At the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week, I got the chance to sit down with Stephen Cobb, a distinguished security researcher for the IT security company ESET. We talked about a lot of things, including Android security issues and how walled gardens have their uses.It was a great conversation, touching on a wide variety of fascinating aspects of online and mobile security, and I wanted to share as many of them as possible.This list seemed like the best way to do that. And while not every one of the dirty-dozen points presented here may surprise you, I can pretty much guarantee that few people will already know – or agree with - everything on the list:1. Big Data is not new to the anti-virus industry. Turns out the anti-virus companies have been doing traffic analysis, incident sharing and code sharing for decades, Cobb claims. They just didn’t call it Big Data until the term become fashionable.2. Anti-virus companies have been practicing co-opetition since the 1980s, when they realized there was no percentage in one company being able to stop one virus while you needed another company to stop a different virus. They quietly began sharing virus signatures and other information, Cobb says.3. All the major Web browsers share information on malware sites and other threats. Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and the others all share which URLs to flag, for example. That’s why when NBC.com was hacked recently and started spewing malware, everybody was able to block it almost immediately.
4. One of the hardest parts of securing Big Data is knowing where the data is actually stored. In the old days, when data was collected and stored, it didn’t really move much. Now, in the cloud, Cobbs says we don’t really know where data is stored. Malware creators are intent on exploiting that, but what form that will take remains to be seen.

5. One reason more high-value targets haven’t been hacked is that there is still so much low-hanging fruit for the bad guys to go after. According to Cobb, so far, there hasn’t been much need to try and crack the hardest targets.

6. Most attacks take the form of malware or hacking. Of the hacking attacks, Cobb says, 80% go after passwords that are either non-existent, guessed or stolen.

7. Anti-virus hasn’t been about matching virus signatures for years. Some people say the anti-virus model doesn’t work because so much new malware is coming out all the time that anti-virus solutions can’t possibly keep up. But Cobb protests that most anti-virus software is continually detecting previously unseen malware.

8. People who know what they’re doing on the Internet might be able to get by with no anti-virus software. But Cobb says people are fooling themselves when they claim: “I don’t run anti-virus software and I’ve never been hacked.” “Are you really OK telling everyone you know – your mom, for instance – not to run anti-virus software?” he asks.

9. There’s still an incredible amount of spam out there. You don’t see it, but it’s still there. It’s using a a huge amount of datacenter power to block it, but it’s built into the network security appliance and you don’t have to deal with it.

10. The overall trend is for increasing levels of security to be compressed into the core, to become part of a standard install. That’s happened to anti-spam, to firewalls and it’s happening to anti-virus, too.

11. It’s a lot harder to write 64-bit malware than it is to write 32-bit malware. And that could help lower the number of attacks on 64-bit systems.

12. In many ways, hacking behavior seems to have gotten better over the years – at least in the United States, Cobb says. But we are now increasingly exposed to other, more dangerous places. The globalization of the Net has caught up with us even as the value of hacking has one way up. Today, hackers aren’t just messing with us, Cobb notes, they’re stealing from us. And that’s a big new incentive.

Dev & Design Technology

Kids deserve more credit than they get. They’re observant, incredibly intuitive and can sometimes figure out what the world needs faster than adults can. Here are 10 youth innovators, from ages seven to 15, particularly worth noting and working on projects ranging from games to anti-bullying apps.

With rapid advancements in technology, and coding education geared toward youth, it comes as no surprise that there are kids pushing innovation out there, and creating apps and programs at astonishingly young ages. Here are 10 youth innovators, from ages seven to 15, particularly worth noting and working on projects ranging from games to anti-bullying apps.

Dev & Design Technology

Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud-based office suite, is moving the turf war against Google Docs to the business world with today’s announcement of business-ready subscriptions. But you’ll need a spreadsheet to figure out which of six different options you’ll need – not to mention what it’ll cost.It’s easier to first explain what the different subscription options have in common. All but two – Office 365 Small Business and Enterprise E1 – include desktop versions of Access, Excel, InfoPath, Lync, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, SkyDrivePro and Word. Similarly, each user has the capability to use the service on a total of five PCs or Macs, except for – again – Office 365 Small Business and Enterprise E1.
The differentiator, it seems, lies in the number of users you’d like to authorize. According to Microsoft’s pricing page, here are the maximum number of users you can sign up for various Office 365 for Business options:

Office 365 Small Business and Small Business Premium: 25 users
Office 365 MidSize Business: 300 users
Office 365 Enterprise E1 and E3: Unlimited users
The Small Business option offers no desktop applications to install and no mobile app options. Nor does the Enterprise E1 option, though it serves an unlimited number of users, while the Small Business plan is limited to just 25.

