WikiLeaks And Stratfor Make The Case For More Data Encryption

Yesterday, WikiLeaks released emails taken in the highly-publicized Stratfor data breach. While many of the emails are innocuous, such as accusations regarding a stolen lunch from the company refrigerator; others are potentially highly embarrassing to both Stratfor and their corporate clients. The emails reveal some messy corporate spycraft that is usually seen in the movies and rarely is illumined in real life. For example, one email suggests that Stratfor is working on behalf of Coca-Cola to uncover information to determine if PETA was planning on disrupting the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.

While Stratfor's response suggests that some of the emails may have been tampered with, this is not the point. As the soon-to-be infamous "Lunch Theft" email shows, that might be merely what the email calls Fred's rule # 2: "Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations."

Oracle Support & Maintenance: What do you get?

HBGary, Anonymous, WikiLeaks, And The Concept Of Openness

Recently I've been reading the excellent work by Jamais Cascio and thinking about the concept of "openness." Much of Jamais' work is focused on geoengineering, but the concept of openness has profound implications on many fields, including computer security.

For those of you who have been following the unfolding story of HBGary Federal and the Anonymous Group, this is what Hollywood movies are made of. In fact, I don't think a script writer could have penned this any better than the real life version. If you haven't been following the minute details of this story, this Tech Herald article is an excellent read on how the whole thing started.

A condensed version of the events is as follows: