A Technical Shift in Banking Security
July 23, 2015
Banks may soon transition from asking for your mother’s maiden name to tracking your physical behavior in the name of keeping you (and their assets) safe. IT ProPortal examines “Fraud Prevention: Knowledge-Based Ananlytics in Steep Decline.” Writer Lara Lackie cites a recent report from the Aite Group that indicates a shift from knowledge-based analytics to behavioral analytics for virtual security checkpoints. Apparently, “behavioral analytics” is basically biometrics without the legal implications. Lackie writes:
“Examples of behavioural analytics/biometrics can include the way someone types, holds their device or otherwise interacts with it. When combined, continuous behavioural analysis, and compiled behavioural biometric data, deliver far more intelligence than traditionally available without interrupting the user’s experience….
Julie Conroy, research director, Aite Group, said in the report “When the biometric is paired with strong device authentication, it is even more difficult to defeat. Many biometric solutions also include liveliness checks, to ensure it’s a human being on the other end.’
“NuData Security’s NuDetect online fraud engine, which uses continuous behavioural analysis and compiled behavioral biometric data, is able to predict fraud as early as 15 days before a fraud attempt is made. The early detection offered by NuDetect provides organisations the time to monitor, understand and prevent fraudulent transactions from taking place.”
The Aite report shows over half the banks surveyed plan to move away from traditional security questions over the next year, and six of the 19 institutions plan to enable mobile-banking biometrics by the end of this year. Proponents of the approach laud behavioral analytics as the height of fraud detection. Are Swype patterns and indicators of “liveliness” covered by privacy rights? That seems like a philosophical question to me.
Cynthia Murrell, July 23, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Quality Peer Reviews Are More Subjective Than Real Science
July 16, 2015
Peer reviewed journals are supposed to have an extra degree of authority, because a team of experts read and critiqued an academic work. Science 2.0 points out in the article, “Peer Review Is Subjective And The Quality Is Highly Variable” that peer-reviewed journals might not be worth their weight in opinions.
Peer reviews are supposed to be objective criticisms of work, but personal beliefs and political views are working their way into the process and have been for some time. It should not come as a surprise, when academia has been plagued by this problem for decades. It also has also been discussed, but peer review problems are brushed under the rug. In true academic fashion, someone is conducting a test to determine how reliable peer review comments are:
“A new paper on peer review discusses the weaknesses we all see – it is easy to hijack peer review when it is a volunteer effort that can drive out anyone who does not meet the political or cultural litmus test. Wikipedia is dominated by angry white men and climate science is dominated by different angry white men, but in both cases they were caught conspiring to block out anyone who dissented from their beliefs. Then there is the fluctuating nature of guidelines. Some peer review is lax if you are a member, like at the National Academy of Sciences, while the most prominent open access journal is really editorial review, where they check off four boxes and it may never go to peer review or require any data, especially if it matches the aesthetic self-identification of the editor or they don’t want to be yelled at on Twitter.”
The peer review problem is getting worse in the digital landscape. There are suggested solutions, such as banning all fees associated with academic journals and databases, homogenizing review criteria across fields, but the problems would be far from corrected. Reviewers are paid to review works, which likely involves kickbacks of some kind. Also trying to get different academic journals, much less different fields to standardize an issue will take a huge amount of effort and work, if they can come to any sort of agreement.
Fixing the review system will not be done quickly and anytime money is involved, the process is slowed even further. In short, academic journals are far from being objective, which is why it pays to do your own research and take everything with a grain of salt.
Whitney Grace, July 16, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Russian High Tech Propaganda
June 1, 2015
The Soviet Union was known for its propaganda, and Russia under Vladimir Putin seems to have brought the art into the digital age. The Guardian gives us the inside scoop in, “Salutin’ Putin: Inside a Russian Troll House.” Journalists spoke to two writers who were formerly among the hundreds working at the nondescript headquarters of Russia’s “troll army” in St Petersburg. There, writers are tasked with lauding Putin and lambasting the evils of the West in posts and comment sections on a wide variety of websites. Though the organization cannot be directly tied to the Kremlin, it’s reported the entity does not pay any taxes and does not register its employees. It does, however, seem to have grown heartily in the two years since Russia went (back) into the Ukraine.
It is said that working conditions at the “troll house” involve 12-hour shifts, a dreary environment, strict rules, and low pay, though that sounds no different from conditions in many jobs around the world. Workers describe writing a certain number of “ordinary posts” about things like music, travel, or dating advice; writers are responsible for coming up with those topics themselves. Interspersed with such bland content, however, they write pieces asserting political perspectives assigned to them each morning. Editors check carefully to make sure the stories are on point.
I’d recommend reading through the whole article, but this is the section that struck me most:
“‘I would go home at the end of the day and see all the same news items on the television news. It was obvious that the decisions were coming from somewhere,’ said Marat. Many people have accused Russian television of ramping up propaganda over the past 18 months in its coverage of Ukraine, so much so that the EU even put Dmitry Kiselev, an opinionated television host and director of a major news agency, on its sanctions list.
“After two months of working in the troll agency, Marat began to feel he was losing his sanity, and decided he had to leave. From the snatched conversations over coffee, he noted that the office was split roughly 50/50 between people who genuinely believed in what they were doing, and those who thought it was stupid but wanted the money. Occasionally, he would notice people changing on the job.
“‘Of course, if every day you are feeding on hate, it eats away at your soul. You start really believing in it. You have to be strong to stay clean when you spend your whole day submerged in dirt,’ he said.”
Sounds like some people I know who always have a certain U.S. news channel blasting away in the background. Writer Shaun Walker is unsure whether the site they found in St Petersburg is the only location for this activity, or whether there are other hubs throughout Russia. The effectiveness of such propaganda on Russian citizens, however, seems clear to Russian journalist Andrei Soshnikov (quoted in the article), especially with the older, less tech-savvy set. As disheartening as these revelations are, they should not be surprising.
Cynthia Murrell, June 1, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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