Business Technology

Apple has extended its lead as the top U.S. smartphone-maker, by grabbing another 3.5% of total market, according to ComScore‘s latest data.
The Cupertino, Calif. giant captured a formidable 37.8% of the U.S. market during the three-month average period ending January 2013, leaving its competitors in the dust. (ComScore compares stats from this period to the three-month average period ending October 2012.)

Rival Samsung clocked in at 21.4%, followed by HTC, Motorola and LG with 9.7%, 8.6% and 7%, respectively.

Social Media Technology

If your kid asked if he could watch TV or play on the iPad for an hour, which would you let him do? Naturally, it depends on what your child is doing on the iPad, but does your instinct prompt you to answer any particular way? That question gets asked of me all the time by my son and my first thought is always the TV.

Yes, I know there are tons of amazing educational apps out there. I’m not against iPad usage for kids by any means, but with my own, I tend to take a slightly different stance. It has really only been in the past year that the iPad has become such a treasured pastime for my son, thanks to his discovery of the FIFA Soccer and Madden Football apps. If left to his own devices, he would likely tap and swipe for four hours straight without breaking to eat, use the bathroom or straighten the inevitable c-curve his back would form into.

While there’s no time to play on the iPad during the week, we started getting lax with monitoring his usage on weekends, sometimes coming downstairs to find him sitting in the exact same place (and exact same position), without us realizing how much time had elapsed. Whenever I would mention how entrenched he’d be in his iPad, he’d respond with something like, “I watch movies and those are two hours. At least with the iPad, I’m doing something and not just sitting there.” Valid point.

Social Media Technology

Typically, we think of dogs as sidekicks, best friends, perhaps even confidantes. But rarely do we discover a dog who is a also a lucrative business partner.Maddie the Coonhound is already famous in the Instagram community, where her owner and photographer Theron Humphrey posts photos of Maddie to over 180,000 eager followers. She even has her own website, Maddie on Things, as well as a forthcoming book, wherein she smiles with squinty eyes and obliging patience.
It’s precisely her calm composure that makes 2.5-year-old Maddie so famous. Well, that and some mad acrobatic skills.

One day on the road, Humphrey decided to pose Maddie atop his truck, hoping she would oblige long enough to capture a quick photograph. He quickly realized he had underestimated his dog.

Dev & Design Entertainment

Any illusions that marketers have gotten this whole social media thing down pat will be blown away by the latest findings from Technorati Media’s 2013 Digital Influence Report, which suggests that for everything the media spends across social platforms, the most desired influencers aren’t even being reached.
The new report points out a huge disconnect: only 11% of corporate social media budgets are devoted to advertising on blogs and influencer sites. But fully 86% of the influencers these corporate brands are trying to reach are using blogs as their primary publishing platform.

Brands And Advertisers: It’s All About Facebook

The mismatch is pretty clear in Technorati Media’s report. Typically, just 10% of the total digital marketing budget is devoted to a social ad strategy. Of that slice of the pie, 57% gets tossed at Facebook ad buys, 13% at YouTube and another 13% at Twitter’s sponsored tweets. Just 6% is spent on influencers and 5% on blogs.

Business Social Media

A new nonprofit led by the world’s first space tourist is mounting an ambitious plan to launch the first manned mission to Mars in 2018, a voyage that could include an adventurous married crew.The project, led by American millionaire Dennis Tito — who paid his own way to space in 2001 — aims not to land people on the surface of the Red Planet, but to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment that would allow a relatively easy, quick flyby of Mars.
Tito announced the private Mars voyage plan today at the National Press Club, where he held a press conference to launch his new organization, the Inspiration Mars Foundation, to back the mission.

Tito hopes to choose a space capsule and rocket from among those already on the market, and modify them to carry two people to Mars and back in 501 days.

And to combat the loneliness and isolation that would doubtless set in during such a mission, Tito is proposing something that’s never been tried before: sending one male and one female, preferably a married couple.

“When you’re out that far and the Earth is a tiny, blue pinpoint, you’re going to need someone you can hug,” Tito told SPACE.com. “What better solution to the psychological problems you’re going to encounter with that isolation?”

