Group items tagged

The concern is privacy.Apparently the FBI was able to acquire Kim DotCom's messages with other MegaUpload employers by means of spyware, which could access skype conversations stored on a local host. Even though the FBI had a warrant to search for information, this is still rather disconcerting. This software can easily be misused. The software is called CIPAV and it stands for Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier. This software is able to send "network-level messages" containing the target computer's IP address, Ethernet MAC address, environment variables, the last-visited Web site, and other registry-type information including the name of the registered owner of the computer and the operating system's serial number. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10222294-38.html

I agree with you Morten. The social and ethical issue here is privacy. In the article they specify when saying "Sources told CNET yesterday that Skype, the Internet phone service now owned by Microsoft, was not asked by the feds to turn over information and was not served with legal process" that Skype did not give permission to the FBI to access this information. Even though the Data Protection Act states that "Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes." it is still not appropriate to "hack" into Kim DotCom's messages. Here is a link with the rules for Data Protection Act. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/schedule/1 Privacy is coming to bits, the only way we can talk to people knowing that knowing is going to get hold o f that information is by face-to-face communication, and even by that way people can be hearing the conversation secretly. Where has privacy gone?

The main social and ethical in this article would have to be authenticity, as it deals with the fact that people are making accounts to be real people. In my own experience I've had this happen to me once and it was easily identified for the reasons this article states, no status updates etc. Although in my case it was harmless, it can lead to issues of a greater significance. This article also highlights the worrying ease at which people can fake an accout and that there is a very significant number of these accounts. They could in some cases be used in a harmful manner. For example, sexual predators could easily make a profile pretending to be 15 years old, add a profile picture of a child and then add other children as friends. This creates a security issue as the children's life is in a potentially harmful situation, as these cases of sexual predators over the internet has been a security issue since social networks came to be. Another issue that lack of authenticity brings is that these fake accounts could be used for spam, and could also potentially be used to spread malware. This is a very common problem in Facebook as these fake accounts can share a link with their "friends" and from this it starts spreading throughout the entire social network.

This is a major security and reliability issue as government servers are not taking the right measures to protect people's personal information. Anonymous claim they only acquired a small amount of information just to prove how incompetent the system is, if it were a hacking group looking to use the data in illegal ways then this would be a big problem.

This article demonstrates that there is a reliability issue with the Satellite T130 laptop production, the main problem is that the DC is faulty which leads to the melting of the AC adapter. Toshiba has recognised this problem and has posted a solution on their forum. http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/bulletin.jsp?soid=2761378

Firefox: CPU usage problem

In what could be the largest data security breach to date, MasterCard International on Friday said information on more than 40 million credit cards may have been stolen.

Very interesting

I was checking my e-mail and couldn't resist not leaving a message unread

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-PWNED

we have a record

50Gflops......impressive!

"Disk encryption may not be secure enough, new research finds"

Transport is one of the areas we look at. There is not a great deal of IT in this storythough it very interesting! This sort of story has more technology in it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11508351

Also try to use the tags on this page: http://itgsopedia.wikispaces.com/Global+Tagging

very interesting hack. solution? http://www.amazon.com/Webcam-Cover-Laptops-Pad-Devices/dp/B004Z0XSY6

Do you know if this has been resolved yet?

apparently so... http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Adobe-remedies-webcam-spy-hole-in-Flash-1364631.html

Someone reportedly tampers with a demo iPhone 4S so that when a 12-year-old boy picks it up and asks Siri a question, she is not amused or amusing. She tells him to 'Shut the f*** up.' Read this blog post by Chris Matyszczyk on Technically Incorrect.

The main social and ethical issues are integrity of the system, security, and people and machines. Although I do not own an iPhone 4S, I would imagine it the product had been hacked and its set-up instructions had been reprogrammed by a user who is extremely knowledgeable on issues such as encryption and programming know-how. Perhaps because the iPhone referred to in the news story was a "demonstration" version, I suppose its encryption levels are not as powerful as the real product (Apple would have to invest less money in manufacturing). However, there is a much simpler explanation, according to "MacTrast" (http://www.mactrast.com/2011/12/siri-tells-twelve-year-old-to-shut-the-fck-up-after-pranksters-tamper-with-display-iphone/): Simply changing the name in the contact card by verbalising it (asking Siri "Call me (insert ridiculous statement here)") allows the user to tamper with the phrase voiced by Siri, without having to deal with complicated encryption or validation processes. This means the system itself is integral and works correctly, but the given primary contact's nickname is has been inappropriately altered. To solve this problem, the company should enforce the security of its demo versions of the Siri for iPhone 4S by impossibilitating a deliberate change of contact names and redistribute them across retailers.

"What's the carbon footprint of ... email?"

The news article mainly addresses the issue of people and machines, although the use of email has numerous advantages, it is affecting the environment and speeding up the greenhouse effect. However, the main cause of the high carbon footprint is predominantly due to spam emails; each spam email creates 0.3g of Carbon dioxide if you times this by the 62 trillion spam emails sent globally it is equivalent to "driving around the Earth 1.6 million times". Here is a link to another news article which breaks down the several aspects of email and shows their impact on CO2 emissions: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10220363-93.html