It rains . My INTERNET modem goes on and off repeatably.

Dear CableVision:

Let me summarize :

It rains . My INTERNET modem goes on and off repeatably.

Sometimes the surge is so strong , that because I only have USB ports on my computer, the surge causes my Windows to reboot.

I loose no data when this happens and the computer is unharmed.
it is just a pain.

I understand ,, that now cable vision DOES NOT support /endorse using a USB to connect the modem to the computer,, but I have no choice........

..... AND UNLESS IT RAINS -- with water getting into a corroded Cablevision Telephone pole box some where --- unless it rain ,, I HAVE NO PROBLEM !!

No rain ,, no re-boot problem. there should be no problem when it rains --that IS CABLEVISIONs problem , not mine.

We just did a test here at my house , and sprayed water with the garden hose all over the tele-pole directly behind my house. MY INTERNET was un affected. Being the last rainy day - Tuesday May 18th of this week ---- the INTERNET did go on and off REPEATABLY all day , the problem is another tele-pole box somewhere.

ALSO -- it is very clear , that the cablevision box on the tele-pole behind my house is SHINNY BRAND NEW ! Meaning it was recently changed --- as I have been told by your tech support guys all the way through for 3 weeks now.

The problem of the INTERNET going on and off on ONLY rainy days , is clearly not in my house , not the box behind my house on the tele-pole ,, BUT ANOTHER tele-pole box.

This point point was agreed upon by a senior tech rep who spoke to me last Friday May 14 -- the day No ONE showed up for a scheduled appointment.

AGAIN --please forward this email to the highest ranking folks at cablevision who supervise BOTH field repair and customer service.

Signed

TP

====

mailed-by cablevision.com

hide details 6:24 PM (30 minutes ago)

Mr. Technopolitical:

Thank you for taking my call today. As agreed I will arrange a tech to come to your home between 2PM and 5PM on Friday 5/28. The tech will replace the NIC card in your computer and replace the your present modem with a Docis 3.0 modem.

Please let me know if for any reason we need to change these plans. My phone details are attached below.

Thank you again,

"A Chinese student, Wang Jianwei, his professor, wrote an academic paper on the vulnerability of the American power grid to a computer attack."

~~ I hope the paper got an "A" grade.

Surely it did get noticed !! ~~~

Academic Paper in China Sets Off Alarms in U.S.

By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID BARBOZA

March 20, 2010

“We usually say ‘attack’ so you can see what would happen,” he said. “My emphasis is on how you can protect this. My goal is to find a solution to make the network safer and better protected.” And independent American scientists who read his paper said it was true: Mr. Wang’s work was a conventional technical exercise that in no way could be used to take down a power grid.

The difference between Mr. Wang’s explanation and Mr. Wortzel’s conclusion is of more than academic interest. It shows that in an atmosphere already charged with hostility between the United States and China over cybersecurity issues, including large-scale attacks on computer networks, even a misunderstanding has the potential to escalate tension and set off an overreaction.

“Already people are interpreting this as demonstrating some kind of interest that China would have in disrupting the U.S. power grid,” said Nart Villeneuve, a researcher with the SecDev Group, an Ottawa-based cybersecurity research and consulting group. “Once you start interpreting every move that a country makes as hostile, it builds paranoia into the system.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/world/asia/21grid.html?src=me&ref=general

~` So Mr. Smith , you would like to work here?

First fill , out this application.

After we do a background check, drug test , and credit search,

you can go to room "A" for your polygraph ,

and then to room "B" for your Brain Scan.

Let the moral and legal debate begin.

---------------------------

---

Brain Scan Can Read Your Thoughts

New insights into brain activity could explain how memories are formed and how they change over time.

Thu Mar 11, 2010 02:30 PM ET | content provided by AFP

THE GIST:

• Brain scans could reveal what a person is thinking.
• Using fMRI scans, scientists can distinguish memories of a past event a person is recalling.
• The brain scans could provide fresh insight into how memories are stored and how they may change through time.

---

A scan of brain activity can effectively read a person's mind, researchers said Thursday.

British scientists from University College London found they could differentiate brain activity linked to different memories and thereby identifythought patterns by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The evidence suggests researchers can tell which memory of a past event a person is recalling from the pattern of their brain activity alone.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/brain-scan-mind-reading.html?print=true

Justice Department Decides To Break Up E-Voting Company

~~ I really , really do not like electronic voting. I feel it could threaten the functioning of our democracy. Anything electronic can get hacked . ( See other posts on this topic.)

