[Year 12 IT Apps] privacy and data mining

Tue Apr 16 21:15:51 EST 2013

Hello all

Excellent episode of the Check Out (Ep 4 ABC Thurs 11 April 8pm) at iView http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/program/32372
about 17 minutes in.

Looking at how data mining is able to target us, how good it is getting, and where the data comes from.

Regards
Robert T-A

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mark 
  To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List 
  Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 1:59 PM
  Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] (no subject)

  Hi Jackson. 
  I'd guess the main technique would be phishing - the human is always the quickest and easiest weak link in any technological security chain, and some modern phishing can be VERY convincing (e.g. embedding attack code into a legitimate webpage.)

  Why Yahoo?  I'd say it was purely return on investment due to bulk targets. Attack the sites with the maximum number of potential victims... the same logic is used by virus/worm writers who attack Windows instead of Mac and Linux (leading Mac users to crow smugly and erroneously about their perceived invulnerability: it's just that the Mac userbase has not until recently been big enough to justify good hacking time.)  

  And maybe Yahoo's creaking old infrastructure is weak and more easily breached?  Let's see what Marissa does about it.

  Cheers
  Mark

  On 16 April 2013 12:52, Jackson Bates <bates.j at wcc.vic.edu.au> wrote:

    Oh wiser ones,

    I'm not much of a security buff, so I'm interested: what are the various methods spammers and crooks use to infiltrate our email addresses?

    My guesses are brute-force / dictionary attacks (but I imagine yahoo et al. block repeated guesses or use captcha), phishing, malware/Trojans (not sure what these would do - capture keystrokes?).

    And do http://www.seller-service.com/ (for example) know they are hosting whatever resides at '/qlsnthcd/1tni5/gyqid3oo/x71m/1695jqh' or has it been snuck on to their server (and again, how? SQL injection leading to access to admin panel?)

    Slightly off-topic, but loosely relevant to U4O2...and asking here means I don't spend the rest of the afternoon Googling it :)

    Aside: Why does it always seem to be Yahoo?

    Thanks for anything that abates my curiousity,

    Jackson Bates
    Waverley Christian College

  --
  Mark Kelly
  mark AT vceit DOT com
  http://vceit.com

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