Google Search, Jr.
April 6, 2016
As a kid friendly society, we cater to the younger generations by making “child friendly” versions of everything from books to meals. When the Internet made headway into our daily lives, kid friendly dashboards were launched to keep the young ones away from pedophiles and to guarantee they only saw age-appropriate content. The kid protocols sucked, for lack of better terms, because the people designing them were not the greatest at judging content.
With more tech-savvy, child wise Web developers running the show now, there are more kid friendly products with more intelligence behind their design. One of the main Internet functions that parents wish were available for their offspring is a safe search engine, but so far their answers have been ignored.
The Metro reports there is now a “New Search Engine Kiddle Is Like Google For Children-Here’s What It Does.” Kiddle’s purpose is to filter results that are safe for kids to read and also is written in simple language.
Kiddle is not affiliated with the search engine giant, however:
“Kiddle is not an official Google product, but the company uses a customized Google search to deliver child-friendly results. Kiddle uses Google colors but instead of the traditional white background has adopted an outer space theme, fit with a friendly robot. It will work in the same manner as Google but its search will be heavily filtered.”
The results will be filleted as such: the first three sites will be kid friendly, four through seven will be written in simple language, and the remaining will be from regular Google filtered through by the Kiddle search.
Kids need to understand how to evaluate content and use it wisely, but the Internet prevents them from making the same judgments other generations learned, as they got older. However, kids are also smarter than we think so a “kid friendly” search tool is usually dumbed down to the cradle. Kiddle appears to have the best of both worlds, at least it is better than parental controls.
Whitney Grace, April 6, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Venture Dollars Point to Growing Demand for Cyber Security
April 4, 2016
A UK cyber security startup has caught our attention — along with that of venture capitalists. The article Digital Shadows Gets $14M To Keep Growing Its Digital Risk Scanning Service from Tech Crunch reports Digital Shadows received $14 million in Series B funding. This Software as a service (SaaS) is geared toward enterprises with more than 1,000 employees with a concern for monitoring risk and vulnerabilities by monitoring online activity related to the enterprise. The article describes Digital Shadows’ SearchLight which was initially launched in May 2014,
“Digital Shadows’ flagship product, SearchLight, is a continuous real-time scan of more than 100 million data sources online and on the deep and dark web — cross-referencing customer specific data with the monitored sources to flag up instances where data might have inadvertently been posted online, for instance, or where a data breach or other unwanted disclosure might be occurring. The service also monitors any threat-related chatter about the company, such as potential hackers discussing specific attack vectors. It calls the service it offers “cyber situational awareness”.”
Think oversight in regards to employees breaching sensitive data on the Dark Web, for example, a bank employee selling client data through Tor. How will this startup fare? Time will tell, but we will be watching them, along with other vendors offering similar services.
Megan Feil, April 4, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Third Party Company Profiteering
March 31, 2016
We might think that we keep our personal information from the NSA, but there are third party companies that legally tap ISP providers and phone companies and share the information with government agencies. ZDNet shares the inside story about this legal loophole, “Meet The Shadowy Tech Brokers That Deliver Your Data To The NSA.” These third party companies hide under behind their neutral flag and then reap a profit. You might have heard of some of them: Yaana, Subsentio, and Neustar.
“On a typical day, these trusted third-parties can handle anything from subpoenas to search warrants and court orders, demanding the transfer of a person’s data to law enforcement. They are also cleared to work with classified and highly secretive FISA warrants. A single FISA order can be wide enough to force a company to turn over its entire store of customer data.
Once the information passes through these third party companies it is nearly impossible to figure out how it is used. The third party companies do conduct audits, but it does little to protect the average consumer. Personal information is another commodity to buy, sell, and trade. It deems little respect for the individual consumer. Who is going to stand up for the little guy? Other than Edward Snowden?
Whitney Grace, March 31, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google Reveals Personal Data in Search Results
March 30, 2016
Our lives are already all over the Internet, but Google recently unleashed a new feature that takes it to a new level. Search Engine Watch tells us about, “Google Shows Personal Data Within Search Results, Tests ‘Recent Purchases’ Feature” and the new way to see your Internet purchases.
Google pulls the purchase information most likely from Gmail or Chrome. The official explanation is that Google search is now more personalized, because it does pull information from Google apps:
“You can search for information from other Google products you use, like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google+. For example, you can search for information about your upcoming flights, restaurant reservations, or appointments.”
Personalized Google search can display results now only from purchases but also bills, flights, reservations, packages, events, and Google Photos. It is part of Google’s mission to not only organize the world, but also be a personal assistant, part of the new Google Now.
