Anonymous Hacks Turkish Cops
May 16, 2016
Anonymous has struck again, this time hacking the Turkish General Directorate of Security (EGM) in its crusade against corruption. The International Business Times reports, “Anonymous: Hacker Unleashes 17.8 GB Trove of Data from a Turkish National Police Server.” It is believed that the hacker responsible is ROR[RG], who was also deemed responsible for last year’s Adult Friend Finder breach. The MySQL-friendly files are now available for download at TheCthulhu website, which seems to be making a habit of posting hacked police data.
Why has Anonymous targeted Turkey? Reporter Jason Murdock writes:
“Anonymous has an established history with carrying out cyberattacks against Turkey. In 2015 the group, which is made up of a loose collection of hackers and hacktivists from across the globe, officially ‘declared war’ on the country. In a video statement, the collective accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an’s government of supporting the Islamic State (Isis), also known as Daesh.
“’Turkey is supporting Daesh by buying oil from them, and hospitalising their fighters,’ said a masked spokesperson at the time. ‘We won’t accept that Erdogan, the leader of Turkey, will help Isis any longer. If you don’t stop supporting Isis, we will continue attacking your internet […] stop this insanity now Turkey. Your fate is in your own hands.’”
We wonder how Turkey will respond to this breach, and what nuggets of troublesome information will be revealed. We are also curious to see what Anonymous does next; stay tuned.
Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Amusing Mistake Illustrates Machine Translation Limits
May 12, 2016
Machine translation is not quite perfect yet, but we’ve been assured that it will be someday. That’s the upshot of Business Insider’s piece, “This Microsoft Exec’s Hilarious Presentation Fail Shows Why Computer Translation is so Difficult.” Writer Matt Weinberger relates an anecdote shared by Microsoft research head Peter Lee. The misstep occurred during a 2015 presentation, for which Lee set up Skype Translator to translate his words over the speakers into Mandarin as he went. Weinberger writes:
“Part of Lee’s speech involved a personal story of growing up in a ‘snowy town’ in upper Michigan. He noticed that most of the crowd was enraptured — except for a few native Chinese speakers in the crowd who couldn’t stop giggling. After the presentation, Lee says he asked one of those Chinese speakers the reason for the laughter. It turns out that ‘snowy town’ translates into ‘Snow White’s Town.’ Which seems innocent enough, except that it turns out that ‘Snow White’s town’ is actually Chinese slang for ‘a town where a prostitute lives,’ Lee says. Whoops.
“Lee says it wasn’t caught in the profanity filters because there weren’t actually any bad words in the phrase. But it’s the kind of regional flavor where a direct translation of the words can’t bring across the meaning.”
Whoops indeed. The article notes that another problem with Skype Translator is its penchant for completely disregarding non-word utterances, like “um” and “ahh,” that often carry necessary meaning. We’re reminded, though, that these and other problems are expected to be ironed out within the next few years, according to Microsoft Research chief scientist Xuedong Huang. I wonder how many more amusing anecdotes will arise in the meantime.
Cynthia Murrell, May 12, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
European Cybersecurity Companies
May 8, 2016
We’ve run across an interesting list of companies at Let’s Talk Payments, “Europe’s Elite Cybersecurity Club.” The bare-bones roster names and links to 28 cybersecurity companies, with a brief description of each. See the original for the descriptions, but here are their entries:
SpamTitan, Gemalto, Avira, itWatch, BT, Sophos, DFLabs, ImmuniWeb, Silent Circle, Deep-Secure, SentryBay , AVG Technologies, Clearswift, ESNC, DriveLock, BitDefender, neXus, Thales, Cryptovision, Secunia, Osirium, Qosmos, Digital Shadows, F-Secure, Smoothwall, Brainloop, TrulyProtect, and Enorasys Security Analytics
It is a fine list as far as it goes, but we notice it is not exactly complete. For example, where is FinFisher’s parent company, Gamma International? Still, the list is a concise and valuable source for anyone interested in learning more about these companies.
Cynthia Murrell, May 8, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Local News Station Produces Dark Web Story
April 22, 2016
The Dark Web continues to emerge as a subject of media interest for growing audiences. An article, Dark Web Makes Illegal Drug, Gun Purchases Hard To Trace from Chicago CBS also appears to have been shared as a news segment recently. Offering some light education on the topic, the story explains the anonymity possible for criminal activity using the Dark Web and Bitcoin. The post describes how these tools are typically used,
“Within seconds of exploring the deep web we found over 15,000 sales for drugs including heroin, cocaine and marijuana. In addition to the drugs we found fake Illinois drivers licenses, credit card and bank information and dangerous weapons. “We have what looks to be an assault rifle, AK 47,” said Petefish. That assault rifle AK 47 was selling for 10 bitcoin which would be about $4,000. You can buy bitcoins at bitcoin ATM machines using cash, leaving very little trace of your identity. Bitcoin currency along with the anonymity and encryption used on the dark web makes it harder for authorities to catch criminals, but not impossible.”
