Today, Google is arguably one of the most influential nonstate actors in international affairs… It tracks the global arms trade, spends millions creating crisis-alert tools to inform the public about looming natural disasters, monitors the spread of the flu, and acts as a global censor to protect American interests abroad. Google has even intervened into land disputes, one of the most fraught and universal security issues facing states today, siding with an indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon to help the tribe document and post evidence about intrusions on its land through Google Earth.
In a new form of digital statecraft, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt has traveled to North Korea against State Department wishes.
(via russell davies: the value of sugar for steadying the nerves). I don’t know where Russell finds this stuff but I love that he does. Just one extract from a fascinating post about government communications during WW2. I can’t imagine any other nation embracing a cup of tea as a serious response initiative to dealing with air raids, except the UK. Yet bizarrely (and clearly I have now been here a very long time) I do get their point and see how from a morale perspective it is likely one of the cheapest and simplest and most effective short term things they could do.
Niels Provos is a Google software engineer who spends his weekends forging Viking weaponry
Regina Dugan, the head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, delivered another clear signal about the direction U.S. defense technology is heading. “In the coming years we will focus an increasing portion of our cyber research on the investigation of offensive capabilities to address military-specific needs,” she said, announcing that the agency expected to expand cyber-security research from 8 percent of its budget to 12 percent.
32 of 57 vulnerabilities identified in this month’s massive update (by Microsoft) were reported by researchers at (Google)
“We could see virtual kidnappings – ransoming your ID for real money,” Schmidt said. “Rather than keeping captives in the jungle, groups like Farc [in Colombia] may prefer a virtual hostage. That’s how important our online ID is.”
Schmidt’s forecast is an extension of some existing trends. Some hackers have already used “ransomware” which takes over a user’s computer and encrypts its hard drive, locking them out – unless they make a payment to the hackers. And others have had their private lives revealed online after having their email accounts hacked.
In the two days following Mat’s Wired article, a quarter-million people signed up for two step authentication
Lockitron - Keyless Entry Using Your Phone (by lockitron)
In a given week, SMBs in Asia that use the cloud spend on average 57% less time managing security than SMBs that don’t use the cloud
Over the last three years, SMBs in Asia that use the cloud are 3x more likely to have decreased what they spend on managing security as a percentage of overall budget for information technology, compared to SMBs that do not use the cloud
When asked to choose from a drop down list of specific cloud benefits:
54% of SMBs said their business was more secure as a result of moving to the cloud
48% said they worried less about the threat of cyber-attack
47% said it was easier to integrate systems
IBM is running in partnership with police departments across the nation, crunching massive amounts of public information to try to predict where and when crimes will occur. The project, known as CRUSH — Criminal Reduction Utilizing Statistical History — has proven very effective in pilot programs in several American cities, including Memphis, Tennessee, where it been credited with reducing serious crimes by 30 percent and violent crimes by 15 percent
Uploading graft - Globaltimes.cn
In April 2009, the revised “Regulations on People’s Procuratorate Report” formerly extended reporting channels to the Internet and fax. Two months later, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) opened the anti-graft website 12309.gov.cn.
So far, the website has received more than 100,000 clues and over 200,000 appeals, nearly equal to the numbers of letters and visits the SPP received in the same time… Each year, about 140,000 officials are investigated, 80 percent of whom were exposed by tip-offs…
However, many informants prefer to turn to online forums, private blogs or non-governmental anti-graft websites…. Li Xinde, founder and manager of cnyulun.co, which claims to be the country’s most influential anti-graft website and was set up in 2003, said independence and fewer restrictions also make them popular. ”Without restrictions from advertisers, censorship by superiors, or worries of bypassing the chain of command, we can release reports accusing any official, at any rank, as long as we have solid proof,” Li told the Global Times, saying that some journalists, people’s congress deputies and even discipline inspectors also passed materials onto him. The website has released at least 400 cases, and Li is proud that nearly 60 percent of them were dealt with after being exposed.
Will There Be Collateral Damage in Cyberwar to U.S.? - Arik Hesseldahl - Enterprise - AllThingsD
The parallels with the invention and first use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are eerie. Consider the similarities: First, government and scientific leaders invent a new kind of weapon out of fear that others will develop it first and threaten the United States. Second, the consequences of using the new weapon — both the material damage it might cause as well as its effects on international security and arms-race dynamics — are poorly understood. Third, scientists and engineers warn political and military leaders about the dangers of the new weapon and call for international cooperation to create rules of the road. Fourth, despite warnings by experts, the U.S. government continues to develop this new class of weaponry, ultimately unleashing it without warning and without public discussion of its implications for peace and security.
Twitter Blog: Twitter Transparency Report
yay, well done twitter for publishing this :-)
Wickr Lets Your iPhone Send Both Encrypted And Self-Destructing Messages - Forbes
Wickr, a free application that launched in the iPhone app store Wednesday, aims to encrypt text, picture and video messages to prevent their interception by men-in-the-middle. But then, as the app’s name implies, those messages also delete themselves after just minutes or even seconds like a burning wick, leaving no trace behind even for forensic investigators
Corman believes that the spread of “hacktivism,” which first made mainstream headlines when Anonymous attacked the Church of Scientology in 2008, demonstrates that “those who can best wield this new magic are not nations. They’re not politicians. The youngest citizens of the Net don’t even recognize allegiance to a country or to a political party. Their allegiance is to a hive. In some ways this is very exciting. In other ways this is terrifying.” The terrifying part, for Corman, is that the Web gives individuals immense power without instilling the “compassion, humility, wisdom, or restraint to wield that power responsibly.
