Skip to main content

Home/ Groups/ StJulians_ITGS
El Mexicano Pastiche

Google offers secure searching to protect from nosy bosses and ISPs - 4 views

  •  
    Google has enabled encrypted searching using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) which it says will prevent "employers and internet service providers" from reading what is sent. The possibility that employers and ISPs might be watching peoples' search traffic clearly concerns Google, and it has often concerned employees.
  • ...3 more comments...
  •  
    Might want to rethink those tags Sr Pastiche. Any suggestions anyone?
  •  
    I knew it was privacy and anonymity, I was testing you sir.
  •  
    Did I pass?
  •  
    Essentially what Google is trying to do is to offer people a way of securely navigating their website, using SSL, so that people don't have to worry about being monitored. People can see if they are using the secure version of the google search engine if the web adress cointains "https" rather than just "http". SSL works as follows: 1- The web browser being used checks the websites' certificate to make sure that the client is connecting to the real site and not someone intercepting 2- The encryption types that the browser and the web site server can both use to understand each other are determined 3- Browser and Server each send each other unique codes to use when encrypting the data that will be sent 4- The browser and server start communicating using encryption, leaving the web pages secured. For more information on how SSL works ckeck the following website: http://www.ourshop.com/resources/ssl.html
  •  
    The following article shows how the asymmetric encryption inherent to SSL (Secure sockets layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) have been rendered useless by a tool called BEAST (Browser Exploit Against SSL/TLS). It attacks the "AES encryption algorithm" used in the cryptographic protocols. "BEAST is able to grab and decrypt HTTPS cookies once installed on an end user's browser." "While other attacks focus on the authenticity property of SSL, BEAST attacks the confidentiality of the protocol. As far as we know, BEAST implements the first attack that actually decrypts HTTPS requests". "Transaction confidentiality based on the SSL TLS V1.0 protocol (the most used still today) is dead." "The only true defense from fraudulent transactions is to sign the (...) transaction data so that the attacker cannot inject bogus material. This means effectively using a token with a pin pad." "Fixing the vulnerability that BEAST exploits may require a major change to the protocol itself." http://www.itpro.co.uk/636304/ssl-under-threat-as-flaw-exploited
The Game

Students lonely, frustrated after a day unplugged | Health Tech - CNET News - 4 views

  •  
    Very interesting
  • ...2 more comments...
  •  
    guilherme... looking for diigo bookmarks at 1 am ._.
  •  
    Francisco...looking at Diigo at 1am......._.
  •  
    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
Mr Brooke

What's the carbon footprint of ... email? | Environment | guardian.co.uk - 4 views

