The Ofcom report on UK Broadband says 97% of 1,500 residential connections in May 2010 (18 million tests) received speeds lower than what was advertised to them.

We found that average download speeds remain well below the speeds which some ISPs continue to advertise: the average download speed received in May 2009 of 5.2Mbit/s compares to an average headline speed of 11.5Mbit/s, equivalent to 46% of the headline speed.

65% of the UK is said to have broadband at home. Perhaps the most important statistic for security research is this one:

It is estimated that around 2.75 million households, are currently incapable of receiving a minimum speed of 2Mbit/s which the Government has targeted as part of its universal service commitment.

This compares to 40% of American homes have no broadband and 30% have no Internet access at all.

Germany and Greece have the highest penetration increase rate (3%), according to the OECD, while Korea (94.3%) and Iceland (83.2%) have the highest percentage already connected.

These numbers beg several questions related to the economics of threats, especially in terms of bot-infected computers.

We often debate signal bleed in wireless audits. This NY Times report has a fun and detailed look at a wireless signal that works across the 50km between Windblown California Islands and San Francisco.

Both atmospheric attenuation and refraction cause signals to fade. The engineers tackled these problems with several steps, including using powerful antennas and narrow channels. An IEEE 802.11n radio can use channels as wide as 40Mhz, but Pozar limited the channel width to 10MHz, creating a more focused signal. This sacrificed speed for distance.

“Because we’re going over 50 kilometers of water, I’m being extremely conservative. So I’ve actually cranked this back to only around 12 megabits,” Pozar said.

The NYT Bits Blog has posted Part I: Answers to Questions About Internet Privacy. Jen King at the UC Berkeley School of Information pointed me to this specific answer:

First, encourage your local court to join the privacy movement. Second, build a positive online presence that will push your private financial information off the first page of Google search. The majority of Web searchers don’t look past the first page of Google, so if you can control the first page, then you can limit how many people see your foreclosure. Start by building personal profiles on sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and other popular communities. You may also consider building a personal blog. Arrange to have your name in the URL of each Web property to maximize its “Google juice”. Maybe join a site that lists people in your industry or profession. By carefully linking these sites to one another, you can often make these positive profiles come up at the top of a search for your name.

Many years ago at the 2003 Blackhat conference a presentation was given on how to remove all traces of an identity on the Internet. It was great stuff but clearly a task for Sisyphus.

From that point on I have actively advocated that people who want privacy should actually push and manage information online in the same way celebrities and politicians manage theirs. Some choose to fight and erase objectionable traces but this will eventually fail. Most create press kits and photos, with careful appearances, for public consumption. Both face the threat of paparazzi and tabloids but the latter group seems to have found the least-cost and most secure path (i.e. data integrity).

It is much harder to remove everything than to bury something, a lesson also learned from digital forensics.

The best strategy is to build up online reputation and credibility — pro-actively create a reflection of true persona that can withstand an accusation, incident or even a campaign…and on that note how many know the ruling on Arthur Andersen was actually overturned?

Apple filed an objection but the US Copyright Office appears to have ignored it and sanctions iPhone jailbreaking

IPhone users can now legally hack their phones to download applications that aren’t in Apple’s App Store.

The U.S. Copyright Office, a division of the Library of Congress, has authorized several new exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), one of which will allow mobile phone users to “jailbreak” — or hack into — their devices to use apps not authorized by the phone’s manufacturer. The new rules will be published on Tuesday in the Federal Register.

Their position is not just for applications; they continued to uphold the right to hack the phone to subscribe to another network

The Copyright Office also renewed and expanded its 2006 decision allowing mobile phone users to jailbreak their phones in order to switch carriers. Previously, the office allowed firmware updates to enable network-switching; this week, it added a provision allowing software hacks as well. In other words, iPhone users can now legally download software that will enable their phones to join a non-AT&T network.

This is not to be confused with FISMA Phase II, which had to do with NIST credentials for FISMA assessors. The new FISMA II proposal is said to bring an emphasis on security and not just compliance.

While FISMA originally may have been a good idea to introduce some standards across the federal government as they look at how they secure their networks and how they secure their information, it turned into a lot of more paperwork-compliance exercise than really addressing the core issues of securing networks and securing data, said Michael Markulec, chief operating officer at Lumeta, a network mapping and discovery company.

“While initially a very positive step in terms of standardizing practices across the federal government, I think it has gotten a little bit out of control,” Markulec said. “My hope is for FISMA II and some of these streamline reporting is that some of the dollars that are being spent on the reporting compliance side can go back to really supporting securing the network and securing the underlying data to make sure that our critical infrastructure is protected.”

This is a common problem with compliance initiatives. A giant list of action items is created. No one in security will want to take the job of running through hundreds of hours of spreadsheets. Instead a project manager is assigned as the lead. This project manager, depending on their desire for executive status, often hires a huge number of staff to help collect and file papers on compliance as they too are unhappy just writing and filing reports — spread the pain around. Soon enough the project becomes an exercise in just collecting artifacts and checking boxes on a list. A giant gap is created between technical staff who can verify a control and the non-technical staff who file the evidence of a control. The project management office for compliance then will start to claim ownership of all things security related and the actual security staff will fade into this shadow.

The FISMA II proposal and discussion, found in testimony of Alan Pallar, suggests a shift to “real time” monitoring will bring balance back to more technical security staff.

