tymshft

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Archive for the tag “security”

Text-to-911 advances

I recently read a story about the rollout of text-to-911 services in New Jersey. Rather than requiring someone to make a voice call, the person can send a text message to 911.

This has its advantages – for example, in situations where “people … fear being overheard when contacting 911,” the ability to quietly send a text is a plus. In addition, younger people who are used to texting in general may prefer this method.

It also has disadvantages. When two-way communication between the caller and the dispatcher is required, it’s much faster to do it by voice rather than by text.

Toward the end of the article, the following statement was included:

A representative of the state Office of Emergency Telecommunications Services did not return a call seeking comment.

Should have sent a text!

Treating your security expert like a king

Vipin Samar, vice president of database security technologies at Oracle, was recently quoted in an Oracle Magazine article.

Samar thinks security professionals can learn a lesson from history. In medieval Europe, castles had multiple defenses—wide moats, high walls, iron doors, and even counterattacking archers to repel different types of attackers. “Similarly, in the IT world, you have to defend your databases from casual onlookers, opportunistic insiders, and state-sponsored hackers,” he says. “Data is your king, but if your defensive moat is a firewall of pawns, it is easy for an enemy knight to jump across and checkmate your king.”

tymshft talks about (fraudulent) time shifts

MASH TV SHOW FANS – SPOILER ALERT.

One evening, CBS aired an episode of MASH entitled Death Takes a Holiday. The premise of the story was that Hawkeye, BJ, and Margaret do not want a fatally wounded soldier to die on Christmas Day, and are feverishly working to keep him alive through the day.

As I recall the episode, the patient DOES die near the end of the day – until Hawkeye goes to the clock on the wall and moves the clock hands so that the time is after midnight. This elicits a comment from by-the-book Margaret Houlihan that she had never falsified a U.S. Army document before.

Presumably the U.S. Army of the 1950s did not have DigiStamp.

Simply put, you need proof of what you’ve done and when you did it. Our service provides strong evidence for both.

In fact, we provide uniquely strong evidence.

No one can use our service to produce a false time stamp. Even we can’t produce false time stamps. If someone offered us a million dollars, we still couldn’t produce a false timestamp.

Why not? A DigiStamp timestamp offers you three layers of security:

An audit trail from two independent authorities proving that our equipment does exactly what we say it does.

State-of-the-art software that meets the highest established standards.

Uniquely customized hardware that cannot be tampered with.

Now because of my industry background, I have a tough time with 100.0000000% claims. Ask Brandon Mayfield about 100% accuracy. Any “perfect” system can be compromised in some way, given enough time and money. And DigiStamp addresses the thoughts of people like me.

Of course, an overly optimistic attorney might claim that you paid us to install a corrupt 4758 to start with. But that claim would fail.

I don’t know. Has DigiStamp seen any recent jury decisions?

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