DNA Tests Raise Privacy Questions

The news was amazing: Police in California used DNA evidence collected decades ago to identify the suspected Golden State Killer, a serial killer and rapist active between the mid-‘70s and mid-‘80s.
Investigators from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department entered the old DNA into online genealogical database GEDmatch and were able to zero in on suspect Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. by linking the DNA sample to relatives in the database.

A suspected serial killer won’t generate much sympathy from the public, but privacy advocates say the case raises a series of difficult questions about uses of DNA.

The Golden State Killer “was absolutely evil,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum. “We can all definitely agree that serial killers should be taken off the street.”

Still, Dixon and other privacy advocates wonder about the repercussions of the case. “There is no privacy right that I know of in regard to this kind of linking,” she said.

Among the major questions:

• What court approvals should police get before searching DNA databases?
• Should police be able to use DNA from distant relatives to track down criminals?
• And how long should DNA evidence be searchable?

These are difficult questions, but Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Criminal Cryptocurrency Miners Target IoT

Cryptomining the IoT: Cryptocurrency mining has caused a run on high-powered graphics cards, but criminal groups are looking for ways to exploit other computing power for mining operations. One target is Internet of Things networks because of the lack of strong security on many IoT devices, reports ZDNet. IoT cryptojacking malware is becoming popular on underground forums.

Secrecy for Slackers: Have you ever sent a message on Slack that you didn’t want your boss to see? Or maybe you’re concerned that someone could forward your Slack conversations. Apparently, you’re not alone. Security consulting firm Minded Security has created a tool, called Shhlack, that allows for encrypted messages in the popular messaging app, Motherboard says.

Hey, something worked! Law enforcement authorities in several countries worked together to take down WebStresser, a large DDoS-for-hire service, in late April. In the week following the takedown, DDoS attacks observed by one security provider dropped by about 60 percent in Europe, BleepingComputer reports.  The drop may have been only temporary, however.

Fake news hits the courts: Malaysia’s controversial new has its first casualties. A Danish citizen has pleaded guilty maliciously publishing a fake news report by posting a YouTube video that appeared to contradict Continue reading

Some Fake News Fighters Embrace AI, Others Seek the Human Touch

Fake news doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, and some entrepreneurs are targeting false news reports with new services designed to alert readers.

Some countries have pushed for new laws to criminalize the creation of fake news – raising questions about government censorship – but these new fake news fighters take a different approach, some using Artificial Intelligence, some using human power, and some using a combination of AI and humans.

Several high-profile fake news fighting services have launched in recent years, some of them driven by the amount of fake news generated during the 2016 U.S. election. These services generally focus on web content appearing to be legitimate news, as an alternative to traditional fact-checking services like Snopes – which takes a broad look at Web-based news and rumors – or PolitiFact – which addresses claims made by politicians and political groups.

The amount of fake news generated during the election campaign was the main reason FightHoax founder Valentinos Tzekas began working on his service two years ago. At the time, Tzekas was a first-year applied informatics student at a Greek university, but he is planning to leave school to work full time on FightHoax.

The 2016 Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: A New Use for Blockchain

Blockchain takes on censorship: Students looking into sexual harassment accusations involving a professor at Peking University in China wrote a letter accusing the school of trying to silence one of them, but the letter was removed from social media outlets for “violating rules.” So some supporters distributed the letter using the Ethereum blockchain, reports Yahoo finance.

Why routing security matters: Hackers used a well-known weakness in Border Gateway Protocol routing to hijack Amazon Web Services’ DNS traffic for about two hours last Tuesday. Attackers were able to redirect an Ethereum wallet developer’s website to a phishing site and steal about $150,000 from MyEtherWallet.com users, ZDNet reports.

Hacking-for-hire site attacked: In this case, law enforcement agencies from 12 countries were the people who shut down hacking-for-hire site Webstresser.org. The site had 136,000 customers and its hackers launched more than 4 million DDoS attacks in recent years, according to Europol. GovTech.com has a story.

Inspecting the IoT: Researchers at Princeton University are launching IoT Inspector, an open-source tool designed to give Internet of Things users insight into the security of their devices. There’s even Raspberry Pi code for the project, says The Register.

