Archive for 2012/01/02

Gordon Brown’s Downing Street emails ‘hacked’ – Scotland Yard currently looking at evidence from around 20 computers which hold data revealing that hundreds of individuals may have had their private emails hacked

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy

Computer crime by press may be as widespread as phone scandal.

The links discovered from the seized computers suggest that the email investigation could involve as many victims as those involved in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

The eight-strong Tuleta team is looking at the possibility that several Fleet Street titles commissioned specialist private detectives to access computers. News International yesterday declined to comment on the latest allegations.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/gordon-browns-downing-street-emails-hacked-6283985.html

Members of a developer forum discovered that the Transformer Prime is shipping with an encrypted bootloader that would prevent people from rooting the Android tablet

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution

If you are amongst the group likely to root your Transformer Prime, this is probably devastating news. But there is hope yet: many angry Asus fans have been expressing their feelings on the company’s Facebook page. There’s also a petition that’s been doing the rounds that might actually work; A similar campaign convinced HTC to reverse its decision to put a locked bootloader on its Android phones.

http://gizmodo.com/5872460/locked-transformer-prime-bootloader-brings-out-the-pitchforks

Small, illegal, off-the-books businesses collectively account for trillions of dollars in commerce and employ fully half the world’s workers

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports

These enterprises are critical sources of entrepreneurialism, innovation, and self-reliance. And the globe’s gray and black markets have grown during the international recession, adding jobs, increasing sales, and improving the lives of hundreds of millions. It’s time, Neuwirth says, for the developed world to wake up to what those who are working in the shadows of globalization have to offer. We asked him how these tiny enterprises got to be such big business.

Why Black Market Entrepreneurs Matter to the World Economy

Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive: They sell lots of products through the little unregistered and unlicensed stores in the developing world. And they want their products in those stores, because that’s where the customers are.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/mf_neuwirth_qa/

When student protests seem to be reaching a peak, what are some of the tactics students across the world are implementing online to organise and execute them, and why do they protest?

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/iprotest-streaming-to-hashtags-a-study-of-student-activism-part-1/13937

Dutch Government Admits It Is Still Powerless During Cyber Crises Such As DigiNotar, But It Now Knows How To Change That

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Cybercrime, Legislation, Public Policy

Legislative proposals upcoming to:

- be able to force businesses such as DigiNotar to provide immediate access to their data, systems and overall infrastructure should there be a crisis at hand

- obligate victims of (serious) security breaches or cyber attacks to notify the Dutch government immediately

Dutch language news article:
http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/109052/nederland-machteloos-bij-cybercrisis.html

Amsterdam Internet Exchange Breaches 300,000 Terabyte Barrier For Incoming And Outgoing Traffic…In One Month

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Bandwidth Management, Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

Dutch language news article:
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/79076/providers-doorbreken-300000tb-grens-via-ams-ix.html

Website Blocking Law Implemented By New Spanish Government

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, Public Policy

Spain’s new government has wasted no time in approving tough new legislation to combat unauthorized file-sharing. After less than two weeks in power, the Partido Popular government has fully implemented the so-called Sinde Law. Spaniards can look forward to previously legal sites being blocked by ISPs or shut down completely, all within 10 days of a rightsholder complaint.

Deputy Prime Minister Maria Soraya Saenz de Santamaria announced at a press conference that the so-called Sinde Law, named after outgoing Minister of Culture Ángeles González-Sinde, will now be fully implemented.

The legislation, which will give the authorities the power to swiftly close file-sharing sites or have them blocked at the ISP level, was actually passed by the Spanish Parliament in February 2011, but the former government failed to enact a supporting regulatory framework and it has laid dormant since.

In her speech, Santamaria said that the new law’s objective was “to protect against the plundering of intellectual property rights” and to ensure that Spain “joined the international standard in the fight against online piracy.”

The decision on whether to shutter or block file-sharing sites will sit with the Intellectual Property Committee. This panel will have the power to take action against those providing illegal content and entities providing infrastructure, all within 10 days of a complaint by rightsholders.

More:
http://torrentfreak.com/website-blocking-law-implemented-by-new-spanish-government-120102/

Is a super-volcano just 390 miles from London about to erupt?

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

If the Laacher See eruption is as powerful as the last one, volcanic material could land over 600 miles away

A sleeping super-volcano in Germany is showing worrying signs of waking up.

It’s lurking just 390 miles away underneath the tranquil Laacher See lake near Bonn and is capable of ejecting billions of tons of magma.