Re-counting electronic votes needs techie geeky types. I still like paper ballots , marked in hand by the voter. Primitive , yes ; slow yes ' but it is easier and truer to recount. The less that can go wrong , the less that will go wrong ~~~

==============================

Justice Department Decides To Break Up E-Voting Company

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100308/1919058469.shtml

from the how-about-just-opening-the-source-code? dept

As was rumored at the end of last year, the US Justice Department has decided to break up Election Systems & Software (ES&S), the dominant e-voting provider in the country. You may recall that just a few months earlier, ES&S (who has a long and troubled history of inaccurate, buggy and insecure e-voting machines) had purchased the remains of Diebold's e-voting business for just $5 million. Of course, Diebold also had a long and troubled historyof inaccurate, buggy and insecure e-voting machines, so the two made a perfect match. In both cases, the companies relied on security by stonewalling -- insisting that nothing was wrong, despite lots of proof to the contrary, and refusing to let third party security experts ever look at their machines. Rather than breaking up the companies, why don't the feds just require that any e-voting machine use open source software that can be tested by anyone?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100308/1919058469.shtml

~~ The Internet was in its youth carefree fun. Now it is an angry adolescent that needs serious discipline and constant oversight , as Google just learned -- AGAIN !!-- in China.

We can only hope the Internet matures well-- and remains useful and open,

Click the labels on these topics for more from me on this ~~

January 18, 2010

Companies Fight Endless War Against Computer Attacks

http://www.nytimes.com

By STEVE LOHR

The recent computer attacks on the mighty Google left every corporate network in the world looking a little less safe.

Google’s confrontation with China — over government censorship in general and specific attacks on its systems — is an exceptional case, of course, extending to human rights and international politics as well as high-tech spying. But the intrusion into Google’s computers and related attacks from within China on some 30 other companies point to the rising sophistication of such assaults and the vulnerability of even the best defenses, security experts say.

“The Google case shines a bright light on what can be done in terms of spying and getting into corporate networks,” said Edward M. Stroz, a former high-tech crime agent with the F.B.I.who now heads a computer security investigation firm in New York.

Computer security is an ever-escalating competition between so-called black-hat attackers and white-hat defenders. One of the attackers’ main tools is malicious software, known as malware, which has steadily evolved in recent years. Malware was once mainly viruses and worms, digital pests that gummed up and sometimes damaged personal computers and networks.

Malware today, however, is likely to be more subtle and selective, nesting inside corporate networks. And it can be a tool for industrial espionage, transmitting digital copies of trade secrets, customer lists, future plans and contracts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/technology/internet/18defend.html?em

~~ About time !!

Actual Cyber Warfare would have serious consequences ~~

December 13, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/science/13cyber.html?_r=1&hp

U.S. and Russia Open Talks on Limits to War in Cyberspace

By JOHN MARKOFF and ANDREW E. KRAMER

The United States has begun talks with Russia and a United Nations arms control committee about strengthening Internet security and limiting military use of cyberspace.

American and Russian officials have different interpretations of the talks so far, but the mere fact that the United States is participating represents a significant policy shift after years of rejecting Russia’s overtures. Officials familiar with the talks said the Obama administration realized that more nations were developing cyberweapons and that a new approach was needed to blunt an international arms race.

In the last two years, Internet-based attacks on government and corporate computer systems have multiplied to thousands a day. Hackers, usually never identified, have compromised Pentagon computers, stolen industrial secrets and temporarily jammed government and corporate Web sites. President Obama ordered a review of the nation’s Internet security in February and is preparing to name an official to coordinate national policy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/science/13cyber.html?_r=1&hp

",,,,,in South Africa it seems the web is still no faster than a humble pigeon."

~~ I would label this Retro-TechnoPolitical. :) ~~~

10 Sep 09 10:03 11:03 UK

South Africa pigeon 'faster than broadband' !!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8248056.stm

Broadband promised to unite the world with super-fast data delivery - but in South Africa it seems the web is still no faster than a humble pigeon.

A Durban IT company pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm, Telkom.

Winston the pigeon took two hours to carry the data 60 miles - in the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data.

