The Internet is a surveillance state by Bruce Schneier #Tech #News

CNN: The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period.

Increasingly, what we do on the Internet is being combined with other data about us. Unmasking Broadwell's identity involved correlating her Internet activity with her hotel stays. Everything we do now involves computers, and computers produce data as a natural by-product. Everything is now being saved and correlated, and many big-data companies make money by building up intimate profiles of our lives from a variety of sources.

Facebook, for example, correlates your online behavior with your purchasing habits offline. And there's more. There's location data from your cell phone, there's a record of your movements from closed-circuit TVs.

This is ubiquitous surveillance: All of us being watched, all the time, and that data being stored forever. This is what a surveillance state looks like, and it's efficient beyond the wildest dreams of George Orwell.

Please continue reading at:

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/index.html?eref=edition

FACEBOOK reveals secrets & private information you haven’t shared #tech #socialmedia #news

The increasing amount of personal information that can been gleaned by computer programs that track how people use Facebook has been revealed by an extensive academic study.

Such programmes can discern undisclosed private information such as Facebook users' sexuality, drug-use habits and even whether their parents separated when they were young, according to the study by Cambridge university academics.

Please continue reading at:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/09c8172c-8a45-11e2-bf79-00144feabdc0.html

Global E-mail Patterns Reveal "Clash of Civilizations" | MIT Technology Review

The global pattern of e-mail communication reflects the cultural fault lines thought to determine future conflict, say computational social scientists.

Please continue reading at:
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512116/global-e-mail-patterns-reveal-clash-of-civilizations/

TODAY: The day Americans gave up their digital device rights. Unlocking Mobile Phones Becomes Illegal #tech #news

"Referencing a decision outlined in the Federal Register, Tech News Daily has published an article noting that the window to unlock your new mobile phone in the U.S. is closing. 'In October 2012, the Librarian of Congress, who determines exemptions to a strict anti-hacking law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), decided that unlocking mobile phones would no longer be allowed. But the library provided a 90-day window during which people could still buy a phone and unlock it. That window closes on January 26.' While this doesn't apply to phones purchased before the window closes, this means that after 1/26/13, for any new mobile phone you purchase, you'll have to fulfill your contract, or break the law to unlock it.

Please read full and follow at:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/01/25/144204/unlocking-new-mobile-phones-becomes-illegal-in-the-us-tomorrow

Security audit finds dev OUTSOURCED his JOB to China to goof off at work • The Register

A security audit of a US critical infrastructure company last year revealed that its star developer had outsourced his own job to a Chinese subcontractor and was spending all his work time playing around on the internet.

The firm's telecommunications supplier Verizon was called in after the company set up a basic VPN system with two-factor authentication so staff could work at home. The VPN traffic logs showed a regular series of logins to the company's main server from Shenyang, China, using the credentials of the firm's top programmer, "Bob"

After getting permission to study Bob's computer habits, Verizon investigators found that he had hired a software consultancy in Shenyang to do his programming work for him, and had FedExed them his two-factor authentication token so they could log into his account. He was paying them a fifth of his six-figure salary to do the work and spent the rest of his time on other activities.

The analysis of his workstation found hundreds of PDF invoices from the Chinese contractors and determined that Bob's typical work day consisted of:

9:00 a.m. – Arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours. Watch cat videos

11:30 a.m. – Take lunch

1:00 p.m. – Ebay time

2:00-ish p.m – Facebook updates, LinkedIn

4:30 p.m. – End-of-day update e-mail to management

5:00 p.m. – Go home

Please continue reading at:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/16/developer_oursources_job_china/

Google starts watching what you do off the Internet too — after you shop at mall with your credit card, you'll see same Store ads online later

RT: Google is all but certain to ensure that all user data collected off- and online will be cloaked through safeguards that will allow for complete and total anonymity for customers. When on-the-Web interactions start mirroring real life activity, though, even a certain degree of privacy doesn't make Conversions API any less creepy. As Jim Edwards writes for Business Insider, "If you bought a T shirt at The Gap in the mall with your credit card, you could start seeing a lot more Gap ads online later, suggesting jeans that go with that shirt."

