Inside DHS Security Investigations Forensics Laboratories →

Astonished to find this well-written investigative piece by Vince Lattanzio, writing for NBC 10, in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania [covering Philadelphia and the NBC affiliate in the City of Brotherly Love]. In an effort to detail the the Department of Homeland Security's Forensics Investigation Laboratory many of the tricks of the trade - so to speak- are illustrated for all, including an EMF blocker container to examine miscreant-owned mobile devices without the possibility of remote data destruction.

Bletchley Park, The History →

Readers who have examined this weblog during the thirteen years plus of it's publication, know of my Interest in Matters Turing and Bletchley; Alan Turning & Bletchley Park, that is... With those Foci in mind, here is a fascinating serial scrutinizing the history of Bletchley Park, the nearly seventy-year-old locale of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland's Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) (now known as GCHQ). Today's MustRead.

DARPA, The Open Catalog

DARPA has updated it's six month old : An astounding, curated compendium of fascinating data and phenomenal projects. Highly recommended, from Big Data initiatives - Detection and Computational Analysis of Psychological Signals (DCAPS), to Probabilistic Programming for Advanced Machine Learning (PPAML).

NIST, IAPP Privacy Workshop Slated →

Maybe, just maybe, there is scientific hope for the Right to Privacy. At once, ruminating upon the Declaration of Universal Human Rights*** and the United State's 4th Amendment to the Constitution** , hope doth, truly spring eternal...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has announced the second co-sponsored Privacy Engineering Workshop, slated for the 15th and 16th of September, 2014 in San Jose, California. Co-sponsored with the International Association of Privacy Professionals, the Workshops mandate is a focus on engineering objectives (in draft) and the necessitated Risk Model (that model was a key output of the first Privacy Workshop).

Constitution of the United States, Amendment IV**
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12***

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

MonsterMind

via the inimitable Kim Zetter, Senior Staff Writer at Wired, comes this staggeringly well crafted piece on the United States National Security Agency / Central Security Service's work to create a tool known as MonsterMind. The natural progeny of encompassing surveillance, is the capability to detect and mitigate malware in the wild. 
 

Net Commentary →

Fascinating Infographic of public commentary, this time, focusing on the interweb , as it were.

News of Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park has released the August 2014 edition of the Trusts' podcast series, this time, entitled 'Inspiring Women' in cryptanalysis; in which, the Trust focuses on the work women accomplished at Bletchley Park during World War II.

Skimmers, Detailed

HTG explains the inner workings of nefarious card skimmers, installed to abscond with your personal login data and card number, all at your favorite local ATM... Read More

ISOC, Mahabir Pun Receives Jonathan B. Postel Award

ISOC, The Internet Society, has named the Jonathan B. Postel Award recipient for 2014 - Mahabir Pun. The Award was presented to Mr. Pun for his role in Nepalese internet access efforts, thereby increasing knowledge, literacy in the Himalaya region and the founding of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project. Congratulations!

via ISOC: About the Postel Award

The award is named for Dr. Jonathan B. Postel to recognize and commemorate the extraordinary stewardship exercised by Jon over the course of a 30 year career in networking. He served as the editor of the RFC series of notes from its inception in 1969 until 1998. He also served as the ARPANET "numbers Czar" and Internet Assigned Numbers Authority over the same period of time. He was a founding member of the Internet Architecture (nee Activities) Board and the first individual member of the Internet Society, where he also served as a Trustee.

via ISOC: About the Internet Society

The Internet Society (www.internetsociety.org) is the trusted independent source for Internet information and thought leadership around the world.  It is also the organizational home for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). With its principled vision, substantial technological foundation and its global presence, the Internet Society promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, technology, and future development among users, companies, governments, and other organizations.

Mnemonic Wheel

An aged mnemonic given new life. In this case, the utilization of artifacts [color wheels] which inform memory regarding password data entry. Today's' Must Read.

XKCD, Dominant Players

via the phenom known as Randall Munroe, at XKCD.

Cyber Security, Theory of Power

In today's MustRead, we focus or attention on a fundamentally well-wrought thought piece targeting the notion of leverage and power, encapsulated within the cyber-security realm.

If you read anything today, read Billy Pope's tremendous screed and think on it, just a tad...

Mickens: Computers are a Sadness, I am the Cure...

via Monitorama PDX 2014 an exposition of sorts, presented by the eponymous James Mickens of  Microsoft Corporation (NasdaqGS: MSFT) Research. Hat Tip -Trey at Firewall Consultants.