REPOST: Mercenary Hackers Will Turn The Internet Into Afghanistan-Like 'Warzone'

Mercenary hackers? Zero day exploits? This article from Business Insider discusses how they can possibly transform the entire Web into a battlefield.

Image Source: businessinsider.com

Mercenary hackers and the increasingly high fees governments and corporations pay them for "zero day" exploits will eventually turn the entire internet into a battlefield. A "zero day" exploit is a cyber vulnerability that no one has seen yet in "the wild," meaning on the web, in either forums or in action against targets.

Lately, these zero days are going for more and more money.

Business Insider recently talked to Professor Peter Ludlow, an Internet culture expert and professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, about the implications of weaponizing the internet.

"Hackers used to find exploits for a free T-Shirt from a company," said Ludlow.

Now companies are paying out hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars, depending on the exploit, to individual hackers as well as the growing legion of private cyber-mercenary companies. Even the government has gotten into the mix, hiring out private contractors and building vast armies of "cyber warriors."

Internet dissident and cyber-minded journalist Barret Brown referred to it as the "cyber industrial complex."

"The whole internet has become Beirut, or Afghanistan, the whole thing is a war zone, basically being fueled by nation states giving money to people who develop these kinds of exploits," said Ludlow.

Ludlow said that throwing money at the problem isn't going to solve it. "The Internet is a dynamic system," said Ludlow, "any attempt to tame the Internet will likely fail."

Referring to these exploits, Ludlow asserts that there is "no bottom" to the hole when it comes to security gaps. There will always be breaches, and if the government and corporations pay, the breaches will just get increasingly more complex and more nasty. "If they keep paying for these exploits ... you are going to have very rich virus hunters out there, with incredible resources to continue this," said Ludlow.

These rich companies intend to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, Ludlow concluded, and the Internet will be dragged along with them.


Responsible use of the Internet is advisable, even when using the revolutionary Web search aggregator Search Results, LLC. Connect with this Facebook page to know the latest buzz on the Internet.

Digital codes: The future of manufacturing

Image source: proactiveinvestors.co.uk

Manufacturing processes involve heavy machinery, factory-based facilities, and other capital goods. With many businesses going digital, the mass production of goods may soon follow the same trend. Analysts believe that future manufacturing practices will already be based on digital codes, much like the same way music is bought in online portals today.

Three-dimensional printing will expand its range in the future, conquering areas such as planning, prototyping, engineering, and tooling. It is seeing growth in highly specialized categories and functions such as medical implants built on the digital blueprint of an X-ray or CAT scan. As described by this Bloomberg Businessweek article, “3D printing will do much more than expand the universe of custom-made products; it will transform and change our understanding of what a manufacturer is.”


Image source: gizmag.com

Past and modern manufacturing skyrocketed in terms of gross revenue due to effective logistics, high-quality output, and efficient labor-capital mix. However, improvement does not stop with these methods. Higher percentages of service-based industries on which their GDPs are anchored are defining characteristics of developed economies. The ability to divert human capital from manufacturing and into the service sector is an effect of intelligently engineered, automated, and highly technologized manufacturing systems.

Future manufacturing practices are expected to minimize the participation of manual labor, even in developing countries. Workers will be reduced to tasks of inputting digital codes and feeding raw material into a 3D printer, laser cutter, CNC machine, or an automated paper cutter.

3D-printed products are designed with a complex digital infrastructure but are nevertheless suited for fast-adoption innovations. They enable companies to introduce products to the market that customers will prejudge as essential goods. It may well be the case of invention mothering necessity this time.

Shapeways, Thingverse, and Quirky are some of the service providers that utilize 3D printing technology to deliver innovation, design prototyping, manufacturing, marketing, and selling.


Image source: telegraph.co.uk

News on digital media and technology can be searched on metasearch engines like Metacrawler and MySearchResults. For other updates on the sector, visit this Facebook page.

