Archive for 2011/08/13

Internet users in Saudi Arabia have been unable to access Radio Netherlands Worldwide websites for the past couple of weeks. People attempting to visit the site are presented with a message stating that the website has been blocked

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Public Policy

A possible cause is a video published on the RNW Arabic site which shows a migrant being beaten up in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi authorities’ message says: Sorry, the requested page is unavailable. If you believe the requested page should not be blocked please click here. The link in the message points to the website of the Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC), where unblocking requests can be made. It is unlikely that many web users click on the link. It could lead to an unwanted ‘courtesy call’ from the authorities.

More:

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/saudi-arabia-blocking-rnw-websites

ISPs, in their quest for revenue, are once again interfering with users without their knowledge or consent. Folks may wish they were dumb pipes, but ISPs are still gatekeepers to the Internet and as such it’s unfortunate that consumers can’t trust them to do the right thing — whether it’s not blocking P2P files and Skype, or trying to sell access to their paying customers to the highest bidder

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection

If you can’t trust your ISP, who can you trust?


http://gigaom.com/broadband/if-you-cant-trust-your-isp-who-can-you-trust/

The Web has still not switched to SSL-only

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection


http://research.zscaler.com/2011/08/web-has-still-not-switched-to-ssl-only.html

UK admins lack skills to spot hackers

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection


http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3296294/uk-admins-lack-skills-to-spot-hackers-says-pentest-expert/

“What hackers are really doing is saying ‘that’s a hard way of getting into the enterprises. An easier way is to go in through the users’.”

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Tech Evolution

“Applications 15 years ago obeyed a set of rules… that’s all gone,” he said.

“In the last two years, we’ve gone away from the ‘teenager in the bedroom’ sort of attack to something much more corporate; government attacks, mafia-type attacks, criminal organisations which are much more sophisticated, much more targeted.

“We’re seeing a change from attacking through the door and instead getting something on to your devices as a stepping stone into your organisation.”


http://www.itnews.com.au/News/265466,ibm-trials-enterprise-deep-packet-sniffing.aspx

Steve Shillingford, President and CEO of Solera Networks: Our partnership with Netronome now insures that even encrypted traffic is available for inspection

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection

Like a camera for the network, Solera DS Appliances classify, index, and store every bit of data that crosses the network, supporting today’s fastest networks up to 10Gbps, physical or virtual. These award-winning appliances:

  • Provide full visibility into any network activity or security event
  • Arm security professionals to quickly discover attacks before they become catastrophic
  • Deliver irrefutable evidence of the depth and scope of an attack
  • Speed up incident investigations and root cause analysis
  • Deter acceptable use violations with full view and replay of user’s network activity

The Netronome SSL Inspector appliance can be seamlessly deployed alongside existing security appliances in networks ranging from 100Mbps to 10Gbps. The SSL Inspector provides policy-driven access to the contents of encrypted communications. This increases the protection provided by a wide range of security appliances, such as intrusion, extrusion, and forensics solutions.

More:

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/solera-networks-announces-partnership-with-netronome-for-ssl-decryption-1547979.htm

Operators now have a single vendor, pre-integrated source for a high-availability software solution that incorporates a real-time advice of usage interface at any threshold. Additionally, the new release allows operators to create a virtually unlimited number of service plan offerings, by enabling operators to differentiate the service plans using combinations of application, location, device awareness, access technology, and volume or time metrics

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Tech Evolution


http://www.sandvine.com/news/pr_detail.asp?ID=326

Charging for services creates a mobile broadband class system

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Mobile tech, Tech Evolution

Consumers that don’t want to pay a la carte for carrier-supported products may only have the threat of competition from other mobile broadband providers to keep their mobile broadband provider honest


http://gigaom.com/mobile/its-coming-the-emergence-of-second-class-mobile-citizens/

Peak internet usage (35 Terabytes of data in one day) occurred on 2nd June 2011, which was the day that Sony’s Playstation Network (PSN) was restored following an earlier hack attack

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

Traffic on TalkTalk’s network reached 328Gbps (Gigabits per second) on 2nd June 2011 and incredibly 70Gbps of this was Google

More:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2011/08/13/uk-isp-talktalk-reveals-broadband-statistics-and-busiest-times-for-data-use.html

