Posts filed under '...the other side.'
Today, informationweek reports that UK Internet users have been “censored” from a particular page on wikipedia.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/policy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212300138&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_ALL
It makes me ask the question, is the internet a privilege or a right?
I think that this is absolutely stupid that the IWF took the task of blocking wikimedia for this page. System administrators have a hard enough time with high school students trying to keep them off sites they shouldn’t be visiting, let alone an entire country trying to look at something thats now gained a bundle of attention. So, why did they block it? Its not as if that image exists no where else on the web (Amazon.) I would like to know the reasoning behind this ordeal. It is the same sort of situation as the Lego’s that we saw last week (Terrorists and Nazi’s.) Publicity. While the situation is not socially acceptable there is no reason to bring this to more peoples attention.
So, now I’d like to find out if any one with a IWF governed ISP in England is able to circumvent these amateurish tactics. If people can break out of the great firewall of china, then this should be a snap. I bet a US based https encrypted web proxy would do the trick.
“The Wikimedia Foundation has urged the IWF to remove Wikipedia from its blacklist.”
If I were on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation I would not urge the IWF to remove them, I would demand it. If they do not comply then perhaps ask wikipedia users to take a visit over to their website and submit a complaint (Report Abuse). Or perhaps remove their right to use wikipedia at all. I do think the IWF is a good idea in theory, but this is not a good example of their work.
–UPDATE some outlaw news: http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9644
December 8th, 2008
So, it appears that Kernell, has a trial date for December 16th. If he is guilty like I said, he should be punished. What may have seemed like an elite hack for him (but was far from it) now has him facing a possible five years in years in prison, a possible quarter million fine, and three years of supervised release if convicted. While these will be negotiated down, I doubt he will do the full five years. While these terms may seem harsh the five year maximum term seems to be what others are getting for petty larceny. He is lucky that the penalties are not even greater.
I feel bad for Kernell in the way that one bad decision may count as a felony. He isn’t allowed a computer, but can apparently access e-mail and the internet for class work. How exactly this is going to be monitored and implemented would be interesting to know. Are they going to print his e-mails out and have supervised web-browsing?. How is he ever going to live without the web?
This also brings up the question is he allowed a cell phone? Mobile browsers or even SMS can be very powerful tools. I’ve put Dec 16th in my calendar, I’m interested in what the verdict will be for this one.
October 9th, 2008
In this article posted at information week the author writes that
“Some of the largest ISPs in the United States have vowed not to monitor Internet users’ activities without permission.”
Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner may have said this which is good, but Google on the other hand
“Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has also indicated a willingness to allow consumers the choice to opt out of data collection.”
There is a big difference with letting people opt out of a service, and opt into a service. I guess the main thing is, nobody is going to OPT in for this, at least without incentives. But when you sign a contract with your ISP, this in effect would release them, giving your permission for them to monitor your activities. This isn’t a problem if it is easy to opt out, but the problem is many people do not even read contracts.
It brings up many questions, and the what they could do with this mined data just blows my mind.
What parts of the internet service would this affect? E-Mail, HTTP, HTTPS? How about other protocol usage such as bit torrent or FTP?
Powerhouses like Time Warner, Charter and Comcast could use this to tie in with other services such as television.
“Congress has been examining the issue and most ISPs prefer industry-wide standards over increased federal privacy laws. Several ISPs are working together to adopt self-regulatory guidelines. Although not all of those involved in drafting the guidelines have come forward, those who have said they hope to produce a code of conduct by next year.”
I don’t think that a code of conduct is not enough.
I have an opinion of another quote from the article:
“To put it simply, Deep Packet Inspection is the Internet equivalent of the postal service reading your mail,” she said. “They might be reading your mail for any number of reasons, but the fact remains that your mail is being read by the people whose job it is to deliver it.”
My opinion is that DPI is not the internet equivalent of the postal service reading your mail, it’s much worse. Imagine the post office reading and processing your mail. Correlating you and other consumers together into targeted marketing types. Breaching your privacy for use of financial gain. This would never have flown back in the good ole days so why is it ethical to do this now?
This is the first step, the next is wiretaps to phone providers to “monitor your activities for market research”
Article Here:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/privacy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210604259&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_ALL
September 29th, 2008
According to a post from Out-Law.com The US court rules an employee has no privacy on company computers.
Basically the man was convicted of stealing $650,000 from his employer while working as a book keeper. The story notes his desktop and laptop were searched without warrants, and there was confusion that the laptop was his personal property and that he abandoned the laptop. The court relied on a previous case whose ruling said that someone who abandons property no longer has an expectation of privacy in relation to it.
But what about the personal property? The man claimed that he paid for the laptop himself but is some one that has stolen money from a company (especially $650,000) really entitled to say that they paid $500 for a laptop from that very company? To add more confusion it turns out that the laptop was paid for once on a company card also. This is some shady accounting going on, and the man probably was guilty. As for privacy at work, he wasn’t really at work when the searches were done. Do you have a right to privacy after you leave? What if you format your hard drive.. you could serve some time for a sabotage. This is exactly why companies should have clear privacy policies and computer usage policies governing the use of computers, data and communications. If the company needs information off of their own property, they should be entitled to that information, but what came first the chicken or the egg?
September 16th, 2008
Last thursday a bill was introduced before the US senate that would hopefully give consumers more protection over their personal data.
Continue Reading July 25th, 2005
You can find a nice video on how to crack web in 10 easy steps here: http://www.hackingdefined.com/movies/whax-aircrack-wep.html
July 23rd, 2005
If you own a Linksys WRT54G router, you’ve probably heard of all the third-party firmware providers, including the only one that comes up on Google’s ads, Sveasoft.
Continue Reading July 23rd, 2005
President Bush has created a new senior position to fight piracy and the theft of intellectual property. Analysts believe that software piracy and other theft of intellecutal property is costing the US 250 billion each year in revenue.
Continue Reading July 23rd, 2005
CNet has an interesting article regarding the alarming number of small websites that offer access to web surfers personal information. While large sites like yahoo and google allow one to get an address or a phone number with ease, smaller sites are offering more personal information.
Continue Reading July 23rd, 2005
“Slut-box is a network-accessible box for everyone to compromise. It offers a (barely) real-life server in a (barely) believable configuration - whatever can be set up in a few of hours. The OS and the configuration change from time to time, so it might be worth to visit slut-box more than once.”
Continue Reading July 22nd, 2005