Of course, there is always the possibility that all of this information can be unencrypted and, in some cases, obtained by third-parties that you might not want prying into your personal business. Edwards notes in his report that Google does not explicitly note that intelligence used in Conversions API will be anonymized, but the blowback from not doing as much would sure be enough to start a colossal uproar. Meanwhile, however, all of the information being collected by Google — estimated to be on millions of servers around the globe — is being handed over to more than just advertising companies. Last month Google reported that the US government requested personal information from roughly 8,000 individual users during just the first few months of 2012.

"This is the sixth time we've released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise," Google admitted with their report.

Please continue reading at:

http://rt.com/usa/news/google-internet-online-offline-500/

Nine out of ten organizations lack proper tech skills: study | Is #socialmedia killing our productivity?

Is digital distraction the cause of this headshot to our nations productivity?

...findings of a new survey of 1,200 executives, just released by the IBM Center for Applied Insights. The survey report examines the rise of four technology areas – mobile, business analytics, cloud and social business – concluding that only one in ten organizations has all the skills it needs. "These shortages are not trivial or isolated," it continues. "Within each area, roughly one-quarter report major skill gaps, and 60 percent or more report moderate to major shortfalls."

Plus, there doesn't seem to be much help coming down the pipeline either. In a parallel academic survey, IBM says close to half of the educators and students responding said there were major gaps in IT skills coverage – "a deficit nearly twice the size of what businesses are already experiencing. Including those with
moderate gaps, totals rise to 73% or more."

As Jim Corgel, IBM general manager for academic and developer relations, puts it: "Today we are faced with one of the largest skills gap in history." He advises more aggressive actions on the part of businesses to invest in skills development among current employees. 

Please read full and follow at:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/nine-out-of-ten-organizations-lack-proper-tech-skills-study/8205

Scientific American's Fred Guterl Explores the Threats Posed By Technology -via @Slashdot

"Fred Guterl is the executive editor of Scientific American, and in this piece he explores various threats posed by the technology that modern civilization relies on. He discusses West African and Indian monsoons, infectious diseases, and computer hacking. Here's a quote: 'Today the technologies that pose some of the biggest problems are not so much military as commercial. They come from biology, energy production, and the information sciences — and are the very technologies that have fueled our prodigious growth as a species. They are far more seductive than nuclear weapons, and more difficult to extricate ourselves from. The technologies we worry about today form the basis of our global civilization and are essential to our survival.'"
Please continue reading at:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/11/28/2322231/scientific-americans-fred-guterl-explores-the-threats-posed-by-technology

Scientists See Startling Gains in Artificial Intelligence

NYTimes.com...The technology, called deep learning, has already been put to use in services like Apple's Siri virtual personal assistant, which is based on Nuance Communications' speech recognition service, and in Google's Street View, which uses machine vision to identify specific addresses.

But what is new in recent months is the growing speed and accuracy of deep-learning programs, often called artificial neural networks or just "neural nets" for their resemblance to the neural connections in the brain.

"There has been a number of stunning new results with deep-learning methods," said Yann LeCun, a computer scientist at New York University who did pioneering research in handwriting recognition at Bell Laboratories. "The kind of jump we are seeing in the accuracy of these systems is very rare indeed."

Artificial intelligence researchers are acutely aware of the dangers of being overly optimistic. Their field has long been plagued by outbursts of misplaced enthusiasm followed by equally striking declines.

In the 1960s, some computer scientists believed that a workable artificial intelligence system was just 10 years away. In the 1980s, a wave of commercial start-ups collapsed, leading to what some people called the "A.I. winter."

Please continue reading at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/science/scientists-see-advances-in-deep-learning-a-part-of-artificial-intelligence.html?_r=0

Study Claims Human Intelligence Peaked Two To Six Millennia Ago

Slashdot- Professor Gerald "Jerry" Crabtree of Stanford's Crabtree Laboratorypublished a paper (PDF) that has appeared in two parts in Trends in Genetics. The paper opens with a very controversial suggestion: 'I would be willing to wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions.' From there, Crabtree speculates we're on the decline of human intelligence and we have been for at least a couple millennia. His argument suggests agriculture and, following from that, cities, have allowed us to break free of some environmental forces on competitive genetic mutations — a la Mike Judge's theory. However, the conclusion of the paper urges humans to keep calm and carry on, as any attempt to fix this genetic trend would almost certainly be futile and disturbing."

