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The WiKID Blog

The WiKID Blog, musings on two-factor authentication, information security and some other stuff.

fbi-director-robert-mueller-on-npr

Posted by: admin 16 years, 3 months ago

Listen to the interview online..

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computer-crime-and-security-survey-shows-increase

Posted by: admin 16 years, 3 months ago

The annual CSI survey is (almost) out and it shows a big increase in reported costs. Companies reported average annual losses of $350,424 in the past year, up sharply from the $168,000 they reported the previous year.

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marginal-revolution-on-vaccinations

Posted by: admin 16 years, 3 months ago

Kiss me, I'm vaccinated:

People who have the flu spread the virus so getting a flu shot not only reduces the probability that I will get the flu it reduces the probability that you will get the flu. In the language of economics the flu shot creates an external benefit, a benefit to other people not captured by the person who paid the costs of getting the shot. The external benefits of a flu shot can be quite large. Under some conditions each person who is vaccinated reduces the expected number of other people who get the flu by 1.5.
Perhaps we have been taking the wrong tack thinking about how to punish PC users who have malware on their machines.. Maybe offering additional benefits to users with verifiable security mechanisms is a better solution. Maybe one of those benefits would be access to IRC channels often used by malware to contact their controller.

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Measuring-Managing-whatever

Posted by: admin 16 years, 3 months ago

How big is the government? Nobody knows:

As anticipated, the federal government flunked its audit for fiscal 2006, with $797 billion, or 53 percent, of its reported assets and an additional $790 billion, or 27 percent, of net costs, on the balance sheets of five agencies that could not be fully audited.
....
As it did last year, the Government Accountability Office cited three major shortcomings: financial management problems at the Defense Department, an inability to account for and to reconcile balances that cross agency lines and an ineffective process for preparing financial statements.
Instead of debating whether we should be measuring the deficit against GDP or if deficits matter at all or pointing out that there is no way to measure the net benefit of a new aircraft carrier, how about just showing that you know, and therefore in some way value, what you have as assets? Auditing is like blocking and tackling. If you don't care enough to do the basics, you will never win.

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a-response-to-bruce-schneiers-the-failure-of-two

Posted by: admin 16 years, 3 months ago
I certainly agree with many parts of the recent essay and the interview on Computer World by Bruce Schneier, but I think it misses on a few key points and borders on pandering for press.

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