FBI director says tape is the best way to defeat webcam hacks
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/fbi-urges-low-tech-solution-to-high-tech-webcam-hacking-tape
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images News) According to officials tasked with keeping the US homeland sa...
Apparemment, MZ avait eu l’info en avant-première ;-)
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/502530
“Employees transferred funds to fake accounts, sometimes triggering charges for customers. [...] This widespread practice gave the employees credit for opening the new accounts, allowing them to earn additional compensation and to meet the bank’s sales goals.”
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/wells-fargo-staff-made-2-million-fake-accounts-with-customer-ids-to-goo
#bank #incentives #stakhanov #bonus #goals
Baltimore police accused of illegal mobile spectrum use with stingrays
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/baltimore-police-accused-of-illegal-mobile-spectrum-use-with-stingrays
Georgetown law prof argues that stingray use violates FCC laws, should be halted. A law professor has filed a formal legal complaint on behalf of three advocacy organizations, arguing that stingray use by law enforcement agencies nationwide—and the Baltimore Police Department in particular—violate Federal Communications Commission rules. The new 38-page complaint makes a creative argument that because stingrays, or cell-site simulators, act as fake cell towers, that law enforcement agencies (...)
Runkeeper background tracking leads to complaint from privacy watchdog
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/runkeeper-fitnesskeeper-breaches-data-protection-law-norway
“Runkeeper needs to have a good think about how it treats users data and privacy.” FitnessKeeper—the US-based outfit behind fitness app Runkeeper—will be hit with a complaint from the Norwegian Consumer Council on Friday morning, after it was found to have breached European data protection law. The council argues that the Android version of the app tracks users and transmits personal location data to a third party in the United States, even when not in use. The move comes following an (...)
#FitnessKeeper #RunKeeper #sport #Norwegian_Consumer_Council_(NCC) #publicité #profiling (...)
CloudFlare: 94 Percent of Tor Traffic Is Automated or Malicious
▻http://news.softpedia.com/news/cloudflare-94-percent-of-tor-traffic-is-automated-or-malicious-50241
“Based on data across the CloudFlare network, 94% of requests that we see across the Tor network are per se malicious,” CloudFlare wrote yesterday. “That doesn’t mean they are visiting controversial content, but instead that they are automated requests designed to harm our customers.”
This includes a large amount of comment spam, requests from vulnerability scanners, ad click fraud, content scraping, and login scanning.
CloudFlare admits that it does track and mark Tor exit node IP addresses and it also assigns them higher threat scores. Because the Tor Browser includes user anti-fingerprinting protection, and because CloudFlare says that it respects the project’s goal of providing anonymity to its users, it has no alternative than to show CAPTCHAs to users coming from a Tor-based IP.
[...]
Additionally, CloudFlare also wants the Tor Project to start using SHA256 for generating .onion addresses. More of its clients could thus create .onion versions for their legitimate sites, where they could redirect Tor traffic and where CloudFlare wouldn’t have to display its CAPTCHAs, which in recent weeks have been failing at an astonishing high rate.
The Trouble with Tor, as explained (marketing excuse) by CloudFlare’s Matthew Prince
▻https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-trouble-with-tor
Arstechnica:
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/new-data-suggests-94-percent-of-tor-traffic-is-malicious
Paris terrorists used burner phones, not encryption, to evade detection
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/paris-terrorist-attacks-burner-phones-not-encryption
New details of the Paris attacks carried out last November reveal that it was the consistent use of prepaid burner phones, not encryption, that helped keep the terrorists off the radar of the intelligence services.
As an article in The New York Times ▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/world/europe/a-view-of-isiss-evolution-in-new-details-of-paris-attacks.html reports: “the three teams in Paris were comparatively disciplined. They used only new phones that they would then discard, including several activated minutes before the attacks, or phones seized from their victims.”
[...]
As The New York Times says, one of the most striking aspects of the phones is that not a single e-mail or online chat message from the attackers was found on them. That seems to be further evidence that they knew such communications were routinely monitored by intelligence agencies. But rather than trying to avoid discovery by using encryption—which would in itself have drawn attention to their accounts—they seem to have stopped using the Internet as a communication channel altogether, and turned to standard cellular network calls on burner phones.
That authorities are only now discovering this fact shows how well the strategy worked.
[...]
Until we have stronger evidence to the contrary, it seems likely that encryption played little or no part in the Paris terrorist attacks.