Please read full and follow at:

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/11/13/191217/study-claims-human-intelligence-peaked-two-to-six-millennia-ago

The duo ... Bravo

Security Firm VUPEN Claims to Have Hacked Windows 8 and IE10

TNW...If you've never heard of VUPEN, that's because it isn't your typical security company. The firm finds exploits in popular software from major technology companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google, only to sell the details to governments around the world and various other parties willing to write massive cheques.

That's right; the exploits aren't reported to the companies affected, but are instead sold so that: VUPEN customers can protect themselves (while their competitors are left vulnerable), they can be abused for spying purposes, and they can be used to create malware. This is why, if you read the tweet above again, you'll note that this latest victory was only possible thanks to multiple already-existing 0-days that VUPEN found and did not disclose publicly. If it had, it would not be able to sell them, nor would it be able to hack Windows 8, as Microsoft would have already patched the flaws long ago.

Please read full and follow at:

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2012/11/01/security-firm-vupen-claims-to-have-hacked-windows-8-and-ie10/

Does Russia care about children's future more than U.S? Internet Child Protection Law Takes Effect

Slashdot:

"A law that aims to protect children from harmful internet content by allowing the government to take sites offline has taken effect in Russia. The authorities are now able to blacklist and force offline certain websites without a trial. The law was approved by both houses of parliament and signed by President Vladimir Putin in July. If the websites themselves cannot be shut down, internet service providers (ISPs) and web hosting companies can be forced to block access to the offending material."

Please read full and follow at:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/11/01/154215/russias-internet-blacklist-law-takes-effienct

'2013 is going to be ugly' for Microsoft as it shifts to Windows 8, Forrester predicts

As Microsoft launches Windows 8, and with it, an attempt to stabilize a precipitous decline in its share of operating systems for 'personal devices, 2013 is going to be a tough, very tough year, research firm Forrester said today.

Please continue reading at:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9232778/_2013_is_going_to_be_ugly_for_Microsoft_as_it_shifts_to_Windows_8_Forrester_predicts

Silicon Valley Morally Bankrupt and Toxic

Slashdot - Since I've been out of the Silicon-Valley-centered tech industry, I've become increasingly convinced that it's morally bankrupt and essentially toxic to our society. Companies like Google and Facebook — in common with most public companies — have interests that are frequently in conflict with the well-being of — I was going to say their customers or their users, but I'll say 'people' in general, since it's wider than that. People who use their systems directly, people who don't — we're all affected by it, and although some of the outcomes are positive a disturbingly high number of them are negative: the erosion of privacy, of consumer rights, of the public domain and fair use, of meaningful connections between people and a sense of true community, of beauty and care taken in craftsmanship, of our very physical well-being. No amount of employee benefits or underfunded Google.org projects can counteract that. Over time, I've come to consider that this situation is irremediable, given our current capitalist system and all its inequalities. To fix it, we're going to need to work on social justice and rethinking how we live and work and relate to each other. Geek toys like self-driving cars and augmented reality sunglasses won't fix it. Social networks designed to identify you to corporations so they can sell you more stuff won't fix it. Better ad targeting or content matching algorithms definitely won't fix it."

Please read full and follow at:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/10/29/2332216/is-silicon-valley-morally-bankrupt-and-toxic

The Future Talk with Steve Jobs - Daily Exhaust

(via Marcel Brown)

Please read full and follow at:

http://dailyexhaust.com/2012/10/post-1.html

Windows 8 may be death blow to PC market

Windows 8 is "a dramatic departure from existing PC paradigms" and may not stop the declining growth in PC sales, warns a just-released IDC report. The reports adds that PC sales will be only up a fraction of a percent in 2012 over 2011.

Please continue reading at:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/20890/windows-8-dramatic-departure-existing-pc-paradigms-and-may-not-halt-slow-pc-growth-warns-idc

Computer firms try to grow talent to handle mainframe worker shortage

USATODAY..."Big Iron," as the machines are called, is not headed for extinction any time soon. But nearly 50 years after these once-giant computers were first introduced, companies like Detroit-based Compuware and IBM are preparing for a shortage of mainframe workers.

"This will be a growing problem very quickly," said Bob Paul, CEO of Compuware, a business software firm that gets 40% of its revenue from its mainframe division.

Compuware estimates that as many as 40% of the world's mainframe programmers will be retiring in the near future.

