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Daily Archives: June 8, 2021

How to make your offline self harder to find online

The Verge:  “There are two key concepts in information security: threat model and attack surface. “Threat model” is another way of asking, “Who’s out to get you?” If your threat model includes the curiosity of nation-state intelligence services, you have many more things to worry about than J. Random User. It’s more likely that voicing a contrary opinion on social media might make you yet another unwitting main character of Twitter, or that a stray mention by someone else could bring you to the attention of the internet’s malcontents. “Attack surface,” meanwhile, describes a target’s vulnerable access points that an attacker will seek to exploit. When it comes to the internet, it’s nearly impossible to collapse your attack surface to zero — you’ll never achieve that without going into witness protection. Our goal in this article is to help you condense your attack surface as much as possible. Trying to scrub your offline coordinates from the online world can feel like counting cicadas: you can start, but you will never finish Admittedly, trying to scrub your offline coordinates from the online world can feel like counting cicadas during the every-17-years emergence of those sex-starved insects: you can start, but you will never finish. But that doesn’t mean that giving up is the right answer. With some effort, you can make data points like your street address, phone number, and birthday less visible online — and therefore less easily available for harassment or identity theft. This exercise will also renew your awareness — as unpleasant as the consequences might be — of just how much data about you sloshes around the web. And it may get you to think anew about how you want to craft the picture that emerges of you online in a stranger’s search…”

Fastly outage explained: How one customer broke Amazon, Reddit and the wider internet

CNET: “Tuesday [June 8, 2021] will be remembered as the day the internet broke — before swiftly being fixed again. Early in the morning, websites including Amazon, Reddit, Spotify, Ebay, Twitch, Pinterest and, unfortunately, CNET went offline due to a major outage at a service called Fastly. Everywhere you looked, there were 503 errors and… Continue Reading

This is how fast a password leaked on the web will be tested out by hackers

ZDNet: “Half of accounts compromised in phishing attacks are manually accessed within 12 hours of the username and password being leaked, as cyber criminals look to exploit stolen credentials as quickly as possible. Cybersecurity researchers at Agari planted thousands of credentials – that were made to look like they belonged to real users, but were… Continue Reading

U.S. News & World Report Law Library Survey Questions: Where Do We Go From Here?

AALL: “The first results using the new U.S. News & World Report survey questions for law libraries were released in late March and have not been without controversy. What comes next? Join us, Friday, June 11, 2021 (11am – 12pm US/Central) for a discussion of the future of the U.S. News law library metrics with… Continue Reading

Privacy tech industry explodes

Axios: “Businesses forced to comply with a patchwork of state and global privacy rules have turned what was once a cottage industry focused on data and privacy into a multi-billion-dollar sector. Why it matters: As COVID-19 pushed consumers online in droves, companies — from Fortune 500 firms to the corner coffee shop — had to… Continue Reading

How Do Spam Callers Spoof Phone Numbers to Appear Local?

Make Use Of: “Phone fraud, along with spam calls, is growing in popularity and frequency day by day. Scammers use various spoofing methods to trick people into picking up their calls and acquiring their valuable personal information. Knowing how scammers spoof phone numbers can help you stay protected from nuisance calls. Read on to learn how… Continue Reading

World’s Biggest Open Source Database Conference, Percona Live Sessions Now Available Online

Business Wire – “…With 206 sessions and 196 speakers, the conference provided an opportunity for beginners and experts to learn from many of the largest organizations in the world, and hear from the people solving some of the biggest database challenges. Percona Live ONLINE 2021 was our biggest and best conference yet,” said Peter Zaitsev,… Continue Reading

Law Librarians Name Casetext Compose New Product Of The Year

Law Sites: “A first-of-its-kind tool introduced last year to automate the drafting of litigation briefs has been named new product of the year for 2021 by the American Association of Law Libraries. The product, Compose, introduced in February 2020 by legal research company Casetext, helps attorneys automate the creation of the first draft of a… Continue Reading