- Eulerian Video Magnification — papers and the MatLab source code for that amazing effect of exaggerating small changes in file. (*This work is patent pending)
- CopyrightX — MOOC on current law of copyright and the ongoing debates concerning how that law should be reformed. Through a combination of pre-recorded lectures, live webcasts, and weekly online seminars, participants in the course will examine and assess the ways in which law seeks to stimulate and regulate creative expression. (via BoingBoing)
- Cost Effectiveness for Open Access Journals — This plot reveals the prestige (Article Influence score) and publication charges for open access journals.
- Results of SANS SCADA Survey 2013 (PDF) — Unfortunately, at this time they seem unable to monitor the PLCs, terminal units and connections to field equipment due to lack of native security in the control systems themselves. (via InfoSecIsland)
ENTRIES TAGGED "SCADA"
Four short links: 5 March 2013
Video Magnification Code, Copyright MOOC, Open Access Cost-Effectiveness, and SCADA Security (Sucks)
New vision in old industry
A software startup builds itself to work with Michigan's manufacturers.
Nathan Oostendorp thought he’d chosen a good name for his new startup: “Ingenuitas,” derived from Latin meaning “freely born” — appropriate, he thought, for a company that would be built on his own commitment to open-source software.
But Oostendorp, earlier a co-founder of Slashdot, was aiming to bring modern computer vision systems to heavy industry, where the Latinate name…
Four short links: 7 February 2013
SCADA 0-Day, Complexity Course, ToS Tracking, and Custom Manufacturing Prostheses
- Tridium Niagara (Wired) — A critical vulnerability discovered in an industrial control system used widely by the military, hospitals and others would allow attackers to remotely control electronic door locks, lighting systems, elevators, electricity and boiler systems, video surveillance cameras, alarms and other critical building facilities, say two security researchers. cf the SANS SCADA conference.
- Santa Fe Institute Course: Introduction to Complexity — 11 week course on understanding complex systems: dynamics, chaos, fractals, information theory, self-organization, agent-based modeling, and networks. (via BoingBoing)
- Terms of Service Changes — a site that tracks changes to terms of service. (via Andy Baio)
- 3D Printing a Replacement Hand for a 5 Year Old Boy (Ars Technica) — the designs are on Thingiverse. For more, see their blog.
Hacking robotic arms, predicting flight arrival times, manufacturing in America, tracking Disney customers (industrial Internet links)
The next wave of manufacturing will be highly automated--and American. Also, a hardware hacking collective rehabilitated a pair of cast-off industrial robots.
Flight Quest (GE, powered by Kaggle) — Last November GE, Alaska Airlines, and Kaggle announced the Flight Quest competition, which invites data scientists to build models that can accurately predict when a commercial airline flight touches down and reaches its gate. Since the leaderboard for the competition was activated on December 18, 2012, entrants have already beaten the…
Four short links: 23 January 2013
Thwarting Facial Recognition Software, Operations Security, Password Cracking SCADA Systems, and Wearables Evolved
- These Glasses Thwart Facial Recognition Software (Slate) — good idea, but don’t forget to put a stone in your shoe to thwart gait recognition too.
- opsec for Hackers (Slideshare) — how boring and unexciting most of not getting caught is.
- DHS Warns Password Cracker Targeting Industrial Networks (Nextgov) — Security consultants recently concluded that there are about 7,200 Internet-facing critical infrastructure devices, many of which use default passwords. Wake me when you stop boggling. Welcome to the Internet of Insecure Things (it’s basically the Internet we already have, but Borat can pwn your hydro dam and your fridge is telling Chinese milspec hackers when you midnight snack).
- The Evolution of Steve Mann’s Apparatus (Beta Knowledge) — wearable computing went from “makes you look like a robot who will never get laid” to “looks like sunglasses and promiscuity is an option”.
Seeing peril — and safety — in a world of connected machines
Industrial malware has captured the imagination of the tech industry, but efforts by security researchers are promising.
I’ve spent the last two days at Digital Bond’s excellent S4 conference, listening to descriptions of dramatic industrial exploits and proposals for stopping them. A couple of years ago Stuxnet captured the imagination of people who foresee a world of interconnected infrastructure brought down by cybercriminals and hostile governments. S4 — which stands for SCADA Security Scientific Symposium…
Four short links: 27 December 2012
Industrial Control System Security, Geographic Pricing, Hacker Scouting, pressureNET Visualization
- Improving the Security Posture of Industrial Control Systems (NSA) — common-sense that owners of ICS should already be doing, but which (because it comes from the NSA) hopefully they’ll listen to. See also Wired article on NSA targeting domestic SCADA systems.
- Geographic Pricing Online (Wall Street) — Staples, Discover Financial Services, Rosetta Stone, and Home Depot offer discounts if you’re close to a competitor, higher prices otherwise. [U]sing geography as a pricing tool can also reinforce patterns that e-commerce had promised to erase: prices that are higher in areas with less competition, including rural or poor areas. It diminishes the Internet’s role as an equalizer.
- Hacker Scouting (NPR) — teaching kids to be safe and competent in the world of technology, just as traditional scouting teaches them to be safe and competent in the world of nature.
- pressureNET Data Visualization — open source barometric data-gathering software which runs on Android devices. Source is on GitHub.
Four short links: 17 December 2012
Javascript Traces, SCADA Security, Platform Economics, and Sport Tech
- TraceKit (GitHub) — stack traces for Javascript exceptions, in all major browsers.
- SCADA Manufacturer Starts Own Anti-Malware Project — perimeter protection only, so it doesn’t sound to my inexpert ears like the whole solution to SCADA vulnerability, but it at least shows that one SCADA manufacturer cares.
- Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets (PDF) — The economic effects of multihoming are fascinating. (via Tim O’Reilly)
- Silicon Valley Straps on Pads (WSJ) — SF 49ers hiring tech people to do what Harper Reed did for Obama. Interestingly, the tech people are the ones who must see what can be done, though they’re slowly working on the rest of the org: [W]ith scouts “what we found is we have to push them to dream even more, because usually it’s like, ‘OK, we can do that for you,’ and it’s done overnight.” Now, he says, scouts are far less shy about seemingly impossible technological requests.
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