While it is a useful tool to understand your personal habits, organize information, and interact with data like in a science-fiction show, at the same time it is creepy being able to search your life with Google. Some will relish in the idea of having their lives organized at their fingertips, but others will feel like the NSA or even Dark Web predators will hack into their lives.
Whitney Grace, March 30, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Surfing Safely on the Dark Web
March 29, 2016
The folks at Alphr want us to be safe if we venture onto the Dark Web, so they offer guidance in their article, “Is the Dark Web Safe?” The short answer, of course, is “parts of it.” Writer Thomas McMullan notes that, while the very act of accessing hidden sites through Tor is completely legal, it is easy to wander into illegal territory. He writes:
“‘Safe’ is a bit of a vague term. There is much of worth to be found on the dark web, but by its nature it is not as safe as the surface-level internet. You can only access pages by having a direct link (normally with a .onion suffix) and while that makes it harder to accidentally stumble across illegal content, you’re only a click away from some pretty horrible stuff. What’s more, the government is cracking down on illegal material on the dark web. In November 2015, it was announced that GCHQ and the National Crime Agency (NCA) would be joining forces to tackle serious crimes and child pornography on the dark web. Director of GCHQ Robert Hannigan said that the new Joint Operations Cell (JOC) will be ‘committed to ensuring no part of the internet, including the dark web, can be used with impunity by criminals to conduct their illegal acts’.”
The article goes on to note that plugins which can present a false IP address, like Ghostery, exist. However, McMullan advises that it is best to stay away from anything that seems questionable. You have been warned.
Cynthia Murrell, March 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Reputable News Site Now on the Dark Web
March 28, 2016
Does the presence of a major news site lend an air of legitimacy to the Dark Web? Wired announces, “ProPublica Launches the Dark Web’s First Major News Site.” Reporter Andy Greenberg tells us that ProPublica recently introduced a version of their site running on the Tor network. To understand why anyone would need such a high level of privacy just to read the news, imagine living under a censorship-happy government; ProPublica was inspired to launch the site while working on a report about Chinese online censorship.
Why not just navigate to ProPublica’s site through Tor? Greenberg explains the danger of malicious exit nodes:
“Of course, any privacy-conscious user can achieve a very similar level of anonymity by simply visiting ProPublica’s regular site through their Tor Browser. But as Tigas points out, that approach does leave the reader open to the risk of a malicious ‘exit node,’ the computer in Tor’s network of volunteer proxies that makes the final connection to the destination site. If the anonymous user connects to a part of ProPublica that isn’t SSL-encrypted—most of the site runs SSL, but not yet every page—then the malicious relay could read what the user is viewing. Or even on SSL-encrypted pages, the exit node could simply see that the user was visiting ProPublica. When a Tor user visits ProPublica’s Tor hidden service, by contrast—and the hidden service can only be accessed when the visitor runs Tor—the traffic stays under the cloak of Tor’s anonymity all the way to ProPublica’s server.”
The article does acknowledge that Deep Dot Web has been serving up news on the Dark Web for some time now. However, some believe this move from a reputable publisher is a game changer. ProPublica developer Mike Tigas stated:
“Personally I hope other people see that there are uses for hidden services that aren’t just hosting illegal sites. Having good examples of sites like ProPublica and Securedrop using hidden services shows that these things aren’t just for criminals.”
Will law-abiding, but privacy-loving, citizens soon flood the shadowy landscape of the Dark Web.
Cynthia Murrell, March 28, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Play Search the Game
March 25, 2016
Within the past few years, gamers have had the privilege to easily play brand new games as well as the old classics. Nearly all of the games ever programmed are available through various channels from Steam, simulator, to system emulator. While it is easy to locate a game if you know the name, main character, or even the gaming system, but with the thousands of games available maybe you want to save time and not have use a search engine. Good news, everyone!
Sofotex, a free software download Web site, has a unique piece of freeware that you will probably want to download if you are a gamer. Igrulka is a search engine app programmed to search only games. Here is the official description:
Igrulka is a unique software that helps you to search, find and play millions of games in the network.
“Once you download the installer, all you have to do is go to the download location on your computer and install the app.
Igrulka allows you to search for the games that you love either according to the categories they are in or by name. For example, you get games in the shooter, arcade, action, puzzle or racing games categories among many others.
If you would like to see more details about the available games, their names as well as their descriptions, all you have to do is hover over them using your mouse as shown below. Choose the game you want to play and click on it.”
According to the description, it looks like Igrulka searches through free games and perhaps the classics from systems. In order to find out what Irgulka can do, download and play search results roulette.
