“The meaning of life is that it ends”
― Franz Kafka
They’re from a book Wertz wrote & illustrated called Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City. Gothamist recently interviewed Wertz about the book and her work.
myGov scam offering tax refund out to steal credit card details and ...
Doctors outraged that police, ATO can access My Health Record
Liberal Tim Wilson opts out of My Health Record and says it should be opt-in
Not My Health Record: Liberal MP Tim Wilson opts out of Government system - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
WSJ (paywall) – “…We’re moving toward a world in which everything with a plug or battery can respond to a voice command. Apple’s next AirPods could have many of the capabilities that Vesper claims its microphones will enable, such as built-in noise cancellation. (In the past, Apple has used several suppliers for its microphones.) Meanwhile, the CEO of Samsung’s consumer-electronics division recently told The Wall Street Journal that by 2020 his company plans to equip every single device it sells—from TVs to refrigerators—with microphones. It could be unnerving to be surrounded by listening devices, but the paradox is that as the technology develops, so does our ability to free these gadgets from having to connect to the internet. Consider the voice-controlled trash can from Simplehuman. Say “Open can” and it opens—and then closes on its own once the user walks away. That’s it. While it’s easy to make fun of a high-tech trash can, especially one that costs $200, this one tackles one of the biggest concerns that comes with smart assistants: the fact that they record what we tell them and send it back to their parent companies. Simplehuman’s trash can doesn’t do this, says Guy Cohen, the company’s director of electronics engineering. That’s because the latest microphones and their attached microprocessors process human speech in the gadget itself, without connecting to the cloud…”
Via LLRX.com – Surveillance and Legal Research Providers: What You Need to Know – Legal research companies are selling surveillance data and services to law enforcement agencies including ICE. Their participation in government surveillance raises ethical questions about privacy, confidentiality and financial support: How private is your search history when your legal research vendors also sell surveillance data? Are you funding products that sell your patrons’ and clients’ data to ICE and other law enforcement agencies? Law professor professor and faculty services librarian Sarah Lamdan’s article focuses on how librarians uphold their privacy and intellectual freedom standards when they rely on surveillance companies for their research resources.
Liberal Tim Wilson opts out of My Health Record and says it should be opt-in
The future of work: is it something completely different?
SPEECH: How to avoid a world of technology-driven haves and have-nots as the digital transformation is effected. Karen Chester suggests a range of practical measures to get us there.
Think
the dual citizenship saga does not affect state parliamentarians?
Clearly, some of our state provisions are substantially different from the dual citizenship prohibition at the national level.
Inside No 10: how Theresa May's machine has changed since the election
"There are much better mechanisms for listening, but at the end of the day the prime minister is enormously stubborn." (Civil Service World)
DTA calls out contractors and consultants as barriers to change
"Our in-depth interviews with people across federal government organisations have shed light on what helps and slows transformation." (IT News)
EFF: “We’ve long known that the FBI is heavily invested in developing face recognition technology as a key component in its criminal investigations. But new records, obtained by EFF through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, show that’s not the only biometric marker the agency has its eyes on. The FBI’s wish list also includes image recognition technology and mobile devices to attempt to use tattoos to map out people’s relationships and identify their beliefs. EFF began looking at tattoo recognition technology in 2015, after discovering that the National Institute for Standards & Technology (NIST), in collaboration with the FBI, was promoting experiments using tattoo images gathered involuntarily from prison inmates and arrestees.
Not My Health Record: Liberal MP Tim Wilson opts out of Government system - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
WSJ (paywall) – “…We’re moving toward a world in which everything with a plug or battery can respond to a voice command. Apple’s next AirPods could have many of the capabilities that Vesper claims its microphones will enable, such as built-in noise cancellation. (In the past, Apple has used several suppliers for its microphones.) Meanwhile, the CEO of Samsung’s consumer-electronics division recently told The Wall Street Journal that by 2020 his company plans to equip every single device it sells—from TVs to refrigerators—with microphones. It could be unnerving to be surrounded by listening devices, but the paradox is that as the technology develops, so does our ability to free these gadgets from having to connect to the internet. Consider the voice-controlled trash can from Simplehuman. Say “Open can” and it opens—and then closes on its own once the user walks away. That’s it. While it’s easy to make fun of a high-tech trash can, especially one that costs $200, this one tackles one of the biggest concerns that comes with smart assistants: the fact that they record what we tell them and send it back to their parent companies. Simplehuman’s trash can doesn’t do this, says Guy Cohen, the company’s director of electronics engineering. That’s because the latest microphones and their attached microprocessors process human speech in the gadget itself, without connecting to the cloud…”
Via LLRX.com – Surveillance and Legal Research Providers: What You Need to Know – Legal research companies are selling surveillance data and services to law enforcement agencies including ICE. Their participation in government surveillance raises ethical questions about privacy, confidentiality and financial support: How private is your search history when your legal research vendors also sell surveillance data? Are you funding products that sell your patrons’ and clients’ data to ICE and other law enforcement agencies? Law professor professor and faculty services librarian Sarah Lamdan’s article focuses on how librarians uphold their privacy and intellectual freedom standards when they rely on surveillance companies for their research resources.
