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hass associates review articles Think the Internet Leads to Growth? Think Again Remember the year 2000 in the months after the Y2K bug had been crushed, when all appeared smooth sailing in the global economy? When the miracle of finding information online was so novel that The Onion ran an article, "Area Man Consults Internet Whenever Possible?" It was a time of confident predictions of an ongoing economic and political renaissance powered by information technology. Jack Welch-then the lauded chief executive officer of General Electric (GE)-had suggested the Internet was "the single most important event in the U.S. economy since the Industrial Revolution." The Group of Eight highly industrialized nations-at that point still relevant-met in Okinawa in 2000 and declared, "IT is fast becoming a vital engine of growth for the world economy. … Enormous opportunities are there to be seized by us all." In a 2000 report, then-President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers suggested (PDF), "Many economists now posit that we are entering a new, digital economy that could inaugurate an unprecedented period of sustainable, rapid growth." It hasn't quite worked out that way. Indeed, if the last 10 years have demonstrated anything, it's that for all the impact of a technology like the Internet, thinking that any new innovation will set us on a course of high growth is almost certainly wrong. That's in part because many of the studies purporting to show a relationship between the Internet and economic growth relied on shoddy data and dubious assumptions. In 1999 the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland released a study that concluded (PDF), "… the fraction of a country's population that has access to the Internet is, at least, correlated with factors that help to explain average growth performance." It did so by demonstrating a positive relationship between the number of Internet users in a country in 1999 with gross domestic product g

Let it never be said that PayPal's leadership team confines its ambitions to Earth. PayPal founder Elon Musk, who also created SpaceX, says he wants to live the final days of his life on Mars. But who wants to go to space if you can't buy stuff? That's why PayPal is now talking about how to create a payment system that can be used on any planet. It's apparently not a joke. PayPal President David Marcus wrote a blog post yesterday about the launch of "PayPal Galactic" (that link doesn't work yet), an initiative developed in concert with the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). An announcement will be made today at the SETI Institute with moon traveler Buzz Aldrin and John Spencer, founder and president of the Space Tourism Society. To show he's serious, Marcus tweeted a picture of himself with Aldrin. PayPal says its wants to answer these questions: What will our standard currency look like in a truly cash-free interplanetary society? How will the banking systems have to adapt? How will risk and fraud management systems need to evolve? What regulations will we have to conform with? How will our customer support need to develop? Why start now? "Space travel is opening up for 'the rest of us' thanks to Virgin Galactic, Space X and a host of other space tourism programs including the Space Hotel that hopes to be in orbit by 2016," Marcus wrote. "The enabling infrastructure pieces are starting to come together, and as we start planning to inhabit other planets, the practical realities of life still need to be addressed." The need for a payment system off Earth already exists, he contended, writing that "[a]stronauts inhabiting space stations today still need to pay for life's necessities-from their bills back on Earth to their entertainment, like music and e-books, while in space." That problem has already been solved, however. Astronauts on the International Space Station have had access to the Internet and World Wide Web

Hass and Associates: The Cyber-Risk of a Missile Attack on Syria The cyberattacks carried out by Syria last week were much more broad than initially reported, and they amounted to a warning shot of the retaliation the U.S. could expect if it should attack. Subsequent attacks would most likely go after U.S. infrastructure, and given how fragile it is and the likelihood Iran or North Korea would help out, the result could be massive. As I write this, the U.S. has deployed a battle group to Syria in preparation for a missile strike against the government there, and Russia has deployed what appears to be a counter force. What most seem not to be factoring in is that Syria has already fired its warning shot with attacks on Twitter and The New York Times, at least. I say "at least," because reporting of attacks isn't comprehensive, and other attempts may have failed, so Syria's first strike may have been far larger than initially reported. (Related cyber-attack updates: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/78848.html) The U.S. has a tendency to overreact, and it is clear there's insufficient preparation for theinfrastructure collapse that could occur when Syria responds to a missile attack -- and Russia exists as a wild card that could cause the conflict to spread rapidly out of control. It's been common knowledge for some time that the U.S. infrastructure is vulnerable to outside attack and that governments like Syria and China have been probing it and probably know exactly where and how to do the most damage. There's a very real likelihood that this time the U.S. won't go unscathed, and it may be prudent to have a plan in place should things go very, very wrong. Details: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/78848.html Related article: http://www.wattpad.com/12317622-cyber-security-hass-associates#.UibGpBunqeQ

