Entries Tagged as 'Social Networks'
Quantified Self: CMS50 Oximeter
After attending a couple of Quantified Self meetups, I was inspired to quantify various aspects of myself and my life. For example, I was wondering if I am breathing well while I sleep, since I have been waking up tired on occasion.
I bought the Contec CMS50-F oximeter from here.
The software that comes with the CMS50 could be more reliable and user-friendly, and only runs on Windows. I ended up spending a day reverse engineering the USB protocol and writing a Python program to acquire and graph the data. The software is on Gitorious.
Here are some of the charts you can get:
Blue Brain Project Documentary – Year 1
Noah Hutton’s company Couple 3 Films has released year 1 of a 10 year documentary project documenting the Blue Brain project. The project includes Henry Markham’s work on reverse engineering the brain, scaling up from rodents to humans by 2010.
The work is funded by the Swiss government.
$3000 Whole Genome Sequencing Cost
Life Technologies announces $3,000 marginal cost (later this year) for sequencing complete human genomes. This is after Illumina announced the same for $10,000 (now). So a $1,000 genome early next year?
Here comes personalized medicine.
Attack Scenarios on Software Distributions
I’ve been asked to outline specific scenarios after I posted a previous entry on the Google’s network compromise. Here are some, from most serious to least serious:
- Build host - the machines that compile the source into binary packages are compromised. In this scenario, code can be injected by the malicious party into the package just before it is signed and prepared for distribution. All clients that install the updated packages are affected. A software audit cannot identify the altered packages because the alteration happens after binaries are generated.
- Distribution host and Signing key – the machines that host the packages for distribution (web servers) are compromised and the package signing key is compromised. The effect of this is the same as a build host compromise.
- Source repository – the machines that host the software source-code are compromised. This allows code to be injected and all clients are affected. However, a software audit can uncover the injected code.
- Insider threats – an insider can insert non-obvious security holes into software they are responsible for.
- Signing key - the key used to sign the software distribution is compromised. This would allow the malicious party to compromise only specific targeted clients through a “man-in-the-middle” attack and DNS poisoning
How would multiple independent auditors help? If the auditors can verify that a binary was produced from certain source, the build host compromise would be much harder, since the altered binary would not signed by the uncompromised auditors. Similarly, a signing key compromise, if it is limited to a subset of auditors, would fail to get a full set of signatures on the altered package.
Source repository compromise and Insider injection of security holes would be more difficult to detect for subtle exploits, but again, multiple entities looking at the code increases the chances that the alteration would be caught.
(Note: verification that a certain binary was produced from certain source code requires a deterministic build system. Although such a system is relatively straightforward to implement, I have not run across one before I implemented Gitian. I did find mention of it by Conifer Systems.)
Doubling in Incidence of Malicious Data Breaches
CNet reports on Ponemon institute’s survey showing a doubling of data breach incidents.
Average cost per record in the surveyed group is around $200.
Operation Aurora and Software Distributions as Single Points of Security Failure
Operation Aurora (Google’s compromise by China) highlights the possibility that software distributions may be targeted for code injection by malicious parties. If Apple, Microsoft or a linux distributors are compromised, a large percentage of individuals, businesses and governments could be consequentially compromised when they install software updates.
One way to mitigate such a risk is to have multiple independent security auditors sign software distributions. This is more likely to be successful in an open-source environment, where source is available and can easily be inspected. I started such an initiative in late 2009 – Gitian.org.
Nasal flu vaccine
Alex and I got nasal H1N1 vaccines on Tue. I felt tired on Wed and Alex has a sore throat. Nasal is live-attenuated instead of dead virus.
Apparently symptoms are more likely with the nasal. On the up-side – no preservatives!
Does the nasal-spray flu vaccine LAIV (FluMist) contain thimerosal?
No, the nasal-spray flu vaccine LAIV (FluMist) does not contain thimerosal or any other preservative.
How I stopped worrying and learned to love technofixes
Peter Thiel writes regarding the failure of Democracy to preserve freedom and some possible technofix strategies. He includes are thoughts about creating freedom in Cyberspace, Outer space or on the high seas. I think it would be interesting to build certain distributed Internet apps that could change the dynamics of freedom, including reputation systems, gifting/barter systems and user-controlled Internet apps.
[Read more →]
OpenSocial insecurity – no user to app authentication
I was pretty excited to hear about Google trying to set a standard for social network applications. I wasn’t so happy to notice a serious omission in the way security is handled.
Executive Summary: no user authentication! Any user can forge anybody else’s identity when interacting with any OpenSocial application. As it currently stands, it is not possible to write secure social applications on the platform.
OpenSocial vs. Facebook API – an analysis
Executive Summary
- OpenSocial applications will have diverging look-and-feel, from each other and from the containers. This is because the containers do not provide common elements to blend the application into the container.
- OpenSocial applications may not be vertically resizable, since they will exist in an iframe. However, Google has an API For resizing that some or all of the networks may implement
- Facebook has additional API functionality that is not present in OpenSocial
- The Facebook API is server oriented, whereas the OpenSocial/Google Gadgets API is client-side JavaScript oriented
[Read more →]
Stanford Delta Scan and Technologies for Cooperation
Stanford’s Delta Scan makes predictions similar to my take on Web 3.0, including:
- Trust over Social networks / Social accounting methods (i.e. reputation systems)
- the rise of computing grids
- Social mobile computing
- Knowledge collectives
- Mesh networks
Giving rise to:
- Adhocracies
- Faster innovation
- Faster/better decision making
- Increase in effectiveness of online economies
Web 3.0, according to Miron
Here is what I think Web 3.0 will have:
- A global and open Reputation Network
- A distributed and open Computing and Storage Platform
Reputation Network
What does it mean for a Reputation Network to be global? Currently, we have propietary reputation systems, such as the reputation scores for sellers (and buyers) at Amazon and eBay. However, that reputation is not portable. This means that if an Amazon third-party seller wants to start selling on eBay, they have to start from scratch, as if their business is new. Trust is an integral ingredient to transactions. It becomes crucial on the internet, when a buyer and a seller are likely to never have heard of each-other. With portable reputations, a trust metric can be made available in all interactions.
What about the open part? A global reputation system owned by one entity is a non-starter. Why would one trust a single entity to provide basic infrastructure that affects all commerce and other interaction? Reputation should be like TCP/IP – based on open standards so that different vendors can provide different levels of service and create a robust overall system. The individual reputation systems can remain under the control of Amazon, eBay and others. However, they can inter-operate so that they can create a global reputation network.
Reputation should be subjective. End-users should be able to subscribe to different raters, and thereby compute different scores for the same target. End-users have diverse values and preferences. One number cannot capture this diversity.
Storage and Computing
What about storage and computing? Currently, people have presence on the Web through Blogs, Wikis, Storefronts, IM, e-mail, etc. . However, creating a new Web application faces certain barriers. The application creator has to acquire servers, manage them, ensure that the data is safe and face scalability issues as the application grows in popularity. Also, interoprability between applications is difficult. A standardized computing and storage abstraction will allow new application to be installed by the user into their virtual computing appliance. Users will have control of which application they run and how the applications communicate. Applications and data will migrate to physical hardware based on what the user is willing to pay and what scalability requires.
The division of labor is: the application provider does what they are good at – writing applications. The computing and storage providers provide efficient and reliable computing and storage (and if they don’t – the application can migrate easily or even automatically). The end-user does what they do best – connect the dots and provide content.
People Aggregator – unification of social networks?
Federated, single-signon, standards based. What’s not to like?
BroadBand Mechanics presents People Aggregator
Web site is not fully functional yet, so have to wait.
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