Liberal Tim Wilson opts out of My Health Record and says it should be opt-in
The future of work: is it something completely different?
SPEECH: How to avoid a world of technology-driven haves and have-nots as the digital transformation is effected. Karen Chester suggests a range of practical measures to get us there.
Think
the dual citizenship saga does not affect state parliamentarians?Clearly, some of our state provisions are substantially different from the dual citizenship prohibition at the national level.
Inside No 10: how Theresa May's machine has changed since the election
"There are much better mechanisms for listening, but at the end of the day the prime minister is enormously stubborn." (Civil Service World)
DTA calls out contractors and consultants as barriers to change
"Our in-depth interviews with people across federal government organisations have shed light on what helps and slows transformation." (IT News)
New York: In the biggest identity theft scam in the US history, 111 people, including at least 13 of Indian origin, have been charged by federal authorities for stealing credit card data of thousands of customers to buy high-end products worth over $13 million, including Apple gadgets and fancy bags from Gucci.
Among those indicted in 'Operation Swiper' are bank tellers, store employees and restaurant workers who allegedly skimmed customers' personal IDs.
13 Indians charged in biggest credit card fraud in US - FirstpostEFF: “We’ve long known that the FBI is heavily invested in developing face recognition technology as a key component in its criminal investigations. But new records, obtained by EFF through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, show that’s not the only biometric marker the agency has its eyes on. The FBI’s wish list also includes image recognition technology and mobile devices to attempt to use tattoos to map out people’s relationships and identify their beliefs. EFF began looking at tattoo recognition technology in 2015, after discovering that the National Institute for Standards & Technology (NIST), in collaboration with the FBI, was promoting experiments using tattoo images gathered involuntarily from prison inmates and arrestees.
- Above the Law, LSAC Now Lists 11 Different Gender Identity Options For Pre-Law Students
- The College Fix, LSAT Provides 12 Different Gender Identity Options, Including ‘Genderqueer,’ ‘Unsure’ and ‘Demigender’
- Jonathan Turley (George Washington), LSAT Adopts 12 Different Gender identity Options
A walk on the wild side as Trump meets Putin at Finland station Asia Times. Pepe Escobar
The Helsinki Summit: Trying to Turn the Page on the New Cold War Zero Anthropology (UserFriendly)
Trump Today: President backtracks, now says he accepts Russia meddled in U.S. election MarketWatch
Ron and Rand Paul Call Out Foreign Policy Hysteria American Conservative
Helsinki Talks – How Trump Tries To Rebalance The Global Triangle Moon of Alabama
Stephen F. Cohen on Helsinki Summit: Media Held A “Kangaroo Court” And Found Trump Guilty Real Clear Politics. Posting this even though I know Lambert did so on yesterday’s Water Cooler.
US Media is Losing Its Mind Over Trump-Putin Press Conference Consortium News
Disgraceful, treasonous: US media, politicians pull no punches to slam Trump-Putin meet Scroll.in
France Shuts Trade Agency In Russia On Worsening Conditions International Business Times
CNET: “When you sign up forFacebook on your phone, the app isn’t just giving you the latest updates and photos from your friends and family. In the background, it’s utilizing the phone’s gyroscope to detect subtle movements that come from breathing. It’s measuring how quickly you tap on the screen, and even looking at what angle the phone is being held. Sound creepy? These are just some of the ways that Facebook is verifying that you’re actually human and not one of the tens of millions of bots attempting to invade the social network each day. That Facebook would go to such lengths underscores the escalation of the war between tech companies and bots that can cause chaos in politics and damage public trust. Facebook isn’t alone. Twitter on Wednesday began removing millions of blocked accounts, andGoogle is looking to stamp out malicious trolls on YouTube. The road to salvation, they believe, is paved with artificial intelligence. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly pointed to AI as a solution to his social network’s flaws during his testimony before Congress and again at the company’s F8 developers conference. Google wants to be an AI-first company and Twitter likewise wants to use the technology to stamp out trolls.