  •  
    "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
Jorge F1

DNA link led to sex attack arrest - 4 views

  •  
    The national DNA database proved "uniquely crucial" in an investigation that led to the conviction of a sex attacker in Essex. But police fear the service that helped to link Lawrence Button to the sexual assault of a former University of Essex student, in 2009, may be scaled back.
  • ...3 more comments...
  •  
    This article compromises the privacy of British citizens, as well as the reliability and integrity of the DNA database. I will focus my comment on the latter. It was a matter of fortune that Button's DNA had been collected due to his arrest for a domestic assault in May 2010. This is because according to the Protection of Freedoms Bill, biometric material can only be retained if the holder consents it formally. This consent "can be withdrawn at any time". There are also strict regulations on the amount of time that a DNA profile can be retained by authorities according to the new Bill. In addition to that, what way is there to ensure the 62 million(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) British citizens have their DNA profile taken and input in the database? This compromises the integrity and completeness of the DNA database. According to the article itself, "The national database is believed to hold over five million DNA profiles". The new Bill also "requires schools to get parents' consent before processing children's biometric information" (http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/protectionoffreedoms.html) The full official bill on the regulation of biometric data can be found at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2010-2012/0099/lbill_2010-20120099_en_2.htm#pt1-ch1-pb1-l1g1 Hence the sweeping statement "The odds, we were told, were over a billion to one, so we were quite confident we'd got the right man", is certainly misleading, because the database is likely not to include a fraction of the British population. The most disturbing thing is that the responsible chief Richard McNamara states "it was the DNA alone that convicted the man, because we never had any other evidence". Is it really ethical to convict a criminal solely based on a potentially incomplete database? A solution to this problem would be to enforce surveillance systems and active police monitoring in order to obtain more plausible evidence.
  •  
    This article regards the compromising of the privacy of British citizens, as well as the reliability and integrity of the DNA database. I will focus my comment on the latter.
  •  
    "The Zhan" you raise some interesting points on the privacy issues of DNA databases. However I think you may have misunderstood the reliability issue of the DNA test. When two DNA samples are found to be the same then it is 99.99% certain that it is in fact the DNA of the suspect and is a very reliable indicator that it was that person. There are forensic issues involved in the collection and contamination of DNA samples from a crime scene but that is another issue. The main social and ethical issue here that you have rightly pointed out is the collection and storage of DNA from people. This article outlines some of these issues from 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7177152.stm Here the issue of innocent peoples data being stored has come because ....."following a change in the law in 2001, all DNA collected by forensics - for whatever purpose - can be stored permanently. " It was promised in the recent election in the UK to destroy old data but it appears to be one of the many U turns that the current government has made: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8659968/A-Bill-to-curtail-our-liberty.html
  •  
    I agree with your first point to some extent, but I think that implying that it DNA profiling is 99.99% accurate is when in fact it is 99.9999999999% accurate (one to a trillion sir, get it right), is not acceptable - according to this http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/may/25/dna-database-false-positive I think that retaining DNA samples in databases and profiling an individual in a pervasively detailed manner could lead to extremes such as that of convicting criminals for pre-crimes, as portrayed in the film Minority Report. That would heavily compromise a citizen's privacy. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I7tBjrA8Mj0/TWPfWNY9-0I/AAAAAAAAADg/QTXlFpTtNvM/s1600/MINORITY+REPORT.jpg "The US government has come up with a Big Brother-esque machine that senses if an individual intends to do harm". The system, "Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), determines if a person intends to do harm by using a mal-intent algorithm that uses data from sensors that monitor a person's physiological and behavioral changes." http://news.techworld.com/security/3309928/tom-cruise-pre-crime-minority-report-machine-brought-to-life/
  •  
    Good find Zhan! Would be interesting to see what the bods in the maths department have to say about "adventitious matches" and statistical probability. Maybe any of you who do HL maths can follow it up and add to this? Nice to see a reference to some classic sci-fi as well. This is a favourite read of mine. Also one of my all time top ten films! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/
Tranny Franny

How RFID Works - 4 views

  •  
    How RFID Works
  • ...1 more comment...
  •  
    first one you found on google eh?
  •  
    No not really it was the second.. didnt really enjoy the first one.
  •  
    Nice brief summary. Edson found you out though!
Mr Brooke

30 Mind-Blowing Old PC Ads - 4 views

  •  
    Great stuff here from the Old Skool
Ines Simon

The top four iPhone 4 hardware issues so far | TechCrunch - 0 views

  •  
    issues about iPhone
  •  
    good article highlighting iphone 4 problems. be careful to keep articles up to date. This one is over a year old.
Tranny Franny

BBC News - Twitter sued by Brazil over drink-driving trap alerts - 4 views

  •  
    By banning accounts, Twitter is giving into outside pressure to effectively censor its own website, and destroying one of the main goals that was set out at the time of the company's creation: freedom of speech. Once one account is banned it sets up a precedent for other governments, and businesses to politetly request Twitter to 'censor' what governments believe to be 'illegal' accounts.
  •  
    The social and ethical issue mainly presented is surveillance. The twitter accounts are set up to warn the followers of traffic stops, roadblocks etc, this gives time for the followers to avoid the police. This is an even bigger problem to tackle because most smartphones have access to Twitter through a 3G connection, this means that users are able to get push notifications on the road as well as at home. I agree with 'Fiche Galinha' in the sense that the banning of the accounts does go against freedom of speech however, it is a sensible measure to take as the account users are making police officers jobs more difficult.
Mr Brooke

