Cody Taylor

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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An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from CNet: “Federal regulators said Thursday they are going into ‘search and rescue’ mode to help the millions of consumers unprepared for the phased transition to digital television, which culminates with the June 12 transition deadline. The millions of consumers waiting for coupons for digital converter box coupons will finally receive them within the next two and a half weeks, thanks to emergency funding for the coupon program provided in the stimulus package, said Bernadette McGuire-Rivera, an administrator for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The NTIA is also ratcheting up its outreach to consumers most likely to be unprepared for the transition… FCC commissioners said their agency is also intensifying its outreach, but they acknowledged that while one third of television stations have already dropped their analog signals, the hardest part is yet to come.” We previously discussed the DTV coupon program when it ran out of money in January. The 0 million from the stimulus packages adds to the .3 billion that’s already been spent.

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theodp writes “On Thursday, Barack Obama tapped Vivek Kundra for the post of Federal CIO, giving him responsibility for establishing and overseeing enterprise architecture across the federal government. So what might that look like? Well, little more than a month ago Kundra was slated to sing the praises of Google Apps to government officials in a webcast. A Kundra quote from the presentation slides: ‘Why should I spend millions on enterprise apps when I can do it [with Google] at one-tenth cost and ten times the speed? It’s a win-win for me.’ You can follow Kundra’s love affair with Google on YouTube, from his announcement of the Google-Washington DC partnership he brokered through a co-starring role with a Google attorney on a video pitching Google-enabled technology for the Obama Administration. Not surprisingly, some say Obama’s choice of a Google-party-goer who worships Google could cause big headaches for Microsoft.”

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The news vacuum that’s followed Apple’s Mac desktop refresh offers space for some updates on the company’s software-related efforts, which should soon produce new builds of Snow Leopard. Meanwhile, minor updates to iWeb, Remote Desktop, and other OS X components are also reportedly in the works.

First the bad news: In multiple ways, Amazon’s new Kindle reader for the iPhone falls short of being the ultimate iPhone e-book application. It fails to replicate all the major features of a 9 Kindle device. But despite that, it’s a delight to have Kindle on the iPhone. What makes Kindle Kindle isn’t software but content –244,000 books’ worth.

linuxkrn writes “The State of Colorado’s Office of Technology (OIT) has set up a work skills website. The problem is that the site says ‘DO NOT use FIREFOX or other Browsers besides IE. It has been decided that Mozilla based, non-IE browsers pose a security risk.’ (Original emphasis from site.) If the leading IT agency for the State is making these uneducated claims, should the people worry about their other decisions?”

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Eric Goldman writes “The Utah legislature has tried to restrict keyword advertising twice before, with disastrous results. In 2004, Utah tried to ban keyword advertising in adware; that law was declared unconstitutional. In 2007, Utah tried to regulate competitive keyword advertising; after a firestorm of protests, Utah repealed the law in 2008. Despite this track record, Utah is trying to regulate keyword advertising a third time. HB 450 would allow trademark owners to block competitors from displaying certain types of keyword ads. In practice, this law is just another attempt by the Utah legislature to enact a law that doesn’t help consumers at all but does help trademark owners suppress their online competition.”

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eldavojohn writes “The MIT Technology Review brings news of a new report from Harvard assessing circumvention software. The best tools they tested (and they actually did test them in cybercafes in China) were Ultrareach, Psiphon, and Tor, while Dynaweb and Anonymizer also scored well — of course, the huge downside is the long loading times. The report also includes responses from developers of the tools.”

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SkiifGeek writes “With Adobe’s patch for the current PDF vulnerability still some time away, news has emerged of more techniques that are available to exploit the vulnerability, this time without needing the victim to actually open a malicious file. Instead, the methods make use of a Windows Explorer Shell Extension that is installed alongside Adobe Reader, and which will trigger the exploitable code when the file is interacted with in Windows Explorer. Methods have been demonstrated of successful exploitation with a single click, with thumbnail view, and with merely hovering the mouse cursor over the affected file. There are many ways that exploits targeting the JBIG2 vulnerability could be hidden inside a PDF file, and it seems that the reliability of detection for these varying methods is spotty, at best.”

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An anonymous reader writes “The NSW government of Australia has quietly introduced new police powers for covert home searches and covert hacking of computers. The suspect may not be notified of the covert activity for up to three years. These new powers are similar to those given to the UK police earlier this year. The new warrants can only be issued in the Supreme Court for suspected serious offences punishable by at least seven years jail — which includes computer crime offences.”

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