Telkom said it was not responsible for the firm's slow internet speeds.

The idea for the race came when a member of staff at Unlimited IT complained about the speed of data transmission on ADSL.

He said it would be faster by carrier pigeon.

"We renown ourselves on being innovative, so we decided to test that statement," Unlimited's Kevin Rolfe told the Beeld newspaper, 'No cats allowed,"

Cyber attack seen as emerging threat for London 2012

~~ Cyber Wars are now a daily fact. Every single gov't , biz , org., or person must be continually on guard for cyber attack. We tend to forget how much of our national security , industrial base and electrical/energy grid, is all very venerable to gifted hackers of ill intent.

Cyber Security is among the foremost issues of our times. Good Jobs there for gifted computer geeks for millennium to come!

If I was in high school or college and looking for a good economically safe career,

Cyber Security Network Admin seems a good bet. ~~~~

Cyber attack seen as emerging threat for London 2012
Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:53pm BST
By Avril Ormsby


http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE56K3TM20090721

LONDON (Reuters) - Olympic organisers are "very alive" to the threat of a cyber attack on the London 2012 Olympics, made more challenging because of its evolving nature, senior Home Office officials said on Tuesday.

Ticketing systems, the transport network and hotel bookings as well as security are among potential targets.

Olympic security officials are also planning for the possible diversion of aircraft to protect airspace around the venues from terrorist attacks, the officials said.

The greatest threat to security at the Games is international terrorism, the government's latest "Safety and Security Strategy" report said.

"There's no current evidence of a terrorist threat to 2012," one of the Home Office officials said.

"But if you look at precedents for sporting events, and to some degree about Olympic events, it would not be beyond the point of imagination to imagine a terrorist threat to 2012 nearer the time."

A Database for Everything

I think this a good , even great thing. OK , as pointed out below it may create a sea of data so large it will be hard to navigate,, but as also pointed out , there are tech firms already looking to solve that issue-- which is a little economic boost right there. ~~ technopolitical

A Database For Everything
By Erika Lovley |

6/24/09 @ 5:06 AM EST

http://mobile.politico.com/story.cfm?id=24118&cat=topnews

The government has answers. Lots of answers. Wondering which airline is the most stingy with passenger snacks? No problem. Want to know how many people were injured by vending machines last year? Got that, too.

Agencies and departments already boast countless registries and databases of seemingly bizarre, seemingly useless information, but lawmakers continue to call by the day for the creation of new databases.

Since January, Congress has introduced bills that call for the creation of nearly 40 new databases and registries, by POLITICO’s count.


http://mobile.politico.com/story.cfm?id=24118&cat=topnews

TechnoPolitics and Elections in the Middle East.

~~ The NYT's Thomas Friedman today puts forth that there is a real TechnoPolitical change going on in the Middle Eastern Body Politic. Internet and Cell Texting are fueling the pro-western the reform movements there.~~ posted from blackberry by technopolitical~~




http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=376648&f=76


By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: June 14, 2009

mobile.nytimes.com

"Twenty years ago, I wrote a book about the Middle East, and recently I was thinking of updating it with a new introduction. It was going to be very simple - just one page, indeed just one line: "Nothing has changed."
".....something is going on in the Middle East today that is very new. Pull up a chair; this is going to be interesting."

" What we saw in the Lebanese elections,........., and what we saw in the provincial elections in Iraq, .........is the product of four historical forces that have come together to crack open this ossified region".

**"First is the diffusion of technology. The Internet, blogs, YouTube and text messaging via cellphones, particularly among the young - 70 percent of Iranians are under 30 - is giving Middle Easterners cheap tools to communicate horizontally, to mobilize politically and to criticize their leaders acerbically, outside of state control. It is also enabling them to monitor vote-rigging by posting observers with cellphone cameras. I knew something had changed when I sat down for coffee on Hamra Street in Beirut last week with my 80-year-old friend and mentor, Kemal Salibi, one of Lebanon's greatest historians, and he told me about his Facebook group!"***

"CYBERWAR Privacy May Be a Victim in Cyberdefense Plan"

~ We are at war.

A Government run Cyber Defense is needed.

The internet is a public forum that I choose to enter.

Am I willing to surrender some my cyber rights to enter cyberspace -- to surrender my internet privacy in the name of American national self defense?

