T3H Blog

The U.S. FTC convinced a U.S. Court to freeze the assets of one of the world largest spam group, known by Herbal King, and ordered it shutdown. Their botnet, Mega-D, consisted of more than 35,000 computers and accounted for about 10 billion spam mails a day. Last January this spam net was ranged the number one source of spam cyberspace wide…

Will it make a difference in our in-box? Not a chance, there are n-spammers out there just waiting to take over these guys thousand of compromised computers! Nevertheless, we should be thankful to Steve Baker at the U.S. trade agency and his inter-agencies team for this small favour.

The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, also a Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Woodrow Wilson School (Princeton University), was awarded the Nobel Prize of Economics. He writes a popular column entitled The Conscience of a Liberal. Professor Krugman thinks of himself much more a ‘working intellectual’ with practical views about economics. He has been a critic of the Bush administration and opposed to the $700 billion financial bailout (under its original form). He favors the British approach to the current finacial crisis. That makes him an erudite scholar, in my opinion.

Now that the United States has 40 American Laureates in economics, can we bet that they will get it right for the sake of rest of the world?

References: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hvgJXYzXRBOttYAflCSJumnfVXxQD93PRD881 and http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/paul-krugman-wins-economics-nobel/?scp=3&sq=Krugman&st=cse

Many countries deny access to the Internet or filter (censor) information; and it is not only the so called ‘bad guys’ from oppressive regimes that do this – Canada, many EU countries, and the United States do it. Access Denied documents and analyzes Internet filtering.

The book – Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, by Ronald Deibert, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, Jonathan Zittrain, eds., Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008 gives a good education about Internet filtering. You can find a good description of the Access Denied at OpenNet Initiative, along with the book content (see below).

• Chapter 1: Measuring Global Internet Filtering
• Chapter 2: Internet Filtering: The Politics and Mechanisms of Control
• Chapter 3: Tools and Technology of Internet Filtering
• Chapter 4: Filtering and the International System: A Question of Commitment
• Chapter 5: Reluctant Gatekeepers: Corporate Ethics on a Filtered Internet
• Chapter 6: Good for Liberty, Bad for Security? Global Civil Society and the Securitization of the Internet

This is really an interesting read. You can find out more about filtering through extensive OpenNet Initiative regional overviews and countries profiles – also worth a serious read.

Cyberspace is not a safe place, we all know this – if you do not you are in denial. Get a reality pill, have your computer hijacked or your identity stolen as a weak up call. Here are eight tips to help you travel save through cyberspace – these 8 Cyber Security Practices came from the National Cyber Security Alliance’s staysafeonline.org (Tools & Resources). Click on each to expand on each practice.

1. Protect your personal information. It’s valuable
2. Know who you’re dealing with online
3. Use anti-virus software, a firewall, and anti-spyware software to help keep your computer safe and secure
4. Be sure to set up your operating system and Web browser software properly, and update them regularly
5. Use strong passwords or strong authentication technology to help protect your personal information
6. Back up important files
7. Learn what to do if something goes wrong
8. Protect your children online

Once you are done reading, you may want to have a free computer security checks for your computer from one of the vendors listed below:

http://daol.aol.com/security/computer-checkup
http://www.auditmypc.com
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html
http://shop.ca.com/STContent/Resources/Resources.aspx
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm?s_cid=sah
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp
http://www.pandasecurity.com/activescan/index/?track=1&Lang=en-US&IdPais=63
http://www.symantec.com/securitycheck

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

“The federal government’s developing plan to take over Fannie and Freddie would essentially result in a situation that allows privatization of profit but socialization of risk; the companies’ shareholders have reaped the profits, but if the government takes them over, we taxpayers are going to have to pay off the losses.”

Professor David Reiss, Brooklyn Law School

Thus is born a new Order – privatization of profit with socialization of risk. This one is to keep the rich, well… simply rich…

Thanks W!

Although I firmly believe that the Noble Prizes are honourable well-meaning institutions, one would think that with 39 Nobel Prize in Economics Laureates in the United States alone (out of 61 worldwide) that they would have had a clue about appallingly mismanaged economics.

The current global economy insanity that is punishing masses, but not the one responsible, was born from straightforward greed, especially among the wealthy – you know the type, the $17,000 per hour CEO (2008), who cashed in $139 million worth of stock (2003 to 2007), received $72 million in compensation (2007), and has to sell ‘quietly’ some of his art on the market for $20 million.

This gross dereliction of fiduciary duties by insanely over salaried avaricious cronies should be assessed as a crime against humanity and adjudicated in the International Criminal Court accordingly – enough said…

Sega has produced a 38 cm tall robotic girlfriend (Femisapien) that kisses on command, to go on sale this September for around JPY 20,000, with a target market of lonely adult men. Using her infrared sensors and battery power, the diminutive damsel named “EMA” (which stands for Eternal Maiden Actualization) puckers up for nearby human heads, entering what designers call its “love mode.”

According to Sega’s spokeperson: “Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that’s sweet and interactive. She’s very lovable and though she’s not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend.”

EMA is big-busted, petite, very friendly, and she runs on batteries, and can also hand out business cards, sing, and dance. Regardless, the technologies involved are genial.

The Winglet is Toyota’s version of a personal transportation vehicle. Toyota thinks that it can rival Microsoft’s Segway, with its emasculated toy-like two-wheeler that comes in three models: S, M, and L. I can really see it as a realistic means of transport other than indoors.

Winglet consists of a body that houses an electric motor, two wheels, and internal sensors that monitor the user’s position and make adjustments in power to ensure stability. A parallel link mechanism allows the rider to go forward, backward and turn by shifting body weight, Toyota says.

Riders can reach speeds of 10 km/h with a cruising range of 10 km – after fully charging the Winglet for an hour compare to Segway’s 20 km/h with a 38 km range.

I do not think that Segway has much to worry about the emasculated toy-like Winglet, which is in par with EMA the robotic girlfriend that kisses on command – even the name sounds wrong…

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger terminated (could not resist to substitute vetoed) a data breach bill in mid-October. The bill, Consumer Data Protection Act, designed to give consumers greater protection against identity theft through more stringent data protection practices. The bill would also have required retailers that accept payment card transactions to disclose more details about any data breaches to the individuals affected by them. [Reference: ComputerWold Security - October 2, 2008]

Schwarzenegger dismissed the bill stating that the costs for merchants would have been prohibitive. “This industry has the contractual ability to mandate the use of these standards, and is in a superior position to ensure that these standards keep up with changes in technology and the marketplace,” he said in a message to members of the California State Assembly. “This measure creates the potential for California law to be in conflict with private sector data security standards.”

I would think the record of accomplishment of the private, and especially public, sectors concerning data breaches would have clearly demonstrated by now the serious needs for something more than “contractual ability” to comply with a copious variety of security standards, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), ISO/IEC 20000 (ITIL), ISO/IEC 27002, CoBIT, and so on.

Obviously, if private and public organizations’ security officers were able to ensure that everyone is serious about security compliance, contractual or otherwise, we would not be reading about the litany embarrassing and, more often than not, irresponsible breaches that often border on criminal incompetent due to dereliction of responsibilities by senior management. (As an example please visit A Chronology of Data Breaches posted by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.)   Maybe Governor Schwarzenegger should not have been so obvious about his loyalty and go with the majority on this one. (The California State Assembly on a 74-1 vote approved the bill last month; a week after the state Senate passed it by a 34-3 margin.)

Here was a chance to set a precedent for others to follow; after all, is California not the centre of the universe when it comes to things IT!