Showing posts with label Intellectual Property. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intellectual Property. Show all posts

February 26, 2020

Assange, A Rat

Apparently, people will protest anything.

Here they are protesting against the extradition of Julian Assange of Wikileaks.

Assange allegedly published loads of classified documents stolen from this country.

That is NOT journalism or freedom of speech.

It is spreading stolen materials, endangering the nation, and maybe even espionage!

Freedom of speech is calling out a possible rat when we see one and having him brought to face justice. ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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December 26, 2018

Tired Of All The Whining About China

I don't know about you, but I am so tired about all the whining about China. 

- They are stealing our intellectual property. 

- They are hacking into our systems. 

- They are unfairly forcing us to transfer technology to them.

- They aren't opening up their market to us. 

OMG stop the complaining already!

If you don't like what they are doing, then do something about it. 

Tariffs are a start, but just a small one. 

Seriously, if you can't incentivize them to stop the harassment and unfair trade practices by adding them to the World Trade Organization, investing in them, and partnering with them, then you need to actually compete with China. 

- They steal our sh*t--you help yourself to a generous serving of theirs.  

- They break into our systems--you find your way into their systems.

- They try to unfairly take away our markets and jobs--you take away theirs big time.  

Everyone knows that to deal with bully, you must fight back!

The more we are scared into inaction, the worse it gets.

This doesn't mean that we should get into a military exchange with China, but we do need to get into a confrontation over what economic and global partnership should mean and look like. 

China is an old and truly great nation and their people should be highly respected.

However, the USA should also be treated right, and if that means it's time for a heart to heart and some evening up of the playing field then that is what has to happen. 

We have to restore respect to America, not by becoming bullies ourselves, but by standing up to them when we are being taken advantage of.  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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June 6, 2017

Perception Is Reality

Sometimes, one person's clothing hook is another person's elephant trunk.

Or maybe it's the other way around that some creative person looked at an elephant and thought:

"Oh my that trunk of his would make a great clothing hook."

Life mimics art and art imitates life.

And that is flattery both ways. 

Either way perception is reality. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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December 17, 2016

Returning The US Drone

So I love and respect China, and think they are one of the greatest nations of the world.

However, it is wrong that their military stole a US drone in international waters. 

Bullying and theft is a violation of the rule of law and a challenge to America on the international stage. 

So far, our leadership from behind approach has again done virtually nothing, except like a child, ask for it back (after they have already taken whatever they wanted from it). 

Moreover, this is not the first time China has captured our assets and people--less than 6 years ago, they collided into one of our EP-3E surveillance aircraft and captured, interrogated , and held the crew for 11 days!

And hence our planes and ships keep getting buzzed, our citizens captured and humiliated, our assets confiscated illegally, and our secret intellectual property unabashedly hacked and copied.

Moreover, we are seeing a resurgent Russia in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria; a militarized China expanding and weaponizing the South China Sea, a belligerent North Korea with ever further reaching ballistic nukes, and an Iran that violates their nuclear deal at will and now runs amuck with military operations from Iraq to Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and more. 

Oh, and surely let's not forget ISIS and the global wave of Islamic terrorism that is unabated from Paris to Orlando. 

Despite our outspending the next leading 8 nations combined on the military, we continue to be the laughing stock internationally with world leaders calling our Presidents everything from the devil to an SOB

No one would dare do this with Putin's Russia!

Why? Because they know the ridiculous price they would pay. 

We have long since passed the time when we should've stopped the whining, begging, and acting the victim, and instead start to do something real to defend ourselves and once again establish a no-nonsense deterrent, rather than a joke of red lines and hollow threats.

Our Commander-in-chief, instead of laying blame at the doorstep of Congress or world leaders doing the wrongdoing, should start to act his position. 

Perhaps, just perhaps, it's a single phone call to whoever has our drone that says something like, "You have exactly 2 hours to return the drone unharmed or the ship that was responsible for stealing it will pay the consequences--and the clock starts ticking now!"

