Group items tagged

Many of use know about pirating, and some even do it. So far we thought that it was an easy way to get things with little ways of getting caught; this however is going to change. A knew security system is in development and bound to be out within the next 2 months that will catch those who pirate, and if numerous warnings are ignored; they will be prosecuted. This program watches popular sites such as bittorent and tracks the ip address of those who download illegal content. Then it sends warnings and if those are ignored, you will be tracked and investigated. Overall I believe this software will help stop pirating, but it will be met with huge opposition because most people wont be willing to give up their access to free movies, music, software, etc. Also this raises a privacy issue, but as this security system only tracks your IP, its not much of a problem compared to other tracking systems out there. To conclude, I believe the future of this system is filled with huge debates and maybe even battles.

New "surveillance--proof" app, Silent Circle has been released providing an easy way for people to text and call people without anyone else ever knowing what has been said, including ISPs and governments. This app makes sure no one can eave drop on your personal business by using what's called encryption. Encryption is the process of changing data into a secret code, the secret code can then only be read by the device you are trying to communicate with. The encryption codes are randomly generated each time the app is used so it is almost impossible to crack the code. This app is can be used on iOS and is currently in development for other devices and platforms as well. Some feel that free communication should be a right, but governments must be feeling a little bit nervous about this app. I chose the tag "privacy and security" because this article is about how Silent Circle has given people an easy way to speak in a secure and private environment without any intervention from anyone else other than the communicators. In my opinion I feel that free communication is important, but people will abuse this through using this app to possibly deal drugs, plan terrorist attacks, or other illegal activities. Who knows, maybe even the government controls this network to monitor people who use it, but that is just a theory.

This articles talks about how a computer security attacking program called Cross-site Scripting (XSS) is being more popular among hackers. As we know, ISC2O which is us, spend our classes on the computers each day. This scripting partially relates to what we do since we have already learned basics of HTML and CSS programming languages. Not to mention, we're leading up to learning about Java Script which is one example of a scripting language such as XSS. There are probably a few of us that have had our own computers attacked(hacked) or put our own secretive information has been put onto the web. Many of us use social networks and sometimes, we display some personal information which can be retrieved by others through using this program. In addition, when we buy different products online, we put out some credit card details that can also be stolen and potentially be used. In addition, the number of cyber attacks can still rise as the holidays come by and eCommerce will increase and can cause more attacks. This relates to Privacy and Security this has to do with social networking as information that's displayed can be stolen and any other personal information can be taken.

You think your iPhone or Android phone is safe from hackers just because of a passcode lock? Well, the Swedish security firm Micro Systemation just developed a cracking program that is called "XRY" that can hack into any, I repeat, any passcode of any mobile device. It works by first jailbreaking the phone to expose security flaws in the OS, then proceeds to brute-force the default four-digit pin, which only has 10,000 possible combinations to begin with. This all happens in under two minutes. Once the device has been unlocked, they can get any information they want- from logs contacts and even DELETED items.

It's a shame that this only works by jailbreaking the phone... This could have been... Useful.

This article is actually very useful. It is really important to secure your web browser, because who knows what your clicking on, or buying on. It's important to have your own privacy, then being tracked online. For an example a fire fox add on;  if you browse the web with out any tracking protection, then you want to find something that can stop sites tracking you down. 

IPhone users should be aware of the fact that some apps automatically take everything from your photo Library. When you download an app it will ask you for your current location, you do not want to hit yes because it will take all your photos. This is the third Security Flaw that Apple Developers have to deal with. To keep away from having your entire photo library copied be careful as to what app you download and refrain from hitting "use current location" and messages asking for "access to location information in photos and videos" by avoiding this your privacy will remain private. 

Google is improving the security of their email application. Gmail is switching to https, and is looking at a more private future for its users. Sending messages over a secure https connection ensures no one can come in contact with a message. This now has become the default in all gmail practices. It is no longer an option like in 2010. In addition, emails sent will be encrypted, along with communication. This is the news that I actually liked hearing from google, most of the time it's them trying to steal our identities through google search and targeting ads towards us w/out permission.

This article is about a new phone being released by a company called FreedomPop. FreedomPop is an internet service provider that provides mobile service in the US. The phone is known as the Privacy Phone. It is the only phone currently on the market that allows for encrypted communications. It supposedly has 128 bit encryption for voice calls and text messages. Data from the internet is sent through a virtual private network, which is very secure and encrypted. Also the privacy phone allows you to change your phone number whenever you like.I think this is a great idea because many people can be hacked easily these days and finally there is a private way for people make calls, texts and access the internet. With that being said, who knows how long it will be before someone successfully hacks and bypasses the security on this phone.