As expected, this piece touches on the infamous Silk Road case along with some nearby cases involving local police. While the Dark Web and cybercrime has been on our radar for quite some time, it appears mainstream media interest around the topic is slowly growing. Perhaps those with risk to be affected, such as businesses, government and law enforcement agencies will also continue catching on to the issues surrounding the Dark Web.
Megan Feil, April 22, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Marketing Case for Value from Dark Web
April 19, 2016
For marketers crying for more user data, the Dark Web may present a challenge — or not. A longread article, Bitcoin Remains Most Popular Digital Currency on Dark Web from Coin Desk reiterates the landscape of the Dark Web is more nuanced than the headlines screaming cybercrime suggest. Despite the inability to know users’ locations, identities and interests, which may worry marketers, several points are raised asking marketers if there is possibility for value in the Dark Web. Explaining more about the potential benefits to marketing and sales, cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs is quoted,
“‘Plenty of would-be, legitimate consumers come from regions of the world where perhaps governments don’t want their consumers visiting certain places or buying certain items. And for those consumers, [the Dark Web] can be a boon, and potential positive for retailers and marketers,’ Krebs writes in an e-mail. Krebs goes on to say that much of the supposed danger posed by the Dark Web is nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to cybersecurity.”
This useful piece not only provides insights into how the marketing industry views Tor, but also serves as a handy layman’s guide to Dark Web (synonymous with darknet and dark net) terminology and a brief history. Additionally, the founder of Adland presents an interesting case for opening a .onion site to complement a site on the Surface Web, or the “regular” internet.
Megan Feil, April 19, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Data on Dark Web Not Excused from Fact or Fiction Debate
April 19, 2016
Remember when user information was leaked from the extramarital affairs website AshleyMadison? While the leak caused many controversies, the release of this information specifically on the Dark Web gives reason to revisit an article from Mashable, Another blow for Ashley Madison: User emails leaked on Dark Web as a refresher on the role Tor played. A 10-gigabyte file was posted as a Torrent on the Dark Web which included emails and credit card information among other user data. The article concluded,
“With the data now out there, Internet users are downloading and sifting through it for anything – or, rather, anyone – of note. Lists of email addresses of AshleyMadison users are being circulated on social media. Several appear to be connected to members of the UK government but are likely fake. As Wired notes, the site doesn’t require email verification, meaning the emails could be fake or even hijacked.”
The future of data breaches and leaks may be unclear, but the falsification of information — leaked or otherwise — always remains a possibility. Regardless of the element of scandal existing in future leaks, it is important to note that hackers and other groups are likely not above manipulation of information.
Megan Feil, April 19, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google Search, Jr.
April 6, 2016
As a kid friendly society, we cater to the younger generations by making “child friendly” versions of everything from books to meals. When the Internet made headway into our daily lives, kid friendly dashboards were launched to keep the young ones away from pedophiles and to guarantee they only saw age-appropriate content. The kid protocols sucked, for lack of better terms, because the people designing them were not the greatest at judging content.
With more tech-savvy, child wise Web developers running the show now, there are more kid friendly products with more intelligence behind their design. One of the main Internet functions that parents wish were available for their offspring is a safe search engine, but so far their answers have been ignored.
The Metro reports there is now a “New Search Engine Kiddle Is Like Google For Children-Here’s What It Does.” Kiddle’s purpose is to filter results that are safe for kids to read and also is written in simple language.
Kiddle is not affiliated with the search engine giant, however:
“Kiddle is not an official Google product, but the company uses a customized Google search to deliver child-friendly results. Kiddle uses Google colors but instead of the traditional white background has adopted an outer space theme, fit with a friendly robot. It will work in the same manner as Google but its search will be heavily filtered.”
The results will be filleted as such: the first three sites will be kid friendly, four through seven will be written in simple language, and the remaining will be from regular Google filtered through by the Kiddle search.
Kids need to understand how to evaluate content and use it wisely, but the Internet prevents them from making the same judgments other generations learned, as they got older. However, kids are also smarter than we think so a “kid friendly” search tool is usually dumbed down to the cradle. Kiddle appears to have the best of both worlds, at least it is better than parental controls.