Quelques pensées radicales à propos de Sci-Hub, le Robin des bois des sciences, par Kevin Smith (Les blogs du Diplo, 10 mars 2016)
►http://blog.mondediplo.net/2016-03-10-Quelques-pensees-radicales-a-propos-de-Sci-Hub #st
#Sci-Hub est à l’#édition_scientifique ce que Pirate Bay est à l’industrie culturelle : un moteur de recherche proposant gratuitement au téléchargement des publications payantes. Censuré une première fois avant de réapparaître sur la Toile, la controverse qu’il a suscitée ne va pas encore assez loin.
#droit_d'auteur #copyright #piratage #partage
▻http://zinc.mondediplo.net/messages/20225 via Le Monde diplomatique
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/a-spiritual-successor-to-aaron-swartz-is-angering-publishers-all-over-a
Aaron Swartz would be proud of Alexandra Elbakyan. The 27-year-old is at the center of a lawsuit brought by a leading science publisher that is labeling her a hacker and infringer.
NSA’s director says Paris attacks “would not have happened” without crypto
Tells Yahoo News encryption prevented “insights” that could have raised alarms.
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/nsas-director-says-paris-attacks-would-not-have-happened-without-crypto
Seattle: gemeinsame Interessenvertretung für Uber- und Lyft-Fahrer | heise online
▻http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Seattle-gemeinsame-Interessenvertretung-fuer-Uber-und-Lyft-Fahrer-3043807.html
Der Mitfahrdienst Uber erfährt in seiner Heimatstadt Seattle Gegenwind. Der Stadtrat hat einstimmig entschieden, dass sich Uber-Fahrer mit Lyft- und anderen Mitfahrdienst-Fahrern zu einer gewerkschaftsähnlichen Interessengruppe zusammenschließen dürfen, um mit ihren Arbeitgebern zu verhandeln. Uber- und Lyft-Fahrer hatten dies angestrebt, um ihre Arbeitsbedingungen zu verbessern und gegen zu niedrige Löhne vorzugehen.
Uber- und Lyft-Fahrern kann allerdings nur schlecht wegen der Unterschreitung des Mindestlohns geholfen werden, da sie nicht als Mitarbeiter, sondern als „Vertragspartner“ gelten. Gerichtlich wird schon gegen die Klassifizierung als Vertragspartner vorgegangen. Der Zusammenschluss vieler Mitfahrdienstfahrer zu einer gewerkschaftsähnlichen Vereinigung dürfte auch eine bessere Verhandlungsposition schaffen.
Damit die Ratsentscheidung in Seattle den Fahrern nun aber auch tatsächlich zu Gute kommt, muss noch ein Großteil der Uber-Fahrer befragt werden, ob in ihrem Sinne verhandelt werden darf. Allerdings blockiert Uber die Herausgabe einer dazu benötigten „Vertragspartner-Liste“. Uber verweigert die Herausgabe mit der Begründung, dass Betriebsgeheimnisse veröffentlicht würden. Es wird auch damit gerechnet, dass Uber und Lyft gegen die Ratsentscheidung klagen werden.
siehe auch
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/seattle-city-council-votes-to-allow-uber-and-lyft-drivers-to-unionize
Beware of ads that use inaudible sound to link your phone, TV, tablet, and PC | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-that-use-inaudible-sound-to-link-your-phone-tv-tablet-and
Des ONG alertent sur de nouvelles techniques de #tracking publicitaire, multi-devices, par ultrasons. Cette technique permet potentiellement de pouvoir suivre une personne pour lui afficher de la pub ciblée qu’elle soit sur son smartphone, son ordi, sa tv,... ou dans la rue.(Permalink)
I showed leaked #NSA slides at Purdue, so feds demanded the video be destroyed, by Barton Gellman | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/i-showed-leaked-nsa-slides-at-purdue-so-feds-demanded-the-video-be-dest
#université #censure #snowden #lol
Hostage saves herself via Pizza Hut app
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/hostage-saves-herself-via-pizza-hut-app-please-help-get-911-to-me
A Florida woman used the comments section of a Pizza Hut order made from her smartphone on Monday afternoon to alert authorities that she and her children were being held hostage.
Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/why-kim-dotcom-hasnt-been-extradited-3-years-after-the-us-smashed-megaupload/1
In short, Dotcom’s legal team has done a fantastic job of defending their client. His lawyers have thrown wrench after wrench into the legal process, appealing at nearly every turn and challenging the validity of the warrant executed upon the Dotcom estate.
