The researchers from the Security and Cryptography Laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne are able to capture keystrokes by monitoring the electromagnetic radiation of PS/2, universal serial bus, or laptop keyboards. They've outline four separate attack methods, some that work at a distance of as much as 65 feet from the target.

In one video demonstration, researchers Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini sniff out the the keystrokes typed into a standard keyboard using a large antenna that's about 20 to 30 feet away in an adjacent room.

Website here.

Richard Stallman - the man that gave us GNU - doesn’t trust Cloud providers with his data and says you shouldn’t either.  Richard believes we should store our private data on our own computers using ‘free’ (as in freedom) software.  The ironic part for Richard is that a significant portion of the Cloud is powered by open source software which he indirectly created (think gcc).

Richard sees it as a question of control.  Control is important but it isn’t the only variable.  Rather, I see it as a question of control, competence and economics.

The quick rebuttal to Richards’ view is this: the average computer user is not as smart as you.  Control is not the same as competence.  Control is about exercising choice, not about requiring everyone in the world to develop sufficient skills to protect complex hardware and software systems (aka their computer) against ever increasing threats.

My view is that privacy is not ‘free’.  It comes at a cost.  Whether you run your own systems or rely on someone else to do it, there is a cost.  There is cost in designing and implementing mechanisms to support privacy.  Beyond upfront costs there are ongoing expenditures to ensure privacy is maintained e.g. maintaining access control lists, testing and applying security patches, data leakage prevention etc.  None of these things are ‘free’.

If we agree that privacy costs money then how much is your privacy worth?

Stop for a second - think of a number…  

Now did we all think of the same number?

The problem with a one size fits all approach to privacy is that we each place a different value on it.

Checking in on the EPIC site, I saw this:  

A new report from Pew Internet and American Life Project indicates that “cloud computing” applications, such as web-based email and other web apps, are raising new privacy concerns. The report Use of Cloud Computing: Applications and Services found that 69% of online Americans use webmail services, store data online, or use software programs such as word processing applications whose functionality is located on the web. At the same time, “users report high levels of concern when presented with scenarios in which companies may put their data to uses of which they may not be aware.” For example, 90% of respondents said that they “would be very concerned if the company at which their data were stored sold it to another party,” 80% say “they would be very concerned if companies used their photos or other data in marketing campaigns,” and 68% of “users of at least one of the six cloud applications say they would be very concerned if companies who provided these services analyzed their information and then displayed ads to them based on their actions.”

What does that tell us?

The average (American) Internet user finds Cloud services convenient but has concerns about how their privacy might be affected by Cloud providers actions (duh!).  The survey identifies a lack of awareness in how private data is used in some consumer based Cloud services (consistent with web advertising awareness surveys).  

Unfortunately, the results of this survey are not very actionable.  The survey doesn’t mention whether these are all ‘free’ Cloud services (we can only assume they are) or ask the respondents what their expectations of privacy are and how much they would be willing to pay for different privacy assurance levels. 

On a sidenote, respondents were not asked if they had actually read the privacy agreement for the services they signed up to.  But the providers know if they did or not…  Or at least, they have the data to figure it out.  At sign up time they can measure the time between displaying the privacy agreement and the user clicking ‘I accept’.  If its just a few seconds then its pretty obvious there was more scrolling than reading going on.  But I think we can probably guess the answer without the data ;-).

I believe we need to be able to link expectation of privacy with cost.

• How much are you willing to pay for privacy?  What level of privacy assurance do you need?
• How much is your Cloud Provider paying to protect your privacy today?  What privacy services could they reasonably offer if they had customers willing to pay?  How might this compare with how you manage your private data on your home computer today?

The cynical view is that we expect privacy but don’t want to pay for it.  Its a bit like uptime - there is a parallel universe out there, where internal IT departments allegedly meet their 99.999% uptime SLAs, but when Gmail goes down, the Sergey Brin witchcraft dolls come out.

From a provider perspective, the “cost” of privacy invariably gets bundled under that line item called ‘Information Security’.  And don’t be fooled, the cost of privacy in reality is more than the salary of the person employed to be the privacy advocate (if there is one).  If we can’t see how much our providers are spending on our privacy then how can we judge if they are spending enough?  And what is enough?  And what can I get if I’m willing to pay a little extra?

Personally, I would rather we get some transparency around privacy costs and assessment of offerings.  However, without a sufficiently sized market of customers willing to pay for privacy assurance and Cloud Providers willing to be more open, I won’t hold my breath.

What about you?  Would you be prepared to pay for privacy?  Should providers be more transparent about what they do and don’t do and how they do it?
 
 

Murderous organizations have increased in size and scope; they are more daring, they are served by the most terrible weapons offered by modern science, and the world is nowadays threatened by new forces which, if recklessly unchained, may some day wreck universal destruction. The Orsini bombs were mere children's toys compared with the later developments of infernal machines. Between 1858 and 1898 the dastardly science of destruction had made rapid and alarming strides...

No, that wasn't a typo. "Between 1858 and 1898...." This quote is from Major Arthur Griffith, Mysteries of Police and Crime, London, 1898, II, p. 469. It's quoted in: Walter Laqueur, A History of Terrorism, New Brunswick/London, Transaction Publishers, 2002.

A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.

The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.

[...]

A second, apparently leaked ITU document offers surveillance and monitoring justifications that seem well-suited to repressive regimes:

A political opponent to a government publishes articles putting the government in an unfavorable light. The government, having a law against any opposition, tries to identify the source of the negative articles but the articles having been published via a proxy server, is unable to do so protecting the anonymity of the author.

This is being sold as a way to go after the bad guys, but it won't help. Here's Steve Bellovin on that issue:

First, very few attacks these days use spoofed source addresses; the real IP address already tells you where the attack is coming from. Second, in case of a DDoS attack, there are too many sources; you can't do anything with the information. Third, the machine attacking you is almost certainly someone else's hacked machine and tracking them down (and getting them to clean it up) is itself time-consuming.

TraceBack is most useful in monitoring the activities of large masses of people. But of course, that's why the Chinese and the NSA are so interested in this proposal in the first place.

It's hard to figure out what the endgame is; the U.N. doesn't have the authority to impose Internet standards on anyone. In any case, this idea is counter to the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." In the U.S., it's counter to the First Amendment, which has long permitted anonymous speech. On the other hand, basic human and constitutional rights have been jettisoned left and right in the years after 9/11; why should this be any different?

But when the Chinese government and the NSA get together to enhance their ability to spy on the world, you have to wonder what's gone wrong with the world.

ScienceLogic: Mike, what’s your background working with network and management system tools?

Mike Lawson: Before joining Apptis, I worked for the Air Force, mainly in satellite communications for almost nine years. I’m probably most familiar with HP OpenView and BMC Remedy. I managed a team that used them but wasn’t involved in tool selection; like many other federal IT workers, we didn’t have a choice of tools because there were existing enterprise licenses and maintenance contracts.

I also saw a large systems integrator do a full Remedy/Crystal Systems/OpenView installation. It took 6 weeks to stand up and customize to meet just the basic monitoring requirements, and it cost something like half a million dollars. At the time, I thought that wasn’t bad and was a pretty typical experience.

ScienceLogic: Coming from where you did, what’s your take on EM7?

Mike Lawson: Honestly, I didn’t believe that EM7 could really do all that it claimed. In many ways, it was the complete opposite of what I had seen first-hand with other monitoring solutions. Could it really cover that much functionality? At relatively much lower cost to the customer and without the licensing nightmare?

That quickly changed when I needed to understand the system enough to run it at a customer’s site. I went back over the training docs I received during my initial training class and jumped in; now, 6 months later, I’m the EM7 expert and can tell you that it delivers on all those promises. (But I still need to show people to get them to believe it too)

I preach the “EM7 gospel” and when anyone wants to talk monitoring, I ask about the universal pain points: cost, maintenance contracts and licensing, and then I explain EM7. The cost difference is real; the solution is based on capacity, so there’s no licensing and it’s easy to use. They are shocked to learn that they can buy multiple EM7 appliances and years of maintenance for what they paid for most other tools.

ScienceLogic: Apptis won the contract for monitoring aboard the USNS Mercy. We love that you’re using EM7 for one of the Navy’s hospital ships. Can you tell us more?

Mike Lawson: The USNS Mercy is a Military Sealift Command hospital ship. Some stats:

• 849 feet long (nearly the size of a football field)
• 12 fully-equipped operating rooms, a 1,000 bed hospital facility, digital radiological services, a diagnostic and clinical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, a CAT scan and two oxygen producing plants
• Crew: 61 civilian mariners, 956 Naval medical staff, and 259 Naval support staff

The USNS recently departed on a five-month humanitarian mission in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia in support of Pacific Partnership 2008. The partnership provides international medical, dental and engineering teams this summer to provide humanitarian support and conduct joint, combined, and cooperative Civil-Military Operations in order to improve regional stability and build partner capacity to respond to natural disasters and pandemic.

For the most part, the ship’s network is self-contained, but can also use a landline when docked. The network covers 400 devices, including Windows/Exchange servers and VMware for server virtualization. Prior to using EM7, none of the monitoring was integrated; each system was independently monitored through individual vendor-specific consoles.

Out of the box, EM7 provided integrated systems, application and network management for all network gear, applications and virtual machines in one solution. We didn’t have to do a lot of customization – EM7 includes best-practice based thresholds, event and monitoring templates and this covered what USNS Mercy needed to monitor.

ScienceLogic: You’re a systems integrator with a very useful “customer point of view” when it comes to looking at tools. From that perspective, can you share what you think are the biggest benefits that EM7 provides?

Mike Lawson: First of all, EM7 stands up right away. We’re talking days, not weeks. In contrast to the lengthy installation of OpenView and Remedy I witnessed during my military career, I was able to configure, customize, and implement the EM7 solution for the USNS Mercy in three days.

Second, it’s easy to train people on and the support is outstanding. This judgment is from first-hand experience. Right before the USNS Mercy departed on its latest voyage, the system administrator I had trained on EM7 left, so I had all of a day to train some new EM7 admins. I prepared a seven-page “cheat sheet” and over a 3-hour conference call, we walked through the entire EM7 solution; I haven’t gotten a support call since.

And when a problem did crop up with a device being discovered incorrectly, ScienceLogic was very responsive. We contacted ScienceLogic support on a Saturday and they created and emailed us a video to help troubleshoot the same day. Within 30 seconds of watching the video, the problem was resolved.

Finally, EM7 helps us be good stewards of the government’s money. This is very important to me personally and to Apptis as a company. Because EM7 is cheaper and deploys so quickly and easily, you might think that it’s just the opposite of what a system integrator would want to use. But that’s short-term thinking. We believe in deliver the most value for customers every time. It’s what creates trust and long-term relationships with our customers. Instead of that half million spent on standing up the solution and basic setup, I’d much rather (and I know the customer would rather) spend that on fine-tuning or extending the solution to do much, much more.

As a former government employee, I know what it’s like to use a tool that doesn’t fit my needs. EM7 proves that the best solution can totally break the old model of costly, lengthy installations. EM7 has the right model: the right solution and the right price delivered as an appliance that is easy to deploy, train on and use.

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