Researchers have released an attack tool that tests their websites to when they connect through secure connections, not so secure now huh? They call it "The Hacker Choice"

This article (written by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai) is an interesting analysis of a general trend in the tech industry and demand for people with coding experience. The article states that now is the best time to dive in to coding because it has never been cheaper/easier to do so, with the introduction of Codeacademy - used in ICS20 - in early 2012. In less than 5 months, Codeacademy had stated that it reached over 1 million registered accounts, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Many web-based companies, even the titans that are Facebook and Google, are always looking for people with coding experience. Jobs in programming are also more lucrative than most jobs, even at entry level positions (15 of 21 San Fransisco Developer Bootcamp students were offered jobs in coding, with an average annual pay of $79 000.) The industry is severely lacking in female programmers as well, with only 1:10 ratio of women to men in the industry. This relates to Economics, eLifestyle and ultimately the ISC20 class because as the industry develops, there will be a higher demand for people with experience in coding; 2012 has been widely concerned as the best year for coding because many people who start coding now will most likely be secured for a positon right out of University, which can be very securing to young people who may not be sure of their future. Evidentally, the title says it all; if you are looking for a job, it would be wise to pick up coding because this a newly establihed market; most jobs in computers didn't exist twenty years ago so many people believe that coding will eventually become a societal necessary education, like math or grammar skills. This article shows how we are in a somewhat technological revolution, where we are creating new jobs where all the others are already full.

Online services such as cloud may be convenient, but there is always a risk of such services that your locally installed software won't. Unfortunately, what could happen is that your cloud service could abandon you at any moment. OfficeDrop users were facing just about the same scenario. After receiving a notice that last Friday that the online service of OfficeDrop stopped its service on May 5. This left collaboration and service no longer available to its users. Many people have come to depend on OfficeDrop to store and share your files in the cloud. Unfortunately, OfficeDrop is not longer able to offer OfficeDrop as a standalone service anymore and also discontinued it permanently as of May 5th, 2013. OfficeDrop as a company did not go away, just the service to its users. OfficeDrop signed an agreement to sell OfficeDrop to another Cloud Storage player. Also, the acquirer has decided to not continue offering the OfficeDrop service and instead will combine the product, technology and team with theirs and market it through their channels. According to the notice sent to OfficeDrop users, billing for OfficeDrop has stopped, and refunds are being issues when applicable. The notice urges all files be downloaded as soon as possible, because they will be securely and permanently deleted as of May 6th, 2013. This is a negative impact when you use the cloud.

This article is about a man in Tokyo who sent many mass killing threats to a comic book event and many schools. Each threat would be followed by a riddle. The man hacked computers and sent messages to newspapers and broadcasters saying that details of a computer virus used to send the threats were strapped to a cat living on an island near Tokyo. Police found the cat and with it found a message that said that no more messages will be sent. Police analyzed the memory card and footage taken by security cameras and suspect that Katayama -a resident of Tokyo- was responsible for the hacking campaign. This article is a prime example of the dangers of computing and shows that the security of our computers is still not perfect and can be breached. I see this man's act as a childish call for attention and believe that this man should grow up and "get a life" as some would say. I don't understand how a grown man could have the heart to threaten the lives of many innocent children; I hope that there is retribution for such an offense.

FreedomPop has come out with a new phone that will protect your phone calls and data from hackers. The phone is nicknamed the "Snowden phone" but is actually a Samsung Galaxy S2 that FreedomPop remodeled. The phone is selling now for $189 and comes with unlimited voice and texting. They also throw in 50MB of monthly data access for the first three months and then charges the users $10 a month. FreedomPop's Chief Operating Officer Steven Sesar says: "In light of recent violations in consumer's privacy across social networks and mobile devices, privacy is becoming increasingly important to many Americans and we all have a right to communicate anonymously. Large carriers don't have the flexibility, desire, or creativity to invest in privacy." I think this is a great idea because today, so many people don't know if their information is safe. This will help people feel more secure and safe with their information and not have to worry about who could have their phone calls or text messages.

By now, everyone who is the slightest bit technologically inclined - or just interested in the news - has heard of the 'questionable' activities of the NSA. The National Security Agency, for the uninitiated, is a United States government agency that deals with national security and recently became the object of scrutiny after leaked information showed the massive data collection effort of the agency. This included: recording phone calls, ingoing and outgoing call identities, computer browsing, emails, key-logging and much much more. Needless to say, this was perceived as a tad scandalous and independent panels were brought in to assess the agencies spying program. Recently, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board concluded that the metadata collected by the NSA was obtained through illegal means. Before you cheer, however, this sort of conclusion has been reached before and has only resulted in a promise to limit spying. This is bad because its merely a promise; a promise from a government who lied repeatedly, committed perjury, knowingly covered its tracks, and chased a citizen away with the threat of life in prison. Unfortunately, many people have since stopped caring because its no longer new news, but we need to stand up for our right to privacy and demand legal action to prevent such breaches of trust in the future.

Five-year old Kristoffer Davies was able to login in to his dad's, Richard, Xbox Love account and was able to play video games that were off limits to him. Kristoffer entered a series of spaces and clicked enter, gainning access to his father's account. Richard Davies said that he found it incredible that a five-year old is able to launch a "secured" Xbox Live account. Richard Davies did report this to Microsoft and they are taking matters into their own hands. According to KGTV-10, an affiliate station to CNN said that Microsoft will give Kristoffer 4 games, a $50 gift card and a year-long subscription of Xbox Live.

