Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: Internet

  • Anatomy of an internet exploit

    Anatomy of an internet exploit

    As one does on a weekend, I’m working my way through the 2016 Cisco Security Report.

    There are plenty of insights on online security trends which I’ll cover in tomorrow’s blog post but one aspect that sticks out in the report is the case study on the Angler Exploit which takes advantage of hacked domain registrar accounts to create new domain names to serve phishing pages, ransomware sites and malicious advertisements.

    Dealing with these sites is a major problem for network administrators and Cisco claims many of the domains registered haven’t yet been used by online criminals.

    The Angler exploit shows just how complex internet security has become. The issue of trust is a complex thing and certainly no-one can trust every domain we see. That there are thousands of ‘disposable’ domains available to scammers only makes things more difficult for the average user.

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  • Discrediting the dark web

    Discrediting the dark web

    The Libertarian dream of a free trade zone out of reach of authorities on the Dark Web has come to an end reports Wired.

    Ironically it’s not the authorities that have discredited these sites but the untrustworthiness of the various contraband services’ operators that have doomed these illicit marketplaces.

    While there’s still potential for these dark web markets to evolve into something more robust their current failure shows that radically changing existing institutions and systems is rarely happens quickly and without cost, as those with stolen Bitcoins are learning.

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  • Cutting the broadband cable

    Cutting the broadband cable

    It appears the penetration of home broadband has peaked in the United States report the Pew Research Centre.

    Since the organisation’s last home broadband survey in 2013, the proportion of adults living in a household with a fixed high speed connection has fallen from 70% to 67% while those relying solely on a smartphone connection has gone from 8 to 13 percent.

    This also coincides with 15% of respondents reporting that they’ve cancelled cable or satellite TV subscriptions as they can now get the content they want from the internet. It’s clear the shift away from broadcast is now firmly on.

    One of the jarring notes from the Pew survey is the digital divide developing with nearly half those without a home broadband connection citing cost, either of the Internet service or that of a computer, being the main barrier to going online.

    According to Pew, Americans are acutely aware of the problems of not having broadband with two-thirds of those surveyed believing not having a home high-speed internet connection is a major disadvantage to finding a job.

    The Pew survey shows how attitudes to Internet accessibility is changing, increasingly we’re seeing it as an essential like power and the telephone. Increasingly access to broadband is going to be a political issue.

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  • When autonomous vehicles and humans collide

    When autonomous vehicles and humans collide

    With the rapid advances in driverless cars, it was only a matter of time before the question of what happens when people encounter them would be answered.

    It turns out not too well for the autonomous vehicles reports Bloomberg citing a study by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute that found driverless cars have accident rates double those of normal vehicles.

    As it turns out, those accidents are usually minor and are caused by humans colliding with the autonomous vehicles as the law abiding computers catch drivers unawares.

    That people aren’t very good at driving cars isn’t a surprise but now we’re seeing what happens when distracted, mistake prone humans encounter cautious and usually correct computers.

    We now have to start thinking about what happens when artificial intelligence encounters human frailty.

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  • Walling off the Internet

    Walling off the Internet

    China held an internet conference today where, as Forbes reports, President Xi Jinping laid out the nation’s vision of an Internet that ‘complies with Chinese laws.’

    That Internet is a walled garden where access to sites like Facebook are blocked and an army of censors make sure that subjects which aren’t to the Chinese Communists Party’s approval are promptly removed.

    Meanwhile in the US, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated the Internet should closed down for America’s enemies.

    That both the Chinese government and Donald Trump agree on something shouldn’t be surprising, however the urge to monitor and shut down the Internet is shared by many governments. It’s an urge that needs to be resisted.

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