On Thu, 15 Dec 2016, Iznogoud wrote:

> My biggest concerns comes from the behavioural part of a computer user, 
> not so much from the software aspect. This may seem unrelated, but go 
> and read how Kevin Mitnick got access to systems back in the 90s.

I'm sure some of you have seen Werner Herzog's "Lo and Behold: Reveries of 
the Connected World", which recently came out on DVD.  It has lots of 
great stuff in it, including Kevin Mitnick talking about his social 
hacking escapades.  He has some really funny stories.  It's on Netflix 
streaming.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lo_and_behold_reveries_of_the_connected_world/

Regarding recent cybersecurity news, I know that Podesta's mistake was 
clicking on a bitly link in a fake Google email.  I would think that a 
better spam filter would easily have saved him from that.

I don't know how much I trust the Secureworks analysis.  The CrowdStrike 
claims seem to have been debunked.  Both of those companies were hired by 
the DNC which wants (1) to delegitimize Trump and (2) to have a 
very-Russian excuse for losing the election.  I'm no fan of Trump or 
Putin, but I have little trust in the DNC for good reason.

The ODNI report was pretty thin, to say the least.  Who was that 
intermediary?  The one who tricked Assange?  They aren't saying and I am 
therefore not believing them.  Brennan (Director of CIA) and Clapper (DNI) 
both hate Trump, so they have reasons for promoting the "Russian election 
hacking, this time it's serious" narrative, but they both have lied to us 
before when we relied on them -- Brennan about CIA hacking of Senate email 
servers and Clapper about NSA surveillance.  Why should I believe them 
now?

The most hilarious claim made by our intelligence community?  That they 
could trace phishing emails to Putin because they contained Cyrillic 
characters.  First, they could trace the emails to particular keyboards 
because of those Cyrillic characters, and they were Russian keyboards. 
Second, they know that "not much happens in Russia without Putin's 
approval," so they knew Putin was behind it.  Brilliant!  I never would 
have thought of that and that's why I'm not making the big bucks.

Mike