19408204
submission
rickb928 writes:
So, I've become a participant in the Cox Coaster trial here in the Phoenix area, and I'm wondering if any of you have had a shot at this elsewhere, or if you have some questions about it.
Coaster is Cox's IPTV offering, still being built and tested apparently. As part of the deal, I got a new Cisco router/firewall/wifi hub, the Coaster PC, HDMI cable, and TWO remotes.
And so far, it is an unrewarding experience, but I'm not done trying it out. Verdict pending.
Questions?
12801052
submission
rickb928 writes:
So the Pentagon, with their shiny new CyberCom commander and all that, are trying to convince corporate CEOs and "companies that operate critical infrastructures" to let them install monitoring systems on their networks or, quote, "stay in the wild wild west of the unprotected internet".
From the article:
"Defense Deputy Secretary William Lynn III, speaking at the Strategic Command Cyber Symposium in Nebraska, said we need to think imaginatively about how to use the National Security Agencyââs Einstein monitoring systems on critical private-sector networks ââ such as those in the financial, utility and communication industries ââ in order to protect us."
Sure sounds good to me. Let the Pentagon keep an eye on your critical network, and they will not only alert you to something going wrong, but they'll even respond to the threat. And if you operate 'critical infrastructure'. you owe it to our nation to opt-in, right? I mean. What could go wrong? It's the Pentagon, surely they know what they're doing, right?
6366511
submission
rickb928 writes:
Well, sort of...
The Wall Street Journal publishes here (Same story, who stole what???) and here:
'Kraft Foods, Greyhound Lines and Capital One Financial have bought some strange ads on the Internet lately. What's so strange about them is that they're invisible.
The companies might not have known about their invisible display ads — the kind that are supposed to appear alongside content on Web pages — if not for Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who studies Internet advertising.
Mr. Edelman says his research shows that all three marketers, and many others, have fallen victim to Web sites that use such ads as a way to sell more ad space than they have.
The Web sites can get away with it, he says, because online advertisers don't always audit their campaigns for proof their ads are appearing. It isn't clear how common these ads are or how much they cost marketers.
Mr. Edelman and other Internet-security experts say the ads are created with the use of computer code that makes it look to marketers as though their ads are showing up on legitimate Web sites. But consumers who visit those sites can't see the ads because they have been placed on invisible Web pages.
In one example, visitors to a site called MyToursInfo.com saw an ordinary-looking Web page with one ad for Verizon Communications and another for a weight-loss product. But, Mr. Edelman, who studied the site in January, said software code running behind the scenes opened more than 40 Web pages, each including three ads from marketers such as Domino's Pizza and Capital One, which were invisible to visitors.
Mr. Edelman's analysis of the code was confirmed by computer-security experts at Symantec and McAfee as well as online-ad advisory firms DoubleVerify and Anchor Intelligence.'
Sweet. I'm not sure what's worse, these and other companies being cheated out of ad dollars by this latest wrinkle in fraud, or us waiting while these invisible pages load. Not only do we suffer through interminable Flash loads, every geegaw Web trick to tickle our eyeballs and/or ears, but we now can be pretty sure that some of those sites that take so ^*%^ long to load are actually loading up page after page of 'invisible' ads.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED! Ad fraud, right under our noses, on the Internet? Oh my...
815517
submission
rickb928 writes:
So some reporters at Black Hat decided to teach the other reporters in the press room about the importance of securing their connections. They must have been thinking "hmm.. this is Black Hat, so why not hack their ids and passords and stuff, and show them how pwned they are, right?".
Not so funny. At Black Hat, hacking is encouraged. Everywhere except the Press Room, apparently.
So the reporters, from the French magazine 'Global Security Magazine', apparently did the unthinkable — hack at Black Hat:
"The French journalists — identified by organizers as Dominique Jouniot, Marc Brami, Mauro Israel — apparently set up their own server to siphon off traffic passing through the media room's central router."
Once again, hacking is cool. Unless, of course, it's done at you, or where you don't want it to be done.
Right back at ya, Black Hat.
