this rapidly evolving segment of AI products.




A simple backgrounder.
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET OF THINGS
Gartner defines the Internet of Things as the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology (such as intelligent sensors) which can communicate, sense or interact with internal or external systems. This can generate volumes of real-time data that can be used by organizations for a variety of applications, including smart appliances to monitoring equipment performance. The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming so ubiquitous that ABI Research predicts that there will be more than 30 billion IP-connected devices and sensors in the world by 2020.




What could possibly go wrong?
How Political Campaigns Use Personal Data
Really interesting report from Tactical Tech.




An interesting process. Are the defendants ghosts?
      A district court in Florida has ordered 27 pirate site operators to each pay $1 million in damages. The default judgment was ordered in favor of media giant ABS-CBN, which has scored several victories in US courts this year. The sites in question are mostly smaller streaming portals that offer access to 'Pinoy' content in the US and abroad.
Despite facing hefty damages, none of the site operators turned up in court. This prompted ABS-CBN to file for a default judgment which was granted by US District Judge William Dimitrouleas this week.
ABS-CBN’s most recent win follows a pattern of similar verdicts in recent years. With these lawsuits, the company has managed to score dozens of millions in damages from a wide variety of streaming sites with relative ease.
While this sounds like a success story, it is unknown whether the Philippine media company has managed to recoup any damages from the defendants, who are generally not known by name.
In order to get at least some money from the defendants, ABS-CBN also obtained an injunction against the advertisers of the pirate sites. These services, including Google Adsense, RevenueHits, and Popads, will have to hand over the outstanding revenue of these sites to the media giant within a week.




A new take on anti-trust?
Justice Department Warns Academy Over Potential Oscar Rule Changes Threatening Netflix
The Justice Department has warned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that its potential rule changes limiting the eligibility of Netflix and other streaming services for the Oscars could raise antitrust concerns and violate competition law.




Perspective. Don’t curbside sales come at the expense of in-store sales? If Amazon wants more physical locations, they could buy Starbucks…
Amazon Is Losing This $35 Billion Opportunity to Walmart and Target
Amazon.com is the dominant force in online shopping in the U.S., accounting for about half of Americans' online spending.
But there's a growing area where Amazon lags well behind competitors like Walmart and Target. Curbside fulfillment for online orders is increasingly popular, and Amazon is hard-pressed to compete. Its main consumer-facing physical presence are its Whole Foods Market locations, which account for nearly all of Amazon's 520 physical stores in North America. By comparison, Walmart has over 2,000 stores offering curbside pickup and will spin up 1,000 more by the end of the fiscal year.




For my teaching toolkit
How to Use BoClips to Find and Share Great Educational Videos
Back in January I discovered BoClips while walking around the BETT Show in London. It's an educational video hosting site that has quickly become one of my go-to resources. In fact, I like it so much that I now include it in my Best of the Web presentation.
BoClips offers more than two million videos from producers that you're probably familiar with through their YouTube channels. Two of the producers that many people notice right away are Crash Course and TED-Ed. BoClips is different from a lot of the sites that simply hide the "related content" and ads found on YouTube, but really just use YouTube videos for their content. The videos that you find on BoClips are actually hosted on BoClips with the permission of the video producers.




Heads up!
Microsoft stops selling ebooks and will refund customers for previous purchases
The Verge – Ebooks will no longer be accessible as of July 2019: “Starting today, Microsoft is ending all ebook sales in its Microsoft Store for Windows PCs. Previously purchased ebooks will be removed from users’ libraries in early July. Even free ones will be deleted. The company will offer full refunds to users for any books they’ve purchased or preordered. Microsoft’s “official reason,” according to ZDNet, is that this move is part of a strategy to help streamline the focus of the Microsoft Store. It seems that the company no longer has an interest in trying to compete with Amazon, Apple Books, and Google Play Books. It’s a bit hard to imagine why anyone would go with Microsoft over those options anyway…”




For my starving students.




Music history.
Boston Public Library’s 78rpm Records Come to the Internet
Internet Archives Blog – Reformatting the Boston Public Library Sound Archives – “Following eighteen months of work, more than 50,000 78rpm record “sides” from the Boston Public Library’s sound archives have now been digitized and made freely available online by the Internet Archive. ”This project and the very generous support and diversity of expertise that converged to make it possible, all ensure the Library’s sound collections are not only preserved but made accessible to a much broader audience than would otherwise ever have been possible, all in the spirit of Free to All” said David Leonard, President of the Boston Public LIbrary. In 2017, the Boston Public Library transferred their sound archives to the Internet Archive so that the materials could be reformatted digitally and preserved physically. Working in collaboration with George Blood LP, using their specialty turntable and expert staff, these recordings have been digitized at high standards so that others can use these materials for research. This is now the largest collection within the Great 78 Project, which aims to bring hundreds of thousands of 78rpm recordings to the Internet…”


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