The looming shortage has forced mainframe companies such as Compuware, IBM and CA Technologies to step up their talent-development efforts. But in a world with 3D graphics, video streaming and all kinds of social media, getting young people interested in a career in mainframes is a tough sell.

"It is not as sexy as developing new mobile apps," Paul acknowledged. "But if you want a secure and highly valued career, this is a great place to go."

Please continue reading at:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-08-15/Detroit-mainframe-worker-shortage/57066816/1

1984 “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were...

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." — 1984

Ablogalypse

Ablogalypse

Dead wrong... Windows phones are 2% of market

HISTORY of windows 8...those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.

My commdork 64

via thisistheverge

Apples new logo

Why Didn't the Internet Take Off In 1983? - Slashdot

"An amazing pair of videos from the AT&T archives tout a service called Viewtron that brought much of what we expect from the modern Internet to customers' homes in 1983. Online news, banking services, restaurant reviews, shopping, e-mail — all were available on your TV set, controlled by a wireless infrared keyboard. The system had 15,000 customers in cities on the U.S. east coast, but was shut down after $50 million was spent on it. But why did it flop? Was the world just not ready for it?"

Please follow and read more at:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/03/02/0059249/why-didnt-the-internet-take-off-in-1983

Computer Programmers Only the 5th Most Sleep Deprived Profession - Slashdot

"As described in the NY Times Economix blog, the mattress chain Sleepy's analyzed data from the National Health Interview Survey to findthe ten most sleep deprived professions. In order, they are: Home Health Aides, Lawyer, Police Officers, Doctors/Paramedics, Tie: (Economists, Social Workers, Computer Programmers), Financial Analysts, Plant Operators (undefined, but we assume 'factory' and not 'Audrey II'), and Secretaries."

Please follow and read more at:

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/03/02/1720212/computer-programmers-only-the-5th-most-sleep-deprived-profession

No one is on google+... Yeah, Facebook wastes the most time, money and energy

shortformblog: A somewhat different take on the thing we reblogged earlier, but it shows two very interesting things: First, Tumblr and Pinterest are timesucks in equal measure, and second, nobody's actually hanging around Google+ once they sign up. 

Reblogged again by: 

http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/post/18415583785

Social Networking at It’s Worst - graphjam.com

 

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

IBMs new experimental atomic-scale magnet memory is at least 100 times denser than conventional memory

Scientists from IBM Research (NYSE: IBM) have successfully demonstrated the ability to store information in as few as 12 magnetic atoms. This is significantly less than today's disk drives, which use about one million atoms to store a single bit of information. The ability to manipulate matter by its most basic components – atom by atom – could lead to the vital understanding necessary to build smaller, faster and more energy-efficient devices.

Please read more from: 

http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/ibms-new-experimental-atomic-scale.html

Social Media Explained In One Image

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattcherette/social-media-explained-in-one-image

Will Windows 8 Tablets Make IT Pros Hate Microsoft?

Short answer... Yes, IT will end up being hurt by Windows 8

ghacks - When Windows 8 launches the app store will likely be fairly barren, and it will take many months, if not years for Windows to catch up with the number of apps available in the iPad and Android markets.  This ultimately can hurt sales of the platform as people might choose an Android or Apple device over Windows because there's more they can do with it, they'll probably not even be able to run their existing desktop software on it so what will be the point in getting one?

It is crucial however that Windows 8 tablets take off in a big way and sell in the millions, the reason for this is that Microsoft have re-engineered Windows directly around tablets, effectively betting the entire platform on the success of these devices that will probably only ever form 10% of the whole computing market.

The remaining 90% is largely constituted of IT Pros and businesses, many of whom are already taking a dim view of Microsoft's new direction for Windows or who are, at the very least, concerned about what it means for them.  If the new Windows 8 tablets don't take off and sell in huge volumes it will essentially be seen as one huge slap in the face for the IT Pro community who will have had their precious desktop working environment decimated in the name of a product gamble.

The failure of Windows tablets to sell could see these IT Pros turning on Microsoft in huge numbers and perhaps even looking for an alternative (I've even considered a dual-booting iMac as my next PC for the first time ever!)  This means that Microsoft simply cannot afford to get Windows tablets wrong.  As the whole structure of Windows is being re-engineered around them, no matter how friendly they might say Metro will be on desktops and laptops, it is too big a gamble to get it wrong.