Cryptocurrency for the suits: The Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: AI Could Reshape the Music Industry, in a Good Way

AI Hits the Right Notes: Artificial intelligence-generated music is reshaping the industry, but that’s not such a bad thing, notes Billboard.com. AI won’t replace the artists we love or end creativity, but it could empower creators with new songwriting and other tools, the story suggests.

Drilling for AI: Oil producers are also turning to AI to help them with several tasks, according to an interview with oil executive Philippe Herve of SparkCongnition, published in Houston’s Chron.com. AI can assist oil producers with predictive maintenance of their expensive field equipment and help them make sense of all the data they collect, he said.

Collateral damage for app ban: Russia has attempted to shut down messaging app Telegram, after the service refused to provide authorities encryption keys to its software. It’s not going so well, however. Russian’s attempts to block the app have inadvertently knocked out a bunch of small business websites in the country, reports the New York Times. Telegram attempted to get around the ban by shifting its service to U.S. Web hosts Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, while repeatedly changing its IP address. In response, Russia shut down huge blocks of subnets instead of trying Continue reading

New Space Race Could Beam Broadband Everywhere

A new space race is developing, bringing with it the potential to spread broadband to unserved areas of the world.

A handful of satellite companies, including SpaceX, are planning to deploy large-scale, low-orbit constellations that could bring high-speed broadband service to wide geographic areas. SpaceX’s main competitor is one-time partner OneWeb, which like its rival, is planning a huge network of satellites that could blanket most of the Earth with high-speed broadband service.

Other companies are competing as well. While SpaceX and OneWeb plan to launch thousands of satellites in the coming years, Canadian firm Telesat is also planning to offer global coverage through a polar-orbit constellation of just 117. Space Norway plans to cover the Arctic area, and LeoSat plans to specialize in high-speed encrypted services for large businesses.

These proposed services would be in addition to incumbent satellite Internet providers like HughesNet and Exede Internet, which focus on serving the United States.

Proponents of the proposals say they have the potential to offer broadband at speeds that rival wired fiber service. The new providers could achieve faster speeds and lower latency than current generation satellite Internet service using a combination of low orbits, a large number Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: AI Goes to the Dogs

Do you trust this documentary? Do You Trust This Computer? is a new documentary from filmmaker Chris Paine that’s dedicated to the dangers of artificial intelligence. Elon Musk, who’s been vocal about the potential downsides of the technology, appears in the film and has promoted it. But The Verge finds the film a bit overly dramatic, saying “feels more like a trailer for a bad sci-fi movie than a documentary on AI.”

Or you could just get a dog: Speaking of AI, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle are using canine behavior to train an AI system to make dog-like decisions, reports MIT Technology Review.  The researchers are using dog behavior as a way to help AI better learn how to plan, with hopes of helping AI better understand visual intelligence, among other things.

News apps meet the Great Firewall: The Chinese government has temporarily blocked four news apps from being downloaded from Android app stores, ZDNet reports. The apps, with a combined user base of more than 400 million, have been suspended for up to three weeks in an apparent government media crackdown. Meanwhile, Chinese regulators have permanently banned a joke app for supposed vulgar content.

Continue reading

Fake News, Loss of Privacy are Hurting the Internet, Mozilla says

The Internet has a case of the sniffles, with several symptoms keeping it from being as robust as it could be, according to a new Internet Health Report from Mozilla.

Major challenges facing the Internet include a collapse of privacy protections, the unabated spread of fake news, and the consolidation of power at giant tech companies, said Mozilla, the nonprofit creator of the Firefox browser and other open-source software.

Many people “have started to argue that technology companies are becoming too dominant; social media has been weaponized as a tool of harassment; our personal information has been stolen; and democratic processes have been undermined by the manipulation of online media and ads,” the report says.

The software maker called on Internet users to take action by learning how to better protect their privacy and to identify misinformation. “We believe the only way to keep the Internet in the hands of all of us is to ask for it, build it, and demand it,” Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, said by email. “Consumers, governments and technologists need to push for fair competition, open innovation, interoperability and standards so the Internet can evolve in more healthy and humane ways. Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: AI Can Give Workers a Creative Boost, But Many Aren’t Ready

Mixed messages on AI: Artificial intelligence promises to make workers more creative in many fields, according to a story in Inc. AI is already writing scripts and music and designing websites, the story notes. Many workers aren’t quite ready for this assistance, however. About 60 percent of workers in the Washington, D.C., area say their jobs are not preparing them for collaboration with machine intelligence, a story in Washington Business Journal says.

