Lifeboat Foundation

VideoDisclaimer: The author of this article, Jason Belzer, is a member of rLoop and serves as the non-profit’s legal counsel. When billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk proposed the Hyperloop — a futuristic transportation system capable of propelling passengers to supersonic speeds — back in 2013, it is unlikely that even he could have imagined that just a few years later his vision would be tantalizing close to reality. Yet ironically, Musk, who has helped build companies like Tesla Motors and SpaceX that are on the leading edge of technological innovation, will not receive the credit if the Hyperloop indeed becomes a reality. Instead, that honor will be bestowed upon on a small group of teams now working feverishly to construct a prototype that will be tested this summer at SpaceX headquarters in California.

Imagine tackling one of the most complex engineering projects in the history of the human race, requiring countless hours of collaboration and experimentation by some of the world’s most talented engineers, and never actually meeting the people you are working with in a physical setting. You might think it’s impossible, or you might be a member of rLoop — the only non student team to reach the final stage of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition.

Continue reading “Crowdsourcing The Hyperloop: How A Group Of Redditors Are Taking On Elon Musk’s Challenge” »

Big money in hacking law firms. Hackers being hired and paid by parties in suits, companies in acquisition, etc.

The growing influence of the internet in law has opened up a wealth of opportunities for cyber law specialists, according to cyber law expert Bradley Deacon.

Continue reading “Rise in cyber risk leads to jobs boost” »

I see articles and reports like the following about military actually considering fully autonomous missals, drones with missals, etc. I have to ask myself what happened to the logical thinking.

A former Pentagon official is warning that autonomous weapons would likely be uncontrollable in real-world situations thanks to design failures, hacking, and external manipulation. The answer, he says, is to always keep humans “in the loop.”

The new report, titled “ Autonomous Weapons and Operational Risk,” was written by Paul Scharre, a director at the Center for a New American Security. Scharre used to work at the office of the Secretary of Defense where he helped the US military craft its policy on the use of unmanned and autonomous weapons. Once deployed, these future weapons would be capable of choosing and engaging targets of their own choosing, raising a host of legal, ethical, and moral questions. But as Scharre points out in the new report, “They also raise critically important considerations regarding safety and risk.”

Continue reading “Autonomous Killing Machines Are More Dangerous Than We Think” »

Law Firms are prime targets for hackers.

Law firms are considered by many hackers to be soft targets with a wealth of valuable information. Data from social security numbers, credit cards, and client confidences is enough to make the criminal mind salivate with malicious intent. Between 31–45% and 10–20% of firms have been infected by spyware or experienced security breaches respectively. But what can a private practitioner or law firm do to prevent these trespasses on their networks?

Continue reading “Cyber Security: How to Protect Your Firm and its Clients” »

I wish the CA AG a lot of luck; however, her approach is very questionable when you think about downstream access and feed type scenarios. Example, Business in Boston MA has an agreement with a cloud host company in CA, and Boston also has data that it pulls in from Italy, DE, etc. plus has a service that it offers to all of users and partners in the US and Europe that is hosted in CA.

How is the CA AG going to impose a policy on Boston? It can’t; in fact the business in Boston will change providers and choose to use someone in another state that will not impact their costs and business.

BTW — I didn’t even mention the whole recent announcement from China on deploying out a fully Quantum “secured” infrastructure. If this is true; everyone is exposed and this means there is no way companies can be held accountable because US didn’t have access to the more advance Quantum infrastructure technology.

Continue reading “Calif.‘s Harris Outlines ‘Reasonable’Data Security” »

Finally; it’s a start at least.

This week, the Federal government took the first steps toward implementation of the The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), enacted into law last December. CISA aims to encourage sharing of cyber threat indicators and defensive measures among private companies and between the private sector and the Federal government by providing liability protection for sharing such information in accordance with the Act. The DHS Federal Register notice was published this morning here.

As required by the Act, the government has released four pieces of guidance designed to assist companies and Federal agencies with respect to sharing, receiving and handling cyber threat information.

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Criminal’s favorite new tool for extortion.

Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center was the target of a ransomware extortion plot in which hackers seized control of the hospital’s computer systems and then demanded that directors pay in bitcoin to regain access, according to law enforcement sources.

Ransomware attacks on business data systems are becoming an increasingly common form of cyber crime. The assault on Hollywood Presbyterian computers occurred Feb. 5, when hackers prevented hospital staff from accessing patient information, according to law enforcement sources, who were not authorized to discuss the details of the investigation. The hackers then demanded an unspecified sum of computer currency.

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Exploring the new battlegrounds of war — a lesson from Ukraine and Russia.

Failure to respond to this blurring of lines will result in the current multilateral system and rules of war becoming gradually outdated. As geopolitical power shifts to emerging states and non-state actors, and strategic competition for regional spheres of influence returns, the aspirations which informed the UN Charter – of a world defined by universal values of democracy and rule of law – seem increasingly hollow. But what new principles and values should underlie the ways in which disputes are resolved? As the incentives for hybrid warfare grows inexorably wider and more complex, we either redraw the lines, or face a future of warfare where there is no distinct or real peace.

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Why it is important to think like a criminal when developing AI as well as Cyber Defense. Recently, I shared some insights on how AI could be used by Criminals (not just hackers) and making it extremely hard for the existing legal system to catch criminals. Robots (just like drones recently have been used) could be used in many ways by cartels, robbers & burglars, killers, and even worse. This is why we have to have solid cyber defense plus stop gaps in place for the legal system to diffuse dangers that could be implemented.

ThreatMetrix’s new report has come up with several new insights from the last quarter including the evolution of bot tactics to avoid the traditional defences of lenders and banks.

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