I know for me I already personally-- but not politically-- censor myself online. Unlike others who really do completely open their life to the internet, I post almost nothing about my private life , or at least nothing shocking.

Nor do I visit any websites that I would want to later deny doing so.

For me there would be very little if any real impact on my personal internet use, in light of the proposed American Government measures of Cyber Defense.

I already guard my privacy online and do not visit sites of illicit or illegal activity.

Ido also do google myself often to find out what others could learn about me with a quick internet search. (With a little work one can mostly control their online presence.)

Now, I am still very much a civil libertarian when it comes to both private and mutually consenting personal interactions. I fully believe that the government has no right to regulate or monitor our private lives.

But again , I CHOOSE to go onto the Internet, with the understanding that it may be monitored and my online actions and interactions might be recorded by some government snoop, a snoop whose job it is to look for threats of violence against man or machine. But it is not his charge to monitor normal free speech, association, and/or political organizing. Those activities are fully protected rights in the USA.

My life online is not that exciting. And again purposely so. Privacy must be guarded by ones self, as only you can protect your own privacy. So I am careful what I post and write about myself on my various blogs.

When you drive the roads in your car there are traffic cops. On the internet too there does need to be a cyberpolice and I am willing to accept Government monitoring of the Internert in the name of Cyber National Security, as I for one do not see how it would change my techno cyber political behaviors in any way.

The First amendment of the US Constitution fully protects all my cyber activities. I have full free speech and free press rights here at TechnoPolitical. I post what I think and believe very freely and without constraint.

If I want or need Privacy I can turn the Computer Off.

We are at war. There are lunatics of all stripes out there who use the internet as a tool to further violence and terrorism. There has to be Government Cyber Security in the USA. The stakes are just too high.

Now below this post, there is another recent post about China's cyber crackdown attempt.

This is a different situation than the USA's, as China is working to suppress nonviolent speech and civil dissent. For there is no right to free speech and free association in China and the Chinese Government is quite totalitarian in its Electronic-Governance of Cyber Space.

The USA however is not looking suppress nonviolent speech and association, but to protect its citizens from Terrorism both domestic and foreign. Big difference.
~~
Posted from blackberry by technopolitical via AT&T.~~





"CYBERWAR Privacy May Be a Victim in Cyberdefense Plan"


By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER



Published: June 13, 2009

mobile.nytimes.com



"WASHINGTON - A plan to create a new Pentagon cybercommand is raising significant privacy and diplomatic concerns, as the Obama administration moves ahead on efforts to protect the nation from cyberattack and to prepare for possible offensive operations against adversaries' computer networks.





President Obama has said that the new cyberdefense strategy he unveiled last month will provide protections for personal privacy and civil liberties.




But senior Pentagon and military officials say that Mr. Obama's assurances may be challenging to guarantee in practice, particularly in trying to monitor the thousands of daily attacks on security systems in the United States that have set off a race to develop better cyberweapons."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=376300&f=21

"China Requires Censorship Software on New PCs"

~~ China here using their powers of E-Governance to censor the Internet and spy on all cyber activities.

Don't ever think "It Can't Happen Here" in the USA.
Not as long Dick Cheney types are around~~ Posted by technopolitical via BlackBerry by AT&T~~




"China Requires Censorship Software on New PCs"



By ANDREW JACOBS


http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=374205&f=24

Published: June 09, 2009 BEIJING -


China has issued a sweeping directive requiring all personal computers sold in the country to include sophisticated software that can filter out pornography and other "unhealthy information" from the Internet. The software, which manufacturers must install on all new PCs starting July 1, would allow the government to regularly update computers with an ever-changing list of banned Web sites.

The rules, issued last month, ratchet up Internet restrictions that are already among the most stringent in the world. China regularly blocks Web sites that discuss the Dalai Lama, the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, and the Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement.


But free-speech advocates say they fear the new software could make it even more difficult for China's 300 million Internet users to obtain uncensored news and information.



"This is a very bad thing," said Charles Mok, chairman of the Hong Kong chapter of the Internet Society, an international advisory group on Internet standards.


"It's like downloading spyware onto your computer, but the government is the spy."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/

"On Streets and on Facebook, Homeless Stay Wired"

~~Digital Technology has now even become part of the homeless lifestyle. The internet is such a useful tool that it can actually ease the burden of social isolation that is part of being homeless.