AI inspects your roof: If you’re a homeowner, you know it’s expensive to replace your roof. A startup seeks to take some of the guesswork out of roof replacement decisions by using AI to examine the condition of a house’s roof, according to Forbes.com. The service could be particularly useful for people looking to buy a new home without a spending more money to repair the roof.

Blockchain and AI team up: Here’s a story combining two of our favorite topics: Blockchain and AI. Blockchain could help make AI smarter by ensuring the privacy and security of the data that it collects, according to a story in VentureBeat. Small retailers could get customers to tell them their preferences by using Blockchain technologies to build personalized Continue reading

Countries Consider Penalties for Spreading ‘Fake News’

A handful of countries have recently considered passing new laws or regulations to combat so-called fake news, with Malaysia adding penalties of up to six years in jail for distributors.

Malaysia’s controversial Anti-Fake News 2018 bill, which passed this week, also includes a fine of US$123,000. An earlier draft of the legislation included jail time of up to 10 years. Under the new law, fake news is “news, information, data and reports which is or are wholly or partly false,” as determined by Malaysian courts.

The new Malaysian law covers digital news outlets, including video and audio, and social media, and it applies to anyone who maliciously spreads fake news inside and outside the country, including foreigners, as long as Malaysia or its citizens are affected.

Eric Paulsen, cofounder and executive director of Malaysian civil rights group Lawyers for Liberty, called the new law “shocking.” “Freedom of speech, info & press will be as good as dead in Malaysia,” he tweeted in late March.

The law will create a chilling effect on free speech, Malaysia lawyer Syahredzan Johan wrote in TheStar.com. “While we may hope that the implementation of the bill will be transparent and fair, the Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: IT Pros Know IoT Security Needs Work, But They Aren’t There Yet

What IoT security problem? Most IT professionals realize the Internet of things poses some security risks, but less than a third of them actively monitor for third-party IoT security problems, according to a survey detailed at ZDNet. More than a third of those surveyed said that nobody in their organization is responsible for reviewing the risk-management policies of their IoT vendors.

Some security risks, only faster: Meanwhile, the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security is warning organizations that 5G mobile service may bring the same security risks as earlier mobile standards have. Known flaws in SS7 and Diameter, the signaling protocols used in 2G, 3G, and 4G, could end up in 5G, and allow traffic to be eavesdropped or spoofed, reports ARN.

Community broadband for net neutrality: The American Civil Liberties Union is urging U.S. cities to build their own broadband networks as a way to protect net neutrality principles, now that the Federal Communications Commission has repealed its related regulations. The Hill has a story. Many small U.S. cities are already building their own, in an effort to provide faster or cheaper service than commercial providers, Governing Magazine says.

Fake news in the news: Malaysia Continue reading

SpaceX Gets US Approval to Launch Space-Based Broadband Service

If all goes as planned, Elon Musk’s SpaceX will eventually launch 4,425 satellites into orbit with the goal of delivering broadband service to all corners of the Earth.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, on Wednesday, approved SpaceX’s request to move forward with its space-based broadband proposal, on the condition that the aerospace company launch half of the satellites within six years.

Once deployed, the low-Earth orbit satellites will cover the entire United States, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and eventually, provide “full-time coverage to virtually the entire planet,” the FCC said in its approval order.

SpaceX plans to begin launching the satellites in 2019. About 800 satellites will need to be deployed for the broadband service to be operational. The company, in the midst of launching 10 satellites on Friday, didn’t have an immediate comment on the FCC approval.

The company calls the proposed service “Starlink” and plans to offer wireless broadband speeds comparable to fiber-optic service.

The FCC imposed a number of conditions on SpaceX’s application. Several other satellite operators raised concerns about spectral interference from the SpaceX satellites, and others suggested the large number of satellites would eventually lead to orbital debris, or Continue reading

Let’s Encrypt Offers Free Multi-Domain HTTPS Certificates

Let’s Encrypt, a nonprofit certificate authority launched in 2016, has delivered on its pledge to offer free certificates that enable secure HTTP connections for complete domains.

