Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagComputer security

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Big brother electronic eye concept, technologies for the global surveillance, security of computer systems and networks

This is Digital McCarthyism

Far from being liberated by these technologies, we have been plunged back into the worst abuses of surveillance and privacy violation.

The notion that we’re getting somewhere, making progress, is remarkably durable. It survives wars, financial collapse, riots, scandals, stagnating wages, and climate change (to name a few). Though techno-futurists are also fond of AI apocalypse scenarios, where artificial intelligence somehow “comes alive,” or at any rate uses its superior intelligence to make an autonomous decision to wipe out humanity, much more ink has been spilled this century prognosticating indomitable technical progress, which somehow stands in for human progress generally. But sanguine belief in progress is belied by the actual events of the twenty-first century. Computers have gotten faster and AI more powerful, but digital technology has also been used to spread misinformation, make deep fakes, and conduct relentless cyberwarfare. Financial Read More ›

Hacker in data security concept. Hacker using laptop. Hacking the Internet. Cyber attack.

Spies and Lies: China’s Cyberespionage Is on an Unprecedented Level

Chinese cybertheft is an ever-increasing threat.
Intelligence agencies are clear that the problem is not the Chinese people or Chinese citizens living in other countries. The problem is the Chinese government. Read More ›
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Virus detected hologram concept

Ransomware Attacks on Public Institutions

Hackers are always coming up with new approaches, keeping IT staff on their toes

by Karl Stephan In what is just the latest of a lengthening series of ransomware attacks, the sheriff’s office of San Bernardino County, California reportedly paid over $1 million in ransom to an Eastern-Europe-based hacking group.  About half the money was paid by insurance and the county paid the rest from its risk-management fund.  Reporters for the Los Angeles Times were unable to determine exactly who authorized the payments, which enabled the county to restore its email servers, in-car computers, and law enforcement databases.  According to the report, the FBI discourages payments to ransomware hackers, but almost half of the state and local governments attacked worldwide pay anyway.  A survey conducted by the British security firm Sophos was cited in the report, which said that Read More ›

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Physicality Of Data And The Road To Inherently Safer Computing

The software industry today is precisely where the chemical industry was in 1978; hazard control is a mere afterthought

“The Physicality Of Data And The Road To Inherently Safer Computing” was originally published by Forbes, August 24, 2021. David Kruger is Co-Founder and VP of Strategy for Absio Corporation and a co-inventor of Absio’s Software-defined Distributed Key Cryptography (SDKC). Our current concept of cybersecurity is to defend against attacks and remedy failure by erecting more and better defenses. That’s a fundamental mistake in thinking that guarantees failure. Why? Because it’s mathematically impossible for a defensive strategy to fully succeed, as explained in the previous installment of this article series. Another even more fundamental mistake in thinking is that cyberattackers are the cause of our woes. They aren’t. They’re the effect. A hazard is a potential source of harm. Cyberattackers target certain Read More ›

Hacker in data security concept. Hacker using laptop. Hacking the Internet. Cyber attack.

Can Your Tablet Really Tell People Where You Are?

Yes, and it'll talk louder with the next gen protocols. But there's a way to shut it up

If someone can see your traffic as it is transmitted across the “first hop” physical network and your devices are using the manufacturer-assigned MAC address, they can discover the unique address assigned to your device.

Read More ›