Remember : Technological Advances are meant to improve the quality of all people's lives ; housed or houseless.~~ posted from Blackberry by technopolitical~~


"On Streets and on Facebook, Homeless Stay Wired"

http://foxnews.proteus.com

May 31, 2009
9:43 AM


Like most San Franciscans, Charles Pitts is wired. Mr. Pitts, who is 37 years old, has accounts on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. He runs an Internet forum on Yahoo, reads news online and keeps in touch with friends via email. The tough part is managing this digital lifestyle from his residence under a highway bridge. "You don't need a TV. You don't need a radio. You don't even need a newspaper," says Mr. Pitts, an aspiring poet in a purple cap and yellow fleece jacket, who says he has been homeless for two years. "But you need the Internet.

http://foxnews.proteus.com/content.html?contentId=37858¤tPage=0

~~
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

The Government's Urgent Push into CyberWarfare.

~~ The sport of CyberWarfare is now becoming part of our economic recovery and the reorganization of the American commerce system. ~~ technopolitical ~~



"CYBERWAR: Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for the United States."

By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JOHN MARKOFF


Published:
May 31, 2009

http://mobile.nytimes.com



MELBOURNE, Fla. - The government's urgent push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among the biggest military companies for billions of dollars in new defense contracts.





The exotic nature of the work, coupled with the deep recession, is enabling the companies to attract top young talent that once would have gone to Silicon Valley. And the race to develop weapons that defend against, or initiate, computer attacks has given rise to thousands of "hacker soldiers" within the Pentagon who can blend the new capabilities into the nation's war planning.Nearly all of the largest military companies - including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon - have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies.


http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=890810930FD395399FFDF08898666AEB.w5?a=3702
31&f=19



Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

"Obama Announces Strategy Against Cyberattacks"

"Obama Announces Strategy Against Cyberattacks"

By DAVID E. SANGER and JOHN MARKOFF

New York Times

Published: May 30, 2009

WASHINGTON - President Obama declared Friday that the country's disparate efforts to "deter, prevent, detect and defend" against cyberattacks would now be run out of the White House, but he also promised that he would bar the federal government from regular monitoring of "private-sector networks" and the Internet traffic that has become the backbone of American communications.


Mr. Obama's speech, which was accompanied by the release of a long-awaited new government strategy, was an effort to balance the United States' response to a rising security threat with concerns - echoing back to the debates on wiretapping without warrants in the Bush years - that the government would be regularly dipping into Internet traffic that knew no national boundaries.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=369728&f=25

"Obama's new cyber czar may create turf war"

~~ Truly Cyber Politics. Who will "run" the internet is no easy question. For the average Netizen it really does not directly affect our emailing and blogging.

But in the world of Cyber Warfare, Cyber Crime and etc, who actually is in "control" of the Internet is serious political drama- with real world consequences.~~

~posted from blackbery by technopolitcal ~~



NEWS ANALYSIS

By Lolita C. Baldor

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The digital battlefield is proving to be difficult terrain for President Barack Obama.As he unveiled his plan Friday to make the nation's computer networks more secure, he fulfilled a campaign pledge to make cyber security a top priority.


But he fell short on another promise to create a cyber adviser "who will report directly to me."Ten months ago, candidate Obama told a Purdue University audience that he "will make cyber security the top priority that it should be in the 21st century."


He went on to pledge that he would coordinate efforts across government, implement a national policy, tighten standards to make information more secure, and bring together government, industry and academia "to determine the best ways to guard the infrastructure that supports our power.


On Friday, Obama took the first step toward making that far-reaching promise a reality.

But it remains unclear whether the structure he is creating will be capable and powerful enough to take on an enduring and monumental task.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31003816/


Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Mobile.POLITICO:The A-list: The best email lists in politics

~Email has really taken off as a fund raising tool, I believe beyond anybody's realistic expectations. The stratospheric amounts that Obama 2008 raised using the internet will go down as a historic watershed.