“It is already pretty much a fundamental part of everyday life,” Michael Connor, the executive director of Open MIC, a technology policy nonprofit, said. “AI is becoming part of the way we listen to music, how we handle our medical issues, and how we drive our cars.”
FCW
July 19,
2018
The
Department of Homeland Security's Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program
hasn't been around for very long, but overseers in Congress want to make sure
the cybersecurity program remains on the cutting edge of the technology
landscape for years to come. A draft bill introduced by Rep. John Ratcliffe
(R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, would amend the 2002 Homeland
Security Act to include CDM. The bill also gives the secretary of the Homeland
Security added flexibility around purchasing and reimbursement decisions that
have vexed agency partners in the past. It would also call for "regular
improvement" of the CDM program, saying the secretary should
"regularly deploy new technologies and modify existing technologies"
where appropriate.
CyberScoop
July 18,
2018
The United
States should respond with offensive cyber-operations if the Russian government
tries to meddle in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections like it did in the 2016
presidential election, according to an influential Republican lawmaker.
“Personally, if [the Russians] attempt to do that again in the 2018 midterms, I
think there should be an offensive response to it,” Texas Rep. Michael McCaul,
chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told reporters Wednesday
The Hill
July 18,
2018
A legislative
proposal aimed at securing U.S. election systems from cyberattack is picking up
additional support in the Senate as lawmakers grapple with how to respond to
Russian election interference.
Reuters
July 18,
2018
Sanctions
targeting key Russian economic sectors would kick in swiftly if U.S.
authorities determined the Kremlin had meddled again in a U.S. election, under
a bill gaining momentum in the Senate on Wednesday. It was uncertain whether
such a bill, or any other legislative response, could pass Congress after
President Donald Trump at a Helsinki summit on Monday gave credence to Russian
denials on the question of its interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Lawmakers, alarmed with Trump's conduct only days after U.S. authorities
indicted 12 Russian spies on meddling charges, were trying to formulate a
legislative response.
CyberScoop
July 17,
2018
Interest is
rising in a program that stations technology experts with Congress, giving
lawmakers a sorely needed way to understand the litany of society-shifting tech
issues that come to their attention.cybersecurity.
Vice
Motherboard
July 17,
2018
The
nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal
lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on
election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising
questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections
that were conducted with them.
ADMINISTRATION
CyberScoop
July 20,
2018
Private
sector security companies had a key role in the U.S. government’s attribution
of last year’s WannaCry ransomware epidemic to North Korea, an official at the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said on Friday. Speaking
at a Washington Post Live event, Tonya Ugoretz, director of ODNI’s Cyber Threat
Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC), said that the small agency she leads
acted as a liaison to get critical information about the global attack from the
private sector to U.S. intelligence agencies. Ugoretz said that CTIIC learned
of information about WannaCry that had been fed to Department of Homeland
Security by its private sector partners. The information would play an
important role in the attribution to North Korea months later, Ugoretz
explained. CTIIC comprises staff from intelligence, law enforcement and other
federal agencies with the goal of helping coordinate responses to cyberthreats.
Nextgov
The Trump
administration is developing a national risk management initiative aimed at
tightening communication lines between government and industry about major
cyber vulnerabilities, a top Homeland Security Department official said Friday.
FCW
July 20,
2018
The Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission has ordered the group that ensures the safety and
reliability of North American power grids to tighten up rules for power
companies' cybersecurity incident reporting.
The
Washington Post
July 19,
2018
The Justice
Department plans to alert the public to foreign operations targeting U.S.
democracy under a new policy designed to counter hacking and disinformation
campaigns such as the one Russia undertook in 2016 to disrupt the presidential
election.
CyberScoop
July 19,
2018
Veteran
government IT official Grant Schneider will serve as federal chief information
security officer, an influential policy role charged with implementing
cybersecurity practices across the executive branch, the Office of Management
and Budget announced Thursday.