The funny-sad thing is that bullies don't stop bullying until you stand up to them once and for all. 

A real Commander In Chief protects his nation and his people and doesn't let them be victimized in a endless cycle of violence and shame...and he does it before something really bad can happen. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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November 15, 2016

Why Can't We Keep Our Secrets

Well after the now notorious email scandal and other information security mishaps galore, this advertisement in Washington, DC is really quite the rage. 
"Keeps classified data classified."

As parents tell their children about keeping private things private:
"If you can't keep it a secret, then how do you expect the other kids to keep it to themselves?"

There are lots of secrets in DC, but there are also a lot of big mouths, security negligence, and even corruption. 

This gives our adversaries the opportunities they need to get our countries vital information. 

We work too hard to develop the best intellectual property for national security and our economy as well as the critical policies for advancing human rights and democracy around the world to let it just be easy fodder for others to help themselves too. 

Technology won't solve the gap in certain big mouths and sloppy Joes around town. 

Only vigilant, smart people can protect the nations vital information that is the fuel for our success and survival. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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October 6, 2016

Preventing Cyber Disaster

So I liked this ad from Palo Alto Networks on the side of the bus, over the windows:
"Dinosaurs react.
Professionals prevent."

That's some very good marketing for a cyber security company.

It's almost a daily occurrence now to hear about the infiltrations into our networks and exfiltrations or manipulations of data that is taking place across government and industry.

Just today again, another NSA contractor accused of stealing highly classified computer code.

The day before Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks releases trove of stolen documents from the Clinton Foundation

And again, J&J reveals that it's insulin pump is vulnerable to hacking following allegations in August that St. Jude heart devices were subject to life-threatening hacking. 

Certainly, we can't afford to sit back and wait to react to the next attack...damage control and remediation is much harder than getting out in front of the problem in the first place. 

Prevention and deterrence is really the only solution...keep the hackers out and make sure they know that if they mess with us and our systems that we can identify who they are, find them, and take them out. 

These are the capabilities we need and must employ to dominate the cyber realm. 

In the presidential debates, candidates struggled to articulate how to deal with cybersecurity

But this is not a game of cyberopoly, rather national security, critical infrastructure, vital intellectual property, and our economy is at risk. 

Giving away Internet control and trying to plug leaks after the fact on a sinking cyber ship is no way to manage our vital technology resources.

It's high time for the equivalent Cold War determination and investment that ensures we win a free and safe cyberspace with all our networks and data intact. 

This is the only way that we don't go the way of the dinosaurs. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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August 25, 2016

Modesty And Privacy Of Body and Information

So modesty and privacy is very important in terms of propriety and security.

Both are intimately connected. 

Already as children, we learn not to show or talk about our "privates" to others. 

And as adults, we understand that there are certain things about ourselves that we don't just talk about or divulge to others indiscriminately. 

Not being discrete with these and showing either your private parts or your personal information can get you in a load of trouble by giving others the opportunity to take undue advantage of you. 

Both open you up to be ridiculed or even raped of your person or information identity. 

That which is yours to use with others in propriety is instead disclosed for taking out from your control and for use against you. 

Security demands modesty of body and of information, and if not taken seriously, then no amount of lame covering will keep that which is private from public consumption. ;-)
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February 9, 2016

Cybersecurity Lost In Unknowns

Today unveiled is a new Cybersecurity National Action Plan

This in the wake of another Federal data breach on Sunday at the Department of Justice where hackers stole and published online the contact information for 9,000 DHS and 20,000 FBI personnel

And this coming on the heels of the breach at OPM that stole sensitive personnel and security files for 21 million employees as well as 5.6 million fingerprints.

While it is nice that cybersecurity is getting attention with more money, expertise, public/private poartnerships, and centers of excellence. 

What is so scary is that despite our utter reliance on everything cyber and digital, we still have virtually no security!

See the #1 definition for security--"the state of being free from danger or threat."