I’m so depressed. I google one of the most important technologies ever invented, and I get a video of 25-year-old wearing sunglasses made out of cigarettes. Two versions of it before Alexander Graham Bell is even mentioned

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Google


http://gizmodo.com/5830452/this-is-what-happens-when-you-google-telephone

Netflix Is Making a Version Just for Kids

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models


http://gizmodo.com/5830401/netflix-is-making-a-version-just-for-kids

An Indiana school district violated the First Amendment rights of two teenage girls who were punished for posting sexually suggestive photos on MySpace during their summer vacation

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Jurisprudence, Privacy / Data Protection


http://gizmodo.com/5830288/students-can-post-racy-photos-on-social-networking-sites-judge-rules

London Looting Victim Inspires The Internet

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness

Aaron Biber is an 89-year-old barber from Tottenham. He lost his wife in 2010 and, in 2011, he lost his livelihood to rioters. His story made headlines when a striking image of his ransacked barbershop hit the Internet

More:

http://gizmodo.com/5830189/london-looting-victim-inspires-the-internet

Materials scientists have managed to cram electronic sensors, medical diagnostics tools, and communications devices onto the tiny “smart skins,” which can stretch, fold and wrinkle, just like the skin they’re applied to

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Tech Evolution


http://gizmodo.com/5830147/what-is-this

Google’s Real Names Policy is Evil, putting money and greed over humanity – The service is now a danger to real people

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Google, Privacy / Data Protection

Google is one of the largest companies in the world, it touches billions of people. Governments regularly subpoena data from it. The things it knows about you matter. A lot.


http://gizmodo.com/5830471/googles-real-names-policy-is-evil

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has introduced an app. to let people stream music from the Ubuntu One cloud to their iPhones and iPods

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution


http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/ubuntu-linux-makes-musical-friends-with-the-apple-iphone/9397

The operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway system temporarily shut down cell service last night in four downtown San Francisco stations to interfere with a protest over a shooting by a BART Police officer, a spokesman for the system said today

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Blocking, Education / Awareness


http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20091822-245/s.f-subway-muzzles-cell-service-during-protest/

Superdrug takes out common cold, other viruses

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Tech Evolution


http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20091738-247/superdrug-takes-out-common-cold-other-viruses/

Will TV Providers Finally Realize That People Really Are Cutting The Cord — And Not Just Because Of The Economy

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution


http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110810/12255915468/will-tv-providers-finally-realize-that-people-really-are-cutting-cord-not-just-because-economy.shtml

The British government, once an ardent advocate of absolute Internet freedom, has thus made a U-turn over its stance towards web-monitoring. Communications tools such as Facebook and cellphones also played a delicate role in the massive social upheaval earlier this year in north Africa and neighboring west Asian countries, whose governments then imposed targeted censorship over message flows on the Internet

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, Public Policy


http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110812/10553415491/china-gleefully-uses-uk-desire-censorship-to-validate-its-own-censorship.shtml

A Brooklyn man has pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft for his role in an operation that defrauded credit card issuers of almost $800,000 in bogus charges

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness

Jonathan Oliveras, 26, also pleaded guilty to wire fraud and admitted to managing scheme to purchase stolen credit card information from people in Russia and then passing it along at a profit or using it to make illegal purchases himself.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/12/identity_theft_guilty_plea/

Augmented reality poster child Layar has found a way to make money, by recognising 3D objects and linking them to content which can be dropped into its altered version of reality

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/12/layar_ar/

Messages passing through the BlackBerry Messenger system are almost certainly already under examination by the police, who need neither warrants nor ministerial permission to search them for evidence

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Privacy / Data Protection


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/09/bbm_riots/

A targeted campaign to collect Gmail passwords from senior US government officials and military personnel is showing no signs of letting up more than two months after Google first warned it had already snared hundreds of victims

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Google, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/11/gov_officials_gmail_targeted/

“Everything we wanted we could get” – “It was Comet – they didn’t reply to me emailing my CV, or going up there so this was payback man, payback.”

Posted: 2011/08/13 in Education / Awareness

They claim they used a transit van to move between different boroughs and grabbed so many different items that the van was filled several times over and emptied between their sprees.


http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16048584