The Security Skeptic

Support the SOPA, PIPA Protest

2012-01-17T18:03:05-05:00

This site supports the 18 January 2012 protests against the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP Acts (SOPA, PIPA). Please visit SOPAStrike.com to join the protest and to make your opposition known to the US Congress and US Senate. Yes, my content is still accessible. Somehow, blocking access to people who visit here to learn about SOPA and PIPA seems counterproductive.

A Behavioral Analysis Unit assessment of a APT unsub

2012-01-06T10:05:59-05:00

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) has four Behavioral Analysis Units: Unit 1 deals with counterterrorism, threat assessment; Unit 2 handles crimes against adults; Unit 3 investigates crimes against children; and Unit 4 manages the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program-ViCAP. If the FBI were to create an APT behavior analysis Unit (5) dedicated to assessing APT actors, and on the extraordinarily small chance that the writers of Criminal Minds were to run out of horrible, real world crimes to base scripts on, the story writers just might profile "the APT unsub" as follows:...

One congressman's opposition to SOPA worth noting

2011-12-28T09:23:55-05:00

On November 16, 2011, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Ron Wyden asked that he be permitted to include a statement opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act. The full statement is published as a press release at Senator Wyden's web site. It is a thoughtful and carefully constructed expression of concern regarding SOPA and PIPA. In his closing statements, Senator Wyden asks that members of Congress respect the following principles: Photo by DonkeyHotey "1. Be deliberate. While rights holders and law enforcement are understandably eager to go after bad actors, we must be mindful of the precedents we set...

SOPA: a great example of failing to know your enemy...or your friends

2011-12-20T11:41:54-05:00

Proponents of SOPA want Congress to believe that DNS filtering will strike a death blow to online piracy. They argue that preventing the domain names that criminals use for infringing sites from resolving to Internet addresses will prevent criminals from distributing copyrighted material or selling knockoff versions of "brand" goods. The premise is false. Photo by LesHoward If we have learned nothing else about electronic crime in the past decade, we do know one thing for certain. Online criminals adapt. When an attack, stealth, or evasion technique ceases to be effective, online criminals try something different. A recent article at...

A practical resource for managing advanced persistent threats (APTs)

2011-12-08T09:43:51-05:00

You don't have to search very hard to find some Chicken Little fluff piece heralding sky-falling doom in the form of an advanced persistent threat (APT). If your experience is like mine, however, fewer than one in ten of the resources you find do more than tell you what an APT is, warn you that you are already a victim or a victim in waiting, or promise you that you'll be better protected if you buy *this* product. Photo by Lori Kudos to the folks at Public Safety Canada for compiling a concise report entitled Mitigation Techniques for Advanced Persistent...