Please read more from by Mike Halsey at http://www.ghacks.net/2012/01/08/windows-8-tablets-make-it-pros-hate-microsoft/

Lost generation.... Merry Textmas

A Brief History Of Web Standards [Infographic] - Data Visualization Encyclopedia, Information Technology, Symbols, Posters, Infographic

Throughout the history of the Internet, there has been an evolution of web standards. Due to these transformations, today, "the number of devices connected to the Internet exceeds the number of people on Earth." Vitamin Talent has collaborated with Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman, founders of An Event Apart, to create this fantastic infographic detailing the changes of web standards during the lifetime of the Internet.

See full here: http://www.visualinformation.info/a-brief-history-of-web-standards-infographic/

Why Skyrim Is Horrible for the Economy | GeekDad | Wired.com

We live in very troubled times. Unemployment is higher than it has been in a generation and job numbers continue to be dismal; the stock market turbulently boils, destroying billions in wealth; and entire continents look to the rest of the world for bailouts. Still, there are pockets of economic hope. After a very positive October, video game sales continued to increase in November. During the week following Thanksgiving, XBox had its biggest week of hardware sales ever, moving nearly one million consoles.

Yet, in this period of bullish video game sales, there is some decidedly bad news. There is one game that is leaving a black eye on the gaming industry and single-handedly keeping us in a recession. Released one month ago, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has done more to damage our economy than a committee of congressmen with a wallet full of US Treasury credit cards and a case of whiskey.

I know what you're thinking: it's the second-best selling game in the world right now. In the first 48 hours that Skyrim was available, 3.5 million copies were sold, a number that has continued to grow. How can a game that will generate millions possibly be bad for the economy?

The answer is quite simple: Skyrim is incredible. The game's world is so big and there are so many quests to complete that those millions of dollars in sales are being nullified by players' lost productivity and lack of economic participation in the real world.

Read on at: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/12/skyrim/

Owning A Cat a biological hazard that could Void Your Computer Warranty? - The Consumerist

After 3 weeks of HP support-hell, I finally reached someone who could give me a little info on why my laptop wasn't repaired...Cat hair or not, I just want my computer fixed. It's a manufacturing defect, and it just so happens that the laptop is sprinkled with a bit of hair.

Anyway, I kept arguing with him about how that was really not a lot of cat hair. He told me that it was "covered" and that he was positive that the computer had overheated (multiple reps told me the same thing). I knew it was all a lie, I was looking at the same photos he was, and there was hardly any hair in there. I kept saying that, and I told him the computer cooled itself fine.

He seemed to relent later, and he pretty much agreed with me, so he talked to his supervisor (to make an appeal). Then he gets back on the phone with me and says that the supervisor said that there was SO MUCH cat hair that it's considered a biological hazard. That's absolutely ridiculous, and he wouldn't even give me the number for his supervisor or transfer me to him (why not?).

I probably have more cat hair on my shirt than what was in the laptop. Am I a walking "biological hazard"? I don't think so. Why don't they lock me up and throw me in jail for sending such a dangerous computer into HP's service center? 

Read the awesome at: http://consumerist.com/2011/12/cat-hair-in-hp-computer-means-no-repair-for-you.html

Social Media Facts Every Communications Person Needs to Know - OhMyGov News

 ohmygov...composed this list of impactful factoids about social media.

 

Our Top 10:

1. The average Facebook session lasts 37 minutes.

2. The average Twitter user logs on for 23 minutes.

3. More than 400 million people log on to Facebook daily.

4. There are > 1 billion social network users worldwide.

5. 38 percent of Internet users have a smart phone. They are more intensive users of social media than those without a smart phone.

6. Out of 7 billion people in the world, 2 billion have internet access.

7. Of emerging markets, India and Brazil show the highest awareness of social media.

8. 510,000 comments are uploaded to Facebook every minute.

9. 93 percent of social network users have no intention of stopping their use of social media.

10. Over 60 percent of social network users state they have no desire to change or add a new social network.

 

More Facts:

Read on at: http://ohmygov.com/blogs/general_news/archive/2011/12/06/30-social-media-facts-every-communications-person-needs-to-know.aspx

Windows 8 will be 'largely irrelevant' on PCs, predicts IDC - Computerworld

Computerworld - Windows 8 will be "largely irrelevant" to traditional PC users, a research firm said Monday.

