Weekend Reading
10 Windows Vista myths
The official consumer launch of Windows Vista has brought with it a great deal of confusion, misinformation, and some fairly ignorant assertions. Windows expert Deb Shinder debunks some of the misconceptions she's been hearing, from exaggerated cost and hardware requirements to feature limitations and compatibility issues.
Read the article HERE.
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The Psychology of Security
Security is both a feeling and a reality. And they're not the same.
The reality of security is mathematical, based on the probability of different risks and the effectiveness of different countermeasures. We can calculate how secure your home is from burglary, based on such factors as the crime rate in the neighborhood you live in and your door-locking habits. We can calculate how likely it is for you to be murdered, either on the streets by a stranger or in your home by a family member. Or how likely you are to be the victim of identity theft. Given a large enough set of statistics on criminal acts, it's not even hard; insurance companies do it all the time.
Read the article HERE.
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Open vs. Closed
There is no better way to start an argument among a group of developers than proclaiming Operating System A to be "more secure" than Operating System B. I know this from first-hand experience, as previous papers I have published on this topic have led to reams of heated e-mails directed at me - including some that were, quite literally, physically threatening. Despite the heat (not light!) generated from attempting to investigate the relative security of different software projects, investigate we must.
Read the article HERE.
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[US] Fraud and ID Theft Data for 2006
Unauthorized credit card charges were the leading contributor to more than $1.1 billion bilked in reported consumer fraud complaints last year, according to new figures released today by the [US] Federal Trade Commission.
Read the article HERE.
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Phishing Facts
· An estimated 59 million phishing e-mails are sent each day.
· About 1 in 6 are opened.
· In 2006, about 109 million U.S. adults received phishing e-mail attacks, compared with 57 million in 2004.
· The average loss per victim in 2006 was $1,244, compared with $257 in 2004.
· Victims recovered an average of 54 percent of their losses in 2006, compared with 80 percent in 2004
Read the article HERE.
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The Snake Eater
Problem: If a cop in Anytown, USA, pulls over a suspect, he checks the person's ID remotely from the squad car. He's linked to databases filled with Who's Who in the world of crime, killing and mayhem. In Iraq, there is nothing like that. When our troops and the Iraqi army enter a town, village or street, what they know about the local bad guys is pretty much in their heads, at best.
Solution: Give our troops what our cops have. The Pentagon knows this.
For reasons you can imagine, it hasn't happened.
This is a story of can-do in a no-can-do world, a story of how a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in Anbar province. They did this in 30 days, from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. Compared to standard operating procedure for Iraq, this is a nanosecond.
Read the article HERE.
The official consumer launch of Windows Vista has brought with it a great deal of confusion, misinformation, and some fairly ignorant assertions. Windows expert Deb Shinder debunks some of the misconceptions she's been hearing, from exaggerated cost and hardware requirements to feature limitations and compatibility issues.
Read the article HERE.
==================================================================
The Psychology of Security
Security is both a feeling and a reality. And they're not the same.
The reality of security is mathematical, based on the probability of different risks and the effectiveness of different countermeasures. We can calculate how secure your home is from burglary, based on such factors as the crime rate in the neighborhood you live in and your door-locking habits. We can calculate how likely it is for you to be murdered, either on the streets by a stranger or in your home by a family member. Or how likely you are to be the victim of identity theft. Given a large enough set of statistics on criminal acts, it's not even hard; insurance companies do it all the time.
Read the article HERE.
==================================================================
Open vs. Closed
There is no better way to start an argument among a group of developers than proclaiming Operating System A to be "more secure" than Operating System B. I know this from first-hand experience, as previous papers I have published on this topic have led to reams of heated e-mails directed at me - including some that were, quite literally, physically threatening. Despite the heat (not light!) generated from attempting to investigate the relative security of different software projects, investigate we must.
Read the article HERE.
==================================================================
[US] Fraud and ID Theft Data for 2006
Unauthorized credit card charges were the leading contributor to more than $1.1 billion bilked in reported consumer fraud complaints last year, according to new figures released today by the [US] Federal Trade Commission.
Read the article HERE.
##############################################
Phishing Facts
· An estimated 59 million phishing e-mails are sent each day.
· About 1 in 6 are opened.
· In 2006, about 109 million U.S. adults received phishing e-mail attacks, compared with 57 million in 2004.
· The average loss per victim in 2006 was $1,244, compared with $257 in 2004.
· Victims recovered an average of 54 percent of their losses in 2006, compared with 80 percent in 2004
Read the article HERE.
==================================================================
The Snake Eater
Problem: If a cop in Anytown, USA, pulls over a suspect, he checks the person's ID remotely from the squad car. He's linked to databases filled with Who's Who in the world of crime, killing and mayhem. In Iraq, there is nothing like that. When our troops and the Iraqi army enter a town, village or street, what they know about the local bad guys is pretty much in their heads, at best.
Solution: Give our troops what our cops have. The Pentagon knows this.
For reasons you can imagine, it hasn't happened.
This is a story of can-do in a no-can-do world, a story of how a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in Anbar province. They did this in 30 days, from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. Compared to standard operating procedure for Iraq, this is a nanosecond.
Read the article HERE.
posted by vanish at 10:00 AM
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