Tag: Privacy

Mixing up the constitution

When your state secretary is mixing up all sorts of things. When at the official site, at last email (and other ‘telecomm’) is listed to be included as protected on the same footing as snail mail has always been, qua privacy protection.

Which raises the question: Does that include the right to use (uncrackable) encryption, because that is what is equivalent to a sealed envelope ..? When the same government wanted to ban that, or allow simply-crackable [i.e., with bumblinggovernment means – the most simpleton kind or ‘too hard’] encryption only?
Why would this have to be included so explicitly in the constitution no less, when just about every other tech development isn’t anywhere there, and in the past it has always been sufficient to interpret/read the constitution to automatically translate to the most modern tech without needing textual adaptation ..? [As has been the case in every civilised country, and maybe even in the US too.]
And where would GDPR impinge on this; is the rush necessitated by GDPR (with all its law-enforcement exemptions, pre-arranging the ab-use of those powers GDPR will give), or is this an attempt to pre-empt protection against Skynet overlords (pre-pre-empting GDPR protection for citizens), – recognising that anything so rushed will never be in favour of those citizens – or what?

One wonders. And:
[So many “unidentified” office buildings in NY, NY …]

Pitting the Good against the Others

When the recent rumours were, are valid that some patches were retracted — and this was because they accidentallt disables other exploits not yet outed in the stash, this would bring a new (?) tension to the surface or rather, possibly explains some deviant comms of the past:
Where some infosec researchers had been blocked from presenting their 0-day vulns / exploit-PoCs, this may not have been for protection of the general public or so, but to keep useful vulnerabilities available for the TLAs of a (variety of?) country(-ies).
Pitting the Ethical researchers against the bad and the ugly…

No “Oh-oh don’t give the bad guys valuable info and allow even more time to the s/w vendors to plug the holes” but “Dammit there go our secret backdoors!”
Makes much more sense, to see the pres blocking in this light. And makes huge bug bounties by these TLAs towards soon to be a bit less ethical researchers, more possible and probable. Not as yet better known, though. Thoughts?
[Takes off tinfoil movie-plot security scenario hat]

Oh, and:
[All looks happy, but is looked upon from above …; Riga]

Collateral (un)patching; 0+1-day

Is this a new trend? Revealing that there had been a couple of exploitables, backdoors in your s/w when you patch some other ones and then have to roll back because you p.’d off the wrong ones since you accidentally also patched or disabled some hitherto secret ones.
At least, this is what it seems like when reading this; M$ stealthily (apparently not secretly enough) patching some stuff in negative time i.e., before-zero day. When later there’s rumours about this patch(ing, possibly parts of) is retracted.

For this, there appear (again) to be two possible reasons:
a. You flunked the patch and it kills some Important peoples’ system(s);
b. You ‘flunked’ the patch and you did right, but the patch effectively killed some still-not-revealed (in the stash) backdoors that the Important peoples (TLAs) still had some use for and were double-secretly requested to put back in place.

I’m in a Movie Plot mood (come to think of it, for no reason; ed.) and go for the second option. Because reasons (contradictory; ed.). Your 2¢ please.

Oh, and:
[So crowded and you’re still much less than a stone’s throw from a Da Vinci Code (was it?) big secret — I may have the pic elsewhere on my blog…; Barça]

Common(s) as privacy and vice versa ..?

Remember from your econ class that concept of The Commons, and how problematic it was? Is?
There was this intriguing post recently, on how Free Speech might be considered and deliberated in terms of the commons being exhausted by undue over-use (abuse) — for its use alone ( → ). Leading to aversity of the concept not of the abuser or his (sic) apparent locally recognised but globally not, ‘valid’ reason(s) for over-use.

Which, as is my wont of the moment, driven by personal business interests, I took to be applicable to Privacy as well. Maybe not in the same way, but … This will need quite some discussion between me on the one hand, and peers and others on the other who would actually know what they’re talking about. Throwing in a bit of anglo-american data-isn’t-yours versus European (‘continental’ — will brexit – which starts to sound like a lame Benny Hill kind of joke ever more – change that ..??) data-is-datasubject’s-always divides, and some more factors here and there. Complicating matters, but hey life’s not perfect.

Waddayathink? In for a discussion ..? Let’s start!

And:
[Not so very common-s; Toronto]

Ben still has all the Ayes

There is no end to the need to repeat the, somewhat but simply never sufficiently, quote by the Ben you know best:
Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.

How valid today. How utterly moronic in comparison all that would allow crypto-backdoors (for other reasons, too), and covert catch-all dragnet surveillance. Etc.   Etc…

Oh and for the few that are still interested in the United States Constitution, they shall refer to article 1, section 7, clause 2 , that has not ayes and nays but yeas and Nays. Just wanted that off my plate.

Leaving you with:
[You’ll be naked and that will not be pretty; Barça]

All fine, for whom?

Just to be clear: Where do all the fines that will rain like hail from heck once GDPR comes into force, go to ..? Yes the supervisory authority may levy the fines, but it isn’t clear to whom the payment should go. Certainly leading to huge differences in compliance chasing: When the auth may keep them for themselves, they’re a. richer than the king since b. sure to penalise each and every futile infringement to the max; when the money goes to government’s coffers, that chasing not so much because who’d care?
You don’t believe me, right? Just wait and see. And weep.

