News Analysis - Stuxnet Worm Is Remarkable for Its Lack of Subtlety - NYTimes.com

News Analysis - Stuxnet Worm Is Remarkable for Its Lack of Subtlety - NYTimes.com:

“Proliferation is a real problem, and no country is prepared to deal with it,” said Melissa Hathaway, a former United States national cybersecurity coordinator. The widespread availability of the attack techniques revealed by the software has set off alarms among industrial control specialists, she said: “All of these guys are scared to death. We have about 90 days to fix this before some hacker begins using it.”

The ability of Stuxnet to infiltrate these systems will “require a complete reassessment” of security systems and processes, starting with federal technology standards and nuclear regulations, said Joe Weiss, a specialist in the security of industrial control systems who is managing partner at Applied Control Solutions in Cupertino, Calif.

One big question is why its creators let the software spread widely, giving up many of its secrets in the process.

A more detailed report on the Stuxnet worm. While the information now being discovered about this attack gives us a glimpse of strategies of a cyber war, the Worm itself apparently fails in that it was not focused enough and that it was discovered at all.

In Court? Be Careful What You Post! | Courtroom Strategy by Attorney Oscar Michelen

In Court?

Be Careful What You Post! | Courtroom Strategy by Attorney Oscar Michelen:
Litigants in a court case beware! Your adversary may be allowed to view all of your postings, including private and deleted ones, if they bear any relation to the court case. In the first case of its kind yesterday, a Suffolk County NY Judge, in Romano v. Steelcase, Inc., allowed a defendant in a personal injury lawsuit to obtain access to the Facebook profile of the plaintiff suing them. The court held that since the plaintiff put her physical health at issue by suing, she could not restrict the defendant from obtaining evidence that might support or contradict her claims. Supreme Court Judge Allen Spinner reasoned -I think completely correctly – that social networking sites are not private lockboxes where you store your most intimate secrets; in fact their privacy policies tell you that they are public spaces. Therefore he said:

“Plaintiff has no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Even deleting stuff seems to be no protection from the long arm of the law.

Google Warning Gmail users on China Spying Attempts

Google Warning Gmail users on China Spying Attempts

Google is using automated warnings to alert users of its GMAIL messaging service about wide spread attempts to access personal mail accounts from Internet addresses in China. The warnings may indicate wholesale spying by the Chinese government a year after the Google Aurora attacks or simply random attacks. Victims include one leading privacy activist.
Warnings appeared when users logged onto Gmail, encountering a red banner reading "Your account was recently accessed from China," and providing a list of IP addresses used to access the account. Users were then encouraged to change their password immediately. Based on Twitter posts, there doesn't seem to be any pattern to the accounts that were accessed, though one target is a prominent privacy rights activist in the UK who has spoken out against the Chinese government's censorship of its citizens

China hacking or spying or something else?

Iran Fights Strong Virus Attacking Computers - NYTimes.com

Iran Fights Strong Virus Attacking Computers - NYTimes.com:
Iran's government announces that it is fighting a computer virus:

"But the announcement raised suspicions, and new questions, about the origins and target of the Stuxnet virus, which computer experts say is a far cry from common viruses that have affected the Internet for years.

Stuxnet, which was first publicly identified several months ago, is aimed solely at industrial equipment made by Siemens that controls oil pipelines, electric utilities, nuclear facilities and other large industrial sites. While it is not clear that Iran was the main target — the infection has also been reported in Indonesia, Pakistan, India and elsewhere — a disproportionate number of computers inside Iran appear to have been struck, according to reports by computer security monitors."

Iran claims that this is "part of the electronic warfare against Iran" and an attempt to disrupt its nuclear program.

Where Good Ideas Come From

An introduction to Steven Johnson's new book Where Good Ideas Come From, Johnson is also the author of Everything Bad Is Good for You.

Even if you may disagree with his ideas, you can enjoy the animation.

Blogging your blogs

I am starting a blog here as a way of following the blogs that you--MGMT 3601 bloggers--create.