This is nowhere near where we are now facing threats every moment of every day as hackers, cybercriminals, cyber spies, and hostile nation states rapidly cycle to new ways to steal our secrets and intellectual property, commit identity theft, and disable or destroy our nation's critical infrastructure for everything from communications, transportation, energy, finance, commerce, defense, and more. 

Unlike with kinetic national security issues--where we regularly innovate and build more stealthy, speedy, and deadly planes, ships, tanks, surveillance and weapons systems--in cyber, we are still scratching our heads lost in unkowns and still searching for the cybersecurity grail:

- Let's share more information

- Let's throw more money and people at the problem.

- Let's seek out "answers to these complex challenges"

These have come up over and over again in plansreviewsinitiatives, and laws for cybersecurity.

The bottom line is that today it's cyber insecurity that is prevailing, since we cannot reliably protect cyber assets and lives as we desperately race against the clock searching for real world solutions to cyber threats. 

Three priorities here...

1) Build an incredibly effective intrusion protection system
2) Be able to positively tag and identify the cyber attackers 
3) Wield a powerful and credible offensive deterrent to any threats ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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January 8, 2016

We Just Keep Giving It All Away

How do these things keep happening to us?

We lost a high-tech Hellfire air-to- ground missile, accidentally sending it to Cuba, likely compromising critical sensor and GPS targeting technology to China, Russia, and/or North Korea. 

But it's not all that different from how many other examples, such as: 

- Chinese cyber espionage snared critical design secrets to the 5th generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

- Iran captured and purportedly decoded an RQ-170 Sentinel high-altitude reconnaissance drone.

- Russian spies stole U.S. nuclear secrets helping them to build their first atomic bomb.

We are the innovator for high-tech bar none, which is beautiful and a huge competitive advantage. 

But what good is it when we can't protect our intellectual property and national security secrets. 

The U.S. feeds the world not only with our agricultural, but with our knowledge.

Knowledge Management should be a mindful exercise that rewards our allies and friends and protects us from our enemies--and not a free-for-all where we we can't responsibly control our information. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to James Emery)
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June 8, 2014

Solve That Problem Simply

I have always been intrigued by simple solutions to complex problems.

Bloomberg Businessweek has a great example of how a Fulbright Scholar studying in Beijing solved the smog problem for many people wanting to reduce the danger to themselves and their families.

Air Filters that purify the air can cost around $800, and often one is needed for each room. 

But Thomas Talhelm founder of Smart Air Filters found he could do the job with a simple HEPA filter, fan, and velcro strap to hold them together for just $33/kit. 

He tested the results and found that he could remove 90% of particles 2.5 microns and above in the room. 

Talhem's biggest problem now are copycat DIY air filters hitting the market. 

If only inventors could come up with a simple solution to protecting intellectual property in places where either there aren't rules or they aren't strictly enforced.

When innovations are so easily copycatted, there is less incentive to problem-solve and think out of the box, and that's a problem for society where the s___ really hits the fan. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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March 7, 2014

We're Giving It All Away


Nice little video from Mandiant on "The anatomy of a cyber attack."

Despite the typical firewalls, antivirus, and intrusion detection system, cyber attacks can and do penetrate your systems.

This happens through social engineering (including phishing attempts), automated spam, and zero-day exploits.

Once inside your network, the cyber attacker takes command and control of your computers, surveys your assets, steals user names and passwords, hijacks programs, and accesses valuable intellectual property. 

Mandiant performs security incident response management (detecting breaches, containing it, and helping recovery efforts), and they are known for their report "APT1" (2013) exposing an alleged significant government-sponsored cyber espionage group that they state "has systematically stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations."

Another fascinating report on a similar topic of advanced persistent threats was done by McAfee on Operation Shady Rat (2011) that reveals over 70 organizations (governments, commercial entities, and more) that were targeted over 5 years and had terabytes of information siphoned off. 