Plus:
[Where the coffers are kept ..? Segovia]

Progress, friends, is here. Only, not everywhere. Yet. Say ‘No’ till then?

You know that the bright new future is here, when amid the torrent (figuratively referring to the physical phenomenon, nothing to do with the on-line tool(s)) of fake news, this still makes it into a headline: ATMs now to begin to start being rolled out with Win10 ‘support’. To be completed per 2020, when support for Win7 stops. Right. 2020; probably not referring to the eyesight of the ones planning this, not being personally accountable and duly informed of the risks.

Because otherwise, wouldn’t it be smarter to come up with a clever idea to do the roll-out within a month, to prevent just about anyone to take ATM security — or is it a signpost for overall infosec’s position — seriously, as seriously as it should ..?

It’s time there comes an agency, Nationwide, worldwide, that has the authority to say NO!!! to all ill-advised (IT- which is the same these days) projects. Infosec professionals tried to ditch the Dr. No image, but it turns out, it’s needed more than ever to prevent the Stupid (Ortega y Gasset’s Masses I guess) from endangering all of us or at least squandering the billions (yes) that could have been applied against world poverty etc.etc.

Oh, and:
[The UBO ‘humanity’ seems to be lost, here; Zuid-As Ams]

Fake your news

So this is your future, part II:
Fake news is (to be – timeframe in question is ..?) battled by platforms that have full control over just about everything out there. By whatever algorithm these might bring to bear, most probably with a dose of ill-aligned AI creating a filter bubble of the most beneficial to the platforms kind for sure which is the most profitable one to their *paying* customers which is the ad industry which hence is by definition detrimental to the users, the global general public (sic).
Thus suppressing Original Content by users that isn’t verifiable against the ever narrowing ‘truth’ definitions that benefit the platforms.
Thus installing the most massive censorship ever dreamt of.
And despite some seemingly (!) benign user support in this …

In the olden days, anything of such ubiquity that it was factually (sic) a (inter)national utility, was nationalised to bring it under direct control of the People.
May we now see the appropriation of Fb by the UN due to exactly the same reason ..?

One can hope..? Plus:
[Rosy window on the world ..? Not even that; Zuid-As Amsterdam]

Pwds, again. And again and again. They’re 2FA-capable ..!

Why are we still so spastic re password ‘strength’ rules ..?

They have been debunked as being counterproductive outright, right? Since they are too cumbersome to deal with, and are just a gargleblaster element in some petty arms’ race with such enourmous collateral damage and ineffectiveness.

And come on, pipl! The solution has been there all along, though having been forbidden just as long …:
Write down your passphrases! The loss of control by having some paper out there, e.g., on your (Huh? Shared workspace, BYOD anyone?) monitor (Why!? Why not have the piece of paper in your wallet; most users will care for their money and those that don’t, miss some cells due to the same you wouldn’t want them at your workplace anyway) is minute, certainly compared to the immense increase in entropy gains i.e., straight-out security gains.
And … when you keep your written-down pwd to yourself (e.g., against this sort of thing), it becomes the same thing any physical token is and you created your own Two Factor Authentication without any investment other than the mere org-wide system policy setting change of requiring pwds of at least, say, 25 characters. (And promulgating this but that shouldn’t be too hard; opportunity to show to make life easier for end users, for once, and great opportunity for collateral instructions on (behavioural) infosec in general…)

What bugs me is that alreay a great string of generations have been led astray while all along the signs were on the wall – not the passwords on them, but the eventual inevitable collapse of the system, by users that demonstrated this security measure was too impractical to stick to par excellence as evidenced in the still-strong and practiced practice of writing down pwds. If people do some specific thing despite decades of instruction … might we consider the instruction to not fit the humans’ daily operations ..? so the ones seeking to Control [what pityful failures, those ones …; ed.] will have to rescind?

So, written-down passphrases it is. Plus:
[Easy sailing to new lands, beats being stuck on Ellis; NY]

No legalese please, we’re in business

Which translates to: A DPO better be an IT expert who has learnt [for clear thinking, UK English is preferred by far; ed.] the legalese of the GDPR, than a legal expert who has learnt some tidbits of IT. Despite the usual suspects exceptions, you do recognise the former and latter types in practice. And exceptions those are.
And debunking the myth that a legally schooled ‘GRC’ operative might pick up sufficient IT skills in a couple of courses or a bit of privacy practice, needn’t be necessary or you have done zero investigation re this. What a sorcerer’s apprentice of the pastiche kind do they portray. Because the mindset is inappropriate; the mindset of accidentally finding an interesting problem and for once not being dazed by those in the know, studying it extensively, how interesting this all, and then       hardly anything. Certainly (sic) no actual solution to the problem…
The IT side, so often and so extensively underestimated in its intricacies throughout the vast wide scope of it in particular qua privacy concerns even in the GDPR itself that core document around which so many circle, on the other hand is qua background focused on (actively going out and) finding problems and then creating and implementing a solution.
And at the same time, recognising that the legal stuff is not as hard as it is sometimes portrayed (instigated) to be and does not require more than a trade diploma level of intellectual development, if even that.

One could easily remain on the subject but without much gain. We retire, having made sufficient argument why DPOs have no legal basis need in their functional requirement.

Oh, and:
[Feel free to pose and shine – with pretense of superiority through some legal jargon most probably devoid of meaning; NY]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord