Friday, February 25, 2011
Like most thriller writers, my secret weapons really are secret weapons.
When I was writing my first thriller manuscript, I had a conversation with James Rollins, who told me where he found out about liquid armor. He got it from the US Army’s website, and has used it in some of his Sigma series. I borrowed the tech toy from him.
One of my friends is a computer hacker. He’s helped me with the theme and tech content of one of my manuscripts.
I know some folks who’ve worked at D.A.R.P.A. and they spoke to me about projects they had cancelled. Great spy tech. Even for cancelled projects, I thought D.A.R.P.A. was off limits.
Lately, however, spy technology I know about and wouldn’t have ever put in a story has showed up on television. NCIS and other shows have used tech I thought was classified. Seeing on the tube what I thought was the province of a classified status has shaken my understanding of the rules.
So then, what are the rules? Should they be followed? I thought anything with a current field use should be kept secret. I thought anything that could be used as a weapon against my government should be kept out of my fiction. Was I wrong? If NCIS, NCIS LA, and a few movies recently released offer examples of the new rules, then fiction writers can write about whatever they want.
Live and learn.
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Computer Fraud and Countermeasures
March 14, 2010
I just read an article in slicon.com about corporate cyberespionage (Cyber espionage: Firms fail to take threat seriously, by Shelly Portet, http://www.silicon.com/technology/security/2011/03/09/cyber-espionage-firms-fail-to-take-threat-seriously-39747112/).
Computer fraud has been responsible for a massive number of cases of identity theft over the last decade, and there is no end in sight. Both my wife and I have had our identities stolen, and sold to criminals. As a result, we needed an attorney’s help to work with the IRS, which thought we had an offshore bank account funding terrorism. Nasty.
Has this happened to you or someone you know? Do you track your credit reports to stop identity theft (after it’s occurred)?
From the article, it appears most corporations haven’t awakened to the possibility that a cybercriminal has hacked their corporate website and stolen proprietary information for resale or competitive response.
The author of the report recommends that corporate users not copy files to their own computers, since it would provide more targets for a hacker. But there’s a problem in not having multiple copies out there: A single copy on a cloud server provides less work for a hacker who desires to modify the file so it either contains viruses or, even worse, is no longer an accurate depiction of the thoughts of its creator. Without multiple copies, reconstructing the original version would be difficult or impossible. Seems to me, offsite, offline copies would be a better alternative.
I wrote an article years ago entitled “Cash Management Data Security,” for the Journal of Cash Management (under my real name: Volume 4, Number 5, page 74). I also was quoted on the subject of computer fraud corporate cybercrime in Pension & Investment Age on November 12, “Workstation Technology Dominates Conference,” 1984, page 26): “Nothing in the field of data security has really changed over the past seven years, only the prominence of the problem.”
Now, with cloud computing becoming prevalent, it appears we’re ripe for a bigger problem than ever.
What do your think? If the company you work for is prepared to defend itself against cybercriminals, I’d like to know about it. BUT, don’t leave your company’s name (in your blogspot comment). We wouldn’t want to tempt fate now, would we?
I just read an article in slicon.com about corporate cyberespionage (Cyber espionage: Firms fail to take threat seriously, by Shelly Portet, http://www.silicon.com/technology/security/2011/03/09/cyber-espionage-firms-fail-to-take-threat-seriously-39747112/).
Computer fraud has been responsible for a massive number of cases of identity theft over the last decade, and there is no end in sight. Both my wife and I have had our identities stolen, and sold to criminals. As a result, we needed an attorney’s help to work with the IRS, which thought we had an offshore bank account funding terrorism. Nasty.
Has this happened to you or someone you know? Do you track your credit reports to stop identity theft (after it’s occurred)?
From the article, it appears most corporations haven’t awakened to the possibility that a cybercriminal has hacked their corporate website and stolen proprietary information for resale or competitive response.
The author of the report recommends that corporate users not copy files to their own computers, since it would provide more targets for a hacker. But there’s a problem in not having multiple copies out there: A single copy on a cloud server provides less work for a hacker who desires to modify the file so it either contains viruses or, even worse, is no longer an accurate depiction of the thoughts of its creator. Without multiple copies, reconstructing the original version would be difficult or impossible. Seems to me, offsite, offline copies would be a better alternative.
I wrote an article years ago entitled “Cash Management Data Security,” for the Journal of Cash Management (under my real name: Volume 4, Number 5, page 74). I also was quoted on the subject of computer fraud corporate cybercrime in Pension & Investment Age on November 12, “Workstation Technology Dominates Conference,” 1984, page 26): “Nothing in the field of data security has really changed over the past seven years, only the prominence of the problem.”
Now, with cloud computing becoming prevalent, it appears we’re ripe for a bigger problem than ever.
What do your think? If the company you work for is prepared to defend itself against cybercriminals, I’d like to know about it. BUT, don’t leave your company’s name (in your blogspot comment). We wouldn’t want to tempt fate now, would we?
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