La French Tech
IoT Has Major Unresolved Challenges Ahead
It’s Still a Tower of Babble Privacy and Security Remain the Thorniest Problems I want…
French Tech
Huawei Telecom Gear Much More Vulnerable to Hackers Than Rivals' Equipment – WSJ
A detailed report, prepared by Finite State, a Columbus, Ohio-based cybersecurity firm, concludes that Huawei telecom switching gear is far more vulnerable to hacking than other vendors’ hardware due to firmware flaws and inadvertent “back doors” that were discovered. The report has been circulated widely among cybersecurity experts in the U.S. and UK, and it is considered credible.
Near field communication
Big Data, Cloud, Smart Mobile And Even AR Morph Into One Mind Boggling Thing
IEEE Talk: Integrated Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: Actually One Big Thing by David…
Russia
Kaspersky Lab Security Software Implicated in Russian NSA Breach
Many know the name Kaspersky well. Others may only dimly recognize the brand name. Its anti-virus and Internet security software has been around for years in computer stores and OEM’d with computer systems. More than a year ago, I became concerned about what I was learning about Kaspersky Lab and its headquarters in Moscow, I began asking myself hypothetical rhetorical questions. What if Kaspersky was quietly working with the Russian FSB? What if Kaspersky had installed a sleeping Trojan Horse in millions of copies of its consumer computer security software? I was a user of Kaspersky Lab cybersecurity software myself. I knew that it was rated very highly by the tech journals. I liked its elegance and simplicity compared with other competitor products from U.S. based companies like Symantec and McAffee. Nevertheless, as the Russian hacking of the 2016 election became an ever-larger issue, I decided to pull the plug on Kaspersky because of my fears, though there was no direct evidence of collusion between Kaspersky and the Kremlin at that time, wiped my system clean, and installed another competitor product.
ISIS
Anonymous, Chinese Hackers, RickRolling and ISIS
Anonymous, the murky global and leaderless hacking group has struck out on a campaign to disrupt ISIS’ sophisticated use of the Internet and social media. It claims to have disabled over 11,000 identified ISIS Twitter accounts with looped Rick Astley videos. For those of you not familiar with Rick Astley, he was a 1980’s British pop star of limited talent, whose videos are sometimes painful to watch. For unknown reasons, Astley’s videos have been used in a variety of online pranks and hacking incidents. So Anonymous did the convenient thing and used old Astley videos, a tactic now known as “RickRolling”, to disrupt and confound ISIS Twitter and other social media accounts. I like it. Striking back in this way is probably causing smiles in the French Intelligence Service, U.S. Defense Department, NSA, and GCHQ in the UK.
Global
NSA Spying Is Freezing Cisco, Google And Other Companies Out of Trillion Dollar Global Market
The good news today is Cisco’s new focus on the Internet of Things, which I have been reporting as the new Mega Global Market War. But frankly, the damage to U.S. companies like Cisco Systems by the NSA spying scandal has been catastrophic. Not only Cisco, but Google’s strategy to become a global Internet Service Provider, Yahoo, and Facebook are all affected.
Near field communication
Integrated Big Data, Cloud, and Smart Mobile: One Big Deal or Not?
This IEEE Talk discusses the three biggest trends in online technology and proposes that in fact, they represent one huge integrated trend that is already having a major impact on the way we live, work and think. The 2012 Obama Campaign’s Dashboard mobile application, integrating Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile is perhaps the most significant example of this trend, combining all three technologies into one big thing. A major shakeout and industry consolidation seems inevitable. Additional developments as diverse as the Internet of Things, Smart Grid, near field communication, mobile payment processing, and location based services are also considered as linked to this overall trend.
Globalization
God Speed Edward Snowden: An Ethical Dilemma of Global Proportions
We are all now hearing and reading about Edward Snowden, who is now at the center of a global political firestorm, caused by Snowden’s decision to reveal the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program, and its increasing encroachment of personal privacy. Snowden’s revelations have now also entangled the UK’s GCHQ, the secret intelligence gathering arm of MI6 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire which has also been sharing similar snooping with the NSA. A former U.S. National Security Administration contractor, Snowden was actually employed by Booz Allen Hamilton, a global management consultancy firm. Snowden’s situation should give us all pause to consider the Brave New World we have entered with zettabytes (1 Million Terabytes) of Big Data, and the uses of it.
Internet Privacy
Online Privacy Policy? What Online Privacy…?
A number of my students have asked me about online privacy. Many of us, not…
Globalization
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Largest Cyber Attack In History Slows The Internet
The last two days have seen one of the most interesting and disturbing examples of the ongoing problems with Internet security, and the potential of contending with anonymous groups and aggressive governments who use the Internet for hostile purposes. We have just experienced the largest Internet cyber attack in history. The New York Times, The Guardian and host of other global media and technology news sources, and blogs have seized on this story. Internet experts are pessemistic that anything can be done to defend against this situation, or any other similar attack, other than to find and prosecute the perpetrators. Some experts have speculated that another attack on this scale could have grave consequences for global banking and investment trading systems.
