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Sunday, October 25, 2015

Dark Side of Digital Realities ...

If nothing else, the spelling of the title should tip you off that this is a thoroughly English movie franchise. Bond is back and Daniel Craig is back in a terrifically exciting, spectacular, almost operatically delirious 007 adventure – endorsing intelligence work as old-fashioned derring-do and incidentally taking a stoutly pro-Snowden line against the creepy voyeur surveillance that undermines the rights of a free individual. It’s pure action mayhem with a real sense of style 007 pro-snowden

The seductive lure of activity and health wearables make it easy to forget, or ignore, the inherent security and privacy risks involved The dark side of wearables: How they're secretly jeopardizing your security and privacy

Finally, we can all sleep well at night ...
Asio Crime Commission granted access to photographs of NSW citizens to aid terrorism fight

USB Killer 2.0: A harmless-looking USB stick that destroys computers Help Net Security: “Soft Malware has been around for a long time. Meet the new guy, Hard Malware.”

A London-based startup, Mana, has launched an app called Thoughts Around Me which allows users to post whatever thoughts they like, anonymously. And unlike Facebook or other social media sites, the app promises to not store any personal information on the user  Anonymity app: A safe place to be ourselves?
In related news, the average economic impact of cyber crime on Australian organisations increased from $4.2 million last year to $4.9 million this year, according to the Ponemon Institute’s 2015 Cost of Cyber Crime Study. Stolen credit and debit card data can be purchased for as little as $21 in Australia, according to a new report. The McAfee Labs report, The Hidden Data Economy, found that the average price for stolen credit and debit cards online ranged from A$21 up to $40. Bank login details for an account containing a balance of $2,200 were on offer for $190.  This 'Fullzinfo' includes the victim’s billing address, PIN number, social security number, date of birth, mother’s maiden name and username/password Darknet. Darknet knows the price for every stolen card but the value of civilisation is not on their radar ... If people do not but there would not be black market ...How much is your stolen data worth on the dark web

It's hard to muster the strength to talk about Windows XP anymore. In March 2014 it still held 30 percent of operating system marketshare, and now it's down to 12 percent, which shows improvement but is still not zero. Don't forget, XP is 14 years old. Organizations have encountered challenges as they work to eliminate XP from their networks, and (suprising no one) a recent audit shows that the Internal Revenue Service is struggling.


Goanna guarding Bylong Valley from Nasty Koreans Sep 2015 AD

Earlier today, Uber released a new “Uber Partner app, designed to give drivers more information so Uber works better for them.” It also inadvertently gave anyone access to an untold number of sensitive scanned documents for almost 1,000 of these same drivers. Uber ID Breach

Uber may be cool but what's it like to be an Uber driver - chased by taxi-drivers, pestered for drugs by private schoolgirls and kicked by little kids. Still, there are advantages, as this driver and blogger tells us over lunch. Uber driver fears crackdown, puts his thoughts down on blog
 
No thanks: JPEG images may soon have copy protection engadget 

These days  A Pom can purchased a Canadian tank that I drove in Old Czechoslovak army for less than $20k ...
 
On Friday 9 October 2015 the SARS Enforcement division busted two suspects allegedly linked to an illicit gold industry syndicate in Nigel.
More arrests of suspected illicit gold industry syndicate members


Call it vigilanteware: Malware in a superhero cape. Instead of stealing your credit card or doing anything malicious at all, a highly virulent piece of malware, recently uncovered by security researchers at Symantec, actually defends your machine against hackers and even remedies other malware infections New vigilante malware protects your computer from the bad guys
 

Big Data Analytics: A Missed Opportunity for the DATA Act. “[T]he Department of the Treasury won’t be setting up an antifraud analytics platform.” Gee, that’s odd.