Showing posts with label hacking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hacking. Show all posts

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Hacker Ways And The Decline of Language

Decadent thought leads to decadent language, which leads to even more decadent thought... and a vicious vortex of decay and corruption ensues. Is the process accidental or deliberate?

In "Politics And The English Language", George Orwell compares sloppy language to a sloppy drunkard.

"A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." 
 
In 1945/1946, Orwell seemed to believe that the decline was reversible and clarity of thought and expression could be revived if writers and speakers made an effort and followed simple, critical rules such as:

i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/
 
Today, public speakers appear not to know the difference between a benefactor and a beneficiary, or between an expletive (noun) and something that is explicative (adj).  Badly written advertisements don't say what the advertiser intends: "Like you, my hands mean everything to me." "Report your allergy to your doctor."  "As a scientist, my dog..."  How supportive of vaccine acceptance is it for one Medicare coverage provider to be advertising, "With all the uncertainty of the virus AND VACCINE..."?
 
The one-time service to help copyright owners remove infringing copies of copyrighted works from the internet, MUSO writes about the predictive value of piracy , based on a study conducted in Europe.

They describe pirates as a bellwether, and explain (approximately) what a wether is... while decorously omitting the difference between a ram and a wether.  In a nutshell, a wether is castrated.
 
If one has to explain ones metaphor or simile, and if one cannot explain it fully, perhaps the metaphor is dead and the imagery stale. That said, I dropped the "nutshell" knowingly.
 
While MUSO  may or may not be pivoting to a marketing business,  the authorities in Canada seem to have less use for intellectual property pirates.

Legal bloggers Ken Clark and Lawrence Veregin  representing the combined intellectual property team of Aird and Berlis LLP and Aird and McBurney LP predict the beginning of the end of online piracy in Canada, and describe how Take Down and Stay Down will work --in Canada-- via real time site blocking.


https://www.airdberlis.com/insights/blogs/thespotlight/post/ts-item/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-online-piracy-in-canada

On hacking, Mary B. Ramsay and Grant P. Dearborn of  Schumaker Loop and Kendrick discuss the devious ways of Hackers and the risk from phishers phishing. Never give your email address and PW in order to open an attachment, even if it appears to have come from your better half or significant other.
 
There is a story involving far greater effrontery than that shown by all those young men who make telephone calls to seniors in the hope that the senior victim will find it plausible that he or she has a grandchild in immediate financial distress... but with access to Bitcoin or Western Union.

Lexology link
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=06214f43-8b53-46d1-9281-076a4569a61a

Original link:
https://www.shumaker.com/latest-thinking/publications/2021/06/client-alert-the-risk-from-phishing


The news has covered the Colonial Pipeline and the JBS meat packer hacks but less has been said about the hacking of iConstituent, perhaps because the latter is less inconvenient to the public.

Apparently, according to at least two sources, sixty members of the US Congress have been hacked or phished, and as a result they lost their access to iConstituent.  If you notice a pause in the begging letters and emails, you might infer that your Congressperson's internet hygiene is --or was-- substandard.  Maybe if your trusted Congressperson sends you an attachment or link, you should not open it or click through.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/congress-ransomware-attack-internet-latest-b1861759.html

On that happy note...

All the best,

Rowena Cherry   

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Smart Christmas

For those who visit Pennsylvania and are unfortunate enough to be stopped by the police, the good news is that the authorities in that State do not have the right to look into your mind, and your password encrypted devices are considered an extension of your mind.

You do not have to reveal your password unless they have probable cause.

Andrew Crocker, writing for the Electronic Freedom Foundation explains that disclosing a password is the equivalent of giving self-incriminating testimony:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/victory-pennsylvania-supreme-court-rules-police-cant-force-you-tell-them-your

On the other hand, if you are accused of copyright infringement, you may be punished if you are asked to preserve evidence, and you fail to save your text messages.

Writing for law firm Seyfarth Shaw's Carpe Datum blog, Tushar P. Vaidya and Jamila A. Hemmerich examine what happens when a defendant wipes, discards, and does not back up his, her, or their smartphone.
https://www.carpedatumlaw.com/2019/11/court-sanctions-defendant-for-failure-to-preserve-text-messages-in-copyright-infringement-suit-brought-by-princes-estate/#page=1

There are other ways of getting into your mind....