Business Couple Lifestyle Voyage

If you love social media, Facebook isn’t the only place you can launch an awesome career. In fact, these seven social networks are all amazing places to work—and they’re all hiring, too. Take a peek inside the offices of these cool companies and learn more about their culture, team and extra-fun perks.

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Business Social Media

Research shows small business owners consider time to be a more valuable asset than computers, mobile phones and the company’s office or storefront. In addition, one-quarter of small business owners would pay $500 for one extra hour in their day.
Since adding a 25th hour to the day is an unlikely possibility, a few simple time-management strategies can help entrepreneurs gain that extra time they’re looking for, says Mike Pugh, vice president of marketing for j2 Global Communications.

However, Pugh advises that time management isn’t just about getting work done, the purpose is to help small business owners take a meaningful look at the tasks at hand so they can maintain a healthy work-life balance. His tips include:

1. Empower Your Employees

Business owners must learn to let go of the day-to-day tasks that are taking up their time to focus on the big picture. They should take a hard look at what they’re spending the most time doing everyday and then think about what they actually should be doing. Whatever doesn’t fall into the “should be doing” category needs to be reassigned to a staff member. Not only does this help them focus on larger business issues, but also empowers their employees by letting them take on tasks normally assigned for the boss. This challenges employees and allows them to gain more responsibility ultimately freeing up the owner’s time.

2. Learn to Pilot the Cloud

Taking the time to navigate through cloud solutions that help organize business communications and documents will be a big time-saver. Applications like Google Docs allow business owners to collaborate in real time with employees, while Evernote allows business owners to take notes on the go. There are thousands of simple, effective solutions available to the business community that can help save time.

Enterprise Lifestyle

The app was designed to be a one-stop shop for Star Trek fans. It includes a news feed feature that shows off Star Trek news articles from around the web. When the film gets closer to release, users will also be able to pre-order tickets for the app from Fandango.In addition to information, the app also has a series of various “missions” that fans can participate in to unlock access to exclusive images, video clips and the chance to win Star Trek prizes.
One mission is to watch the Star Trek Into Darkness teaser trailer. Using the app, users press a “listen” button and when held up against a computer screen or TV. The app then scans the soundwaves and unlocks content for users.

Dev & Design Technology

Makerbot CEO Bre Pettis excitedly announced a new Makerbot Digitizer Desktop 3D scanner on stage Friday at SXSW in Austin. Currently a prototype, the next-generation scanner will allow anyone to scan a physical item, digitize it, and then print it in 3D, regardless of whether or not they have any design experience.
Sort of like a copy/paste for real-world objects, the Digitizer works using two lasers and a webcam. The webcam sees where the lasers are shining off of an item, and wraps all those points up into a plan for a 3D model that can then be printed. To make the magic happen the lasers spin around the object, a process Pettis describes as “like Tron.”

“This is something you would envision being a piece of fiction, but in fact, it is real — and it is so cool,” says Pettis.

Able to scan items in as little as three minutes, the Digitizer can create small to medium sized objects, 2” to 8” cylinders. The Digitizer works in indoor light, and prints watertight models that can be used for prototyping, or to replace broken items in your home.

“The MakerBot Digitizer is a great tool for archiving, prototyping, replicating, and digitizing prototypes, models, parts, artifacts, artwork, sculptures, clay figures, jewelry, etc. If something gets broken, you can print it again.”

Makerbot is currently testing the scanner, with plans to release it to the general public in the fall. You can sign up to receive updates on the Digitizer on Makerbot’s website.

Enterprise Technology

It’s not exactly easy to tell if someone is who they say they are on Vine, Twitter’s new video-sharing app. Case in point: There’s an account with the username Vine. Who is it? Hard to tell — maybe it’s run by the company; maybe it’s an unknown, opportunistic individual.
Duplicate usernames and easily faked profiles mean it’s difficult to ascertain the legitimacy of high-profile Viners (if that’s what we’re calling them). For now, our best way to tell who’s who on Vine is if verified Twitter accounts plug their six-second videos, or if they pop up when you look for people to follow via connected Twitter accounts.

Now it appears that Vine is playing around with ways to verify accounts. Rus Yusupov, Vine’s cofounder and creative director, has a Twitter-verified badge-style stamp that looks like this on his profile.

Social Media Technology

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Business Entertainment