And as we see below even though Hillary Clinton lost, her email list still lives and prospers~~


~~posted from blackberry by TechnoPolitical~~.


http://mobile.politico.com/story.cfm?id=22915&cat=topnews

Clinton’s online mint isn’t even considered the best in its class. There are a handful of other lists, in both parties, that are thought to be either equal or even more potent.Using the criteria used by political pros to assess the value of these emails lists—size, freshness, comprehensiveness (does it include addresses, land lines, cell phone numbers or donation data?), open rates (what percentage of emails in a given send get opened), click-throughs (how many links are activated), actions and donations (how many emails result in a contribution or a letter to member of Congress) as well as intangibles like buzz and list managers’ skills—here is POLITICO’s ranking of the top five most potent email lists in politics
==

Major League Baseball awarded geolocation patent

~~ I am a big baseball fan ,
so i just could not resit posting this ,
even though it is more techno , than political --
but its BaseBall and that is all that really counts.
It is also really very interesting.~~`

==============

Major League Baseball awarded geolocation patent

• By Ben Klayman - Fri May 15, 2009 5:41PM EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) -

Major League Baseball has won a patent for technology that blocked certain fans from viewing local games online, and it may open the door for the U.S. sports league to profit by licensing it to media companies.

Baseball's advanced media business was awarded a U.S. patent last month for online geolocation technology, a system that uses two or more electronic methods (such as wireless and satellite) to pinpoint the geographic location of a subscriber, the sports league said in a statement late Thursday.

The sports league filed for the patent, its first, in 2004 as a way of excluding certain fans from watching its games streamed live online.

MLB wanted to block reception of games in a subscriber's local market as a way of protecting the hundreds of millions of dollars its 30 clubs receive in rights fees from such regional sports networks as the New York Yankees' YES or Boston Red Sox's NESN.

"This was a clear example where necessity really was the mother of invention," Bob Bowman, chief executive of baseball's advanced media arm, said Friday in a telephone interview.

