Tag Archives: government contracts

Rudy Giuliani is an absurd choice to defend the US from hackers

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While it’s amusing to make fun of Giuliani, hiring people with little or no bona fide security experience to head up cybersecurity practices in government is sadly a tried and true pastime in Washington. Instead of tapping actual computer security experts, politicians in many cases continue to put their friends or people they know in charge of a monumental problem that requires expertise beyond having many political connections or relationships with donors.

Source: Rudy Giuliani is an absurd choice to defend the US from hackers | Trevor Timm | Opinion | The Guardian

From:  Trump’s cyber-guru Giuliani runs ancient ‘easily hackable website’

“You can probably break into Giuliani’s server,” said Robert Graham of Errata Security. “I know this because other FreeBSD servers in the same data center have already been broken into, tagged by hackers, or are now serving viruses.

“But that doesn’t matter. There’s nothing on Giuliani’s server worth hacking.”

Amid court battle, Yosemite park plans to change some iconic names

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Bid farewell to some of Yosemite National Park’s most iconic names.In an extraordinary move, the National Park Service announced Thursday that it was changing the names of The Ahwahnee hotel, Curry Village and other beloved park sites. The move, officials say, was forced on them by an intellectual property dispute with the park’s departing concessions company.

Source: Amid court battle, Yosemite park plans to change some iconic names | The Sacramento Bee

Is the IoT a Tech Bubble for Cities

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But, with more cities joining the Smart City revolution and investing in sensors and other IoT devices, the risk of a new tech bubble is rising. The same technology giants that helped Barcelona become a smart city are now pushing more pilots of newer technologies with little regard for solutions that already work and can be shared without incurring additional expenses.

Let’s consider a few of the most worrisome issues related to IoT today:

Source: Is the IoT a Tech Bubble for Cities

In the long run, we are being faced with a bunch of independent devices that can’t be managed by a single platform or protocol. Manufacturers are now being required to develop different versions for different standards, effectively increasing manufacturing and engineering costs, and reducing their market potential.

Encryption “would not have helped” at OPM, says DHS official

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But when pressed on why systems had not been protected with encryption prior to the recent discovery of an intrusion that gave attackers access to sensitive data on millions of government employees and government contractors, she said, “It is not feasible to implement on networks that are too old.” She added that the agency is now working to encrypt data within its networks.

Source: Encryption “would not have helped” at OPM, says DHS official | Ars Technica

A consultant who did some work with a company contracted by OPM to manage personnel records for a number of agencies told Ars that he found the Unix systems administrator for the project “was in Argentina and his co-worker was physically located in the [People’s Republic of China]. Both had direct access to every row of data in every database: they were root.

Marines dump Microsoft for Linux OS on Northrop Grumman radar

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In a statement released Friday, she said Microsoft Windows XP is no longer supported by the software developer and the shift to a DOD approved Linux operating system will reduce both the complexity of the operating system and need for future updates.

via Marines dump Microsoft for Linux OS on Northrop Grumman radar – capitalgazette.com.

Red tape ties up private space.

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Three House members—Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.)—have sent a memo to NASA demanding that the agency investigate what they call “an epidemic of anomalies” with SpaceX missions.

via Congress and SpaceX: Red tape ties up private space..

That’s why this whole thing looks to me to be a transparent attempt from members of our Congress to hinder a privately owned company that threatens their own interests.

The IRS uses computers?! The horror!

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It’s impossible to imagine the Internal Revenue Service or most other number-crunching agencies or companies working without computers. But when the IRS went to computers — the Automatic Data Processing system –there was an uproar. The agency went so far as to produce a short film on the topic called Right On The Button, to convince the public computers were a good thing.

via The IRS uses computers?! The horror!.

‘What does ISP mean?’ – how government officials are flunking security challenges

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Singer added that another US official about to negotiate cybersecurity with China asked him to explain what “ISP” meant. “That’s like going to negotiate with the Soviets and not knowing what ‘ICBM’ means. And I’ve had similar experiences with officials from the UK, China and Abu Dhabi.

At the G20 conference diplomats were spearfished by an email with a link to nude photos of former French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and many clicked – downloading spyware onto their computers.

via ‘What does ISP mean?’ – how government officials are flunking security challenges | Technology | theguardian.com.

US seeks information on industry ability to hold bulk phone data

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The RFI has been posted to the Federal Business Opportunities site that lists federal government procurement opportunities. The government is looking for information on whether commercially available services can, among other things, provide secure storage and high availability to U.S. telephone metadata records for a sufficient period of time, and ensure that there are no unauthorized queries of the database and no data is provided to the government without proper authorization.

via US seeks information on industry ability to hold bulk phone data | ITworld.