Archive for May, 2010
Tips for effective lying
Lying is hard, but some people are particularly good at it. Psychology Today offers 10 tips for effective lying.
…human beings have an innate skill at dishonesty. And with good reason: being able to manipulate the expectations of those around us is a key survival trait for social animals like ourselves. Indeed, a 1999 study by psychologist Robert Feldman at the University of Massachusetts showed that the most popular kids were also the most effective liars.
Posted: May 14th, 2010 under Human nature.
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Security skills in demand
Employers are looking for specific skills when hiring security professionals, and these mirror the most common issues are threats seen today.
So what do employers in the federal and private sectors want in a security pro today? The most in-demand qualifications basically mirror the types of attacks, breaches, and threats these organizations face today, as well as the regulations that help dictate their defenses: They’re looking for experience in incident-handling and response, compliance, risk management, business-side acumen, security clearance for sensitive government work, and leadership.
Posted: May 14th, 2010 under Security & privacy.
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Researchers hack car computer systems
Researchers will be presenting a paper at the IEEE security conference in Oakland next week that demonstrates various attacks against the computer systems in modern cars. These attacks allow someone to control a variety of systems, including the breaks, and even erase all evidence of the attacks. We know a lot about building safety critical systems, but we seem to also be good at ignoring the lessons.
Over a range of experiments, both in the lab and in road tests, we demonstrate the ability to adversarially control a wide range of automotive functions and completely ignore driver input — including disabling the brakes, selectively braking individual wheels on demand, stopping the engine, and so on. We find that it is possible to bypass rudimentary network security protections within the car, such as maliciously bridging between our car’s two internal subnets.
The paper is available here.
Media coverage can be read here.
Posted: May 14th, 2010 under Security & privacy.
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Denial-of-Phone While Draining Accounts
Here is an interesting attack method: launch a denial-of-phone attack to prevent communication with a bank while draining the accounts. Apparently, fake VoIP accounts were setup to phone the victim repeatedly while the bad guys transferred thousands of dollars out of the accounts. This is an example of a cross-over attack using different types of technologies to perform the fraud.
The FBI says the calls were a diversionary tactic, meant to tie up Thousand’s line so that Ameritrade couldn’t reach him to authenticate the money transfer requests.
via Posted: May 13th, 2010 under Security & privacy.
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fMRI lie detection still not admissable
Courts continue to flirt with admitting fMRI evidence into court. While brain imaging techniques are uncovering great new information, it is not clear to me if they will ever be accurate enough to distinguish truth-telling from lying.
Wired Science has covered a legal case where fMRI brain scan lie detection data was offered as evidence. While the lawyer was initially hopeful, it was ruled inadmissible by the judge on the basis that judgements of witness credibility by the jury should be based on their impression of the witness.
via Mind Hacks: fMRI lie detection and the Wonder Woman problem.
Posted: May 10th, 2010 under Human nature.
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8 views