The Wall
Street Journal
July 19,
2018
Three of
the top cybersecurity officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are
retiring from government service, according to people familiar with the
matter—departures that come as cyberattacks are a major concern for the
country’s security agencies.
AP
July 19,
2018
Florida
lawmakers on Thursday approved the use of a $19 million federal grant to
improve election security, a week after a federal indictment alleged Russian
hackers targeted county offices before the 2016 presidential election.
The New
York Times
Under
unrelenting pressure from congressional Republicans, his own advisers and his
allies on Fox News, President Trump abruptly reversed course on Tuesday and
claimed he had misspoken during a news conference with President Vladimir V.
Putin about whether Russia tried to influence the 2016 presidential election.
The
Washington Post
July 17,
2018
The head of
the nation’s largest electronic spy agency and the military’s cyberwarfare arm
has directed the two organizations to coordinate actions to counter potential
Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections.
Defense
One
July 17,
2018
The
Pentagon could stop awarding contracts to companies whose weapons are deemed
vulnerable to cyber attacks, according to senior U.S. Defense Department
officials. Today, companies are responsible for assessing whether their own
products meet DoD cybersecurity standards.
The Hill
When Raffi
Krikorian joined the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as chief technology
officer, the party was still reeling from its devastating loss in 2016 — and
the stunning cyberattacks that resulted in high-level officials’ emails being
embarrassingly leaked online.
Nextgov
July 17,
2018
The Defense
Department wants to move some of its defensive cyber operations to the cloud,
according to a contracting document posted Monday.
The New
York Times
President
Trump stood next to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday and
publicly challenged the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies that Moscow
interfered in the 2016 presidential election, wrapping up what he called a
“deeply productive” summit meeting with an extraordinary show of trust for a
leader accused of attacking American democracy.
FCW
July 16,
2018
With
approaches to election security still up in the air, a group of former
cybersecurity officials are concerned about the cybersecurity of another
democratic foundation: the decennial census.
Nextgov
July 16,
2018
A new
procurement rule took effect Monday barring the Russian anti-virus company
Kaspersky Lab or any of its partners or distributors from contracts at the
Pentagon, General Services Administration or NASA, despite a last-minute
Kaspersky effort to halt the ban. Kaspersky told a federal appeals court last
week that the ban would cause the company “reputational and financial damage”
and asked the court to temporarily halt the ban while it considers Kaspersky’s
underlying legal challenge.
Ars
Technica
July 16,
2018
A Kentucky
man has pleaded guilty to federal charges he developed, marketed, and provided
technical support for a "remote access trojan," or RAT—that is,
software he knew customers used illegally to take control of other people’s
computers. Colton Grubbs used the handle "KFC Watermelon" to
advertise the LuminosityLink administrative tool on Hackforums[dot]net, federal
prosecutors alleged in an indictment filed last month. The indictment said the
tool provided a variety of malicious capabilities including the ability for
purchasers to control others’ computers, surreptitiously record users’
activities, and to view their files, login credentials, and personal
information. Prosecutors said the defendant also used the hacker forum and a
website located at luminosity[dot]link to teach users how to conceal their
identities and prevent antivirus programs from detecting the tool.
INDUSTRY
Ars
Technica
July 20,
2018
In a panel
discussion at the Aspen Institute's Security Summit yesterday, Microsoft
Corporate Vice President for Customer Security and Trust Tim Burt said that in
the course of hunting for phishing domains targeting Microsoft customers,
members of Microsoft's security team detected a site set up by Russian actors
that was being used in an attempt to target congressional candidates.
Bleeping
Computer
July 20,
2018
For the
past year, Android malware authors have been increasingly relying on a solid
trick for bypassing Google's security scans and sneaking malicious apps into
the official Play Store.
FCW
July 19,
2018
The Better
Identity Coalition, a recently formed trade group that represents banks,
insurers, credit card issuers and others with skin in the e-commerce game, is
looking to government to take a more authoritative role in digital identity.
Wired
July 18,
2018
Amazon Web
Services is the world's biggest cloud provider. As a result, its security
directly influences that of countless websites and online services. And those
concerns aren't just theoretical; dangerous lapses happen all the time.