The overall risk from cyber espionage is high and the McAfee report states:

- "Every company in every conceivable industry with significant size and valuable intellectual property and trade secrets has been compromised (or will be shortly), with the great majority of the victims rarely discovering the intrusion or its impact."

- "What we have witnessed...has been nothing short of a historically unprecedented transfer of [intellectual] wealth - closely guarded national secrets...disappeared in the ever-growing electronic archived of dogged adversaries."

In short we can't keep a secret--we're putting endless gobs and gobs of our information online and are not adequately protecting it in cyberspace, with the result that our adversaries are able to access, exfiltrate, disclose, modify, or destroy it.

In short, we're giving it all away - why? 
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February 22, 2014

National State Of Cyber Insecurity


This video is a wake up call on the state of our national cyber insecurity. 

It is the opening statement (about 6 minutes) of Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of Oversight, Investigations, and Management.

What he describes is quite grave and every American should listen carefully about the state of our cyber insecurity that poses a real and significant threat to our economy and national security.

We are under attack by cyber criminals, terrorists, and hostile nation states. 

Our adversaries seek to and can paralyze our critical infrastructure, steal our intellectual property, conduct espionage, and access our personal and financial information. 

The collapse of our military networks, financial system, energy, transportation, and electricity "is not science fiction."

The cyber attacks are "real, stealth, and persistent, and can devastate our nation." 

It is "not a matter of if, but when a Cyber Pearl Harbor will occur."

And "we have been fortunate that up until this point that cyber attacks on our country have not caused a cataclysmic event."

I read from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (2011) that cybersecurity has taken a back seat after 9/11 to the War on Terror as well as the economic fight after the recession of 2008, with the result that "the United States is unprepared to defend itself."

Chairman McCaul critically states at the end of his opening statement, "Let's do something meaningful [now] because it is not a tolerable situation!"
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June 25, 2012

Security Advisory For Architecture Drawings

Dark Reading (21 June 2012) came out with security news of a AutoCAD Worm called ACAD/Medre.A that targets design documents.

I also found warnings about this vulnerability at PC magazine (24 June 2012).

This malware was discovered by computer security firm ESET

This is a serious exploitation in the industry leader for computer-aided design and drafting that is used to create most of our architectural blueprints.

Approximately 10,000 machines are said to have been affected in Peru and vicinity, with documents being siphoned off to email accounts in China. 

With information on our architectural structure and designs for skyscrapers, government building, military installations, bridges, power plants, dams, communication hubs, transportation facilities, and more, our critical infrastructure would be seriously jeopardized. 

This can even be used to steal intellectual property such as designs for innovations or even products pending patents. 

This new malware is another example of how cyber espionage is a scary new reality that can leave us completely exposed from the inside out.

Need any more reason to "air gap" sensitive information and systems?

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Wade Rockett)

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May 13, 2012

Facebook IPO--Love It, But Leave It

With the Facebook IPO scheduled for this week, valuing the company at as much as $96 billion, many investors according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek (11 May 2012) see this as overvalued.

Facebook will be the largest Internet IPO in history, and would be about 4 times as much as Google was valued at its IPO at $23 billion in 2003.

Further, Facebook could be valued at offering at 99 times earnings.

This is more than the price earnings ratio of 99% of companies in the S&P Index, yet even with some estimating sales of $6.1 billion this year, Facebook would only rank about 400 in the S&P 500.

True Facebook has amassed an incredible 900 million users, but the company's revenue growth has slowed for the 3rd year in a row.

Another article in BusinessWeek (10 May 2012) describes a new social networking contender called Diaspora.

Unlike Google+ which is predominantly a Facebook copycat, Diaspora is bringing something new and major to the table--they are addressing the privacy issues that Facebook has not.

Diaspora is a distributed (or federated) social network, unlike Facebook which is centralized--in other words, Diaspora allows you to host your own data wherever you want (even in the cloud).