Pirate Bay servers going airborne in tiny drones - Boing Boing - 4 views

  •  
    "Now that The Pirate Bay is serving tiny "magnet links" instead of torrents, its whole database will fit in 90MB. "
Mr Brooke

Hackers Clone E-Passports - 4 views

  •  
    "Hackers Clone E-Passports"
Isy :)

BBC - Newsbeat - Not enough done to tackle cyberbullying, warns NSPCC - 4 views

  • One thousand teenagers across the UK were questioned for the survey and 12% said they had been cyberbullied.
  • more than half a million
  • It follows you home, it follows you over the weekend, it doesn't leave you alone.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • educating the children they come into contact with into staying safe online.
  •  
    The news article shows some very important facts for instance, out of 5.3m teenagers in the UK more than half a million of them have suffered from cyber bullying. Furthermore, as social networks are now becoming more available on mobile devices this number is likely to increase in the coming years.
  • ...1 more comment...
  •  
    This website offers good advice on how cyber bullying works and prevention techniques: http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/index2.html
  •  
    Nowadays lots of cyber bullying is going on, and it is increasing. Not only cyber bullying exists via text messages, yet also through anonymous calls and what is increasing a lot now, via social networks. People create facebook pages with names such as 'The ugliest person in Cascais' (this is probably an example of one of the 'less worse') and post images of people, with insulting descriptions on the photos. This is a big issue since people who are bullied may psychologically or even physically suffer from this. "half a million of them had been a victim of online bullying.". Technology is increasing, so surely, if no one tries to actually do something to change this, cyber bullying will also increase.
  •  
    I'm a bit surprised at the number, it's lower than what I thought it would be. Perhaps I'm just a pessimist. Nevertheless, I agree with Ines. We're getting more and more cyber bullying, Stopping cyber bullying has proved difficult with the exponential growth of social networking. Cyber bullying is of course as we know, the use of the Internet or text messaging to bully others. But what can we do to change this escalation of cyber bullying? Not a whole lot really, in my opinion. Kids will, unsurprisingly, bully each other. The Facebook-generation is merely using the medium they are given.
El Mexicano Pastiche

Public & Private encryption - 3 views

  •  
    link not working
Mr Brooke

Face recognition: In the future, can you remain anonymous? - Jan. 13, 2012 - 3 views

    • Mr Brooke
       
      I love the fact that the opt in can be as simple as "walking into a store"
  •  
    The social and ethical issues presented by this article is on privacy and anonymity.
  • ...2 more comments...
  •  
    Describe, step by step, how the IT system works. An example of a face recognition and detection technology is the iPhone app that can snap a photo of a person and within seconds display their name, date of birth and social security number. 1. A good quality, well-lit photograph of the person is taken. 2. The image is sent to a server where a database of images is located. 3. The images in the database are downloaded from publicly available sources (any database containing faces and names), such as facebook, twitter or LinkedIn profiles. 4. According to the information available in that profile, such as date and location of higher education stydy, other data can be inferred (date and state of birth). 5. This data is inserted into an algorithm developed to predict the social security number. All of this still within the database. 6. The biometric features of the iPhone photograph is compared to those of the image in the database 7. If they match, the information about that person is returned from the server to the iPhone: name, date of birth, state, social security nr. What are the flaws within this system? Explain the relationship between the IT system (facial recognition iPhone app) and the social/ethical (privacy and anonymity) "The technology to analyse faces in improving so quickly that unpredictable (...) inferrences from that information have become possible." - Alessandro Acquisti, professor of IT and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College The app is a proof-of-concept of how our privacy can be easily breached on a widespread basis (as one walks into a store or protests in a convention)
  •  
    This article raises the issue of privacy and anonymity. This article shows how there is a possibility that in the near future, as long as the technology continues to develop at this rate, all of our personal data will be stored on a database along with an image of our faces. The fact that a person can be recognized at any moment anywhere means that people will start to be monitored and everything they do will be recorded. This completely strips people from their privacy, much like the Big Brother situation that is described in George Orwell's "1984". This technology can, however, bring certain advantages as through the constant monitoring of people, people involved in criminal acts will be identified with much more ease and therefore crime levels are sure to decrease. However, this can also raise an issue of reliability, as although it is a very small percentage of it happening, there can be the case where the camera misidentifies someone, and in a case of crime, that could lead to an innocent person being conviected for a crime they did not commit. And although at the end of the article "Wear a mask," is said by John Verdi, senior counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center as a joke, if the tecnhology continues to develop, we might find ourselves in the ridiculous situation where the only way to ever remain anonymous is to in fact wear a mask.
  •  
    We could all just replace our eyes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx9IEP8pmiI&feature=related In the above clip we see an example of what might happen if facial recognition ever reaches the level portrayed in Minority Report. As the protagonist walks into the store, an AI asks him how he felt about his last purchase at the shop, information obtained by scanning the protagonist's eyes and searching for what he has bought. This brings up the issue of privacy, as has correctly been mentioned above, as third-party companies will be able to access databases with data concerning what people purchase, how much they spend and where they are.
Morten Nielsen