The man whom New Zealand authorities dubbed “Billy Big Steps” has won some intermediate victories along the way, including recently defeating a bid to get him thrown back in jail. In September 2012, the New Zealand Prime Minister even apologized for the government’s illegal spying on Dotcom.
But in the most recent legal showdown, Dotcom’s lawyers came up short. On December 24, 2014, the Supreme Court of New Zealand found in a 5-1 decision that the search warrants served upon Dotcom and his three associates were valid, despite flaws in their drafting. That decision—seemingly exhausting all challenges to the extradition process—finally paves the way for a June 2, 2015 extradition hearing. However, this will almost certainly be appealed to the New Zealand Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court of New Zealand. The process is likely to take months, if not longer.
tiens j’avais raté ça cet été :
Kim Dotcom : « je ne fais plus confiance à Mega »
▻http://www.numerama.com/magazine/33840-kim-dotcom-mega.html
Mis à l’écart de la direction de Mega, privé de ses parts au sein de l’entreprise, Kim Dotcom invite les utilisateurs à abandonner le service, qui ne serait plus sûr. Par ailleurs, l’homme d’affaires annonce la création prochaine d’un rival de Mega, en open source cette fois.
il pourrait utiliser #ipfs :-)
Microsoft tells US: The world’s servers are not yours for the taking
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/microsoft-tells-us-the-worlds-servers-are-not-yours-for-the-taking
Microsoft’s fight against the US position that it may search its overseas servers with a valid US warrant is getting nasty.
Microsoft, which is fighting a US warrant that it hand over e-mail to the US from its Ireland servers, wants the Obama administration to ponder a scenario where the “shoe is on the other foot.”
“Imagine this scenario. Officers of the local Stadtpolizei investigating a suspected leak to the press descend on Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany,” Microsoft said. “They serve a warrant to seize a bundle of private letters that a New York Times reporter is storing in a safe deposit box at a Deutsche Bank USA branch in Manhattan. The bank complies by ordering the New York branch manager to open the reporter’s box with a master key, rummage through it, and fax the private letters to the Stadtpolizei.”
Who’s banned from editing #Wikipedia this week? Congress | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/whos-banned-from-editing-wikipedia-this-week
Most members and staffers of the US House of Representatives won’t be able to edit pages on Wikipedia for more than a week. Administrators of the popular Web encyclopedia have imposed a 10-day ban on the IP address connected to Congress’ lower house.
The ban comes after a series of wild “disruptive” edits that appeared following the creation of @congressedits, a bot that monitors anonymous edits from congressional IP addresses and announces them to the world via Twitter. The account was created just over two weeks ago and already has more than 23,000 followers.
Mauvais élève, le Congrès américain est interdit de modifications sur Wikipédia - rts.ch - info - sciences-tech. - repérages web
▻http://www.rts.ch/info/sciences-tech/reperages-web/6027985-mauvais-eleve-le-congres-americain-est-interdit-de-modifications-sur-wik
Des employés du Congrès ont ainsi multiplié les modifications, attribuant par exemple l’existence de théories de la conspiration au gouvernement cubain. L’article sur les "Hommes-lézard" ou encore celui concernant la société secrète « Skull and Bones » ont également fait les frais de retouches.
Protesters briefly disrupt Google I/O, referencing evictions, “robots that kill”
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/protestors-briefly-disrupt-google-io-referencing-evictions-robots-that-
The first protester told the assembled Google crowd to “develop a conscience.” She held up a sign reading “Stop Jack Halprin,” referring to a Google lawyer who was protested in April when he evicted several San Francisco residents from an apartment building he owns.
The second protester stood up about halfway through the keynote speech yelling: “You work for a totalitarian company that builds robots that kill people!” He repeated this line over and over again and was able to briefly stop the activity on stage. He was also escorted out within less than a minute. (His rallying cry appears to be a reference to Google’s late 2013 acquisition of Boston Dynamics.)
Auparavant :
Mountain View: 10 Occupy Google protesters arrested after refusing to leave for night
▻http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_26030434/10-occupy-google-protesters-arrested-after-refusing-leave
A protest by a group calling itself Occupy Google resulted in the arrest of 10 people late Tuesday night after they refused to leave the Internet giant’s campus, according to police.
