iSD in the Tech Age!



Net-self-defense, we spend an exorbitant amount of time on our physical defense training and then we forget that our lives are in just as much danger of "Grave Financial Harm" or Financial ruin (Death) as if we are attacked by a street predator. Research and studies show, from the security experts in this field, that Anti-virus and Firewall suites only catch about 5% of the threats out there and those same folks tell us that it is in all probability worse at the Enterprise levels.


My goal here is to educate myself, and by proxy, pass on what I learn to others so that each individual who is connected at any level can take steps to achieve some semblance of security in their electronic on-line lives. We are so deeply imbedded in modern technology that to not take appropriate actions to learn iSD or internet self-defense in the technological age is just foolishness.


My goal is to provide enough of a foundation that readers, like me, can take the appropriate actions, i.e., apply those fundamental principles of technological methodologies to safeguard one of the more important, actually critical, strategies and tactics to defend ourselves from grave economical harm or even economical/financial death or ruin from nefarious predatory hacking processes.


Nothing in this blog is definitive, it is meant to set a foundation of knowledge, understanding and awareness so that you are not one day blindsided by some effort to steal your very life out from underneath you so fast you feel like you have been hit behind the ear and knocked into a daze of confusion, fear and finally anger where your tech-life falls apart and ruins your real life utterly, completely and with no light in sight down that dark, empty and black hole.


Monday, October 10, 2016

IoT Security

Take a read at KrebsonSecurity for the article HERE. I recommend reading it then I also recommend taking a look at the devices you have at home and/or at your business. Since certain sources are selling less than secure devices, some that I feel were deliberately created to allow surreptitious access, to our companies who are using the devices as a part of a package puts us at risk.

If we as individuals, for it is us the individuals most at risk and who will pay the highest price of such insecurities, speak up and have both those companies as well as our legislatures, etc., take a positive role in making the IoT more secure and those that fail pay large sums of money, the sums that really hurt in relation to the offender be it individual or large business, then we will have gone a long way to create a more secure, a more safe and a more profitable Internet environment, both the surface we all see and the U-verse hidden underneath. 

The idea is to hinder all those fly-by-night predators that rely on the more nefarious ones who create ways to use and circumvent security in software, hardware and all the related IoT’s. 


Just sayin!!! Oh, and those nefarious dudes who are making IoT products the way they are, all such devices being imported must past rigorous testing before being allowed and then having a tariff like tax added to pay for it all. Just sayin!!!


Wednesday, October 5, 2016

The IoT or Internet of Things

Things being the operative word, things that are usually not secured or controlled well. These are things that help us with the Internet but are often not accessed or utilized by humans, they sit once installed and do their work while we spend our time on our computers doing stuff that travels through these things. 

Note that the source code that powers the “Internet of Things” (IoT) botnet responsible for launching the historically large distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against a variety of businesses and others. 

Here is a list, short or terse, that will allow you to fully understand what the IoT’s are:

ACTi IP Camera, ANKO Products DVR’s, Dreambox TV receiver, HiSilicon IP Camera’s, Panasonic Printer, Various Routers, Xerox printers, or in other words, “The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects or "things" embedded with electronics, software, sensors and connectivity to enable it to achieve greater value and service by exchanging data with the manufacturer, operator and/or other connected devices.”

Our drive to become connected requires a certain speed of manufacturer and along with even speedier research and development the products must by this nature reach the Internet and us as fast as inhumanly possible leaving humans in the lurch and under their control, a control that comes from the manufacturers, businesses, and etc., that drive the data mining and data broker business and drives other ancillary businesses and all outside our control and with little or no security other than theirs to protect them while leaving us, the customer and humans, out in the wild exposed to predatory predators.

It is becoming so pervasive and intrusive that soon criminal activity will migrate from the real world and into the virtual one because predatorial-criminals will no longer need to expose themselves to grave harm, death or other repercussions because finding them, arresting them and the prosecuting them due to technological wonder they are obscured from those seeking to find and arrest. 

The IoT is connected to you, your house, your devices like DVD’s and Televisions; also all the new devices like frigs, microwaves and all other persona accessories will be connected. Your medical and medicinal information is connected. Your personal activity connected, monitored and data-mined by the data-brokerages; remember that when your home is connected there is always the ability of “Someone watching you”; all sorts of devices connected to your phone that control things like your money, your identity, and things like heating, ovens, automobiles and even your plants - all connected and exposed as a part of the IoT, the Internet of Things. 

Remember how in the movies, like Tom Cruise’ in “Minority Report” where his every move was trackable resulting in so-called eye surgery to fool the IoT. Remember a more recent movie with Pierce Brosnan in “I.T.” where a nefarious emotionally disturbed employee used all his connectivity, through installed IoT, to wreak havoc on Mr. Brosnoa’s character Mike Regan. We used to think watching such “Science Fiction” that this would be both cool and horrible and now with today’s tech and the IoT, it is happening today and we are oblivious simply because our nature, triggered by certain influence manipulation professionals, has us feeling we need, need, need all this before anyone else like “The neighbors, the Jones” syndrome.

So, go ahead, jump on out there, become the person everyone envies who has everything, create that internet technological status but remember, there are nefarious predators out there that will use such as the IoT to attack you, take everything you have and leave you wondering and looking guilty as hell to everyone else who was previously envious of your status. 

Good Luck out There or as an old show would say when the police officers were headed toward the street, “Be careful out there!”

“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)