The organization’s new wildcard certificate service, allowing website operators to secure all subdomains of a domain with a single certificate, should help the Internet become more secure by enabling wider deployment of HTTPS, Josh Aas, executive director of the Internet Security Research Group, wrote in a blog post. (Full disclosure: the Internet Society is a major sponsor of Let’s Encrypt.)

Last July, Let’s Encrypt had promised that it would offer free wildcard certificates. With the recent release of the ACMEv2 [Automatic Certificate Management Environment] Protocol, the organization delivered on that promise.

“Wildcard certificates can make certificate management easier in some cases, and we want to address those cases in order to help get the Web to 100% HTTPS,” Aas wrote. “We’re excited about the prospect of a 100% HTTPS Web and we’re working hard to get there.”

A wildcard certificate isn’t recommended for all websites, Aas noted. In most cases, other certificates, such as single-domain ones, will be more appropriate.

Although wildcard certificates enable streamlined management of HTTPS, some security Continue reading

El cierre de Sri Lanka de los servicios basados en la web genera enormes costos sociales

Un reciente cierre de varios servicios populares basados en la Web en Sri Lanka tuvo como objetivo frenar la violencia de la mafia, pero la acción del gobierno tuvo varias consecuencias imprevistas.

El cierre, ordenado por la administración del presidente Maithripala Sirisena, afectó a Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram y el servicio de llamadas basado en la web Viber. Los servicios se cerraron el 7 de marzo y fueron restaurados el 14 y 15 de marzo.

El gobierno intentó cortar las comunicaciones entre los organizadores de turbas violentas, pero el cierre tuvo un gran impacto en una amplia franja de usuarios de Internet, dijo Sagarika Wickramasekera, presidente del Capítulo Internet Society’s Sri Lanka.

[Read the March 14 statement of the ISOC Sri Lanka Chapter.]

Leer la nota en inglés

Para obtener más información sobre los cierres de Internet y su costo social y económico, consulte por favor:

• Internet Society Policy Brief: Internet Shutdowns
• Internet Society Perspectives on Internet Content Blocking
• Internet and Human Rights Resource Center

The post El cierre de Sri Lanka de los servicios basados en la web genera enormes costos sociales appeared first on Internet Society.

Sri Lankan Shutdown of Web-Based Services Creates Huge Social Costs

A recent week-long shutdown of several popular Web-based services in Sri Lanka was intended to clamp down on mob violence, but the government action had several unintended consequences.

The shutdown, ordered by President Maithripala Sirisena’s administration, affected Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Web-based calling service Viber. The services shut down on March 7 and were restored on March 14 and 15.

The government’s tried to cut off communications between organizers of violent mobs, but the shutdown had a huge impact on a wide swath of Internet users, said Sagarika Wickramasekera, president of Internet Society’s Sri Lanka chapter.

Because of the loss of social media and calling services, “those who had loved ones in the violence-ridden areas had to go through stressful period of time without any contact with them,” she said.

Facebook-based volunteer groups, civil society activists and other social movements lost contact with their audiences, she added. “This reduced the circulation of validated content and education hence the peace and harmony,” Wickramasekera added. “People had to rely on rumors.”

Businesses and other organizations use WhatsApp and Viber as productivity tools, and their customer communications were disrupted. Small businesses and home-based workers “who were totally depended on social media marketing Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Good Time to Be in IoT Security

Good time to be in IoT security: Spending on Internet of Things security products and services will rise to $1.5 billion in 2018, up 28 percent from 2017, estimates Gartner. IoT security spending will skyrocket to $3 billion a year in 2021, according to a story in DarkReading.

Facebook breached? It was hard to avoid the recent news involving Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm used by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The company acquired data on about 50 million Facebook users – getting the data from a researcher – in an effort to build voting profiles for those people. Facebook has called the unauthorized use of its user data a “breach of trust,” while some critics have suggested it’s a plain old data breach, according to a story on Time.com. Meanwhile, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told CNN he’s happy to comply with congressional requests to testify “if it’s the right thing to do.”