Microsoft faces a tough sell with the new operating system, IDC said, because Windows 8 tries to "offer the best of both worlds" with a single OS suitable for both desktops and tablets.

"Windows 8 will be largely irrelevant to the users of traditional PCs, and we expect effectively no upgrade activity from Windows 7 to Windows 8 in that form factor," said IDC.

Read on by Gregg Keizer: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222436/Windows_8_will_be_largely_irrelevant_on_PCs_predicts_IDC

U.S. tech employment nears its all-time high - Computerworld

Computerworld - The U.S. government's report today that the unemployment rate is down and hiring is up showed some good news for tech workers as well.

The tech industry added 7,100 jobs last month, an increase of .17% from the previous month, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by the TechServe Alliance, an industry group that tracks labor data month to month.

This brings the overall employment number for the industry to 4.068 million, which represents a year over year gain of 2.1%.

Tech industry employment is nearing the all-time high of 4.088 million, which was set in June, 2008, according to TechServe.

Read on at: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222384/U.S._tech_employment_nears_its_all_time_high_

Drowning Starving

US Debt Crisis - 2012 Simply Explianed

MAC/PC

XKCD

Internet Explorer Users Are Kinda Stupid...

a "psychometric consulting" firm that provides hiring exams for businesses, gave online IQ tests to more than 100,000 people. Visitors arrived either through organic searches or through advertisements on other sites, and Aptiquant made a note of which browser each test taker was using.

On average, Internet Explorer users fared the worst, with IE6 users at the bottom of the pile and IE8 users performing slightly better. Firefox, Chrome and Safari fell in the middle with little difference between them. IE with Chrome Frame and Camino landed on top, along with Opera, whose users scored the highest (on average).

"The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual's cognitive ability and their choice of web browser," AptiQuant concluded. "From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers."

Read on at PC World

How I reacted when I got my Google+ invite.

Massive botnet 'indestructible,' say researchers - TDL-4

Computerworld - A new and improved botnet that has infected more than four million PCs is "practically indestructible," security researchers say.

"TDL-4," the name for both the bot Trojan that infects machines and the ensuing collection of compromised computers, is "the most sophisticated threat today," said Kaspersky Labs researcher Sergey Golovanov in a detailed analysis Monday.

"[TDL-4] is practically indestructible," Golovanov said.

The Government's Gadget Habit

"The Federal procurement database reveals millions of dollars are being spent on gadgets. Over the past 10 years, the US government has spent $117 million on BlackBerries (including service plans), almost $18 million on iOS devices, about $1 million on PS3s, over $500k on Xboxes, and somehow, $12k on Zunes." - SlashDot

Is This the Golden Age of Hacking?

"With a seemingly continuous wave of attacks hitting the public and commercial sectors, there has never been a more prodigious period for hackers, argues PC Pro. What has led to the sudden hacking boom? Ease of access to tools has also led to an explosion in the numbers of people actively looking for companies with weakened defenses, according to security experts. Meanwhile, the recession has left thousands of highly skilled IT staff out of work and desperate for money, while simultaneously crimping companies' IT security budgets. The pressure to get systems up and running as quickly as possible also means that networks aren't locked down as tightly as they should be, which can leave back doors open for hackers." - SlashDot

LulzSec reveals massive Sony security breach

LulzSec hacks Sony Pictures, reveals 1m passwords unguarded

Sony was embarrassed again on Thursday after Lulz Security posted that it had successfully hacked Sony Pictures' website. It lived up to its earlier promise and used a basic SQL injection attack to expose one million users' personal data, 3.5 million digital coupons and 75,000 music codes. The hacking team found that the information had few defenses and that none of the data, even including passwords, were stored in clear text.

Not all of the information could be taken due to resources and time, LulzSec said. As evidence, though, it posted a selection of what it had as evidence, including databases for related sites like AutoTrader, the coupons and codes, and the plain login information for some of the database. Administrator data was compromised both at the US site as well as from Belgium and the Netherlands.

