Tag Archive for: Technical

Students at Fayetteville Technical Community College find themselves on the front lines of 21st century warfare

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) — Fayetteville Technical Community College is training people to protect others from cyber attacks.

The FBI issued a new warning about the possibility of Russian cyber attacks on U.S. infrastructure, placing some students in Fayetteville on the front lines in a way they didn’t initially expect.

Christopher Barksdale is a retired veteran and former Army aircraft mechanic. Now, his new boot camp is inside a classroom at Fayetteville Technical Community College.

“It does kind of feel like you’re on the front line but in a digital sense,” Barksdale said. “You hear about digital attacks here and digital attacks there and it’s almost like you’re getting involved in a major conflict going on again.”

Barksdale enrolled in a six-week program designed to teach students foundation in cyber security.

Instructor Darryl Carter specializes in taking students with zero experience and building them into finely-tuned experts.

“The same technology that they use to operate your car is the same technology that they are going to use to try and break into your computer at home,” Carter explained. “So we have to (get) them scripting and we have to teach them software development and teach how programs are written and how to do that safely and effectively.”

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Remembering Dave Covey, a man of benevolence, bikes and technical wizardry

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Dave Covey and Jim Brader on the course of the Equinox Marathon in 2016. (Photo courtesy Jim Brader)

When Dave Covey walked up with a smile, your day was about to become calmer. And then he fixed your irritating computer problem in 10 seconds.

He left us last week — a quiet exit that was totally Dave. He died at 64 of cancer he told few people about.

Dave worked a quarter-century at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, lastly as a computer security guy at the Geophysical Institute.

I used to think that’s all he was. Then I learned he was on the UAF running and ski teams, we had stomped some of the same ground in New York, he did computational physics on glaciers and the ionosphere and he once won a marathon in Anchorage.

In the wedge of the boreal forest in which he made his home, the Equinox Marathon is a 26.2-mile run up and over Ester Dome each September. Dave earned more than 30 triangular knit patches for finishing, several times in the top 10.

I saw him on that hill a few times. One was at the peak of my arc and the slight downslope of his. We finished close to one another; he handed me a cup of sugar water. Another time, later in our running careers, I was pushing my daughter along the course in a Chariot, a stroller with pneumatic tires. Dave was walking along with a woman and her poodle. We chatted while hotfooting the homestretch, that wry smile busting across his face.

Dave Covey and Andy Sterns at the turnaround point of the Equinox half-marathon in September 2021. (Photo courtesy Andy Sterns)

He rode his bicycle to work at the university for a few decades straight. Not to save gas, just because he loved to ride. He toured on bikes with friends through Europe, Australia and Mexico. He always wore one of those cycling caps that Tour de France riders fancied before they used helmets. He really loved beer. And brewing mead.

His voice was soft, laid-back, always punctuated with his laugh. He was from Torrance, California, and first came to Alaska in 1975 as a runner on the UAF cross-country team.

In Fairbanks, he met and married Kelly Drew, a UAF scientist who studies how ground squirrels can do so many amazing things during hibernation, when their bodies get colder than an…

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Top 10 internet security | Online security tips | Online Safety | Cyber Security Tips

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SC-Appointed Technical Committee Seeks Details From Persons Suspecting Hacking Of Their Devices

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Persons who suspect that their devices have been targeted by the Pegasus spyware can write to the Technical Committee constituted by the Supreme Court to investigate the allegations of snooping using the Pegasus spyware by the noon of January 7, 2022.

The Committee issued a public notice in this regard today asking such persons, who feel that they are targets of Pegasus spyware, to send an email to “[email protected]“. Those persons should also furnish reasons as to why they believe their devices have been infected by Pegasus spyware.

In case the Committee feels that such suspicions require further investigation, it can request for allowing the examination of the device. The collection point will be at New Delhi. The Committee will give an acknowledgement of having received the device for examination and will give the person a digital phone image of the records.

It was on October 26 last year that the Supreme Court constituted an independent expert committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice RV Raveendran to probe into the allegations of snooping of journalists, activists, politicians etc, using the Pegasus spyware developed by the Israeli company NSO.

The Court also constituted a Technical Committee to assist the probe panel.

The members of the Technical Committee are :

  1. Dr. Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, Professor (Cyber Security and Digital Forensics) and Dean, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
  2. Dr. Prabaharan P., Professor (School of Engineering), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri, Kerala.
  3. Dr. Ashwin Anil Gumaste, Institute Chair Associate Professor (Computer Science and Engineering), Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Maharashtra.

A bench led by the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana passed the direction in view of the refusal of the Union Government to make a clear statement as to whether it has availed the services of Pegasus spyware or not. The bench refused to accept the argument of “national security” raised by the Central Government, saying the state will “not get a free pass” every time national security is raised and the court will not remain a “mute spectator”. Refusing the proposal of the Union Government that it will constitute a…

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