Curseyoukhan - Slashdot User

Submission + - Why Crazy Still Trumps Facts on the Internet (cio.com)

Submitted by Curseyoukhan on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @12:36PM

Curseyoukhan writes: The internet was going to be great. It was going to be the place where good information drove out bad, where facts would vanquish lies. Instead it seems to have made the situation worse. The Flat Earth Society has come back from the dead. Survivors of Sandy Hook and Aurora are electronically harassed by people who congregate at sites explaining how it was all a government conspiracy. And that's just the tip of the Illuminati pyramid. So what happened?

Submission + - GSA system shows contractors' private information (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Saturday March 16, 2013 @11:22AM

Curseyoukhan writes: "A software glitch in the government procurement system for contractor work exposed significant amounts of personal and private data of individuals and companies — including Social Security, business tax identification and bank account numbers — open for viewing. The problem could leave many individuals and companies potentially open to a significant threat of identity theft.

The General Services Administration sent an email to parties registered on the System for Award Management, or SAM, on Friday, warning them of the problem, according to a copy obtained by MoneyWatch. The message states that registered SAM users with the proper set of assigned rights "had the ability to view any entity's registration information, including both public and non-public data at all sensitivity levels.""

Submission + - Report: DoD Has Wasted Billions on IT Security (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Thursday March 07, 2013 @01:29PM

Curseyoukhan writes: ""During exercises and testing, DoD red teams, using only small teams and a short amount of time, are able to significantly disrupt the 'blue team’s' ability to carry out military missions. Typically, the disruption is so great, that the exercise must be essentially reset without the cyber intrusion to allow enough operational capability to proceed. These stark demonstrations contribute to the Task Force’s assertion that the functioning of DoD’s systems is not assured in the presence of even a modestly aggressive cyber-attack."

Pentagon spent +$10 billion on IT security in FY 2011."

Submission + - Yes, China Does Dirty Business—Just Like We Taught It To (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @11:02AM

Curseyoukhan writes: ""China is evil, lawless, corrupt and a threat to the world/capitalism." That’s the unstated assumption in much of what is currently written and said in the United States about the world’s most populous nation – especially its cyber espionage efforts.

What other reason could there be for China's ongoing efforts (many of them successful) to steal the plans, patents, designs and what-have-you from foreign companies? Well, one reason is that China is practicing capitalism just as America taught it to."

Submission + - Totoro rules: 90 percent of Japanese have seen a Studio Ghibli movie (kotaku.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Tuesday February 26, 2013 @01:19PM

Curseyoukhan writes: "According to the Shunkan News: Out of the 130,000-some people polled, 9.6 percent had never seen a Studio Ghibli film.

Also: Japan's nine favorite Miyazaki movies ranked by popularity. Totoro is, of course, #1 but Castle in the Sky ahead of Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke? I don't think so.

Discuss. Debate. Rinse. Repeat."

Submission + - Why You Shouldn't Believe the Cyber-War Hype (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Tuesday February 26, 2013 @01:06PM

Curseyoukhan writes: "he United States is not at cyber war. There, I said it. Someone had to.

Don’t feel bad if this is news to you. It is also news to all the Congress-critters and nearly every journalist who has used the term. "But wait," you say. "What about all the reports and government screaming? Do they mean nothing?"

Pretty much, yes.

It is important to remember that no one really knows what cyber war is. One thing is for certain, though: Cyber war is not what the Chinese currently appear to be up to. That’s called spying.

If stealing secrets is an act of war then America is currently at war with all of its allies. Espionage is what governments do so they don’t have to go to war...directly. What appears to be upsetting people is that the Chinese are using espionage to make money in a way that the United States didn’t think of first."

Submission + - The military's medal for cyber-combat is a disservice to actual combat vets (cio.com) 2

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Monday February 25, 2013 @09:14PM

Curseyoukhan writes: "The Distinguished Warfare Medal will be awarded to members of the military engaged in computer security and flying drones. It is the first new "combat-related" award since the Bronze Star was created in 1944.

A friend of mine was a Bronze Star recipient. He received the medal for leading troops in combat in Vietnam. He knew by heart the names of the dozen or so men who died under his command during that engagement. He eventually died from poisoning due to prolonged exposure to Agent Orange during his service.

The Pentagon says, "Another example [of a potential recipient] is that of a soldier at Fort Meade, Md., who detects and thwarts a cyberattack on a DOD computer system."

Other than carpal-tunnel syndrome what risk does our theoretical soldier face?

This stretches the term "combat-related" out of any recognizable shape."

Submission + - US Lobbyists Writing EU Online-Privacy Law (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @01:24PM

Curseyoukhan writes: "The European Union (EU) found a fast, cheap way to come up with a new online privacy law: Outsourcing much of the work to lobbyists, including the American Chamber of Commerce, Amazon, eBay and a few groups that are actually based in Europe.

The EU’s parliament–using a trick from Congress’s Guide to Destroying Institutional Credibility–is cutting and pasting the exact language used by the lobbyists into its law. The lobbyists are also doing an impressive job of getting rid of anything that might smack of actual consumer protection."

Submission + - Secret Wars—Cyber or Otherwise—Destroy Democracies (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Friday February 08, 2013 @11:40AM

Curseyoukhan writes: "In the last week we learned that the Obama administration has given itself the power to both wage pre-emptive cyberwar and order the assassination of U.S. citizens—as long as they’re not in America. Add this to the long-standing ability of presidents to wage pre-emptive physical wars and you have to wonder why we even have a Congress.

