Monday, August 22, 2016

Three Blind Cyber Mice: Home or Everywhere Else

INK BOTTLE“It is the fact, that by the constitution of society the bold, the vigorous, and the buoyant, rise and rule; and that the weak, the shrinking, and the timid, fall and serve.”
~Walter Bagehot, “William Cowper”

Internet trolls have a manifesto of sorts, which states they are doing it for the “lulz,” or laughs. What trolls do for the lulz ranges from clever pranks to harassment to violent threats. There’s also doxxing–publishing personal data, such as Social Security numbers and bank accounts–and swatting, calling in an emergency to a victim’s house so the SWAT team busts in. When victims do not experience lulz, trolls tell them they have no sense of humor. Trolls are turning social media and comment boards into a giant locker room in a teen movie, with towel-snapping racial epithets and misogyny. How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet

They’re turning the web into a cesspool of aggression and violence. What watching them is doing to the rest of us may be even worse Door Stoppers

Equinix cuts ribbon on fourth blind mice Sydney data centre
Election fraud report calls for stringent ID checks The Guardian

What makes a McMansion bad architecture


Big Banks Team Up to Fight Cyber Crime

62 year-old woman facing ruin after sending her life savings to a dating site conman has been convicted of money laundering after she unwittingly passed cash to the scammer from other victims Dating site scam victim convicted money laundering

Virtual reality and the theory of moral sentiments

Big banks are revving up efforts to combat cybercriminals targeting the financial-services industry. Eight of the largest U.S. banks are forming a group that seeks to tackle the growing cyberthreat. It includes J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among others. While still in its early stages, the big banks expect the group members will share more information with each other about threats, prepare comprehensive responses for when attacks occur and conduct war games designed for the issues facing the biggest institutions.



The White House cyber commission wants input on how to keep Americans safe in cyberspace. The Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity today posted a request for information in the Federal Register for broad input about cybersecurity in the digital economy today and in the future. “Steps must be taken to enhance existing efforts to increase the protection and resilience of the digital ecosystem, while maintaining a cyber environment that encourages efficiency, innovation and economic prosperity,” the RFI states. The commission, stood up by executive order as part of the Cybersecurity National Action Plan, is tasked with creating a road map to improve public- and private-sector cybersecurity over the next 10 years while also protecting privacy and fostering  innovation.



One of the CIA’s top security officials said the cloud infrastructure built by Amazon Web Services is improving the spy agency’s cybersecurity posture and speed to mission handling national security threats. “Cloud has been a godsend for folks trying to implement systems quickly and for us to secure workloads better,” said CIA Chief Information Security Officer Sherrill Nicely, speaking Thursday at an event hosted by Nextgov. “We’re very happy with it,” Nicely added. “Our agency and other [intelligence community] components are busily working to move their workloads into the cloud, and off legacy and into the new.” 


U.S. intelligence officials are planning to provide information including classified threat reports to companies about the risks of hacking and other crimes tied to the supplies and services they buy. 
  

Will Sex Robots Destroy the Human Race? Experts Host a Tech Conference to Discuss


Las Vegas plays host to three of the most prominent forums in the hacker and information security communities: DEF CON, Black Hat and BSides. Those community-driven conferences offer daily presentations, hands-on training sessions, contests and the chance to exchange innovative ideas with leading information security thinkers. But as the government's need for skilled IT specialists continues to grow, events that draw thousands of hacking enthusiasts have become something of a nontraditional recruiting ground for federal employers.

Chinese tourist who lost wallet in Germany ends up in refugee shelter — Man diverted to home in Dülmen after mistakenly filling in asylum application instead of stolen goods report.”  He was there for two weeks — “He was then taken 220 miles (360km) to a refugee shelter…and given food and spending money like other refugees. “He simply did what he was told,” Schlütermann said.”

Museum economics

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the underemployment rate in every state. Nevada is the hardest state in which to find full-time work, with an underemployment rate of 13.1%. South Dakota is arguably the best state for job seekers, with an underemployment rate of 5.0%.”



One day, your thermostat will get hacked by some cybercriminal hundreds of miles away who will lock it with malware and demand a ransom to get it back to normal, leaving you literally in the cold until you pay up a few hundred dollars. This has been a scenario that security experts have touted as one of the theoretical dangers of the rise of the Internet of Things, internet-connected devices that are often insecure. 

(1) Africa Check gets a lengthy profile on Spain's El Pais. (2) That totally inappropriate Supergirl poster was totally fake. (3) Is "post-fact" a "smear on the masses"? Maybe. (4) How not to start a fact check. (5) Read what readers are saying after PolitiFact changed its rating on a statement about evolution. (6) Turkish fact-checkers Dogruluk Payi are now publishing some content in English


Late last year, a group of hackers likely linked to the Iranian government reorganized the infrastructure supporting their cyberattacks. The hackers built it so their malware, which was infecting Iranian human rights activists and dissidents at home and abroad, would contact different servers under their control


How Researchers Exposed Iranian Cyberattacks Against Hundreds of Activists


Messaging encryption, widely used by Islamist extremists to plan attacks, needs to be fought at international level, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Thursday, and he wants Germany to help him promote a global initiative.
France says fight against messaging encryption needs worldwide initiative



 

In the past few months, hackers have taken over the social-media accounts of Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter Inc. ’s CEO, Jack Dorsey. Behind the scenes, security teams at every major technology company—and many smaller firms, too—are scrambling to protect others from the same fate. Some of the executives apparently reused passwords that had been stolen in earlier hacks of LinkedIn, Myspace and other sites; others may have fallen victim to software that uses the old passwords to guess new ones.  Password Hacking Forces Big Tech Companies to Act