Yes, very true indeed!!

okay i have finally gotten to write a description about this :).. anyway... so basically what this article is about is secure internet web servers that use SSL encryption. what this does is make it very hard for hackers, malware, spyware, and all other bad kinds of "wares" out of your computer making it virus free and it doesn't allow ip hackers to watch what you are doing on the internet. The reason for this is mainly to protect bank account numbers, login id's, passwords, credit card information, and even personal information that, if not protected can get your identity stolen. Two big issues that website hosts do not agree with is that SSL (HTTPS secure connection) costs money. It is not that easy to keep a secure server blocking out hundreds of thousands of malware virus', phishing programs, and spyware, while at the same time keeping it free. Also another big problem with this is that it slows down the server. If there are a limited amount of people going on your website (meaning barely into the hundred hits) than you shouldnt have this problem, but for big websites like facebook,that have millions of hits per day, this is a big deal because they want to keep themselves on top of speed and one of the most popular social networking websites out there. basically, to sum everything up, HTTPS servers cost too much money, some websites dont even need them, and they slow down the servers a significant amount.

Our generation is filled with tons and tons of people who use the huge social network, facebook. Some of us realize that our parents are trying to jump into our social lives by creating their own facebook account. Some of us are really embarrassed if our parents add us as a friends and peek into out social feed. It's a good way for parents to try and dig deep into their children's lives but it can also cause a bit of trouble in children's lives because it can embarrass them if their parents peek into everything they do with their friends. This is related to privacy and security because basically this article is explaining how the parents are using facebook to dig their way into their children's social lives. this relates to eLifestyle since this can show how parents are accessing through facebook to get a closer relationship with us while invading our llives.

With the popularity of social media growing rapidly everyday, so are the number of ways people are trying to steal your information. One such case is the Dorkbot or Ransomware worm that has previously attacked Facebook and Twitter has now began spreading through Skype. Criminals using Dorkbot infect it into computers through sending innocent-looking links to victims. Once a victim clicks the link, the worm blocks all files on the victim's computer from use  and uses these files as ransom for a set amount of money. Should the victim refuse to pay the ransom, all the files will be deleted.  This article shows that as easy as it is for our computer to collect data, it can just as easily have this data stolen, all it takes is a single opened link. It is always stressed to never open links that seem suspicious, yet many people will open links without any regard for their data. I think it's very low how online criminals will stop at nothing to find sneaky ways to steal other people's information and their money. Are they so lazy to make money on their own that they will just leach off of people who worked hard to make money to support themselves? People who don't take precautions while browsing the Internet are just as at fault as the criminals who plague the web. Since people are caring less about the safety of their data as the number of cyber criminals increases, it will be inevitable that web browsers will have to increase security or the government will have to make an effort to track down cyber criminals and set laws to punish cyber criminals more harshly.

*Disclaimer: Article above contains profane/vulgar language This article details the findings of the blog 'Jezebel', who compiled a series of racist, anti-Obama tweets following the U.S election, and 'Floating Sheep' who trended those tweets and imposed them over a map of the United States. Using the knowledge of geo-coded tweets and the Twitter search bar, Floating Sheep was able to trend racist anti-Obama tweets from November 1-7. They used an 'LQ' algorithm which compared a state's ratio of racist to normal tweets to the entire country's ratio of racist to normal tweets. States with an LQ score of 1 were on par with the country, while those 1 had more racist tweets on average. After trending the reassuringly low 395 tweets, the study found (unsurprisingly) that higher LQ scores came from South-Eastern states, with Alabama at 8.1 and Mississipi at 7.4. This relates to Privacy and Security because Floating Sheep used geo-coding to find out where the cruel tweets originated from. This relates to eLifestyle because the internet harbours some of the most ignorant/hateful people who make callous remarks without realizing everything that you do can be and often is tracked. This relates to ICS20 because we promote a positive online environment and we frown upon things like racism and vulgar language; the very opposite of what these people mentioned in the article are portraying. If there is a silver lining to this study, it is that in this technological era, we are able to publicize ignorance and judge/analyze those who advocate awful messages.

Some people have experienced an issue with Google Voice. They have claimed that when they send SMS messages through the service, their messages are sent from random numbers. Some have received other people's personal messages and this can threaten privacy. Although many have been warned that they should never send personal text messages for security reasons, many ignore it. This issue with Google Voice can cause confusion for the people sending and receiving the texts since the sender does not have the option to send their messages to someone they know and the receiver receives a mysterious texts from a number that they cannot identify. Others might also receive multiple texts from random numbers which may irritate the person rather than confuse. Since texting is a very popular form of communication. those who use Google Voice may have to use other methods to communicate if the problem if affecting them too much and will have to wait until the issue is solved. Though this affects only a fraction of those who use Google Voice, this is bothersome.