Here is a problem I see with this proposal. I remember how GM proved, to the loss of billions, that automation will fail unless management of technology can be improved prior to automation. I think Paller misses this crucial step. He first lays out a critique of FISMA:

Continuous monitoring enables government agencies to respond quickly and effectively to common and new attack vectors. The Department of State has demonstrated the effectiveness of this security innovation. Most major corporations use it. This model is the future of federal cyber security. As our response to attacks becomes faster and more automated, we will take the first steps toward turning the tide in cyberspace, and protecting our sensitive information. The original FISMA did just the opposite — it slowed down every process and took key resources away from projects that would allow agencies to act and react more quickly.

Why did it slow down monitoring? What caused the failure? Paller says the answer is that FISMA itself created a non-technical group of auditors whose job is just to collect information:

GISRA and FISMA rewarded ineffective behaviors and created a cadre of people who call themselves security professionals but who proudly admit they cannot implement security settings on systems and network devices or find a programming
flaw. Most of these paper?warriors have no depth of understanding of current threats, cannot do an effective risk assessment, nor select the right controls to
protect systems against the increasingly sophisticated attacks.

I would not be so certain that FISMA rewarded ineffective behavior. My sense is that management was already thinking this way, FISMA just brought it to our attention. More to the point:

The head of security at a major southern power company told me last Friday, “I had to hire a writer rather than a security person because writing compliance reports is seen by management as more important than actually securing the systems.”

I wrote about about a giant gaping hole between those who collect evidence of controls and those who test controls. This example by Paller is actually a worse scenario. He shows that some companies (utilities) actually think they have to choose between testing security and documenting security.

They need both; can’t pick just one. That is the failure of management I am talking about. It existed before FISMA. That is what needs to change.

Paller also makes note of the fact that “paper-warriors” are said to get paid 50-80% more than “people who actually secure systems and networks and applications.”

While his argument here might be that technical expertise is undervalued, this is not a situation that should be seen as isolated to the security industry. The lesson from the data might actually be that security professionals should learn essential writing and reporting skills if they wish to boost their income by 50-80%. I often see that advice in other professions. The entire problem with FISMA might therefore boil down to the fact that security professionals who actually secure things need to develop broader skills. Another explanation could be that staff able to perform an assessment should not be passed over in favor of staff who can only report second-hand information albeit in a smoother package.

Back to my reference about GM and the failure of automation, Paller concludes:

What we need instead is a process that directs agencies to focus their cyber security resources on monitoring their information systems and networks in real time so that they can prevent, detect and/or mitigate damage from attacks as they occur. And oversight must be focused on the effectiveness of the agencies’ real-time defenses. The bill that you have introduced, Madam Chair, does exactly that. Anything less continues o waste scarce resources and leaves us unacceptably vulnerable.

I know “real time” technology might be appealing as a means to force more technical staff into the limelight, but that has not been my experience. It instead will fall right back into the “paper warrior” camp for one simple reason: professionals who actually secure things still face a need to turn large sets of data into meaningful reports. The need for the ability to write does not go away. Security professionals will still be called upon for analysis and synthesis, writing, presentation, and so forth. Paller does not explain how a smooth-talking “paper warrior” will be any less able to steal the show. A new danger could emerge instead as some might say there is no need for security professionals given the investment in a “real time” monitoring system that does all the “real work.”

I agree wholeheartedly with Paller’s emphasis, but I think his analysis and solutions are attacking symptoms instead of providing a cure. That is why I keep bringing up GM. They had “Robot Mania” under CEO Roger Smith, as explained by Case Study: GM and the Great Automation Solution.

“Automation came along just in time to save us.” — Roger Smith, 1980

The car company could have bought Toyota for the $45 billion it wasted trying to implement robotics to compete with them. The need for better management was not fixed by new technology or tools. The data was lost on groups unable to interpret and respond correctly.

Serious organizational change is what Paller is really calling for, which includes training, to increase productivity. A compliance manager who is lacks the skill to assess a control should be no more welcome than a financial audit manager unable to perform arithmetic.

However, given his argument that FISMA slowed down security by over-emphasizing writing and reporting, how does adding more data and more reporting with real-time technology feeds make things better? The question thus should not be about refocusing on security (one view) versus compliance (shared view requiring agreement). Compliance is still required. The question is who is trained and qualified today to manage security in a manner that is compliant. How many security professionals, in other words, are not only technically savvy but ready and able to manage compliance reporting for a large enterprise?

Yet another odd problem with the iPhone has surfaced with virtual systems. When the USB charging/sync cable is connected to an emulated USB the following error will popup:

The phone then drops its connection. This is easily repeatable:

1. Plug the phone into a USB port on the host computer and note that it is charging
2. Boot the guest computer
3. Connect the guest computer USB port to the iPhone
4. Wait a few seconds as communication is established over USB and note that the phone throws an error and stops charging

Apple Support tells you that this error message is supposed to be related to hardware:

Charging with a FireWire-based power source is not supported – except on original iPhone and iPod touch (1st generation). If you connect your device to a FireWire-based charger or accessory, you will see the alert screen below:

The solution, however, is with the software.

Here is the configuration that fixed the problem in VirtualBox. In this example the host is Ubuntu 10 and the guest is Windows 7.

Create a static USB filter with Vendor ID 05ac. Then boot the guest OS and note that the iPhone no longer throws the above error message — communication now will be stable.

I have read endless forum speculation about the cause of the charging error — quality of cables, third-party hardware issues, etc. and most seem to end with “go to the Genius Bar and get a new phone”. Apple is mum on troubleshooting but some report success getting the Genius Bar to give them a brand new phone under warranty.

The repeatability of this error shown above shows that Apple’s iPhone software should be suspect, rather than just hardware. They interpret communication over USB perhaps to protect the phone from earlier generation (firewire) chargers or to force licensing by third-party manufacturers. Whatever their reason, hopefully they will soon fix the software to be more reliable.