Whitney Grace, April 6, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Forget World Population, Domain Population Is Overcrowded
April 5, 2016
Back in the 1990s, if you had a Web site without a bunch of gobbidly-gook after the .com, you were considered tech savvy and very cool. There were plenty of domain names available in those days and as the Internet became more of a tool than a novelty, demand for names rose. It is not as easy anymore to get the desired Web address, says Phys.org in the article, “Overcrowded Internet Domain Space Is Stifling Demand, Suggesting A Future ‘Not-Com’ Boom.”
Domain names are being snapped up fast, so quickly, in fact, that Web development is being stunted. As much as 25% of domains are being withheld, equaling 73 million as of summer 2015 with the inability to register domain names that would drive Internet traffic.
“However, as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has begun to roll out the option to issue brand new top-level domains for almost any word, whether it’s dot-hotel, dot-books or dot-sex – dubbed the ‘not-coms’ – the research suggests there is substantial untapped demand that could fuel additional growth in the domain registrations.”
One of the factors that determine prime Internet real estate is a simple, catchy Web address. With new domains opening up beyond the traditional .org, .com, .net, .gov endings, an entire new market is also open for entrepreneurs to profit from. People are already buying not-com’s for cheap with the intention to resale them for a pretty penny. It bears to mention, however, that once all of the hot not-com’s are gone, we will be in the same predicament as we are now. How long will that take?
Whitney Grace, April 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Slack Hires Noah Weiss
March 29, 2016
One thing you can always count on the tech industry is talent will jump from company to company to pursue the best and most innovating endeavors. The latest tech work to jump ship is Eric Weiss, he leaps from Foursquare to head a new Search, Learning, & Intelligence Group at Slack. VentureBeat reports the story in “Slack Forms Search, Learning, & Intelligence Group On ‘Mining The Chat Corpus.’” Slack is a team communication app and their new Search, Learning, & Intelligence Group will be located in the app’s new New York office.
Weiss commented on the endeavor:
“ ‘The focus is on building features that make Slack better the bigger a company is and the more it uses Slack,” Weiss wrote today in a Medium post. “The success of the group will be measured in how much more productive, informed, and collaborative Slack users get — whether a company has 10, 100, or 10,000 people.’”
For the new group, Weiss wants to hire experts who are talented in the fields of artificial intelligence, information retrieval, and natural language processing. From this talent search, he might be working on a project that will help users to find specific information in Slack or perhaps they will work on mining the chap corpus.
Other tech companies have done the same. Snapchat built a research team that uses artificial intelligence to analyze user content. Flipboard and Pinterest are working on new image recognition technology. Meanwhile Google, Facebook, Baidu, and Microsoft are working on their own artificial intelligence projects.
What will artificial intelligence develop into as more companies work on their secret projects.
Whitney Grace, March 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Wikipedia Grants Users Better Search
March 24, 2016
Wikipedia is the defacto encyclopedia to confirm fact from fiction, although academic circles shun its use (however, scholars do use it but never cite it). Wikipedia does not usually make the news, unless it is tied to its fundraising campaign or Wikileaks releases sensitive information meant to remain confidential. The Register tells us that Wikipedia makes the news for another reason, “Reluctant Wikipedia Lifts Lid On $2.5m Internet Search Engine Project.” Wikipedia is better associated with the cataloging and dissemination of knowledge, but in order to use that knowledge it needs to be searched.
Perhaps that is why the Wikimedia Foundation is “doing a Google” and will be investing a Knight Foundation Grant into a search-related project. The Wikimedia Foundation finally released information about the Knight Foundation Grant, dedicated to provide funds for companies invested in innovative solutions related to information, community, media, and engagement.
“The grant provides seed money for stage one of the Knowledge Engine, described as “a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy information on the Internet”. It’s all about search and federation. The discovery stage includes an exploration of prototypes of future versions of Wikipedia.org which are “open channels” rather than an encyclopedia, analysing the query-to-content path, and embedding the Wikipedia Knowledge Engine ‘via carriers and Original Equipment Manufacturers’.”
The discovery stage will last twelve months, ending in August 2016. The biggest risk for the search project would be if Google or Yahoo decided to invest in something similar.
What is interesting is that former Wiki worker Jimmy Wales denied the Wikimedia Foundation was working on a search engine via the Knowledge Engine. Wales has since left and Andreas Kolbe reported in a Wikipedia Signpost article that they are building a search engine and led to believe it would be to find information spread cross the Wikipedia portals, rather it is something much more powerful.
Here is what the actual grant is funding:
“To advance new models for finding information by supporting stage one development of the Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia, a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy public information on the Internet.”
It sounds like a search engine that provides true and verifiable search results, which is what academic scholars have been after for years! Wow! Wikipedia might actually be worth a citation now.
Whitney Grace, March 24, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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