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Can Google Hold Back Facial Recognition For Glass?

February 4, 2014 Paul Roberts

The New Yorker blog has an interesting, short piece by Betsy Morais on the challenges posed by facial recognition and wearable technology that’s worth reading. The post, “Through a Face Scanner, Darkly” picks up on recent reports about a proliferation of facial recognition applications for the Google Glass platform, addressing the ethical implications of the intersection of wearable technology with powerful sensors and analytics capabilities, including facial recognition. Specifically, Morais zeros in on an app called NameTag that adds a face scanner to the Glass. “Snap a photo of a passerby, then wait a minute as the image is sent up to the company’s database and a match is hunted down. The results load in front of your left eye, a selection of personal details that might include someone’s name, occupation, Facebook and/or Twitter profile, and, conveniently, whether there’s a corresponding entry in the national sex-offender registry,” Morais writes. NameTag’s focus […]

You Can Build An Open Source NEST Clone In One Day? Uh Oh!

January 22, 2014 Paul Roberts

I’ve been amazed at the herds of Johnny Come Lately’s who have glom’d onto the amazing Nest thermostat since Google purchased the company that makes it, Nest Labs, for a whopping $3.2 billion last week. Nest – and even its sister Protect smoke alarm – were hardly new, but that didn’t stop CNN from posting a ‘gee whiz’ video in the days that followed that had all the ‘we were here first’ excitement of a hand-held broadcast from the floor of CES. That – even though Nest is coming up on its third birthday and its cousin, the Protect, was released to considerable fanfare in October. The question for Google, of course, is ‘how is Nest really worth?’ I use one at my house, and I think it’s gorgeous and smart – but $3.2 billion? That’s why I was interested to check out this article over at Postscapes.com about an open source […]

Cisco Eyes Security Services For Connected Cars

January 22, 2014 Paul Roberts

Connected vehicles are a big new area of investment. We saw evidence of that at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and we’re hearing a lot more about it this week, as carmakers strut their stuff at the North American International Auto Show. Security isn’t generally part of the conversation, but as we’ve noted here on more than one occasion: connected vehicles introduce a myriad of challenging security problems, from authentication to communications and system integrity, not to mention data privacy. [Read more Security Ledger coverage of connected vehicles here.] Now networking giant Cisco says that it sees a role for its technology in protecting vehicle area networks (VANs), just as the company’s networking equipment enabled and protected local and wide area networks (LANs and WANs) over the last two decades. In a blog post, Cisco said it is rolling out “a range of products and services” that it […]

Experts: Despite Warnings, Slow Progress Securing Industrial Systems

January 16, 2014 Paul Roberts

Despite increased media attention to the security of industrial control systems and critical infrastructure, progress in securing those devices has been slow, experts say. Despite progress in some areas, critical infrastructure – including energy and transportation networks- remains vulnerable to attacks leveled at known security holes for months or years because of a lack of vendor response or customers who lack the incentive or know-how to patch vulnerable systems. That according to some of the world’s top experts in cyber security and industrial systems, who are gathering this week at an industry conference in Miami. The S4 Conference, sponsored by the firm DigitalBond, is one of the premiere conferences for cyber security as it pertains to industrial control systems and often coincides with disclosures from industrial system vendors about serious security holes in their products. The security of industrial control systems has been a top concern of IT security experts and government […]

Cisco Survey: 100% of Fortune 500 Hosting Malware?

January 16, 2014 Paul Roberts

If you’re working in IT at a Fortune 500 firm, Cisco Systems has some unwelcome news: you have a malware problem. According to the 2013 Annual Security Report from the networking giant, 100 percent of 30 Fortune 500 firms it surveyed sent traffic to Web sites that host malware. Ninety-six percent of those networks communicated with hijacked servers operated by cyber criminals or other malicious actors and 92 percent transmitted traffic to Web pages without content, which typically host malicious activity. “It was surprising that it was 100 percent, but we know that it’s not if you’re going to be compromised, but when,” said Levi Gundert, a technical lead in Cisco’s Threat Research, Analysis and Communications (TRAC) group in an interview with The Security Ledger. Among the high points (or low points) in Cisco’s Report: Cisco observed the highest number of vulnerabilities and threats on its Intellishield alert service in the 13 years […]