Spamzy

Naturally with the economic turmoil and political transition, some changes are in the works for the way technology is governed on a Federal level:

For one thing, the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Internet, Courts and IP will be losing its control over IP Law, which will be handled at the full House level in the future:

According to a committee aide who spoke with Ars on background, the decision was driven by simple numbers: as interest in IP issues has grown in recent years, so has the SCIIP. Handling them at the full committee level allows all the members to get their fingers in the pie. The swap also recognizes the complexity of legislation affecting IP, and avoids the need to get half the Judiciary Committee caught up with the subcommittee’s discussions.

Instead the Subcommittee will reign over anti-trust issues–some fear that this will be a victory for content holders, while other experts argue the fears are unfounded.

What other changes are in the works, and who will play the largest role in determining the future of technology law? Well, if you have some ideas, you can nominate yourself or other people for Ars Technica’s “People to Watch” list.

Originally posted here:
Political Changes for IP Law and Technology

Several friends of mine used to debate at length “What is art?” — now that digital art, guerilla art, performance art, advertising collateral, and the blending of media have blurred the boundaries of what was once a clear-cut discipline. Art’s not just pure visual painting and sculpture any more that gets hung and revered on the walls of museums–more and more people are looking for art that’s interactive, conceptual, interested in the pop social experience, and blends a range of media. While traditionalists who hang paintings in museums might feel that these new art forms aren’t true art, new digital and interactive creations are still infused in our culture and experience, influencing our aesthetic tastes.

Jeff Clark of Neoformist is one such artist blurring the boundaries between programming, verbal, and visual art. Using a scripted algorithm he generates portraits of famous people and animals using an algorithm that creates words in the colors and patterns needed to create the portrait. Some examples feature a shot of Barack Obama created with the words “Yes We Can” and Albert Einstein with the word “Genius.” Very cool– go take a look.

Credit:
Digital Technology, Threatening Art and Culture One Form at A Time

Happy birthday Belsec!

It looks like the Belgian Security bloggers’ network is just a year old, and in celebration, its bloggers are providing links to free stuff online — check out the following:

60+ freeware programs

Hundreds of eBooks

Fun videos and other stuff

Read the rest here:
Happy Birthday Freebies from the Belgian Security Network

I could have used this technique last night — I got home to my apartment in Oakland at 11:30, only to realize I’d left my keys in Sacramento. Two hours later a locksmith finally came and charged me $100 to let me in my own apartment. Expensive? Maybe, but comparable to other services, and compared to the havoc that a lock-breaker could wreak if he was trying to use his talents for crime rather than service, it’s a small price.

It’s kind of frightening to see how quickly a skilled lock-picker can jimmy a lock and get in. But new technology makes it even simpler — apparently all you need is a good telephoto lens to break in to someone’s house — just wait till they leave their keys out on a table, snap a picture, and take it to an unethical key maker, and wha-la, a perfect replica:

“We built our key duplication software system to show people that their keys are not inherently secret,” said Stefan Savage, the computer science professor from UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering who led the student-run project. “Perhaps this was once a reasonable assumption, but advances in digital imaging and optics have made it easy to duplicate someone’s keys from a distance without them even noticing.”

Professor Savage presents this work on October 30 at ACM’s Conference on Communications and Computer Security (CCS) 2008, one of the premier academic computer security conferences.

Read the full article here.

Go here to read the rest:
Silent Break-Ins: How Technology Compromises Physical Security Too

People were being scammed long before email and malware entered into daily use — and it’s still happening offline as well as online. So what to do if you know that someone you love is being victimized and scammed?

That’s the question the Consumerist asked readers today, with a story about a Florida grand-dad whose gardener is supposedly fleecing him for over $10k / month, allegedly to help an ailing friend:

Shaun says his 80+-year old grandfather, Steve, is being scammed out of over $10,000 a month. It seems Steve recently hired a female gardener who introduced him to a “wealthy friend,” and now he’s loaning them money to pay for groceries, cable, home upkeep, and, get this, bodyguards to protect her from an ex-husband and son who to want to kill her. When the family tries to intervene, Steve says the family is trying to put him in a nursing home and steal his money. Shaun is at a loss. How can he help his grandfather, who doesn’t want to be helped?

Another question that might be relevant in the IT Security community is, are the elderly more prone to these scams, and if so why? In the tech world it’s widely assumed that the older generation just has a harder time learning and grasping how to use technology so may not understand what is risky and what isn’t.

But perhaps there’s a deeper problem, either with some form of dementia and paranoia in the older years, or just a purer vulnerability associated with being alienated from the new, cutting edge and modern world as we age, or some kind of unwillingness to be suspicious because of the need to have caring people around you?

Here is the original post:
Teaching the Elderly about Scams and Security

WinDefender is a malware program, now it’s promising an update “Get rid of mailware now!” It’s been out a while but now there’s the “Update” going around.

Be wary and warn the folks you know — this isn’t Windows Defender, an anti malware program.

F-secure has a screenshot so you know what to look for…and of course the requisite joke, hoping that future versions might promise an end to “maleware.”

Good luck with that, guys.

The rest is here:

Mupd1_2_1711951 is dangerous trojan. While many similar trojans download malware secretly, Mupd1_2_1711951.exe tricks people into downloading parasites willingly.

Mupd1_2_1711951 trojan is able to imitate alerts usually loaded by Windows Firewall. The fake firewall asks user if he wants to block Trojan-Keylogger.WIN32.Fung. By clicking

Personal Defender 2009 is a malware disguised as a security tool. This is not a new way to trick people and gain a purchase, but Personal Defender 2009 uses additional misleading tactics to make things work.

PersonalDefender2009 is not able to infect computers on its own; instead, it tricks people into downloading the program voluntarily. PersonalDefender 2009 is delivered by trojan mupd1_2_1711951.exe. The trojan mimics Windows Firewall notifications and asks if user wants to enable protection. By clicking

Win Defender 2009 is typical rogue anti-spyware. This one has more potential to scam people than the others do because its name is similar to Windows Defender, reputable software from Microsoft Corp. Whenever downloading or purchasing a software make sure that it

Ferrychi is a downloader trojan. It is very dangerous because its purpose is downloading and running additional computer parasites. The malware brought by Ferrychi may vary from adware toolbars to rogue security tools. Ferrychi is not able to steal information or corrupt system files on its own. However, it may install parasites that are able to spy on computer owner and steal money or data this way.

Ferrychi infects computers using vulnerability in MS Word 97. Keep your software updated in order to avoid Ferrychi trojan. It infect every MS Word file, so when file is opened on another computer, the trojan spreads further.

Ferrychi hides from user and it is hard to delete. It changes registry entries in order to run automatically on boot. Ferrychi connects to on1000000.cn in order to download malwares. Block this website in advance to avoid problems.

See original here:
Ferrychi