Each of these independently owned Diaspora instances or "pods" (dispersed like in the Diaspora) make up a true social "network"--interconnected and interoperable computing devices.

With Diaspora, you own your own data and can maintain its privacy (share, delete, and do what you want with your information), unlike with Facebook where you essentially give up rights to your data and it can and is used by Facebook for commercial use--for them to make money off of your personal/private information.

When it comes to personal property, we have a strong sense of ownership in our society and are keen on protecting these ownership rights, but somehow with our personal information and privacy, when it comes to social networking, we have sold ourselves out for a mere user account.

As loss of personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property, identity theft, and other serious computer crimes continues to grow and cost us our money, time, and even our very selves in some respects, alternatives to the Facebook model, like Diaspora, will become more and more appealing.

So with social networks like Facebook--it is a case of love it, but leave it!

Love social networking--especially when privacy is built in--and others don't have rights to what you post.

But leave it--when they are asking for your investment dollar (i.e. IPO) that could be better spent on a product with a business model that is actually sustainable over the long term.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Allan Cleaver)

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December 9, 2011

Losing The Edge, No More

For years, there has been all sorts of uproar about the U.S. and its citizens and businesses losing their edge.

From critics who point out to how our educational system (especially through high school) is not keeping up, how we are not attracting and graduating enough folks in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), how our inventions are freely copied overseas, and how innovation and entrepreneurship is suffering at home whether due to challenging economic or social conditions.

Yet, when it comes to losing our edge, nothing is more maddening than when the technological advances we do have are taken from us--this happens in numerous ways, including:

- Cyber Attacks: According to the Pentagon Strategy on Cyberwar as per the Wall Street Journal (15 July 2011) "each year a volume of intellectual property the size of the Library of Congress is stolen from U.S. government and private-sector networks." Cyber espionage has affected a broad range of our prized national assets: from Space Shuttle designs to the Joint U.S. Defense Strategy with South Korea as del as the plans for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and more. Moreover and unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. For example, this past August, McAfee disclosed a cyber spying operation dubbed Operation Shady Rat that infiltrated some 71 government and corporate entities of which 49 were in the U.S. and which included more than a dozen defense firms over five years, compromising a massive amount of information.

- Spies/Insider Threats: Spies and insider threats can turn over state secrets to foreign powers or entities causing a major lose to our competitive advantage. This has happened with convicted spies from Aldrich Ames to FBI agent Robert Hanssen, and more recently to Army Corporal Bradley Manning accused of turning over troves of restricted documents to WikLleaks. And despite the amazing efforts to catch these subversives, presumably, there are plenty more where they came from.

- Expropriations: We lose our edge to foreign nations and organizations when our high-technology or intellectual assets are used without our consent or otherwise seized and compromised. This can happen from having our copyrights trampled on, our designs simply copied and "knockoffs" produced and peddled, or even when we are in a sense forced to exchange our intellectual property for basic entry into foreign markets. But this also happens more explicitly and violently when our assets are literally taken from us. For example this happened in April 2001, when Chinese fighter jets intercepted (in international air space) and crashed a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane and didn't return it until July in disassembled pieces. Similarly, when the tail of the stealth modified MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, with sensitive military technology, used in the raid in Osama bin Laden's was recovered and held by Pakistan for weeks before it was returned to the U.S. And we saw this again this week when the Iranians showed off a prized RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone they now have seized, and which secrets presumably may end up in Russian, Chinese, or ultimately terrorist hands.

Developing an edge is not something we should take lightly or for granted--It is based on lots of talent, experience, and hard work and we do not have an exclusive hold on any of these.

We must prize our scientific and technological advances and secure these the way a mother protects it's young--fiercely and without compromise.

No matter how much or fast we churn out the advances, it will not matter if we do not safeguard our investments from those who would take it right out from under us. We can do this by significantly increasing investment in cyber security, strengthening counterespionage efforts, and not letting any nation or organization take something that doesn't belong to them without consequences--economic or military--that restore our edge and then some.

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