Quartz
Selling
stolen personal data is a big business for hackers: Somewhere on the dark web,
your e-mail address and a few passwords are probably for sale (hopefully, old
ones). Cyber criminals buy troves of this information to try to login to
websites where they can grab something valuable like cash, airline points, or
merchandise like expensive cheese.
Gov Info
Security
July 17,
2018
Medical
laboratory testing firm LabCorp is investigating a weekend cyberattack on its
IT network, which resulted in the company taking certain of its systems
offline, temporarily impacting its test processing and client access to lab
results.
INTERNATIONAL
NBC
Iranian
hackers have laid the groundwork to carry out extensive cyberattacks on U.S.
and European infrastructure and on private companies, and the U.S. is warning
allies, hardening its defenses and weighing a counterattack, say multiple
senior U.S. officials.
Defense
One
Four days
before U.S. and Russian leaders met in Helsinki, hackers from China launched a
wave of brute-force attacks on internet-connected devices in Finland, seeking
to gain control of gear that could collect audio or visual intelligence, a new
report says
The Wall Street Journal
July 20,
2018
Hackers stole the personal health records of Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong and 1.5 million others in an unprecedented data breach, officials said,
casting a light on the risks facing cities around the world as they begin
centralizing data to provide smoother government services.
Reuters
Technical
and supply-chain issues with equipment made by Chinese firm Huawei have exposed
Britain’s telecom networks to new security risks, a government report said on
Thursday.
Ars Technica
July 19,
2018
A prolific
hacking group has struck again, this time stealing close to $1 million from
Russia’s PIR Bank. The July 3 heist came about five weeks after the
sophisticated hackers first gained access to the bank’s network by compromising
a router used by a regional branch. The theft—which according to
kommersant[dot]ru is conservatively estimated at about $910,000—is the latest
achievement of a group researchers at security firm Group-IB call the
MoneyTaker group. In a report published last November that first detailed the
group, researchers said its members had conducted 20 successful attacks on
financial institutions and legal firms in the US, UK, and Russia. In a
follow-up report, Group-IB said MoneyTaker netted about $14 million in the
hacks, 16 of which were carried out on US targets, five on Russian banks, and
one on a banking-software company in the UK.
Defense
One
When
international hardware and software vendors come to Russia seeking sales, they
must open up their wares for inspection by the Federal Service for Technical
and Export Control, or FSTEC, a Russian agency ostensibly set up to warn
government and private-sector users about bugs and other vulnerabilities.
CyberScoop
Russian
cybercrime suspect Alexander Vinnik will be extradited to France after a Greek
court ruling Friday. Vinnik, 38, has pleaded not guilty to charges of
laundering $4 billion in bitcoin while running the cryptocurrency exchange
BTC-e. Although Vinnik was arrested under a U.S. warrant, Greek authorities
will extradite him to France where he is charged with hacking, money
laundering, extortion and involvement in organized crime. The Russian Foreign
Ministry criticized the ruling and said the country will look to a response.
Vinnik’s lawyer is filing a response, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
TECHNOLOGY
Vice Motherboard
July 17,
2018
It seemed
like any other warm September night in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. Rachel
Ostlund had just put her kids to bed and was getting ready to go to sleep
herself. She was texting with her sister when, unexpectedly, her cell phone
lost service. The last message Rachel received was from T-Mobile, her carrier.
The SIM card for her phone number, the message read, had been “updated.” Rachel
did what most people would have done in that situation: she turned the phone
off and on again. It didn’t help. She walked upstairs and told her husband Adam
that her phone wasn’t working. Adam tried to call Rachel’s number using his
cell phone. It rang, but the phone in Rachel’s hands didn’t light up. Nobody
answered. Rachel, meanwhile, logged into her email and noticed someone was
resetting the passwords on many of her accounts. The couple didn’t know it yet,
but they had just become the latest victims of hackers who hijack phone numbers
in order to steal valuable Instagram usernames and sell them for Bitcoin. That
late summer night in 2017, the Ostlunds were talking to a pair of these hackers
who’d commandeered Rachel’s Instagram, which had the handle @Rainbow. They were
now asking Rachel and Adam to give up her @Rainbow Twitter account. In the
buzzing underground market for stolen social media and gaming handles, a short,
unique username can go for between $500 and $5,000, according to people
involved in the trade and a review of listings on a popular marketplace.
Several hackers involved in the market claimed that the Instagram account @t,
for example, recently sold for around $40,000 worth of Bitcoin.