It’d Be Crazy Easy for Brazil to Block the Web Right Now
April Glaser, Wired
The world is watching Brazil right now due to the whirlwind of (partly literal) garbage surrounding the Olympics. That might be enough to deter them from shutting down the internet in the country (and the impeachment proceedings of their president may take precedence), but it’s not unheard of for the country.
Three times in the past seven months the country has shut down internet service in an attempt to block WhatsApp and force the company to reveal customer information that it may not even have, thanks to the end-to-end encryption that the service now employs. The intimidation hasn’t worked yet but has left a negative mark on the country that is having the pile on under the global attention.
Hackers can spy on you through your ‘smart’ sex toy
Patrick Howell O’Neill, The Daily Dot
Is no Internet of Things device sacred? Even if it’s a thing that you stick inside your body? A presentation at DefCon last week showed how easy it was to gather data via unsecured Bluetooth from the We-Vibe remote vibrator. That information included, among other things, the vibration intensity of the devices, as well as readings from the chip’s temperature sensor.
The creators of the device were quick to respond and note that the temperature readings are not sensitive enough to determine which orifice the vibrator was placed in. Be that as it may, we can discuss codes of ethics around popular games like Pokémon Go, and a discussion about the security of personal devices in which hacking is more of a grey-crime. If someone takes control of your connected dildo and uses it when you think that your significant other is using it would that be harassment? Cheating? Rape?
Hosting Riskmap: Data danger zones
Artmotion
Why is Switzerland ranked the #1 country in the world for hosting data security and the US at an embarrassing #38? ArtMotion has put together a whitepaper detailing their scoring criteria and rankings, but to save you a click (though it’s worth a gander), the risks of corruption, disasters, conflict unstable infrastructure, terrorism, and politics all play a role in determining where the best place to keep your data secure are.
Internet or Splinternet?
Joseph S. Nye, Project Syndicate
Once again everybody, the US does not own the internet, so handing oversight of the IANA (an address book of the internet) to the ICANN (an international body of phone books, in my terrible analogy) isn’t making our country weaker. It does mean that we can make the internet more stable, and potentially avoid a stunted growth problem, which is still a likely scenario given the penchant for countries like the aforementioned Brazil or the largest online cohort in the world, China, to block information from their citizens.
Cybercrime, walled gardens, and fragmentation of service are also issues outlined in a recent report by the Global Commission on Internet Governance that could cause an imbalance in internet freedoms. It’s estimated that more than 8% of global GDP is directly tied to the internet (a number that I find rather low), and this will only continue to grow if it is allowed. The freedom of the internet must be maintained to allow growth and prosperity, and will not thrive under consolidation and traffic discrimination.
Easter Eggs in Applications──Konami Code, ASCII art, and more!
Daniel Mullins, Code Mentor
This is an old post, but there’s still some web easter eggs that I’ve not seen. The most impressive ones are those listed below the main post. The Konami code is pretty popular, but imagine hiding ASCII art in banking software.
Open Source Won. So, Now What?
Klint Finley, Wired
The push for the digital future has been working its way through the federal government slowly but steadily over the past few years. Considering the adoption of Linux as a standard OS, modern (less than a decade old, that is) phones to replace the stalwart Blackberry for elected officials, and the formation of the US Digital Services and 18F, it looks like the government is learning what the private sector has been discovering over the past few years: open source is a winning solution.
The White House has put forth a policy that requires departments to release 20% of software that they commission henceforth as open source software. The goal is to help find security flaws and remediate them, share this knowledge with others that might find it useful, including other departments, and ultimately save money.
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