How Search Works

The shackles on free speech

Twitter Yields to Pressure in Hate Case in France - NYTimes.com

Why Google is not the only fish, it's just a lone species

Image Search: brighthub.com

 



















Search engine folklore reveals that Google must be the best way to crawl the Internet for specialized information. But if people think in terms of how majority of search engine users learned their search practices, Google’s predominance in user habits could be challenged by further exploration of the search world. There are viable alternatives to Google that were overshadowed by the cannon, and these are emerging now as geeky, sometimes circuitous, but no less effective means to go around.

Image Source: searchuserinterfaces.com

 












There’s a certain resemblance between search engines embedded in social media and metasearch engines. The analogy may be far off, but these two search categories intersect at a crucial point. While Google has ways of dictating keyterms and prioritizing results for its large user base, metasearch engines and social media search do not discard user queries in defining results. They operate on the level of pedestrian queries, not paid specialized jargon that defines the Web content of businesses and other official institutions.

Image Source: pcrisk.com

In minor search engine roles are metasearch engine sites like Metacrawler, Mamma, and mysearchresults.com. These aggregate search engine queries from major search engines like Google and allow users to refine their search terms on their own. The user filter distills search results from paid ones, such that metasearch engines are actually known for leveling the search market somewhat. Except that in revenue comparisons between them and Google, they may earn peanuts, or nothing at all.


There’s a good number of metasearch engines taken for granted by search users. Those mentioned above figure among the popular ones, while less-known sites include Seekz, iBoogie.com, and Zuula. For more about metasearch engines and the search industry, visit this Facebook page.

REPOST: If You Use the Web, You Are a 'Curator'

This Mashable article characterizes the Web-based curator. Ready your notepad and read on.

Image Source: Mashable

When you were four, you imagined "engineers" as men in striped overalls who shouted "all aboard!" from trains. Later you learned that most engineers study more than just locomotives: mechanics, chemicals and even complicated structures like roller coasters.

Similarly, you pictured "curators" as snobby museum employees who talk about brush strokes and Impressionism. Today, however, curation encompasses a whole new catalog of professions, brands and tools — and most revolve around the web.

A curator ingests, analyzes and contextualizes web content and information of a particular nature onto a platform or into a format we can understand. In other words, a curator is like that person at the beach with the metal detector, surfacing items and relics of perceived value. Only, a web curator shares those gems of content with their online audiences.

And since people create 571 new websites every minute, tweet 175 million times per day and upload 48 hours of new video each minute, a curator's work is never done.

It seems everywhere you look on the web, a different kind of curation is cropping up. Do you use Pinterest or Tumblr? Believe it or not, you're a social curator — or you're following users who are. These social platforms are as much about repinning and reblogging content from other people (curation) as they are sharing your own ideas (creation).

Take a look at your Facebook profile, at the types of articles you save on Pocket, at the list of subreddits to which you subscribe. Notice any patterns? Maybe you tend to share cat GIFs or Pocket news about the oil crisis. Sharing those interests makes you a curator.

The term's sweeping definition has led some to criticize and attempt to narrow its use. Some believe "curator" to be a reappropriated, throwaway term, one that simply elevates marginally focused web users. Some
believe "curator" to be a reappropriated, throwaway term, one that simply elevates marginally focused web users.

"Guess what? Assembling a group of tangentially related things and publishing them online does not make you a curator," writes Mel Buchanan, the Hermitage Museum's assistant curator in a blog post titled "An Open Letter to Everyone Using the Word ‘Curate’ Incorrectly on the Internet." [The link to the original post has since been disabled.] "So what does it make you? A blogger? A list-maker? An arbiter of taste? Sure, I’ll take any one of those. Just stop calling yourself a curator," writes Buchanan.

But it's hard to argue that some people are capitalizing on their curation talents. As founder of Brit.co, Brit Morin has successfully merged two seemingly disparate niches to form a new community: a site for connected crafters. If it sounds zany, think again. Turns out, some of the same people (primarily women) who churn out Pinterest boards by the barrel-full scramble the web for innovative DIY projects and digital lifehacks. Morin recognized that community existed, then fashioned a custom menu of content to serve it. Curation.

