That’ll be one hell of a pace.
Source: CNET
To secure U.S. election systems from the very real threat of targeted cyberattacks, states might need to reframe their security practices to look more like they would in a tightly-controlled corporate environment.
To that end, Centrify, an enterprise cloud-based identity management company, is extending its security offerings to help states cover their bases as part of a “Secure the Vote” initiative. The company is encouraging state and local election boards to employ its services for basic security measures like multi-factor authentication and user privilege management — two easy steps that could thwart potential attacks. To coordinate with states, Centrify is working with the Department of Homeland Security on the budget and procurement processes as states begin to work more closely with the agency on the challenge of election security.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Centrify CEO Tom Kemp emphasized that states could bolster election security considerably by even undertaking the most basic safety measures.
“There’s some low-hanging fruit that can be done relatively quickly,” Kemp told TechCrunch, noting that this level of precaution would only take “a couple weeks of implementation work.”
As Kemp notes, the hackers targeting state election systems generally try to compromise admin-level accounts with broad system access. Multi-factor authentication requires an external confirmation of user identity in order to log into a system and is widely considered one of the more basic and most robust cybersecurity precautions for individuals and organizations alike. Centrify eschews the “trust but verify” approach, opting instead for a zero-trust security model that verifies user identity at all levels.
State and local election boards can work with Centrify to get free access to the company’s services for eight months, though they’ll need to sign up for an annual plan to get the deal. The company will work with those groups to deploy its services, with discounted on-site rates. Because the company is already registered in the federal procurement system, states have one less hurdle to overcome if they choose to work with Centrify while taking advantage of federal assistance seeking to bolster state election security. According to a federal contractor search, Centrify’s federal contracts have included work with the U.S. Navy and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“In order to secure the vote, Election Boards need to protect their election systems, and more importantly, sensitive voter registration information against bad actors,” Kemp said of the announcement. “That starts with adopting a new mindset that compromised credentials are the main attack vector.”
Source: TechCrunch
As the messaging app Telegram continues to try to evade Russian authorities by switching up its IP addresses, Russia’s regulator Roskomnadzor (RKN) has continued its game of whack-a-mole to try to lock it down by knocking out complete swathes of IP address. The resulting chase how now ballooned to nearly 19 million IP addresses at the time of writing, as tracked by unofficial RKN observer RKNSHOWTIME (updated on a Telegram channel with stats accessible on the web via Phil Kulin’s site).
As a result, there have been a number of high-profile services also knocked oput in the crossfire, with people in Russia reporting dozens of sites affected including Twitch, Slack, Soundcloud, Viber, Spotify, Fifa, Nintendo, as well as Amazon and Google. (A full list of nearly forty addresses is listed below.)
What’s notable is that Google and Amazon themselves seem still not to be buckling under pressure. As we reported earlier this week, a similar — but far smaller — instance happened in the case of Zello, which had also devised a technique to hop around IP addresses when its own IP addresses were shut down by Russian regulators.
Zello’s circumventing lasted for nearly a year, until it seemed the regulator started to use a more blanket approach of blocking entire subnets — a move that ultimately led to Google and Amazon asking Zello to cease its activities.
After that, Zello’s main access point for its Russian users was via VPN proxies — one of the key ways that users in one country can effectively appear as if they are in another, allowing them to circumvent geoblocking and geofencing, either by the companies themselves, or those that have been banned by a state.
It’s important to note that the domain fronting that Google is in the process of shutting down is not the same as IP hopping — although, more generally, it will mean that there is now one less route for those globally whose traffic is getting blocked through censorship to wiggle around that. The IP hopping that has led to 19 million addresses getting blocked in Russia is another kind of circumvention. (I’m pointing this out because several people I’ve spoken to assumed they were the same.)
Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder and CEO, has made several public calls on Telegram and also third-party sites like Twitter to praise how steadfast the big internet companies have been. And others like the ACLU have also waded into the story to call on Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft to hold strong and continue to allow Telegram to IP hop.
But what could happen next?
I’ve contacted Google, Amazon and Telegram now several times to ask this question and for more details on what is going on. As of yet I’ve had no replies. However, Alexey Gavrilov, the CTO and founder of Zello, provided a little more potential insight:
He said that ultimately they might ask Telegram to stop — something that might become increasingly hard not to do as more services get affected — and if that doesn’t work they can suspend Telegram’s account.
“Each cloud provider has provisions, which let them do it if your use interferes with other customers using their service,” Gavrilov notes. “The interpretation of this rule may be not trivial in case when the harm is caused by third party (i.e RKN in this case) so I think there are some legal risks for Amazon / Google. Plus that would likely cause a PR issue for them.”
Another question is whether there are bigger fish to fry in this story. Some have floated the idea that just as Zello preceded Telegram, RKN’s battles with the latter might lead to how it negotiates with Facebook.
As we have reported before, Facebook notably has never moved to house Russian Facebook data in Russia. Local hosting has been one of the key requirements that the regulator has enforced against a number of other companies as part of its “data protection” rules, and over the last couple of years while some high-profile companies have run afoul of the these regulations, others (including Apple and Google) have reportedly complied.