Baseball now could approach any company using multiple geolocation technologies to determine a subscriber's location and ask for a licensing fee, analysts said. The other options would be for those companies to try to work around baseball's patent or challenge it in court.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090515/tc_nm/us_baseball_patent

~~~ The Internet is a very interesting place. Just be careful.~~~~

Most Attacks Come from Legit but Hijacked Sites

Web attacks are routinely hosted by actual sites infected and acting as zombies, security firm warns.

John E. Dunn, Techworld.com

Sunday, May 17, 2009 01:10 PM PDT
http://www.pcworld.com/article/165014/attacks_come_from_legit_hijacked_sites.html?tk=rss_news

Artwork: Diego Aguirre

The number of legitimate Websites being hacked to host malware has hit startling highs in recent days, new figures from MessageLabs have revealed.

Data taken from the days between May 4 and 8 showed that 84.6 percent of Websites blocked by the company for hosting malicious content were 'well-established' domains that have been around for a year or more.

During the same period, 10.2 percent of blocked domains were less than a year old and only 3.1 percent were less than a week old.

At first glance this, this runs counter to the assumption that malicious Websites more commonly exist for only days or hours in some cases, the better to avoid detection and filtering. This is termed "fast-fluxing," cycling websites through a maze of bogus sub-domains.

However, according to MessageLabs, the likely explanation is that a move to genuine domains means that the fast-fluxing has now migrated to use a different part of the domain tree.

"The bad guys will compromise the DNS and add sub-domains," said MessageLabs' Paul Wood. The recent figure represented a high mark, admitted Wood, but still represented a gathering storm.

"People need to be extra vigilant and understand that even sites they know and trust can be compromised through attacks such as SQL injection attacks, while businesses need to ensure they take the necessary precautions to block all the latest malicious sites," said Wood.

"With the ever advancing world of cybercrime, nothing can be taken at face value."

http://www.pcworld.com/article/165014/attacks_come_from_legit_hijacked_sites.html?tk=rss_news

CYBERWAR: Cadets Trade the Trenches for Firewalls

~~ Warfare in the TechnoPolitical Age ~~ 

CYBERWAR: Cadets Trade the Trenches for Firewalls

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/technology/11cybergames.html?em

By COREY KILGANNON and NOAM COHEN

WEST POINT, N.Y. — The Army forces were under attack. Communications were down, and the chain of command was broken.

Pacing a makeshift bunker whose entrance was camouflaged with netting, the young man in battle fatigues barked at his comrades: “They are flooding the e-mail server. Block it. I’ll take the heat for it.”

These are the war games at West Point, at least last month, when a team of cadets spent four days struggling around the clock to establish a computer network and keep it operating while hackers from the National Security Agency in Maryland tried to infiltrate it with methods that an enemy might use. The N.S.A. made the cadets’ task more difficult by planting viruses on some of the equipment, just as real-world hackers have done on millions of computers around the world.

--------------------------------

May 12, 2009

Tracking Cyberspies Through the Web Wilderness

By JOHN MARKOFF

For old-fashioned detectives, the problem was always acquiring information. For the cybersleuth, hunting evidence in the data tangle of the Internet, the problem is different.

“The holy grail is how can you distinguish between information which is garbage and information which is valuable?” said Rafal Rohozinski, aUniversity of Cambridge-trained social scientist involved in computer security issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/12cyber.html?ref=science

First attempt to describe the 'electronic police state'

~~ Electronic -Governance of our lifes is now here .  Moreso outside the USA.  Non-Democracies know that a FREE and OPEN cyber-space  theatens them.  But i have faith that in the end Cyber-space will make the world a freer place. Maybe. ~~

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/12/0012255&from=rss

The Electronic Police State

Posted by kdawson on Monday May 11, @11:54PM
from the watching-you dept.

gerddie writes"Cryptohippie has published what may be called a first attempt to describe the 'electronic police state' (PDF). Based on information available from different organizations such as Electronic Privacy Information Center, Reporters Without Borders, and Freedom House, countries were rated on 17 criteria with regard to how close they are already to an electronic police state. The rankings are for 2008. Not too surprisingly, one finds China, North Korea, Belarus, and Russia at the top of the list. But the next slots are occupied by the UK (England and Wales), the US, Singapore, Israel, France, and Germany."This is a good start, but it would be good to see details of their methodology. They do provide theraw data (in XLS format), but no indication of the weightings they apply to the elements of "electronic police state" behavior they are scoring.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/12/0012255&from=rss

~~ The Cyber Cat and Mouse wars  are with us daily. Really makes you wonder if cyber record keeping is secure at any level~~

http://m.news.com/2166-12_3-10236793-83.html

UC Berkeley computers hacked, 160,000 at risk

May 8, 2009 1:53 PM PDT

Posted by Michelle Meyers

This post was updated at 2:16 p.m. PDT with comment from an outside database security software vendor.

Hackers broke into the University of California at Berkeley's health services center computer and potentially stole the personal information of more than 160,000 students, alumni, and others, the university announced Friday.

At particular risk of identity theft are some 97,000 individuals whose Social Security numbers were accessed in the breach, but it's still unclear whether hackers were able to match up those SSNs with individual names, Shelton Waggener, UCB's chief technology officer, said in a press conference Friday afternoon.

The rise of government 2.0

~~ The White House on "Facebook, MySpace and Twitter". 

 Pretty cool actually , and maybe politically important.

 President Obama likes to

 circumvent the old guard media and go strait to the people. 

 It may help for a President-People axis of power , that will get Congess to move on issues like health care.  

Let us hope so !! 

----------

The rise of government 2.0

By Micah L. Sifry & Andrew Rasiej 

http://mobile.politico.com/story.cfm?id=22185&cat=ideas

 5/7/09 @ 4:32 AM EST

Last Friday, the White House made a splash online by announcing the launch of its official presence on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, the popular social networking hubs. In doing so, President Barack Obama’s new media team demonstrated its understanding of one of the most basic facts of online culture and communications: You have to go where people are, instead of expecting them to come to you — no matter how big your brand. 

“Technology has profoundly impacted how — and where — we all consume information and communicate with one another,” the White House blog noted in a post titled “WhiteHouse 2.0.” It added, “WhiteHouse.gov is an important part of the administration’s effort to use the Internet to reach the public quickly and effectively — but it isn’t the only place.” 

~~ These Cyber - Defense  issues are  daily news  in the "papers" now.    

Serious stuff .  ~~ 

Pentagon girds for cyber warfare

Attacks from well-funded nations, terror groups are biggest threats

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30630807/

By Lolita C. Baldor

updated 8:38 p.m. ET, Thurs., May 7, 2009

WASHINGTON - Cyber espionage and attacks from well-funded nations or terror groups are the biggest threats to the military's computer networks, a top officer said Thursday.

Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, who heads U.S. Strategic Command, said he worries that foes will learn to disable or distort battlefield communications. Chilton told reporters that even as the Pentagon improves its network defenses against hackers, he needs more people, training and resources to hone offensive cyber war capacity.