Is anyone else rendered uneasy when an online provider offers you "curated" news? Personally, I think it is creepy that Tim Cook's or Mark Zuckerberg's people claim to have such perfect insights into my mind and my interests that they can dish up to me "curated" news to match my interests.

Either they are spying on me and assuming that I only want more of whatever I've consumed in the past, or they are pushing what they want me to consume and not necessarily being truthful about how closely it matches my real interests. I infer.

Concerning spying and intrusion from the wrong side of the TV screen, the good bloggers at Bass Berry & Sims PLC ask whether my smart TV might be too smart, especially if I bought it recently.


Authors Robert L. Brewer, Anthony J. McFarland, and Elizabeth S. Warren  offer six, must-read, smart steps for owners of smart televisions to take this holiday season.

Original article:
https://www.bassberry.com/news/privacy-peril-is-your-smart-tv-too-smart/

Lexology article:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b4a404c1-5ff4-4d33-b2f8-822ba2a2bb48

It seems that too many of the goodies that might be in your Christmas stocking this year are too smart for your own good and well being. Both the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Federal Trade Commission have issued warnings to help consumers to protect themselves.

With the FBI and FTC warnings top of mind, legal blogger Linn Foster Freedman continues her excellent series of privacy tips for the Robinson & Cole LLP Data Privacy + Security blog (and you should check out #220 some time soon) with #219 on Holiday Shopping Tips.

Original article:
https://www.dataprivacyandsecurityinsider.com/2019/12/privacy-tip-219-holiday-shopping-tip-for-internet-connected-gifts/#page=1

Lexology article:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a230904f-0cdb-4a54-91df-ed1e1421af40


By the way, for anyone who might wonder why it's worth checking out different links to the same article, Lexology offers links to other copyright or other intellectual property related articles on similar subjects. The original websites or blogsites are more likely to focus on that law firm's own articles.

And so, Happy Christmas!

All the best,
Rowena Cherry 

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Cyber wargames; Disinformation; Artful Ignorance.

I'm late with my update on online villainy, grist for the imagination mill and stuff to make your blood boil. Sorry, I was driving back from hearing Dr. Caldwell Esselstyne Jr explain how 70% of Medicare costs could be cut if only Americans would abandon the American diet and eat oil-free plant-based nutrition... Heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and impotence can be cured by leafy greens.

While I was driving, I was listening to John Grisham's "Rogue Lawyer" which seems a timely tale for this political season, as it deals with extreme police misconduct, extreme prosecutorial misconduct, lies, cover-ups, incarceration of thousands of African American young men and much more.

Also timely, considering some of the speculation floating around on the internet  (about who hacked the devastating Podesta emails and whether some of them were tampered with or forged) is this article on ZDNet.com about the Cyber War Games taking place in Europe where they have real actors, social media, and media coverage (for realism) of their cyber war involving blackouts, powercuts,  leaks, disinformation, tampering with emails and other customer data, ransomeware, manipulation and drones.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/giant-cyber-wargame-with-dark-scenario-of-power-cuts-ransomware-and-drones-reaches-its-climax/?loc=newsletter_small_thumb&ftag=TRE17cfd61&bhid=24357684409836269984444908372715

Perhaps someone heard the wargame stuff, and got the wrong end of the stick, it's not so far fetched. Orson Welles's radio adaptation of War Of The Worlds was mistaken for a real alien invasion, wasn't it? http://www.transparencynow.com/welles.htm

Another inspiring blog article discusses the new art of war.... cyber war, that is.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-new-art-of-war-how-trolls-hackers-and-spies-are-rewriting-the-rules-of-conflict/

Also this  http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-undercover-war-on-your-internet-secrets-how-online-surveillance-cracked-our-trust-in-the-web/

Finally for the copyright enforcement enthusiasts, MusicTechPolicy.com has this:
https://musictechpolicy.com/2016/10/15/google-and-amazon-leverage-copyright-loophole-to-use-songs-without-paying-songwriters/

It's every bit as inspiringly inflammatory as any John Grisham scenario!

All the best,
Rowena Cherry