Regardless, there’s been one ironic silver lining in this story. Since RKN shifted its focus to waging a war on Telegram, Gavrilov tells me that Zello service has been restored in Russia. Here’s to weathering the storm.
We’ll update this post as and when we get responses from the big players. A more complete list of sites that people have reported as affected by the 19 million address block is below, via Telegram channel Нецифровая экономика (“Non-digital economy”). Some of these have been disputed, so take this with a grain of salt:
Source: TechCrunch
In the most 2018 thing of the year so far, Reuters and The New York Times are both reporting that Cambridge Analytica was talking to crytpocurrency experts in preparation for the launch of its own initial coin offering. Of course, things may have gotten a bit off-track when the company was revealed to have obtained the data of as many as 87 million Facebook users. Life, as they say, comes at you fast.
According to Reuters sources, the embattled firm was looking to issue its own digital currency in an effort to raise upwards of $30 million. Understandable, perhaps — startups reportedly raised $5.6 billion through ICOs in 2017 alone. Surely Cambridge Analytica was well-positioned to get in on that action.
The company wouldn’t confirm whether it was still looking toward digital currency as a fundraising method moving forward, though it did tell the news agency that using blockchain for security purposes is still very much on the table.
“Prior to the Facebook controversy, we were developing a suite of technologies to help individuals reclaim their personal data from corporate entities and to have full transparency and control over how their personal data are used,” a spokesperson said. “We were exploring multiple options for people to manage and monetize their personal data, including blockchain technology.”
The Times also confirms via leaked emails that CA’s work with another digital currency, Dragon Coin, “associated the firm” with a gangster know as Broken Tooth. Though Dragon Coin’s founder denies any connection with Mr. Tooth.
Source: TechCrunch
The robot can sort out precious materials other recyclers can’t recover.
Source: CNET
Commentary: After Russia blocks his messaging app, Pavel Durov shows that his body is more beautiful than even that of the Russian president.
Source: CNET
Amazon wants to welcome you to the dongle life with its MacBook deal of the day! If you’re getting this first-generation refurbished MacBook, you may want to pick up some accessories to connect to that lonesome USB Type-C port.
The post Apple’s first-generation MacBook is Amazon’s Deal of the Day appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Fake ad blockers is real news! These malicious extensions generated more than 20 million downloads on the Chrome store and their popularity shows that many internet users are still susceptible to malicious software.
The post 20 million Chrome users are fooled into downloading fake ad blockers appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
The carrier’s new Smart Family app lets parents see where their kids are and limit their phone or tablet screen time.
Source: CNET
Rare Bits wants to be eBay for the blockchain, where you buy, sell, and trade non-fungible crypto-goods. After CryptoKitties raised $12 million from Andreessen Horowitz last month for its digital collectibles game, there’s been an explosion of interest in the space. But without a popular marketplace, it’s hard to find the goods you want at the right price. Now a team of former Zynga staffers is building out its crypto-collectible auction and commerce site with a $6 million round led by Nabeel Hyatt at Spark Capital, and joined by First Rount Capital, David Sacks’ Craft Ventures, and SVAngel.
“Because of the Ethereum ledger, for the first time, users can truly own their digital items” says co-founder Amitt Mahajan. “Previously in mobile or social games, virtual items earned through play or by spending money were actually owned by the company operating the game. If they shut down their servers, the items would go away and users would be out of luck. We believe this new asset class represents a paradigm shift in digital property whereby centralized assets will be moved onto decentralized systems” 
For now, Rare Bits isn’t slapping any extra fees on its marketplace, compared to paying 1 percent to 4 percent on other marketplaces like Open Sea and Wyvern Exchange. Instead, if a crypto-item developer charges a fee on secondary sales, say 5 percent, they’ll split that with Rare Bits for arranging the transaction.
Users get the benefit of having all their crypto-collectibles in a single wallet. They can see historical pricing before they buy anything thanks to the transparency of the Ethereum ledger, whether they want to “Buy Now” or win an auction. They collectors can also see related items rather than transacting in a vacuum.
Rare Bits founders from left: Danny Lee, Payom Dousti, Dave Pekar, and Amitt Mahajan.
Mahajan, Danny Le, and Dave Pekar all met after selling their gaming startups to Zynga. [Disclosure: I know Pekar from college] Their fourth co-founder Payom Dousti worked at crypto VC fund 1/0 Capital and sold his sports analytics startup numberFire to FanDuel. With experience across the gaming, virtual good, and crypto space, Mahajan tells me “We thought long and hard about potentially building blockchain-based games ourselves but ultimately decided that there was a larger opportunity in focusing on crypto-based property as a whole.” The Rare Bits exchange launched in February and did over $100,000 in transactions in its first month.
With some CryptoKitties selling elsewhere for as much as $200,000, investors liked the idea of taking a cut of everyone’s transactions rather than just launching another digital trading card. That led Rare Bits to raise a $1 million seed from Macro Ventures and angels like Steve Jang and Robin Chan. As scaling issues threaten to prevent the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains from supporting micropayments and mainstream commerce, new use cases like crypto-collectibles are taking the spotlight.
Source: TechCrunch