Ramblings & ephemera
From Charles Platt’s “The Profits of Fear” (August 2005):
It seems to me axiomatic that most primary actors on the global stage are disturbed people, because an obsessive lust for power is itself a pathology, and in a competition among thousands or millions of power seekers, only the most pathological are likely to win. …
I think [...]
Posted on July 31st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, politics | Comments Off
From Dana Priest’s “CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons” (The Washington Post: 2 November 2005):
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison [...]
Posted on July 18th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, law, politics, security | Comments Off
From Bruce Schneier’s “Color-Coded Terrorist Threat Levels” (Crypto-Gram Newsletter: 15 January 2004):
The color-coded threat alerts issued by the Department of Homeland Security are useless today, but may become useful in the future. The U.S. military has a similar system; DEFCON 1-5 corresponds to the five threat alerts levels: Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange, and Red. The [...]
Posted on July 13th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, politics, security | Comments Off
From Bruce Schneier’s “News” (Crypto-Gram Newsletter: 15 January 2004):
Last month Bush snuck into law one of the provisions of the failed PATRIOT ACT 2. The FBI can now obtain records from financial institutions without requiring permission from a judge. The institution can’t tell the target person that his records were taken by the FBI. And [...]
Posted on July 11th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, business, politics, security | Comments Off
From John Twelve Hawks’s “ How We Live Now” (2005):
In his insightful book “The Culture of Fear,” Barry Glassner shows how many of our specific fears are created and sustained by media manipulation. There can be an enormous discrepancy between what we fear and the reality of what could happen to us. Glassner analyzes several [...]
Posted on July 6th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, politics, security | Comments Off
From John Twelve Hawks’s “ How We Live Now” (2005):
The passports contain a radio frequency identification chip (RFID) so that all our personal information can be instantly read by a machine at the airport. However, the State Department has refused to encrypt the information embedded in the chip, because it requires more complicated technology that [...]
Posted on July 6th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, history, law, politics, security | Comments Off
From Napoleonic Literature’s “The Court and Camp of Buonaparte: The Ministers: Fouche“:
But whatever might be the merit of his services at Nantes, it was far eclipsed by those he had soon afterwards the happiness to perform at Lyons. On his arrival there with Collot d’Herbois, he announced to the terrified citizens the reward they [...]
Posted on July 5th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, history, politics | Comments Off
From Central Missouri State University’s “Joseph Fouche“:
As chief police officer of the revolutionary government, Fouché was given the power to impose the government’s policies quickly and mercilessly. He demonstrated his willingness to accomplish this feat when, after the population of Lyons revolted against the government, he personally presided over the mass executions in that unhappy [...]
Posted on July 5th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, history | Comments Off
From Bruce Schneier’s “Movie Plot Threat Contest: Status Report” (Crypto-Gram Newsletter: 15 May 2006):
… you have to wonder why there have been no terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11. I don’t believe the “flypaper theory” that the terrorists are all in Iraq instead of in the U.S. And despite all the ineffectual security we’ve [...]
Posted on June 19th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, history, politics, security | Comments Off
From Bruce Schneier’s “Airport Passenger Screening” (Crypto-Gram Newsletter: 15 April 2006):
It seems like every time someone tests airport security, airport security fails. In tests between November 2001 and February 2002, screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 30 percent of guns, and 60 percent of (fake) bombs. And recently, testers were able to smuggle bomb-making parts [...]
Posted on June 19th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, law, science, security | Comments Off
From Matt Tanase’s Don’t let this happen to you:
Smaller companies often assume they have nothing of interest to hackers. Often times that is the case, but they are still after resources, as in this case. Unfortunately, the hackers in this case are tied to Al Qaeda. They placed the recent hostage video on a California [...]
Posted on June 14th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, business, security | Comments Off
From John Diamond and Leslie Cauley’s “Pre-9/11 records help flag suspicious calling” (USA TODAY: 22 May 2006):
Armed with details of billions of telephone calls, the National Security Agency used phone records linked to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to create a template of how phone activity among terrorists looks, say current and former intelligence officials [...]
Posted on June 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, law, politics | Comments Off
From MIT Technology Review’s’ “Blindfolding Big Brother, Sort of“:
In 1983, entrepreneur Jeff Jonas founded Systems Research and Development (SRD), a firm that provided software to identify people and determine who was in their circle of friends. In the early 1990s, the company moved to Las Vegas, where it worked on security software for casinos. Then, [...]
Posted on May 14th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Webster U: InfoSec Management, security | Comments Off
From Technology Review’s “Terror’s Server“:
Zittrain [Jonathan Zittrain, codirector of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School] concurs with Neumann [Peter Neumann, a computer scientist at SRI International, a nonprofit research institute in Menlo Park, CA] but also predicts an impending overreaction. Terrorism or no terrorism, he sees a convergence of security, [...]
Posted on April 18th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, security | Comments Off
From Technology Review’s “Terror’s Server“:
For example, research suggests that people with nefarious intent tend to exhibit distinct patterns in their use of e-mails or online forums like chat rooms. Whereas most people establish a wide variety of contacts over time, those engaged in plotting a crime tend to keep in touch only with a very [...]
Posted on April 18th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Social Software, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society | Comments Off
From Technology Review’s “Terror’s Server“:
According to [Gabriel] Weimann [professor of communications at University of Haifa], the number of [terror-related] websites has leapt from only 12 in 1997 to around 4,300 today. …
These sites serve as a means to recruit members, solicit funds, and promote and spread ideology. …
The September 11 hijackers used conventional tools like [...]
Posted on April 18th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, politics | Comments Off
From Bruce Schneier’s “Searching Bags in Subways“:
Final note: I often get comments along the lines of “Stop criticizing stuff; tell us what we should do.” My answer is always the same. Counterterrorism is most effective when it doesn’t make arbitrary assumptions about the terrorists’ plans. Stop searching bags on the subways, and spend the money [...]
Posted on April 6th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, security | Comments Off
From “New search engine to help thwart terrorists“:
With news that the London bombers were British citizens, radicalised on the streets of England and with squeaky-clean police records, comes the realisation that new mechanisms for hunting terrorists before they strike must be developed.
Researchers at the University of Buffalo, US, believe they have discovered a technique that [...]
Posted on April 2nd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Writing Ideas, security | Comments Off
From Bruce Schneier’s “The Silliness of Secrecy“, quoting The Wall Street Journal:
Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, the federal government has advised airplane pilots against flying near 100 nuclear power plants around the country or they will be forced down by fighter jets. But pilots say there’s a hitch in the instructions: aviation security officials refuse [...]
Posted on April 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: True Stories, security | Comments Off
From Bruce Schneier’s “White Powder Anthrax Hoaxes“:
Earlier this month, there was an anthrax scare at the Indonesian embassy in Australia. Someone sent them some white powder in an envelope, which was scary enough. Then it tested positive for bacillus. The building was decontaminated, and the staff was quarantined for twelve hours. By then, tests came [...]
Posted on April 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Writing Ideas, science, security | Comments Off
Bookmarked a link: Widgetbox › World's largest widget directory and gallery - web widgets for Facebook apps, Blogger, TypePad, MySpace, Wordpress and more
Added 2 products to their wishlist:
Bookmarked 4 links
Added a product to their wishlist:
Bookmarked a link: Opposing Views: Issues, Experts, Answers
I'm showing my students in Blogs to Wikis how to use TwitterFox, a Twitter extension for Firefox.
Just gave more $$$ to a certain political candidate. Guess who! :)