Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist
publicintelligence.netFrom the article - “In fact, the flyer recommends that anyone “overly concerned about privacy” or attempting to “shield the screen from view of others” should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities. Read more at Public Intelligence.
If you have an anonymous Tumblr handle are you also a terrorist?
How To Keep Your Personal Information Safe Online
When you spend time online, you could unknowingly be putting your personal information at risk and making it easier for someone to steal your identity.
Use these tips to help keep your personal information safe online:
Choose strong passwords: Make sure your passwords have a mix of letters, numbers and special characters, if the site you’re registering for allows it. And don’t use the same password across multiple sites. If one site gets hacked, the hacker will be able to access your information through accounts that use the same password.
Access personal information from a secure connection: When using a free, public Wi-Fi hotspot, only log in or send personal information to sites you know are fully encrypted. Look for https at the beginning of the web address (the “s” is for secure) and a lock icon at the top or bottom of your browser window. Log out of every site before signing off.
Read the privacy policy: Make sure you understand how an organization might use your information once you sign up. Review the policy a few times a year so you are always aware of how your information is being used.
If you realize your personal information has been stolen or used inappropriately, contact the police, place a fraud alert on your accounts, and file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.
Massive phishing attack appears to hit cybersecurity conference
About 7,500 registered attendees of this year’s Black Hat cybersecurity conference got an email similar to the one above.
Obvious phishing scheme right? Actually, no.
Though Black Hat is known for pranks and hacks (they tell you not to use the Wi-Fi under any circumstances at the event, because you will be hacked), the e-mail was actually sent out by a Black Hat volunteer who got a bit ahead of himself on Sunday.
“Hanlon’s Razor states, ‘Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,’” wrote Trey Ford, Black Hat’s general manager, in a blog post. -David
We were hacked by British Parliament ... sort of
If you watched this video on phishing attacks today, you may have noticed that our security expert, Eric Fiterman, mentioned the username and password of a Gmail account he set up.
Well, that video was taped a month ago, and poor Eric forgot to change his password. (Eric has since changed the password, so if you haven’t tried yet, you’re out of luck.)
Lo and behold, three people tested it out and snooped around in the Gmail account: One from Canada (174.115.2.104), one from Michigan (71.205.161.243) and one from the United Kingdom (194.60.38.10).
Eric wouldn’t be a good security expert if he didn’t get more information about those IP addresses. And what did he find out about the third one?
% Information related to ‘194.60.0.0 - 194.60.63.255’
inetnum: 194.60.0.0 - 194.60.63.255
netname: HOP
descr: Houses of Parliament
country: GB
admin-c: IM3186-RIPE
tech-c: JN2461-RIPE
mnt-by: UK-HOP-MNT
mnt-by: RIPE-NCC-END-MNT
mnt-lower: RIPE-NCC-END-MNT
mnt-routes: COLT-UK
mnt-routes: NC-NOC
source: RIPE # Filtered
status: ASSIGNED PI
Looks like News Corp. isn’t the only hacker in Britain. -David
Is CISPA the new SOPA? We're not sure yet.
- sopa…was a bill with the purported intention of helping intellectual property holders crack down on copyright infringement online. It was killed in the Senate in the face of widespread opposition from many, many people.
- cispa…is a different bill, currently making its way through Congress, with the purported aim of combatting cyberterrorism and lubricating the flow of potentially helpful cyber intelligence between the private and public sector. source
» The key word here is “purported.” Critics of SOPA alleged that the text of the bill was too draconian, and would have allowed for shutting down entire websites for questionable infractions (for example, linking to a message board with a comment that directed users to a site with copyrighted material). Opposition to CISPA, however, comes due to privacy concerns: Critics say the bill allows private companies (such as Facebook and Microsoft which opposed SOPA but support CISPA) to exchange personal information and private data with the government a bit too easily. We’ve still got to delve into the nitty-gritty here, but we recommend you seek out a few different takes on the legislation. TechDirt and Geekosystem are both opposed, GigaOm is so-so, and Lifehacker has a nice rundown as to why Facebook and Microsoft opposed SOPA but support CISPA.
Top German cop uses spyware on daughter, gets hacked in retaliation
According to the report, a top German security official installed a trojan on his own daughter’s computer to monitor her Internet usage. What could possibly go wrong?
Nothing—well, at least until one of the daughter’s friends found the installed spyware. The friend then went after the dad’s personal computer as a payback and managed to get in, where he found a cache of security-related e-mails from work. The e-mails, in turn, provided the information necessary for hackers to infiltrate Germany’s federal police.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/top-german-cop-uses-spyware-on-daughter-gets-hacked-in-retaliation.ars
