Ross Graber Consulting

The spammers come to Facebook; there’s a highly viral applet that utilizes social engineering to spread spyware. My 2008 prediction: 20+ hot girls a day asking to be our “friend” on FB as with MySpace (to spread spam). A new social network emerges with a limited audience and the trendsetters start to abandon FB. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

This post is an ongoing collection of articles, surveys, and research about computer forensics.

Surveys & Research:

• The US Secret Service published a best practice guide on seizing electronic evidence.

This post is an ongoing collection of articles, surveys, and research about electronic voting.

General, non-partisan references:

• The National Campaign for Fair Elections also covers the electronic voting issue.
• The EFF has a great page dedicated to the subject.
• The New York Times Magazine has a great summary article.

General, partisan references:

• Bev Harris of Blackboxvoting.org is the authority on the challenges surrounding electronic voting.

Specific references by recognized, non-partisan experts:

• The Ohio Secretary of State recently issued the EVEREST report which also found numerous critical flaws in electronic voting systems.
• The California Secretary of State sponsored a “top to bottom” review of electronic voting and decided to decertify several models.
• The Colorado Secretary of state followed suit and decertified the voting machines on 12/18/07.
• One of the most respected security experts, Bruce Schneier, posted an insightful article about electronic voting.
• An AP article documenting the conviction of election workers for rigging the 2004 Ohio recount.

Specific, partisan references:

I don’t endorse the conclusions reached by the materials below, though I do find the information to be thought provoking. While the impact of the systematic weaknesses in voting systems is hotly debated and quickly devolves into conspiracy theories, the fact that they are inexcusably weak is not contested.

• Youtube has a controversial video of a programmer giving testimony that he designed a program to “fix” elections.
• The Washington Post summarized a controversial book by Professor Steve Freeman that compares the security and regulation over slot machines to electronic voting systems.
• Rolling Stone Magazine published two articles by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about electronic voting.

This post is an ongoing collection of articles, surveys, and research about the cybercrime economy.

Surveys & Research:

• The FBI’s most recent cybercrime report was issued in 2006.
• The US Secret Service published two reports on cybercrime.

Articles:

• ZDnet UK has a survey article on the state of the “cybercrime economy”.
• Niall Kennedy’s blog has a lengthy case study of the how and why behind link baiting.
• Washington Post covers online money laundering.

This post is an ongoing collection of articles about identity theft.

General References:

• Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has an identity theft page with lots of content.

Specific References:

• FaceBook source code was leaked during summer 07.
• A judge was defamed by a fake MySpace profile.
• According to this MSNBC article, 3% of US households suffer identity theft.
• Identity theft is often close to home.
• The FBI’s most recent identity theft report was issued in 2006.
• Fly by night trend followers are piling into the identity theft protection market. They are making bold claims that don’t live up to scrutiny. Eat your own dogfood?
• Top Gear host ridicules the identity theft threat and gets stung.

This post is a collection of articles and research related to insider threats.

Surveys & Research:

• The US Secret Service published the Insider Threat Study in 2003 and 2005.

Articles:

• An infosec professional was moonlighting as a black-hat businessman.
• Brokers commit securities fraud at Morgan-Stanley.

Wired has a story about a virtual bank scam in Second Life (SL). Technology review has a more detailed one. Valleywag has a great post on the bigger picture of doing business in SL. I suppose events like this are what Charles Stross based Halting State on.

• Update 1/9/08: Linden Labs is banning the charging of interest without a banking license.
• Update 1/16/08: Security Focus has an interview about the state of online gaming security.