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Beyond Passwords: Online Identity Standards
Virtually everyone’s been stuck one time or another trying to remember a online password and thought, “There has to be a better way.” A recent article in our newsletter talks about the problem and suggests tricks to make it a little easier to deal with. But although a lot of smart people have tried to figure out a safe, reliable, and more convenient system, nobody’s come up with one yet. Now, however, the US Government has decided to gently encourage efforts. In the spring of last year, the Obama Administration announced the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, NSTIC. Like the National Broadband Plan, it’s not legislation or even regulation. Instead, NSTIC is a hopeful collection of idealistic principles and goals to promote development rather than a concrete plan with real funding and hard, measurable results. Nevertheless, many agencies and corporations are very interested. It’s easy to see why. Identity theft has become a major problem, costing millions each year, and passwords remain the weakest link in cybersecurity. Commerce might also be helped if you could buy books on Amazon with your Google account or download tax forms from iTunes. And public safety would benefit if your child could be automatically denied entrance to adult websites, or doctors could check in online to help provide medical services after a disaster. The dream is to build a safe method of sharing relevant sensitive information about users with online entities while … Continue reading
Zombie Alert!
With Halloween coming up, the fear and fascination with the walking dead is everywhere. In recent years, the Centers for Disease Control have used zombie alerts to warn of the flu. Highway departments have also zombie mania to get people to try to slow down, though that has drawn a lot of criticism. But they’re all latecomers. Back in 2007, the FBI issued a warning about zombie attacks. Nothing tongue in cheek about this one, either; it was very serious indeed. These weren’t the kind of modern zombie that wants to eat your brains; these zombies were more traditional in that they have become unwitting, helpless slaves of an evil master. Yet these zombies are not undead flesh and blood; they lust after your PC, laptop, tablet, or smartphone to turn them into zombie machines just like the rest to attack other devices. The threat is still quite real, and an infestation can not only quickly destroy your files and render your computer useless to you, but makes it a danger to the entire Internet. Hordes of zombies Zombie programs, also called “bots”, hijack computers through trickery. Infection often occurs when the user is tricked into opening an email attachment with a virus or visits a booby-trapped webpage, though they can also appear in downloaded files. Free screensavers are also a common means of infection, because a screensaver is an executable program. The virus quickly commandeers the computer, to steal … Continue reading