Monday, May 01, 2017

Cyber, Art and Addictions

Cowards say it can't be done, critics say it shouldn't have been done, creator say well done...



INK BOTTLE“The Art Snob can be recognized in the home by the quick look he gives the pictures on your walls, quick but penetrating, as though he were undressing them. This is followed either by complete and pained silence or a comment such as ‘That’s really a very pleasant little water color you have there.’”
It can be pretty rough out there for bloggers who think small. You’ve got to think – and play – big if you want to make a larger footprint these days



Foreign governments that rely on the services of private criminal hackers leave their operations vulnerable to being exposed and disrupted, creating something of a "silver lining" for U.S. law enforcement investigations of cyberattacks, a top Justice Department official said Monday. 

  IT blockers remain for Govt CIO to implement digital changes

AVPN will not save you from government surveillance













How a cyber attack transformed Estonia

It’s a Canadian company that specializes in speech synthesis software. They’ve developed software they claim can copy anyone’s voice and make it say anything.
The founders tell me if they can get a high-quality recording of you speaking for just one minute, their software can replicate your voice with very high accuracy.
If they get a recording of you speaking for five minutes, they say it would be difficult to tell the difference between your voice and their computer-generated mimic. That’s where the name Lyrebird comes from: a lyrebird is an Australian bird that’s noted for its mimicry.
Here is the story, as they say solve for the equilibrium…

Confidential business conversations over the telephone might dwindle, and perhaps we will have Peter Cushing and Humphrey Bogart movies for a long time to come.  What else?


Both companies confirmed to Fortune that their employees were victims of the phishing scam, where the perpetrator — 48-year-old Evaldas Rimasauskas — forged email addresses, invoices, and contracts to swindle Facebook and Google into paying for electronic supplies. The payments were deposited into bank accounts in Latvia, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Slovenia, Hungary, and Lithuania.
The court documents unsealed by the DoJ last month described the two tech companies as a “multinational technology company, specializing in internet-related services and products, with headquarters in the United States,” and a “multinational corporation providing online social media and networking services.” There are hundreds of companies that could have fit the above descriptions, but the reveal makes it pretty obvious in hindsight.
How much of your data do you entrust to these two companies?
“When people talk about addiction, the first thing that comes to mind are illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco. But in the mobile era, behavioral addiction is much more prevalent and pervasive — and the culprit is the ubiquitous smartphone. Adam Alter, a marketing and psychology professor at New York University, says it’s an addiction by design — and one that’s insidiously hard to break. In his new book, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, he explains how humans are hardwired for addiction and offers suggestions on how to break the habit. He discussed his findings on the Knowledge@Wharton show, which airs on SiriusXM channel 111




In the context of increasing cyberattacks and espionage internationally, cyber experts wonder if the current voluntary framework is enough in the way of deterrence. For cyber instances that fall short of acts of war by international law, the United Nations' Group of Governmental Experts (UN GGE) maintains a list of norms to establish an agreed-upon framework for behavioral standards. At the Georgetown Conference on Cyber Engagement on April 24, Christopher Painter, the coordinator for cyber issues at the State Department, said that getting countries to agree to international norms is helpful for framing "the basis of a deterrence strategy in cyberspace" between countries. He added, though, that "not all the eggs are in that basket."






Cyber Scoop

It’s basic economics: When supply drops but demand keeps rising, price goes up. It’s no different for pieces of information that give cyberattackers big advantages. The number of zero day exploits revealed in the wild fell for a third straight year in 2016, pushing the prices for them skyward and driving attackers to use alternative tactics, according to new research from Symantec. The total number of zero days exploited — a “zero day” is a software vulnerability that hasn’t been disclosed to the vendor and thus hasn’t been patched — dropped to 3,986 in 2016, Symantec said.
 




Performing ‘Hamlet’ In A Sandstorm At A Syrian Refugee Camp



Dominic Dromgoole, the former director of Shakespeare’s Globe and godfather of the company’severy-country-on-earth tour ofHamlet, writes about the tour’s visit to Amman, Jordan, and to the Zaatari settlement for refugeesnear the Jordanian-Syrian border.

Russell Lynes, Snobs: A Guidebook to Your Friends, Your Enemies, Your Colleagues and Yourself



'Can you hear me?' phone scam reaches Australia




Nearly 9,000 computer servers based in southeast Asia are infected with or currently dispensing malware, according to a newly unveiled Interpol-led operation heavily supported by multiple private sector cybersecurity firms and domestic law enforcement agencies. Hundreds of compromised websites popularly used in Southeast Asia — including regional government portals — also were identified as under the control of hackers, Interpol announced Monday. The news underscores an increasingly international effort between national law enforcement agencies and the broader digital defense industry to collaborate on cybercrime fighting operations. An assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Leslie Caldwell, said last year that the FBI would need to rely on foreign help to stop hackers in the future.
 

 Roman Borisovich, the main man behind ClampK, with an 'unexplained wealth order'. 
Lile Hollywood but with dirty money welcome to London's richest suburbs