Cody Taylor

Slatterz writes “Cisco has inked a deal with NASA to build a new global system for tracking climate change. Dubbed ‘Planetary Skin,’ the network platform will connect a number of sensor and recording units throughout the planet in an effort to gather data for monitoring and tracking changes to the global climate. The company plans to begin building the system next year with a program called ‘Rainforest Skin’ which will track both climate change and deforestation in rainforest environments. Eventually, the company plans to take the system throughout the planet and create a global network of data-collecting systems for the project. A podcast and a video explain the project in further detail.”

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LimeWire’s new software illustrates a growing trend: “darknets” are becoming simple to setup and use. As millions of people now find that they can easily create their own private share networks, what’s in store for content industry investigators who rely on public P2P networks to find suspected file-sharers?

nodialtone writes with a Reuters report that Rod Beckstrom, director of the National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC), has tendered his resignation, citing clashes between the NCSC and the NSA with regard to who handles the nation’s online security efforts. In his resignation letter (PDF), he made the point that “The intelligence culture is very different than a network operations or security culture,” and said he wasn’t willing to “subjugate the NCSC underneath the NSA.” He also complained of budget roadblocks which kept the NCSC from receiving more than five weeks of funding in the past year. Wired has a related story from late February which discusses comments from Admiral Dennis Blair, director of National Intelligence, who thinks cyber security should be the NSA’s job to begin with.

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krebsatwpost writes “The Washington Post ran a piece earlier this week that confronts the myth that cyber criminal gangs in Russia and Eastern Europe avoid attacking their own, pointing to numerous examples of late that counter this common misconception. The story draws on data from Team Cyrmu about distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) that target Russian and E. European organizations, intel from McAfee about Russian banks and federal agencies that appear to be under control over cyber gangs there, and tens of gigabytes of data stolen via keyloggers that disproportionately impact Russian systems, including that of a top Gazprom official. The piece begins: ‘If you ask security experts why more cyber criminals aren’t brought to justice, the answer you will probably hear is that US authorities simply aren’t getting the cooperation they need from law enforcement officials in Russia and other Eastern European nations, where some of the world’s most active cyber criminal gangs are thought to operate with impunity. But I wonder whether authorities in those countries would be any more willing to pursue cyber crooks in their own countries if they were forced to confront just how deeply those groups have penetrated key government and private computer networks in those regions?'”

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mikesd81 writes “ZDNet Australia writes that NSW state corporation RailCorp has threatened a Sydney software developer with legal action if he fails to withdraw a train timetable application that is currently the second-most-popular application in its category in Apple’s App Store. Alvin Singh created Transit Sydney after he began teaching himself how to program in Cocoa Mobile. Within days of its Feb 18 release, Singh received a cease and desist notice from Rail Corporation NSW, the government body that administers Sydney’s CityRail network. The email states: ‘I advise that copyright in all CityRail timetables is owned by RailCorp. … Any use of these timetables in a manner which breaches copyright by a third party can only occur through the grant of a suitable licence by RailCorp.'”

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mask.of.sanity writes “The Australian government is trialling a new Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) system built by Aussie scientists. QKD is considered the world’s toughest security because the slightest attempt to intercept the one time keys, coded into lasers at the quantum level, will disrupt the beam. The technology differs from current cryptography tech primarily because it’s cheap. Well, less than the $US100k price tag of rival systems. It uses off-the-shelf networking gear instead of proprietary technology, and is built on open standards, so it’s easier to install. The random key is encoded at the quantum level in the sidebeam in the phase and amplitude, or brightness and colour, of a highly tuned laser beam. The creators, who built the system in part for their Ph.Ds, said it can be used to transport the most sensitive data like critical infrastructure and secret commercial IP. The days of hand-delivered security keys are numbered.”

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CWmike writes “Microsoft said today that it will deliver three security updates on Tuesday, one of them marked ‘critical,’ but will not fix an Excel flaw that attackers are now exploiting. ‘It doesn’t look like we’re going to see patches for any open Microsoft security advisories,’ said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, pointing to three that have not yet been closed. Those include two advisories issued last year — one from April 2008, another from December — and the Excel alert published last week. ‘I’m not really surprised that the Excel vulnerability won’t be patched, what with the timeline,’ said Storms, ‘but the others have been open for a long time.'”

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An anonymous reader writes “LimeWire’s new version lets people create private darknets with contacts on any Jabber server (like GMail or LiveJournal). It’s different than the recent p2p darknet announcement because it doesn’t use onion routing. Sharing with a friend connects directly to that friend. If you’re worried about exposing personal information, LW5 doesn’t share documents with the p2p network by default.”

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coondoggie writes with an excerpt from Network World: “Software that for the first time lets users run native copies of the Windows operating systems on a mainframe will be introduced Friday by data center automation vendor Mantissa. The company’s z/VOS software is a CMS application that runs on IBM’s z/VM and creates a foundation for Intel-based operating systems. Users only need a desktop appliance running Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client, which is the same technology used to attach to Windows running on Terminal Server or Citrix-based servers. Users will be able to connect to their virtual and fully functional Windows environments without any knowledge that the operating system and the applications are executing on the mainframe and not the desktop.”

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onehitwonder writes in with a CIO opinion piece arguing that potential employees need to stand up to employers who snoop the Web for insights into their after-work activities, often disqualifying them as a result. “Employers are increasingly trolling the web for information about prospective employees that they can use in their hiring decisions. Consequently, career experts advise job seekers to not post any photos, opinions or information on blogs and social networking websites (like Slashdot) that a potential employer might find remotely off-putting. Instead of cautioning job seekers to censor their activity online, we job seekers and defenders of our civil liberties should tell employers to stop snooping and to stop judging our behavior outside of work, writes CIO.com Senior Online Editor Meridith Levinson. By basing professional hiring decisions on candidates’ personal lives and beliefs, employers are effectively legislating people’s behavior, and they’re creating an online environment where people can’t express their true beliefs, state their unvarnished opinions, be themselves, and that runs contrary to the free, communal ethos of the Web. Employers that exploit the Web to snoop into and judge people’s personal lives infringe on everyone’s privacy, and their actions verge on discrimination.”

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