China calls for crackdown on 'toxic' internet rumours | World news | The Guardian - 3 views

  • "Concocting rumours is itself a social malady, and the spread of rumours across the internet presents a massive social threat," Xinhua said.
  • China has a vast and complex censorship system, but microblogs have played an increasing role in spreading news, developing public debate and uncovering scandals.
  • "The rapid advance of this flood [of internet users] has also brought 'mud and sand' - the spread of rumours - and to nurture a healthy internet, we must thoroughly eradicate the soil in which rumours grow,"
  •  
    This is an excellent choice of article. Your choice of tags is spot on. You may find this interesting: http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/
  •  
    Thank you. Brilliant website that one. Was quite amused about the fact you can enter capitalism.org in China. I would've thought they banned that one. : )
Mr Brooke

BBC News - Google tests cars that drive themselves - 3 views

  •  
    "Google tests cars that drive themselves"
  •  
    This is a good system since cars that drive themselves will decrease danger in the road. They're programmed and don't have the problem of "drinking and driving" like humans do. This is an advantage because it will reduce danger. Plus, it will increase time for leisure since people can be socializing with people or doing work instead of driving.
Ines Simon

Who's to blame when an autonomous vehicle crashes? - 3 views

  •  
    Also, here's a link to another article explaining about how google's self-driving car works.
  • ...2 more comments...
  •  
    anyone want to try and describe step by step how this system works?
  •  
    Basically the car works with a Velodyne 64-beam laser mounted on the roof on the car, the laser produces a detailed 3D map of the environment and takes measurements of the area. The car uses the data from the 3D map and the measurements to avoid obstacles and respect traffic laws. Furthermore, the car uses various sensors, two of which are placed on the front and rear bumpers to track obstacles. There is also a camera, that detects traffic lights, GPS, inertial measurement unit, and wheel encoder, that determine the vehicle's location and keep track of its movements. In my opinion, the idea of a self driving car is incredible if it is built correctly, however I believe that the wheel encoder may invade the privacy of some.
  •  
    I'm a bit curious Jorge, how would this invade the privacy of some? This is an amazing technological improvement, it will be interesting to see what happens in the future with this. This is a quite good article on how it works http://news.discovery.com/autos/how-google-self-driving-car-works-111018.html
  •  
    Because the car records it's position using the GPS, if a black hacker is able to get hold of this information the owner of the car could be put at risk.
Morten Nielsen

Adobe to plug Flash-related Webcam spying hole | Security - CNET News - 3 views

  •  
    Do you know if this has been resolved yet?
Mr Brooke

Explaining the internet to a 19th Century Urchin - 3 views

  •  
    sire, remember i've been making all kinds of connections? well OLIVER 9000 in the end of ur image is veeeery like... http://xspblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/over9000_small.jpg i win the interwebz?
‹ Previous 21 - 40 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page