But it's hard to argue that some people are capitalizing on their curation talents. As founder of Brit.co, Brit Morin has successfully merged two seemingly disparate niches to form a new community: a site for connected crafters. If it sounds zany, think again. Turns out, some of the same people (primarily women) who churn out Pinterest boards by the barrel-full scramble the web for innovative DIY projects and digital lifehacks. Morin recognized that community existed, then fashioned a custom menu of content to serve it. Curation.

It's also one of the reasons you're encountering "lists" all over your Twitter stream or RSS feed. Think "15 Signs Your Best Friend Is a Sociopath" and "45 Cats Posing as Pinup Models." Many in the media industry criticize this form of journalism, but in the end, it's yet another form of content curation. Instead of googling "Mother's Day gifts" and sifting through 22 pages of individual results, you can click on "15 Best Gifts for Sporty Moms."

Some media sites choose to curate articles already published and reported by other sites. For instance, Boing Boing and The Awl feed links that reference news reported by other sites around the web, tailoring content that will resonate with their readership. Much of this type of curation requires a keen understanding of the web zeitgeist.

Others take a more scientific approach, in the form of data curation. People like Nate Silver proved that strategic data scraping not only lends itself to incredibly precise journalism, but to industries like graphic design, marketing, politics and much more.

More and more people are taking the reins into their own hands. Consumer curators are flocking to sites like The Fancy to browse products and silo them into categories, for example, "Things to Buy for Our Trip to Italy" or "Baby Shower Gift Registry." Other curation tools, such as Pearltrees and Bundlr, aren't as consumer-driven but nonetheless help users organize and structure web content that matters to them.

As much as the term gets criticized, curation requires patience, resourcefulness and a keen editing eye. It means becoming fluent in one particular dialect of the web, versus trying to speak its entire language. It's the reason journalists have beats, and the reason you chose one major in college, instead of seven.

"I think that the liberal use of the term curator makes it stronger and more valuable," writes self-proclaimed "museum geek" Suse Cairns. "Some of our sector’s lingo is making its way beyond the walls of our institutions, and getting picked up by the mainstream in a positive way ... If the hip and awesome are associated in some way with museums, great."

Perhaps the best part? Curation is a never-ending job, and it never gets boring. Because chances are, you're one of those contributing 684,478 pieces of Facebook content every single minute. Give us a break — that's a lot of stuff to sift through.

MySearchResults.com picks content from mainstream search engines to give you relevant data which you can use to your ultimate curatorial satisfaction. 

Tracking the suspects of Boston bombings through Internet sleuthing

The Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, 2013 killed three civilians and hospitalized 183 more (including 13 people who had their limbs amputated). Without any suspect who claimed responsibility for the terrorism, police authorities used the power of the Internet to gather information that may lead to the arrest of the bombers.

Image Source: afr.com

The FBI specifically requested civilians to help them track the suspects by sending photos and videos of the marathon to the agency’s website. This announcement has activated crowdsource sleuthing. In a photo submitted by an amateur detective, for instance, a young man with a baseball cap was seen calmly walking from the sight of explosion. This man would be later identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the bombers.

Image Source: viralread.com

There, was however, a drawback to Internet sleuthing. Without any training in profiling criminals, some amateur detectives uploaded photos of innocent bystanders and pointed them out as the terrorists. Sulahaddin Barhoum, for instance, was wrongly accused as a Boston bomber after his photos from the marathon went viral on the Internet. He had to go to FBI to clear his name and protect his family.

Image Source: cbc.ca

Although Internet sleuthing has helped track the Boston bombers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan, it remained questionable for critics. Wrong information could damage the reputation of the wrong guys, just like what happened to Barhoum. Speculations may also impede the investigation process.

But police authorities are no fool. They have clandestine plans in catching criminals. Could the FBI be only making the Internet sleuthing scenario to create panic for the suspects, a tactic that had eventually led to the arrest of Dzhokhar and the death of Tamerlan?  

Image Source: kstp.com

People can find photos and videos of the Boston Marathon bombings through MySearchResults.com, an Internet portal that handles aggregate data from other search engines. Follow this Twitter page to keep abreast of the latest happening in information technology.