Ramblings & ephemera
From Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram of 15 April 2004: Here’s a story of a woman who posts an ad requesting a nanny. When a potential nanny responds, she asks for references for a background check. Then she places another ad, using the reference material as a fake identity. She gets a job with the good references—they’re […]
Posted on September 8th, 2011 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, security | Comments Off on A nanny’s man-in-the-middle attack
From Jim Giles’ “The inside story of the Conficker worm” (New Scientist: 12 June 2009): 23 October 2008 … The dry, technical language of Microsoft’s October update did not indicate anything particularly untoward. A security flaw in a port that Windows-based PCs use to send and receive network signals, it said, might be used to […]
Posted on July 5th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, history, security, tech in changing society | Comments Off on How security experts defended against Conficker
The Saint Louis Beacon published an article on 27 April 2009 titled “Tweets from the jury box aren’t amusing“, about legal “cases across the country where jurors have used cell phones, BlackBerrys and other devices to comment – sometimes minute by minute or second by second on Twitter, for instance – on what they are […]
Posted on May 3rd, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, law, personal, social software, tech in changing society | Comments Off on Interviewed for an article about mis-uses of Twitter
From danah boyd’s “Social Media is Here to Stay… Now What?” at the Microsoft Research Tech Fest, Redmond, Washington (danah: 26 February 2009): Social media is the latest buzzword in a long line of buzzwords. It is often used to describe the collection of software that enables individuals and communities to gather, communicate, share, and […]
Posted on March 17th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, history, social software, tech in changing society | Comments Off on Defining social media, social software, & Web 2.0
From The Economist‘s “Primates on Facebook” (26 February 2009): Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who now works at Oxford University, concluded that the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Extrapolating from the brain sizes and social networks of apes, Dr Dunbar […]
Posted on March 10th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: science, social software, tech in changing society, technology | Comments Off on Facebook & the Dunbar number
From danah boyd’s “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace” (danah boyd: 24 June 2007): When MySpace launched in 2003, it was primarily used by 20/30-somethings (just like Friendster before it). The bands began populating the site by early 2004 and throughout 2004, the average age slowly declined. It wasn’t until late 2004 that […]
Posted on February 12th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, education, politics, social software, tech in changing society | Comments Off on Socioeconomic analysis of MySpace & Facebook
From “Storm Worm botnet cracked wide open” (Heise Security: 9 January 2009): A team of researchers from Bonn University and RWTH Aachen University have analysed the notorious Storm Worm botnet, and concluded it certainly isn’t as invulnerable as it once seemed. Quite the reverse, for in theory it can be rapidly eliminated using software developed […]
Posted on February 8th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, security | Comments Off on The end of Storm?
From Kelly Jackson Higgins’ “The World’s Biggest Botnets” (Dark Reading: 9 November 2007): You know about the Storm Trojan, which is spread by the world’s largest botnet. But what you may not know is there’s now a new peer-to-peer based botnet emerging that could blow Storm away. “We’re investigating a new peer-to-peer botnet that may […]
Posted on February 8th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, security | Comments Off on Three top botnets
From Bruce Schneier’s “Security in Ten Years” (Crypto-Gram: 15 December 2007): Bruce Schneier: … The nature of the attacks will be different: the targets, tactics and results. Security is both a trade-off and an arms race, a balance between attacker and defender, and changes in technology upset that balance. Technology might make one particular tactic […]
Posted on February 5th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, law, security, technology | Comments Off on The future of security
I’m really proud to announce that my 5th book is now out & available for purchase: Google Apps Deciphered: Compute in the Cloud to Streamline Your Desktop. My other books include: Don’t Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox Hacking Knoppix Linux Phrasebook Podcasting with Audacity: Creating a Podcast With Free Audio Software (I’ve […]
Posted on February 5th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, education, history, personal, social software, tech help, tech in changing society, technology | Comments Off on My new book – Google Apps Deciphered – is out!
From Stephen J. Dubner’s interview with Bruce Schneier in “Bruce Schneier Blazes Through Your Questions” (The New York Times: 4 December 2007): There’s a huge difference between nosy neighbors and cameras. Cameras are everywhere. Cameras are always on. Cameras have perfect memory. It’s not the surveillance we’ve been used to; it’s wholesale surveillance. I wrote […]
Posted on December 17th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: politics, security, tech in changing society | Comments Off on Bruce Schneier on wholesale, constant surveillance
From James Bamford’s “Big Brother Is Listening” (The Atlantic: April 2006): This legislation, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, established the FISA court—made up of eleven judges handpicked by the chief justice of the United States—as a secret part of the federal judiciary. The court’s job is to decide whether to grant warrants requested by […]
Posted on November 27th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law, politics, security, tech in changing society, technology | Comments Off on The NSA and threats to privacy
From Chapter 2: Botnets Overview of Craig A. Schiller’s Botnets: The Killer Web App (Syngress: 2007): What makes a botnet a botnet? In particular, how do you distinguish a botnet client from just another hacker break-in? First, the clients in a botnet must be able to take actions on the client without the hacker having […]
Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: security, tech in changing society, technology | Comments Off on The life cycle of a botnet client
From Vassilis Prevelakis and Diomidis Spinellis’ “The Athens Affair” (IEEE Spectrum: July 2007): On 9 March 2005, a 38-year-old Greek electrical engineer named Costas Tsalikidis was found hanged in his Athens loft apartment, an apparent suicide. It would prove to be merely the first public news of a scandal that would roil Greece for months. […]
Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, politics, security, tech in changing society | Comments Off on How the Greek cell phone network was compromised
From Bruce Schneier’s “Gathering ‘Storm’ Superworm Poses Grave Threat to PC Nets” (Wired: 4 October 2007): Storm represents the future of malware. Let’s look at its behavior: 1. Storm is patient. A worm that attacks all the time is much easier to detect; a worm that attacks and then shuts off for a while hides […]
Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, security, tech in changing society | Comments Off on 9 reasons the Storm botnet is different
From Shane Harris’ “China’s Cyber-Militia” (National Journal: 31 May 2008): Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a […]
Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, history, politics, security, tech in changing society | Comments Off on The Chinese Internet threat
From Ryan Singel’s “Point, Click … Eavesdrop: How the FBI Wiretap Net Operates” (Wired News: 29 August 2007): The FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device, according to nearly a thousand pages of restricted documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act. The […]
Posted on November 21st, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: law, politics, security, tech in changing society | Comments Off on Lots of good info about the FBI’s far-reaching wiretapping of US phone systems
From Bruce Schneier’s “First Responders” (Crypto-Gram: 15 September 2007): In 2004, the U.S. Conference of Mayors issued a report on communications interoperability. In 25% of the 192 cities surveyed, the police couldn’t communicate with the fire department. In 80% of cities, municipal authorities couldn’t communicate with the FBI, FEMA, and other federal agencies. The source […]
Posted on November 21st, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: politics, security, tech in changing society | Comments Off on A collective action problem: why the cops can’t talk to firemen
Audacity is universally recognized as the number one software program for creating podcasts. Hundreds of thousands of amateurs and professionals alike have created podcasts using Audacity. Podcasting with Audacity: Creating a Podcast With Free Audio Software is designed to get you podcasting as quickly as possible. The first few chapters show you how to install […]
Posted on October 5th, 2007 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, personal, social software, technology | Comments Off on My new book – Podcasting with Audacity – is out!
Froschmäusekrieg: Literally, “war between the frogs and the mice”, a poem attributed to Homer (Batrachomyomachia), a satire about the pointlessness of war or feuding.
Posted on December 11th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: word of the day | Comments Off on Word of the day: Froschmäusekrieg