Category: Web/Tech

As the world moves beyond email to providing content via syndicated data, some obvious sources come to mind. Here’s one (from the US General Accounting Office) that is just screaming to be available from a set of syndicated data feeds.

Dan Geer‘s got a new white paper out on data-level risk management. Titled “Shrinking Perimeter”, it’s available (following registration) from the Verdasys web site. His focus is on threats within the enterprise. Highly recommended! Dan’s presenting the paper this afternoon at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco.

Jenny Levine has put together two tutorials for librarians (and the rest of us!) on RSS/Syndicated Data and weblogging. Great stuff — and thanks to her for sharing them!

Yahoo’s new search is up and running with some new features.

The one I find most interesting is the addition to search results of a notification if a syndicated data feed is available for the particular site. If it is, you can go directly to the feed — or you can have the feed added to your My Yahoo! page. For example, take a look at Don Park’s search results on Yahoo Search.

At the moment, it appears this capability only is being used with weblog pages — but the eventual implications for corporate sites could be significant, bringing the use of syndicated data more into the mainstream.

I see that Microsoft is now offering to send users free security update CD’s.

This would appear to open up another opportunity for the bad guys — mailing out what appear to be Microsoft Security CD’s to high potential targets with the objective of installing their latest keylogger, etc. Certainly it would be a more expensive attack to pull off than spam phishing — but probably one that if done well would yield better responses.

How is a recipient of what appears to be a Microsoft Security CD supposed to authenticate that it’s legitimate? For that matter how is the recipient of one of the zillions of AOL CD’s supposed to authenticate it either?

It’s great to see Apple Computer embracing the use of syndicated data for much of its online content.

When will the first major US bank begin to do something similar?

The Economist takes a look at charging for email — in the context of reducing spam. The article mentions Goodmail Systems — a Silicon Valley startup seeking to commercialize an economic system that would allow valid emails to float to the top over spam.

While this idea has been talked about for quite a while, I frankly don’t see much of a difference between simply supporting digitally signed email from trusted sources — without the additional economic gimmickry of buying stamps, etc. On the other hand, some smart people are behind Goodmail — and they obviously believe this is the right approach.

I really like the style that Scott Granneman is using for his checklist on Windows security. Nice use of input checkboxes – todo list like – and subject-specific “more information” hyperlinks associated with each list item.

Simson Garfinkel writes in CSO about the grand challenges in information security. I particularly agree with the third (of a total of four) of the challenges: measuring risk.