Russia/Ukraine Update

Watch for the Third Edition of my book,Navies, Petrol and Chocolate, due in February 2021 (on Amazon in paperback and ebook).

Fearing a move of Russian troops to the Ukraine border,  western forces have exercised in Estonia.  Russia's 2018 exercise happened in the East... The Russian seizure of three Ukraine cargo vessels vicinity the Kerch Strait in late November 2018 was an unhappy display (seized sailors and ships weren't returned for many months).  Russian naval exercises happened in 2020... what's next?

What does Kim want?

Granted, scoring a meeting with the President of the United States is a coup no North Korean leader has scored in the history of the country, but what (beyond more status enhancing activity) does Kim Jung Un want from the upcoming meeting with Donald Trump?

Here is a crazy idea:  he wants general elections to select a president of both Koreas.   Assume that the North (25% of the population who worship the man today) votes  as a block and the south (the remaining 75%) splits between several (two or more) candidates...Un wins!!

Korean population density

A worthy project for Gallop, the polling company.  Informed scholars believe Kim becomes irrelevant  the moment he allows a new government to undermine his northern authoritarian regime.  At the top of a democratically elected organization, with his secret police suddenly able to run rampant across the peninsula... uh oh!  What do you think?

Privacy

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution specifically protects:  "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

A woman I recently met was calling anyone  using Facebook an idiot, because "your data is open for abuse and examination."  We choose to share information on Facebook, I  replied.  What about banks, landlords and others with access to financial transaction data (because they pay for it)?   What about data, in your medical record, that hackers are sharing with the global criminal community?

Granted, hackers are criminals.  But are your health organizations really doing, what they should, to protect against (or quickly detect) a hack?  Likely not...

Banks and other organizations with access to your financial records are not criminal.  Yet they have unfettered access to your financial records and accounts, in the name of understanding your creditworthiness and making robust financial decisions.

[from Wikipedia] Article XIV of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights [stated even before the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution, that]: Every subject has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches, and seizures of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions. All warrants, therefore, are contrary to this right, if the cause or foundation of them be not previously supported by oath or affirmation; and if the order in the warrant to a civil officer, to make search in suspected places, or to arrest one or more suspected persons, or to seize their property, be not accompanied with a special designation of the persons or objects of search, arrest, or seizure: and no warrant ought to be issued but in cases, and with the formalities, prescribed by the laws.

In the internet age, we need to enact laws to protect citizens from probing commercial and government entities, and punish these abuses with civil and perhaps criminal penalties....

Cyber Vulnerability

                               

A few weeks ago several scary hardware vulnerabilities surfaced to illustrate how sophisticated hackers have become.  Spectre and Meltdown hacks use manipulation of central processing unit cache (yeah, the "CPU" is one of the key chips on your computer's motherboard).  These hacks use a detailed understanding of cache memory functionality to steal data from applications on your computer or perhaps from elsewhere on your network (thanks to Carbon Black for this illustration regarding the workings of CPU cache/processing).

Some patches have been published, but these hacks are very hard to block.  In spite of assertions that we haven't seen this malware "in the wild," when you contemplate what this kind of hacking vulnerability means, you begin to realize how vulnerable computers are, in general, and understand the "rocket science" some of these hackers can bring to the table.

Computers.  Yes, the MRI and heart monitor in your hospital are computers.  Every device on your network.  Obviously desktop, laptop and mobile computers (including your phone) are also computers.

So what do you do about this?  Of course, install firewalls and enact your system's onboard security features.  Keep up-to-date on operating system patches (yikes... you might be forced to tolerate dog-slow performance or upgrade to the new phone!) ... but if you are responsible for any size organization, you should also monitor your network a bit more carefully.

Even  if your firewall can't stop a hack (pieces of malware infiltrate your network, then reassemble once inside, for example), you can detect unwanted data transmissions or peculiar performance characteristics (yes, even that sophisticated malware causes suspect hacked CPU behavior).

Thanks for reading.