▻http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site568/2014/0624/20140624__0625occupy~1.JPG
« New York City officials have inadvertently revealed the detailed comings and goings of individual taxi drivers over more than 173 million trips. [...] It turns out there’s a significant flaw in the approach. Because both the medallion and hack numbers are structured in predictable patterns, it was trivial to run all possible iterations through the same MD5 algorithm and then compare the output to the data contained in the 20GB file. »
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/poorly-anonymized-logs-reveal-nyc-cab-drivers-detailed-whereabouts
Il faut le rappeler pour la millionième fois : l’anonymisation des données, c’est souvent de la blague. Pour que les données restent utilisables, il faut laisser des informations, et celles-ci permettent souvent de retrouver les identités. Ici, l’erreur est énorme (oublier de saler) mais des erreurs presque aussi énormes arrivent souvent lorsque des amateurs prétendent « anonymiser » des données.
How Amazon got a patent on white-background photography
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/how-amazon-got-a-patent-on-white-background-photography
A drama in five acts: bad laws, not bad examiners, create obvious patents.
Un journaliste agressé parce qu’il portait des Google glasses (Ars Technica)
▻http://alireailleurs.tumblr.com/post/82776346664
Le journaliste Kyle Russell, de Business Insider venait justement de couvrir une manifestation organisée contre un juriste de chez Google (qui aurait fait expulser des enseignants de leur domicile). Alors qu’il se dirigeait vers une station de métro, quelqu’un lui aurait arraché ses lunettes puis les aurait jeté par terre. Selon Ars Technica, ce n’est pas la première fois qu’un tel incident se produit. un consultant en media sociaux aurait lui aussi été agressé dans un bar de San Francisco parce que lui aussi portait des “glasses”.
On trouve les autres agressions sous le tag #glasshole. Apparemment (c’est lui qui raconte), il ne s’est pas forcément conduit comme tel.
Reporter : “I was assaulted for wearing Google Glass” in San Francisco | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/reporter-i-was-assaulted-for-wearing-google-glass-in-san-francisco
On Twitter, Russell was asked whether or not he was getting a replacement device. The journalist posted late Saturday night: “Google has reached out about it. Sometimes things like this happen.” Google did not immediately respond to Ars’ questions as to whether the company has a standing policy to replace Google Glass “Explorers” headsets if they are assaulted for wearing them or how many similar incidents Google is aware of.
Sinon, +1 pour @tbn ►http://seenthis.net/messages/247045#message247124
Another Google Glass user has been attacked in San Francisco | Dazed
▻http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/19570/1/another-google-glass-user-has-been-attacked-in-san-francisco
In sudden announcement, US to give up control of #DNS root zone | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/in-sudden-announcement-us-to-give-up-control-of-dns-root-zone
In a historic decision on Friday, the United States has decided to give up control of the authoritative root zone file, which contains all names and addresses of all top-level domain names.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), under the United States Department of Commerce, has retained ultimate control of the domain name system (DNS) since transitioning it from a government project into private hands in 1997. With Commerce’s blessing, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) acts as the primary essential governing body for Internet policy.
The new change is in advance of the upcoming ICANN meeting to be held in Brazil in April 2014. Brazil and other nations have fumed at revelations of American spying on its political leaders and corporations, which were first revealed in September 2013 as the result of documents distributed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The South American country also threatened to build its “own cloud,” as a consequence of the NSA’s spying.
Commerce’s contract with ICANN to act as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority will expire on September 30, 2015—for now, ICANN’s role will not change.
“The timing is right to start the transition process,” wrote Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Lawrence E. Strickling, in a statement published late Friday. “We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan.”
Stephen D. Crocker, ICANN’s Board Chair, wrote in another statement, "Even though ICANN will continue to perform these vital technical functions, the US has long envisioned the day when stewardship over them would be transitioned to the global community. In other words, we have all long known the destination. Now it is up to our global stakeholder community to determine the best route to get us there."
In a late Friday evening conference call, ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé lauded the decision as “historic” and said that ICANN will be moving toward multi-stakeholder control. Chehadé said the US will not permit another country to make an exclusive contract like the US’ when 2015 rolls around, however. “The US will not hand their role to a government, a group of governments, or an inter government group... they are not saying that they’d exclude governments—governments are welcome, all governments are welcome as equal partners with all the other members of our community.”
Naturally, journalists on the call asked whether the sudden and stunning change was brought about by new pressures after the leaks made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. But Chehadé and Crocker, who was also on the call, offered evasive answers.