Silk Road Shutdown an Opportunity for Black Market Internet Entrepreneurs

Nature abhors a vacuum.  With the shutdown of Silk Road, we are likely to see some copy cats spring up across the web.  From the Guardian:

Although it was certainly the most high profile, Silk Road was not the first illegal marketplace hidden within the dark web or on the open internet.
"Silk Road will almost certainly be replaced by a copycat-like site, as has been the case in carder markets where people trade fraudulent credit card information. Those kinds of places have been shut down in the past and very, very quickly replaced by others," said Rik Ferguson, vice-president of security research at Trend Micro, talking to the Guardian.

Sites similar to Silk Road already exist within the Tor network. Two stores called Atlantis and Sheep Marketplace offer illegal drugs, equipment and services akin to Silk Road.

However, some sites go further – Bitcoin-powered shop called Black Market Road, for instance, also sells illegal weapons, something Silk Road withdrew after high profile shootings in the US.

Adobe Hacked: Data on 3 Million Customers Compromised

From Adobe:

Cyber attacks are one of the unfortunate realities of doing business today. Given the profile and widespread use of many of our products, Adobe has attracted increasing attention from cyber attackers. Very recently, Adobe’s security team discovered sophisticated attacks on our network, involving the illegal access of customer information as well as source code for numerous Adobe products. We believe these attacks may be related.

Our investigation currently indicates that the attackers accessed Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords on our systems. We also believe the attackers removed from our systems certain information relating to 2.9 million Adobe customers, including customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders. At this time, we do not believe the attackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers from our systems. We deeply regret that this incident occurred. We’re working diligently internally, as well as with external partners and law enforcement, to address the incident . . . 

FBI Seizes Silk Road, Arrests Operator

From The Orlando Sentinel:

U.S. law enforcement authorities have shut down "Silk Road," an anonymous Internet marketplace for illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine and criminal activities such as murder for hire, and arrested its alleged owner.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday it arrested Silk Road owner, Ross William Ulbricht, 29, known online as "Dread Pirate Roberts," in San Francisco on Tuesday, according to court filings.

Ulbricht, who holds an advanced degree in chemical engineering, appeared in federal court on Wednesday and a bail hearing was set for Friday.

BitTorrent: Secure Chat App on the Way?

From CNET:

The aftermath of the NSA spying revelations has people and companies scrambling for ways to create more secure communications, which has led BitTorrent to build a instant-message chat client that follows the torrenting principle of decentralized data transfer.

The first release of BitTorrent Chat is a private alpha, meaning you have to go to the BitTorrent Chat sign-up page to get an invite, which will take you to a download.  The client uses the concept of decentralized technology that's at the heart of torrents to run instant messages between people . . . 

Tech Drives NYC's Private Sector Growth

From a report for the Bloomberg Technology Summit:

• New York City’s share of the nation’s private sector employment has reached its highest level in 20 years because of the growth of the tech/information sector.

• There are 262,000 workers in the New York tech/information sector, contributing almost $30 billion annually in wages to the local economy.

• While the financial sector, including real estate, is the most single important engine of the New York economy, the tech/information sector is now number two, surpassing the private health care sector.

• Between 2007 and 2012, the number of private sector jobs in NYC rose by about 4 percent, com- pared to a 3 percent decline nationally.

•Since 2007, when the Great Recession started, New York City’s tech/information sector has grown by 11 percent, or some 26,000 jobs, adding $5.8 billion in additional wages to the economy. Indeed, these wage gains accounted for two-thirds of the growth in private sector wages over that stretch.

• Using a conservative estimate, the tech/information boom was responsible for roughly one-third of the private sector job creation in New York City since 2007.

• New York City also significantly outperformed its suburbs during this period. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, private sector jobs actually declined by 3.8 percent from 2007-2012 in the New York metro area outside the city. Tech/information jobs also dropped by 6.9 percent in the suburbs, compared to an 11 percent gain in the city.

• The growth of Brooklyn’s tech/information sector has outpaced every other large county in the country, with the exception of San Francisco. This includes traditional tech hubs such as Austin; Seattle; Cambridge, MA; the Research Triangle; and Silicon Valley.

Book Review: Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python

Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python is a free introductory textbook on cryptography, computer programming and the Python programming language written by Albert Sweigert, a software developer from San Francisco.  Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python is Sweigert's third book on Python, and the first that teaches the programming language through cryptography and traditional cryptographic protocols.

Published under a creative commons license, the work can be read for free online, downloaded as a .pdf or purchased from Amazon, with all proceeds going to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Creative Commons and the Tor Project.  From the book's description:

“Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python” teaches complete beginners how to program in the Python programming language. The reader not only learns about several classical ciphers, but also how to write programs that encrypt and hack these ciphers. The full source code is given and explained line-by-line for ciphers such as the Caesar cipher, transposition cipher, simple substitution cipher, multiplicative & affine ciphers, Vigenere cipher, and hacking programs for each of these ciphers. The final chapters cover public key cryptography and the modern RSA cipher.

Clocking in at 416 pages, the book is broken down into 24 chapters covering virtually everything from the ancient Caesar Cipher to modern public key cryptography.  It thus provides a practical overview of the history of cryptography, while simultaneously introducing the reader to progressively more advanced aspects of the Python programming language. 

The book begins at the beginning, showing the reader first how to create rudimentary ciphers with paper and scissors.  It then gives a quick introduction on how to install Python, how to work with the interactive shell, and provides a quick overview of Python basics before jumping in to its first major coding chapter on the Reverse Cipher.  For each cipher covered in the book, it provides the Python code to run that cipher, followed by a chapter covering a second program that can be used to hack that cipher.  Python basics are covered in the analysis of the code used to create and then hack the given cipher.

Highly recommended for beginner to intermediate Python programmers who are interested in cryptography.  And since it is available free online, you can dive right in.

Unplugged: The Key to Longer Laptop Battery Life

From Wired:

In order to squeeze as much life out of your lithium-polymer battery, once your laptop hits 100 percent, unplug it. In fact, you should unplug it before that.

Cadex Electronics CEO Isidor Buchmann told WIRED that ideally everyone would charge their batteries to 80 percent then let them drain to about 40 percent. This will prolong the life of your battery — in some cases by as much as four times. The reason is that each cell in a lithium-polymer battery is charged to a voltage level. The higher the charge percentage, the higher the voltage level. The more voltage a cell has to store, the more stress it’s put under. That stress leads to fewer discharge cycles. For example, Battery University states that a battery charged to 100 percent will have only 300-500 discharge cycles, while a battery charged to 70 percent will get 1,200-2,000 discharge cycles.