The cyber-attacks carried out by Syria last week were much more broad than initially reported, and they amounted to a warning shot of the retaliation the U.S. could expect if it should attack. Subsequent attacks would most likely go after U.S. infrastructure, and given how fragile it is and the likelihood Iran or North Korea would help out, the result could be massive. As I write this, the U.S. has deployed a battle group to Syria in preparation for a missile strike against the government there, and Russia has deployed what appears to be a counter force. What most seem not to be factoring in is that Syria has already fired its warning shot with attacks on Twitter and The New York Times, at least. I say "at least," because reporting of attacks isn't comprehensive, and other attempts may have failed, so Syria's first strike may have been far larger than initially reported. The U.S. has a tendency to overreact, and it is clear there's insufficient preparation for the infrastructure collapse that could occur when Syria responds to a missile attack -- and Russia exists as a wild card that could cause the conflict to spread rapidly out of control. It's been common knowledge for some time that the U.S. infrastructure is vulnerable to outside attack and that governments like Syria and China have been probing it and probably know exactly where and how to do the most damage. There's a very real likelihood that this time the U.S. won't go unscathed, and it may be prudent to have a plan in place should things go very, very wrong. Details: https://www.smore.com/g263-hass-and-associates-syria More Info: http://justinblake.postach.io/post/hass-and-associates-missile-attack-on-syria http://justinblake.booklikes.com/post/148815/hass-and-associates-missile-attack-on-syria

With all the hundreds of quests from our survey, it's a Hass Associates pleasure to answer those today! As what we have observed, identity theft is on the top where individuals get so interested. In fact, identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America, affecting on the average of 500,000 new victims each year, for the past decade. And so, we are glad to discuss this for you to be well- informed and have preventive measures, such as reducing and reporting scams and prosecuting scammers. These topics are followed by: -online security and hardware concerns; -earning money from legitimate work-at-home programs and work-at-home scams; -credit cards and consumer issues; -Nigerian and lottery scams; -viruses and spyware; -phishing scams; -investment scams; and -urban legends. Obviously, many subscribers are interested in knowing out about new scams in these areas. This seems quite related to what we have been writing about. With all your exciting and terrific questions, Scam Busters will become even better. Today, we'll answer five of your biggest questions about identity theft: Answers to Our Subscribers' 5 Biggest Identity Theft Protection Questions 1) How big of a problem is identity theft and how long does it typically take to recover it? With victims' losses amounting to about $1.1 billion a year, identity theft reached the top of FCS's yearly list of consumer complaints for seven years in a row. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates more than the average victims that devote 170 to 300 hours trying to recover his or her identity and to resolve theft-relates issues. More than 110 million people in the US reported since January 2007 that have been packed letters from the different government branches, universities, corporations, banks, medical professionals, credit unions, no non-profit organizations and others notifying them that their personal information had either been stolen or lost. (Check out more statistics at our Identity Theft In

Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave her farewell speech last week. She had quite a bit to say, but there was one thing that caught my attention: She warned that a major cyberattack is on the way. I believe it. Most major U.S. companies have been under siege from hackers over the last 18 months. In fact, two days after Napolitano's speech, a hacker group called the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the New York Times' website and Twitter feed - for the second time this year. Of course, Napolitano wasn't just talking about American business. She was talking about America's infrastructure: power grid, communications, banking and so forth. Every one of these services relies on computers. A well-placed virus could do a lot of damage, especially if an insider planted it. The Northeast blackout of 2003 started at a single power center. A computer bug disabled an important alarm. The operators couldn't react in time to a downed power line and it blacked out 55 million people for several days. Imagine waking up one morning with no power. Cellphones can't connect, banks are closed, the Internet is down and credit cards don't work. In localized emergencies, workers from other areas help to restore services quickly. A cyberattack could affect wide regions of the country, overwhelming the available manpower. It could take days, weeks or months for basic services to be fully restored. Not a pretty picture. Now, a cyberattack might not take down everything, but it could make basic services unreliable. You won't be able to trust technology to always work. Further Information: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2013/09/06/cyberattack-hackers-syrian-electronic-army/2757833/ Related Article: http://forums.devarticles.com/asp-development-3/hass-and-associates-cyber-security-online-scams-to-watch-out-for-444796.html http://hassbiggerprice.wordpress.com/tag/hass-associates-online-cyber-review-scam-du-jour-theyre-creative/

It's the last thing security professionals want to see: A new hacking method that makes it even harder to detect suspect code in emails. The method is actually a stealthy combination of two favorite attack modes, and it shows that hackers are pulling out all the stops to ensnare computer users in their webs. Phishing and spear phishing have long been thought to be mutually exclusive hacking tricks, but cybercrooks have found a way to combine the two in a technique called longline phishing. "The technique allows you to hit a lot of people very quickly and largely go undetected," Dave Jevans, founder and CTO of Marble Security and founder of the Anti-Phishing Work Group, told TechNewsWorld. With spear phishing, which is typically used as a vehicle for advanced persistent threat attacks like the recent one on The New York Times, a select group of connected people are targeted with a highly credible email message based on extensive research of the targets' backgrounds. "With longlining, you can get hundreds of people exposed to a website that will infect their computers," Jevans noted. He explained that longliners -- named after commercial fishermen who use long lines of hooks to catch fish -- might send 100,000 emails from 50,000 IP addresses, which makes it difficult to identify an email from a particular server as hacking bait.