Notes from the Electronic Cottage 8/9/18

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

DefCon 2018, a hacker convention in Las Vegas going on now, features a “Voting Machine Hacking Village.” Who will be attempting to hack into voting web sites? This year it will be young people, aged 8-16. Why young people? Because, in the words of one of the Village’s founders: “It’s just so easy to hack these web sites we thought grown-up hackers in the Vote Hacking Village wouldn’t be interested.” Think about that as we approach the 2018 Congressional elections in a few months, and then read the report from the Vote Hacking Village from 2017 at www.defcon.org/images/defcon-25/DEF CON voting village report.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 8/2/18

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Ever use a URL shortener?

Odds are pretty good that you have. They can be very convenient – and potentially very dangerous.
Have you read those Terms of Service for Google Docs (and pretty near any other online service you use)? No? Well, here are some of the things you have agreed to when you clicked “Okay” to use the service. Some of what you agreed to might surprise you. Here’s why.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/19/18

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Indictments for a dozen Russians for trying to influence our American Presidential election, hearings on how the use of Facebook users personal data was used to try to influence our Presidential election – these headlines point to an incredibly important underlying question: how can we keep Americans’ online personal information secure so that its illegal use does not undermine our system of government? Let’s look at some recommendations from the oldest and largest organization of computer professionals in the world.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/12/18

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Breaches and misuse of personal information

Breaches and misuse of personal information held by companies, social media sites, data brokers, etc. are unfortunately very common these days. What can we do about them? The Association for Computing Machinery has some ideas, and they are pretty good ones. They sent those suggestions to the Senate. Here’s why the Senate – and all of us – might want to pay attention.

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