Blockchain takes over the world: Google is planning to roll out a Blockchain feature for its cloud-computing service, The Verge reports. The company could potentially license its Blockchain service for other firms to run on their servers. Meanwhile, Chinese telecom and networking vendor Huawei Continue reading

Fake News Spreads Fast, but Don’t Blame the Bots

Fake news spreads much faster than real news, and real people – not bots – are to blame, according to a recent study.

Fake news – defined by the researchers as stories debunked by six major fact-checking services – can spread 10 times faster than legitimate news stories, according to the study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The researchers studied rumors spread on Twitter between the service’s launch in 2006 and 2017. While some U.S. lawmakers and other critics have blamed automated bots for the spread of fake news before the 2016 election, the MIT researchers filtered out tweets spread by bots for their study.

The researchers found that false news not only spread faster than true stories, but it also had a much wider reach, according to the study, published this month in Science. The top 1 percent of news “cascades” – the researchers’ word for widely spread tweets – reached between 1,000 and 100,000 people, while Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Quantum Computing vs. Encryption

RIP encryption? Quantum computers, cutting-edge machines that promise to be much more powerful than binary PCs, could eventually defeat current encryption schemes, said Jason Matheny, director of the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. The agency is looking for new encryption standards that could stay ahead of quantum computers, he told Federal News Radio.

Taking fake news by surprise: During the SXSW conference, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced plans to add Wikipedia text to videos the service determines to be conspiracy related. YouTube didn’t notify Wikipedia of its proposal to fight fake news and conspiracy theories, however, reports The Verge. While the Wikimedia Foundation doesn’t require notice or a licensing deal for other organizations to use its content, it suggested companies that repurpose its articles contribute to the service in the “spirit of sustainability.” Vanity Fair called the YouTube announcement a “Band-Aid” for a much larger problem.

Blockchain the vote: Sierra Leone has used Blockchain technology to assist with a nationwide election this month, according to a story in Quartz. In the country’s most populous district, Swiss foundation Agora offered digital voting services using a permissioned Blockchain. The goal was more system transparency by recording each vote using Continue reading

Short-term Internet Shutdown in Bali Tied to Holiday

The Indonesian province of Bali has asked mobile providers to shut down customers’ access to the Internet during Nyepi, a Hindu holiday known as the Day of Silence.

Mobile Internet access will be cut off at 6 a.m. local time Saturday, March 17, and the island’s airport will also close for 24 hours during the New Year celebration. Other Internet access will be available during the holiday, the Bali government said.

Internet advocates oppose shutdowns, saying they can hurt local economies and endanger users who depend on connections to contact emergency and health services. Internet shutdowns cost countries $2.4 billion in 2015, according to a Brookings Institute study.

“In a globally connected world, social and economic freedoms depend on reliable access to the Internet,” Sally Shipman Wentworth, the Internet Society’s vice president of global policy development, wrote in Quartz recently. “The internet is the lifeline to the global economy and each shutdown contributes to a more divided world.”

Without Internet access, many business activities are also disrupted, she said. Digital payments can’t be made, contracts can’t be signed, and data in the cloud can’t be accessed.

Although the Internet outage in Bali is limited, it can Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: AI Ain’t Gonna Steal My Job

AI on the job: Many U.S. residents believe that artificial intelligence will replace some workers over the next decade or so, but it won’t take theirs, according to a story in the New York Times. But it’s not all doom and gloom, because advances in AI and robotics can actually create more jobs, Tim Johnson, CEO of IT staffing firm Mondo, writes in Forbes.

Fixing the IoT: The U.K. government issued a set of guidelines for Internet-of-things device makers to better secure their products. Among the recommendations: Issue regular software updates, get rid of default passwords, and warn customers promptly about vulnerabilities. Ok, so it’s not rocket science, but it seems that some IoT device makers haven’t done some of these things in the past. Some critics also believe the guidelines lack teeth, according to a story in ITpro.

The Blockchain election: The use of Blockchain technologies could help resolve some continuing problems with voting, according to a story by Bitcoin Magazine run on Nasdaq.com. The use of a Blockchain ledger could address the old “hanging chad” problem from the 2000 U.S. election, and it could bring new privacy and security to elections, according to the Continue reading