EFF outs government-industry collusion
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has cracked the secret fingerprinting code that some color printer vendors use to watermark every printed page. The story has chilling reverberations for how technology "features" that are introduced to combat one problem, in this case counterfeiting, can be used to combat many others as well. EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien:
"'Even worse, it shows how the government and private industry make backroom deals to weaken our privacy by compromising everyday equipment like printers. The logical next question is: what other deals have been or are being made to ensure that our technology rats on us?'"
UPDATE: This story has now been picked up by slashdot, the wp, and others.
UPDATE: October 19, 2005: Mr. Schneier covers as well.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Why spend on IT?
Students in my IT Strategic Planning class at the University of Alberta will be familiar with the message of John Thorp in a recent Computerworld article cleverly entitled, "Buyers addicted to gambling on IT investments".
"Business needs to take greater responsibility for technology investments as $800 billion is wasted on ill-conceived IT projects each year, according to the head of Fujitsu's global consulting centre for strategic leadership, John Thorp. Pointing the finger at companies for having 'a serious addiction to gambling on IT investments', Thorp said a huge amount of money is spent on IT that is creating no value. 'The minute you put IT in front of something, it's an IT problem. IT strategy, IT governance, it's not about IT, it's about enterprise value,' he said."
Students in my IT Strategic Planning class at the University of Alberta will be familiar with the message of John Thorp in a recent Computerworld article cleverly entitled, "Buyers addicted to gambling on IT investments".
"Business needs to take greater responsibility for technology investments as $800 billion is wasted on ill-conceived IT projects each year, according to the head of Fujitsu's global consulting centre for strategic leadership, John Thorp. Pointing the finger at companies for having 'a serious addiction to gambling on IT investments', Thorp said a huge amount of money is spent on IT that is creating no value. 'The minute you put IT in front of something, it's an IT problem. IT strategy, IT governance, it's not about IT, it's about enterprise value,' he said."
Uncertain future for snort under Check Point
Security Wire Perspectives on Check Point's recent acquisition of Sourcefire, the owners of the open source IDS, snort:
"'Snort is now and will continue to be free to end-users,' Roesch wrote. 'We will continue to develop and distribute the Snort engine under the GPL, improve and document the program to stay on the cutting edge and expand the Snort.org Web site.'
Still, industry observers are hardly optimistic. Martin McKeay, a CISSP and Snort user based in Santa Rosa, Calif., said he's hoping for the best, but expecting the worst."
Security Wire Perspectives on Check Point's recent acquisition of Sourcefire, the owners of the open source IDS, snort:
"'Snort is now and will continue to be free to end-users,' Roesch wrote. 'We will continue to develop and distribute the Snort engine under the GPL, improve and document the program to stay on the cutting edge and expand the Snort.org Web site.'
Still, industry observers are hardly optimistic. Martin McKeay, a CISSP and Snort user based in Santa Rosa, Calif., said he's hoping for the best, but expecting the worst."
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About Me
- thrashor
- Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Returned to working as a Management Consultant, specializing in risk, security, and regulatory compliance, with Fujitsu Canada after running the IT shop in the largest library in the South Pacific.