What both the drone assassinations and cyberwar powers have in common is a total lack of outside review. The administration claims U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was given "due process" before being killed in a drone strike. There is no definition of due process that fits the policies described in the just-released legal rationalization. No one—not the courts, not Congress—got to review the decision, even ex post facto."

Submission + - NYTimes, WSJournal use rumors as facts in stories on their getting hacked (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Monday February 04, 2013 @03:41PM

Curseyoukhan writes: "Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were hacked last week, and the incidents made headlines not because they were a big deal but because the press loves to talk about itself. In this case, the talk came in the form of some appallingly bad reporting.

Both papers say China was to blame for the attacks without offering a single piece of evidence to support this claim. The only person who even raises the issue of how difficult it is to identify the culprits in attacks like these is a spokesman for the Chinese government.

"Cyber attacks are transnational and anonymous. It's very hard to trace the source of attack," he said. "To presume the source of a hacking attack based on speculation is irresponsible and unprofessional."

Not a good sign when an apparatchik has to remind the nation's two most powerful newspapers how to report the news."

Submission + - Hackers Hijacking Security Cameras for Malware and Spying (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Wednesday January 30, 2013 @03:22PM

Curseyoukhan writes: "Tommy Stiansen, CTO of NorseCorp, an IT security company that delivers real-time cyber risk intelligence, says, "We are seeing a lot of unexplained devices communicating to our honeypots, for example CCTV cameras. We're seeing a lot of CCTV cameras attacking our honeypots."

Stiansen says that the codes in the CCTV cameras he’s examined have software developed in Asia and still has traces of the development code in them. In addition to that, the DVR boxes running the feeds use a traditional Linux pack that admins haven't done anything to secure.

"Administrators buy these cameras and install them straight on their network without realizing they are running a full Linux server," he says. "They're running a web system that has jQuery, cross-site scripting and all the vulnerabilities in the book in them.""

Submission + - At Davos the Elite Ponder Stale Cybersecurity Issues—and Charlize Theron (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Thursday January 24, 2013 @03:20PM

Curseyoukhan writes: "At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland—where the elite meet to secrete—much of the talk is about cybersecurity. Specifically, attendees are wondering if the U.S. government should be doing more to protect American companies. And, as is frequently the case at gatherings like this, the talk is out of date.

In case you are unfamiliar with the WEF, it’s where the rich and powerful and Charlize Theron* get together to discuss Very Important Issues without having to listen to the opinions of the hoi polloi.

Cybersecurity is on the minds of the Davos-ians because it could cost them money. Apparently they have just learned that "there is barely a large company out there today which has not had its infrastructure and systems breached.""

Submission + - Cyber War is Upon Us–But Only One Side is Attacking (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Wednesday January 23, 2013 @10:33AM

Curseyoukhan writes: "The first shot was probably the release of Stuxnet sometime during or before 2009. Even though no one has officially claimed responsibility everyone knows who was behind it. Stuxnet hit with a bang and did a whole lot of damage to Iran’s uranium-enrichment capabilities. We followed up Stuxnet with Flame–the ebola virus of spyware.

What did the Iranians fire back with? A series of massive, on-going and ineffective DDoS attacks on American banks. This is a disproportionate response but not in the way military experts usually mean that phrase. It’s the equivalent of someone stealing your car and you throwing an ever-increasing number of eggs at his house in response.

It’s fascinating that Iran continues to do nothing more despite the fact that U.S. critical infrastructure currently has the defensive posture of a dog waiting for a belly rub. Keep that in mind the next time you hear that a "cyber Pearl Harbor" is imminent."

Submission + - Why You Need to Protect Your Home from Cyber Pearl Harbor (Now!) (cio.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Thursday January 17, 2013 @11:13AM

Curseyoukhan writes: "At this very moment a terrorist hacker in Somewheristan is preparing to unleash what former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta called a "cyber 9/11." With just a flick of a switch, we could all be left without electricity, water or Netflix for who knows how long.

Some of you probably laughed when I mentioned Netflix, but I did it for two reasons. First, to see if you are paying attention and, second, to get you thinking about your homes because, ladies and gentlemen, the home is the greatest and most-overlooked target today. Thankfully, my company — PurplexUs Inc. LLC — is here to help protect you and your home.

Bathroom scales, refrigerators, rice cookers, garage-door openers, ovens, clothes, washers, light switches and toothbrushes–do you know what they all have in common?

I didn’t think so.

All these devices can be used by a terrorist to kill now that they've been connected to the internet."

Submission + - Cutting-edge tech giving Boeing 787 cutting-edge problems (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by

Curseyoukhan

on Tuesday January 15, 2013 @10:41AM

Curseyoukhan writes: "Boeing is discovering the problem with using bleeding-edge tech. To improve fuel efficiency the 787 Dreamliner is more reliant on electric systems than any other commercial plane before it. For example, it has replaced its hydraulic systems with electronic ones. All those systems require nearly 1.5 megawatts of electricity. For the first time Boeing is using lithium-ion batteries, which weigh half as much as the nickel-metal hydride ones. So maybe it's no surprise that it has had problems with the electrical system and that one of those batteries caught on fire.

The 787 is also the most outsourced commercial plane in history. Boeing did that in order to speed up assembly and delivery. Not only has it slowed delivery but it likely also resulted in more problems in the assembly process."

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