Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Free Pool of IPv4 Address Space Depleted
February 3rd, 2011Via: Number Resource Organization Press Release: The Number Resource Organization (NRO) announced today that the free pool of available IPv4 addresses is now fully depleted. On Monday, January 31, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated two blocks of IPv4 address space to APNIC, the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for the Asia Pacific region, which […]
Blocking Internet Cost Egypt At Least $90M, Says OECD
February 3rd, 2011Via: Network World: The Egyptian government’s five-day block of Internet services cost the national economy at least US$90 million, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Thursday. The Paris-based organization said telecommunications and Internet services account for between 3 percent and 4 percent of Egypt’s GDP, so the daily loss amounted to around […]
Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code
February 2nd, 2011Via: Wired: As a trained statistician with degrees from MIT and Stanford University, Srivastava was intrigued by the technical problem posed by the lottery ticket. In fact, it reminded him a lot of his day job, which involves consulting for mining and oil companies. A typical assignment for Srivastava goes like this: A mining company […]
Digital Darkness: U.S., U.K. Companies Help Egyptian Regime Shut Down Telecommunications and Identify Dissidents
February 2nd, 2011Via: Democracy Now: Doing the regime’s bidding, British-based Vodafone shut down Egypt’s phone and internet service. The American company called Narus — owned by Boeing — sold Egypt the surveillance technology that helped identify dissident voices. We are joined by Tim Karr of Free Press and CUNY Professor C.W. Anderson. Karr outlines how communications was […]
Air Force’s Second X-37B Space Plane Nears Launch
February 1st, 2011Via: Space Flight Now: Two months after a sister ship successfully concluded a demo flight, the U.S. military’s second robotic X-37B space plane is in Florida preparing for blastoff March 4 on another secret mission, according to an Air Force official. The 29-foot-long, 14-foot-wide space plane is being readied for flight in a processing facility […]
Old Technology Finds Role in Egyptian Protests
January 31st, 2011Echoes of the collapse of the USSR. Via: BBC: Fax machines, ham radio and dial-up modems are helping to avoid the net block imposed on Egypt. On 27 January, Egypt fell off the internet as virtually all international connections were cut following an order from the government. But older technologies proved their worth as net […]
Certified Lies: Detecting and Defeating Government Interception Attacks Against SSL
January 31st, 2011Via: Cloud Privacy [PDF]: This paper introduces the compelled certificate creation attack, in which government agencies may compel a certificate authority to issue false SSL certificates that can be used by intelligence agencies to covertly intercept and hijack individuals’ secure Web-based communications. Although we do not have direct evidence that this form of active surveillance […]
Russia to Adopt Universal ID Card in 2012
January 29th, 2011It’s somewhat funny that articles like this mock conspiracy theorists and then go on to report that what some of us have been saying for years is now actually occurring. Via: Singularity Hub: For all those conspiracy theorists out there, 2012 just got a little more ominous. As required by legislation passed this last summer, […]
Britain: Intelligence Agencies Urged to Track Social Media Sites More Closely
January 29th, 2011This is ridiculous. The implications of the Internet for radical political movements were well known to the Pentagon at least as far back as 1995 (Strategic Assessment: The Internet, 1995). Britain and the U.S. are joined at the hip. So, are we expected to believe that this is somehow news to the British Intelligence establishment, […]
Syria Further Restricting Internet Use; Preventing Operation of Various Social Networking Applications
January 29th, 2011In Syria, Internet freedom ranges from bad to worse, so this definitely isn’t a surprise. Via: Reuters: Syrian authorities have banned programmes that allow access to Facebook Chat from cellphones, tightening already severe restrictions on the Internet in the wake of the unrest in Tunisia, users said on Wednesday. Nimbuzz and eBuddy, two programmes that […]