LulzSec, which doesn't pursue hacks for commercial gain, cast itself as doing both Sony and the public as a favor. The move would push Sony to lock down its security more thoroughly across its sites. For end users, it was a warning as to how easily compromised Sony's sites were even after the PSN hack and several follow-ups from different sources.

"From a single injection, we accessed EVERYTHING," the team said. "Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these simple attacks?"

Sony hadn't responded to the breach as of Thursday but was ironically due to testify at a Congress hearing the same day on its security practices

Microsoft Skype - FAIL

Joy of Tech - Facebook Teams up with Communist Party

Windows 1981 - Xerox version

What the Fark?

Here are funny measurements that some people actually use.

1 Wheaton = 500,000 Twitter followers

MAC vs PC

Ohhhh... SNAP!

Car can't run with linux...

iPad eliminating thousands of American jobs.

"on an anti-technology rant on Friday on the floor of Congress, blaming the iPad for eliminating thousands of American jobs. '
Why do you need to go to Borders anymore?' asked Jackson.
'Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble?

Buy an iPad, download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine.'
 
'What becomes of publishing companies and publishing company jobs?
And what becomes of bookstores and librarians and all of the jobs associated with paper?
Well, in the not too distant future, such jobs simply will not exist.
Steve Jobs is doing pretty well. He's created the iPad.
Certainly, it has made life more efficient for Americans, but the iPad is produced in China.
It is not produced here in the United States."

What (anti) Social Networks are for... the truth hurts.

Cause... affect or effect?

This -  High school students assigned to online study due to teacher shortage

Should help This?
U.S. students suffering from Internet addiction

The Reality Detached American

Splinternet, Or How We Broke the Good Old Web

SlashDot - "I don't want to be that scruffy guy with 'The end is nigh' sign and some really bad dental problems, but most industry analysts already noticed that global Internet is coming apart, changing into a cluster of smaller and more closed webs. They have even created a catchy name for this Web 3.0 – the Splinternet.

New kind of quantum public key cryptography - Wooohooo!

"Public key cryptography allows anybody to encrypt a message using a public key but only those with another private key can decrypt the message. That's possible because of certain mathematical functions that are easy to perform in one direction but hard to do in reverse. The most famous example is multiplication. It's easy to multiply two numbers together to get a third but hard to start with the third number and work out its factors. Now Japanese researchers have discovered a quantum problem that is hard to solve in one direction but easy to do in reverse. This asymmetry, they say, could form the basis of a new kind of quantum public key cryptography. Their system is based on the problem of distinguishing between two ensembles of quantum states. This is similar to the problem of determining whether two graphs are identical, ie whether they correspond vertex-for-vertex and edge-for-edge. Increasing the complexity of the graph can always make this problem practically impossible for a quantum computer to solve in a reasonable time. But knowing the structure of a subset of the graph makes this problem easy, so this acts as a kind of private key for decrypting messages."

Internet on a floppy 1990

Chain of Fools : Upgrading through every version of windows (HQ)

DOA - SysAdmins

The Decline and Fall of System Administration"Deep End's Paul Venezia questions whether server virtualization technologies are contributing to the decline of real server administration skills, as more and more sysadmins argue in favor of re-imaging as a solution to Unix server woes.

'This has always been the (many times undeserved) joke about clueless Windows admins: They have a small arsenal of possible fixes, and once they've exhausted the supply, they punt and rebuild the server from scratch rather than dig deeper. On the Unix side of the house, that concept has been met with derision since the dawn of time, but as Linux has moved into the mainstream — and the number of marginal Linux admins has grown — those ideas are suddenly somehow rational.'"

Facebook Life Fail

Let go....

123xkcd.com

MAC vs PC

Internet Kill Switch is Easy, just ask Gates

Register When US TV anchor Katie Couric asked the Microsoft co-founder and chairman if he was surprised that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak could take the unprecedented step of killing the entire Egyptian internet, Gates responded with an emphatic: "no".

"It's not that hard to shut the Internet down if you have military power where you can tell people that's what's going to happen," Gates said. "Whenever you do something extraordinary like that you're sort of showing people you're afraid of the truth getting out, so it's a very difficult tactic, but certainly it can be shut off."

The majority ISPs Internet connectivity from the rest of the world comes from a small group of backbone pipes....
"If you want people to stay at home and do nothing, why don't you turn the internet back on?" - Conan O'Brien

What’s the Internet? Today Show