This monster erupts every 10 to 12,000 years and last went off 12,900 years ago, so it could blow at any time.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2081219/Is-super-volcano-Laacher-See-lake-Germany-blow.html

Wikimedia Foundation Rings In New Year With Record-breaking Fundraiser

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness

The Wikimedia Foundation’s annual fundraising campaign reached a successful conclusion on Sunday, January 1, having raised a record-breaking USD 20 million from more than one million donors in nearly every country in the world. It is the Wikimedia Foundation’s most successful campaign ever, continuing an unbroken streak in which donations have risen every year since the campaigns began in 2003.

Wikimedia websites serve more than 470 million people every month. It is the only major website supported not by advertising, but by donations from readers.

More:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_Rings_In_New_Year_With_Record-breaking_Fundraiser

I kid you not, I spent four whole days wiping my Facebook timeline clean. And I stress from the bottom of my heart: there is no easy way of doing it

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/how-to-delete-every-facebook-wall-post-wipe-your-timeline/1999

Japan has been developing a virus that could track down the source of a cyber attack and neutralise its programme

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Network Security, Public Policy

The weapon is the culmination of a 179 million yen ($2.3 million) three-year project entrusted by the government to technology maker Fujitsu Ltd to develop a virus and equipment to monitor and analyse attacks.

The United States and China are reported to have put so-called cyber weapons into practical use.

Japan will have to make legal amendments to use a cyber weapon as it could violate the country’s law against the manufacture of a computer virus, the daily said.

More:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1174305/1/.html

In an age where we are constantly reminded of how important it is to keep our details safe, you’ve really got to wonder how big companies like Telstra continue to get away with breaching our privacy on a regular basis

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection

http://musicfeeds.com.au/culture/1000s-of-telstra-customers-details-compromised/

Security awareness: The first thing a forensics team will do is try to get the hackers off the company’s network

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection

…which entails simultaneously plugging any security holes, removing any back doors into the company’s network that the intruders might have installed, and changing all the company’s passwords.

“This is something most people fail at,” Mr. Mandia said. “It’s like removing cancer. You have to remove it all at once. If you only remove the cancer in your leg, but you have it in your arm, you might as well have not had the operation on your leg.”

Likewise, if a company misses one back door or one compromised password, the intruders can immediately come back in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/technology/hacker-attacks-like-stratfors-require-fast-response.html

Scottish teachers are being warned that their use of social networking sites could put their careers at risk

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-16379494

China launches first 3D TV channel

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16381069

Digital Music Sales Soar as BPI Slams Slow UK Pace of Tackling ISP Piracy

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing, Stats / reports

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2012/01/02/digital-music-sales-soar-as-bpi-slams-slow-uk-pace-of-tackling-isp-piracy.html

The Future According To Trendwatcher Adjiedj Bakas: The End Of Privacy (video)

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Education / Awareness, Future Developments?, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Tech Evolution

Main trends:

  • The internet has become one of life’s vital necessities
  • Online shopping will become more popular than offline shopping
  • Algorithms and business analytics will tell the shop owner exactly what his customers want
  • Electronic patient records will be called ‘medical dossiers’ and will be introduced whether governments want it or not
  • Your digital identity will be kept in The Cloud
  • The citizen will determine who will be able to access and use that identity
  • Only the government and law enforcement will be able to access your DNA passport
  • That DNA passport will be crucial in determining ‘good citizenship’
  • The formerly ‘parallel’ internet will now become an ‘integral’ part of our lives
  • Businesses will merge for them to be able to merge the databases they own
  • Nobody knows what will happen to their digital legacy after they’ve passed away
  • A GreenPeace activist will get to see a different internet than the manager of Shell whenever they search for ‘durable energy’ (without them realizing it). The response to information requests will become personalized and will ‘fit their profile’. The internet as such will become personalized
  • The introduction of a free and a paid internet is inevitable. People may pay to receive information that does NOT fit their profile. Or to see different products than service providers believe the consumers may like
  • Some will move away from the digital world
  • As technology has gone beyond ‘what’s good for us’, there will be a reintroduction of concepts such as ‘moral‘, ‘ethics‘ and ‘discrete‘
  • We will reassess (the use of) algorithms, datamining and business analytics
  • There will be a new hybrid digital future. It will also lead to ‘The End Of Privacy‘

Dutch video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXOnxCCSR1I

Dutch language press release:
http://www.bakas.nl/einde-van-de-privacy/

In Greece it is an insult to show the palms of your hands to people, in the Middle East the soles of your shoes, is Google going to start censoring this kind of stuff too?

Posted: 2012/01/02 in Blocking, Filtering, Google, New Business Models

The middle finger, pointed at no-one in particular, is hardly a scandalous gesture; here it triggers a vaguely-defined policy that’s being applied to a service marketed heavily as a public venue for free expression.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/28/bird-is-the-word/