News of the Week
* Water Pump hacking: A water pump in Illinois was alleged to have been hacked and broken by Russian hackers over the past couple weeks by various news sources, including the BBC. The real story? The tech consultant who helps to maintain the pump was, at the time the pump broke, at a conference in Russia — so when the pump broke, he got a call to look into it, and logged into the control system from… you guessed it, Russia. The pump just burnt out, and tying the ‘attack’ to a Russian IP was just because that’s where the consultant happened to be at the time. (Via On The Media’s Cyber Warfare piece)
* In ‘not news’: Teens are generally more aware of and conscious of their privacy than adults, taking care to limit their postings, limit their friend groups, etc. (Via On The Media)
* Heard an interview with the founder of “Is Anyone Up”, probably the most scummy person I have ever had the ‘pleasure’ of listening to on the radio. “I can do whatever I want with photos people send me, because the law protects me”… and because I have no decency. (Is Anyone Up is a ‘porn/revenge’ site, where anyone can submit nude photos of people, and they’ll be posted along with a Facebook link.) I … yeah. This report made me angry enough to want to turn off the radio, because the guy being interviewed clearly had no positive intentions: “This keeps me in beer money and lets me keep throwing parties, why *wouldn’t* I embarrass people this way?” (Via Revenge Porn’s Latest Frontier)
Just a few clips I thought were interesting that I heard this weekend.