Whitney Grace, March 25, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Bigger Picture Regarding Illegal Content Needed
March 25, 2016
Every once in awhile an article on the Dark Web comes along that takes a step back from the latest action on Tor and offers a deep-dive on the topic at large. Delving into the World of the Dark Web was recently published on Raconteur, for example. In this article, we learned the definition of darknets: networks only accessible through particular software, such as Tor, and trusted peer authorization. The article continues,
“The best known, and by far the most popular, darknet is the Onion Router (Tor), which was created by the US Naval Research Labs in the 90s as an enabler of secure communication and funded by the US Department of Defense. To navigate it you use the Tor browser, similar to Google Chrome or Internet Explorer apart from keeping the identity of the person doing the browsing a secret. Importantly, this secrecy also applies to what the user is looking at. It is because servers hosting websites on the Tor network, denoted by their .onion (dot onion) designation, are able to mask their location.”
Today, the Dark Web is publicly available to be used anonymously by anyone with darknet software and home to a fair amount of criminal activity. Researchers at King’s College London scraped the .onion sites and results suggested about 57 percent of Tor sites host illegal content. We wonder about the larger context; for example, what percent of sites viewed on mainstream internet browsers host illegal content?
Megan Feil, March 25, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Dark Web Cuts the Violence
March 23, 2016
Drug dealing is a shady business that takes place in a nefarious underground and runs discreetly under our noses. Along with drug dealing comes a variety of violence involving guns, criminal offenses, and often death. Countless people have lost their lives related to drug dealing, and that does not even include the people who overdosed. Would you believe that the drug dealing violence is being curbed by the Dark Web? TechDirt reveals, “How The Dark Net Is Making Drug Purchases Safer By Eliminating Associated Violence And Improving Quality.”
The Dark Web is the Internet’s underbelly, where stolen information and sex trafficking victims are sold, terrorists mingle, and, of course, drugs are peddled. Who would have thought that the Dark Web would actually provide a beneficial service to society by sending drug dealers online and taking them off the streets? With the drug dealers goes the associated violence. There also appears to be a system of checks and balances, where drug users can leave feedback a la eBay. It pushes the drug quality up as well, but is that a good or bad thing?
“The new report comes from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which is funded by the European Union, and, as usual, is accompanied by an official comment from the relevant EU commissioner. Unfortunately, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, trots out the usual unthinking reaction to drug sales that has made the long-running and totally futile “war on drugs” one of the most destructive and counterproductive policies ever devised:
‘We should stop the abuse of the Internet by those wanting to turn it into a drug market. Technology is offering fresh opportunities for law enforcement to tackle online drug markets and reduce threats to public health. Let us seize these opportunities to attack the problem head-on and reduce drug supply online.’”
The war on drugs is a futile fight, but illegal substances do not benefit anyone. While it is a boon to society for the crime to be taken off the streets, take into consideration that the Dark Web is also a breeding ground for crimes arguably worse than drug dealing.
Whitney Grace, March 23, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Change Is Hard, Especially in the User Interface
March 22, 2016
One of the most annoying things in life is when you go to the grocery store and notice they have rearranged the entire place since your last visit. I always ask myself the question, “Why grocery store people did you do this to me?” Part of the reason is to improve the shopping experience and product exposure, while the other half is to screw with customers (I cannot confirm the latter). According to the Fuzzy Notepad with its Pokémon Evee mascot the post titled “We Have Always Been At War With UI” explains that programmers and users have always been at war with each other when it comes to the user interface.
Face it, Web sites (and other areas of life) need to change to maintain their relevancy. The biggest problem related to UI changes is the roll out of said changes. The post points out that users get confused and spend hours trying to understand the change. Sometimes the change is announced, other times it is only applied to a certain number of users.
The post lists several changes to UI and how they were handled, describing how they were handled and also the programming. One constant thread runs through the post is that users simply hate change, but the inevitable question of, “Why?” pops up.
“Ah, but why? I think too many developers trot this line out as an excuse to ignore all criticism of a change, which is very unhealthy. Complaints will always taper off over time, but that doesn’t mean people are happy, just that they’ve gone hoarse. Or, worse, they’ve quietly left, and your graphs won’t tell you why. People aren’t like computers and may not react instantly to change; they may stew for a while and drift away, or they may join a mass exodus when a suitable replacement comes along.”
Big data can measure anything and everything, but the data can be interpreted for or against the changes. Even worse is that the analysts may not know what exactly they need to measure. What can be done to avoid total confusion about changes is to have a plan, let users know in advance, and even create tutorial about how to use the changes. Worse comes to worse, it can be changed back and then we move on.
Whitney Grace, March 22, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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