Category: Computer Crimes

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Lone Wolf Terrorism and Open Source Intelligence

Tomorrow I shall give a talk about Open Source Intelligence and Lone Wolf Terrorism at the “Terrorism and Crime” ? international conference hosted by the University of Chieti.

It will be a chance to debunk the next “national security excuse” invoked to increase mass surveillance and social control for the sake of our “safety”.

Here is the full programme

International Conference on “Terrorism and Crime”

Dedicated to the memory of Prof. Enrico Todisco

University “G. d’Annunzio”, Viale Pindaro 42, Pescara

THURSDAY, JUNE 19 – 2014

Room “Paolo V”

O9 :00-09: 20 – Welcome and greetings

O9: 20 – 11:00 – “Lone Wolf Terrorism“

Chair: Yair Sharan

(09:20 – 09:40) Yair Sharan (General Director of the EPI/ first group – Israel)

History of LW terrorism

(09:40 – 10:00) Theodore J.Gordon (co-founder, The Millennium Project):

The Possible Evolution of Lone Wolf Terrorism; an RTD Study

(10:00 – 10:20) Yair Sharan (General Director of the EPI/ first group – Israel)

Prospects for Bio- terrorism

(10:20 – 10:40) Elizabeth Florescu (Director of Research, The Millennium Project)

Lone Wolf Profiling and Social Implications

Discussion

11:00 – 11:30 – Coffee Break

11:30 – 13:30 – Terrorism: Contrast and future prevention

Chair: Arije Antinori Discussant: Gianmarco Cifaldi

(11:30 – 11:50) – Arije Antinori (Sapienza University)

The evolution of the LWT through the web

(11:50 – 12:10) – Salvatore Rapuano (Comando GDF Regione Molise)

The security at airports: prospects and scenarios

(12:10 – 12:30) – Gianmarco Cifaldi – Tatiana Yugay (Un. “G. d’Annunzio“, Moscow

State University) – Smart security versus Smart crime

(12:30 – 12:50) – Antonio Cilli (G. d’Annunzio University) – Computer crime and

terrorism

(12:50 – 13:10) – Marco Rosi (Ten. Col. C.C.) – New scenarios of Islamist terrorism:

the phenomenon of the italian homegrown and Foreign fighters

(13:10 – 13:30) – Andrea Monti(University of Milan) – Open Source Intelligence e

Big Data

Discussion

13:30 – 15:30 – Lunch

(15:30 – 16:00) lecture dedicated to the memory of Prof. Enrico Todisco

Prof. Raimondo Cagiano De Azevedo – (Sapienza University)

Live broadcast on: www.unich.it

16:00 – 19:00 – Round table on the future of terrorism

Organizer: Sergio Sorbino Gen C.A. (ris) CC – Moderator:Gianmarco Cifaldi

Participants:

– Arije Antinori (Sapienza Univ.) – Gianmarco Cifaldi (Univ. G. d’Annunzio) – Antonio Cilli (Univ. G. d’Annunzio) – Elizabeth Florescu (Millennium Project, World Federation of UN Associations) – Theodor J. Gordon (Millennium Project, “Edward Cornish Award” winner, Futurist of the Year 2010) – Salvatore Rapuano (GdF) – Marco Rosi (Ten. Col. CC) – Carlo Disma (Col. Rivista Italiana Difesa) – Aurelio Soldano (Ufficiale GdF) – Yair Sharan (Director General of EPI/FIRST) – Tatiana Yugay (Moscow ?State ?Univ.) – Augusta Marconi (Univ. G. d’Annunzio)

17:30 Coffè Break

FRIDAY, JUNE 20 – 2014

Room “Paolo V”

Sessions on “The Future Of Crime”

O9 :00-09: 15 – Welcome and greetings

09:15 – 10:50 – Crime and economic activity. Future trends

Chair: Tatiana Yugay – Discussants: Andrea Ziruolo

(09:15 – 09:30) – Gianmarco Cifaldi – Tatiana Yugay (University “G. d’Annunzio“,

Moscow State University) Deoffshorization of the Russian economy as a fight against economic crime

(09:30 – 09:45) – Augusta Consorti, Massimo Sargiacomo, Michela Venditti

(University “G. d’Annunzio) – Accounting for illegal activities organized

(09:45 – 10:00) – Andrea Ziruolo(University “G. d’Annunzio) – Bodies of Independent

Assessment of local authorities, by overseeing the performance to yet another bureaucratic structure

(10:00 – 10:15) – Fabizio Lisi (Guardia di Finanza)

Future Trends of economic crimeand perspectives of contrast

Discussion

10:30 – 10:45 – Coffee Break

10:45 – 12:00 – Organized Crime. Future Trends

Chair: Giammarco Cifaldi – Discussants: Arije Antinori

(10:45 – 11:00) – John Gale (Miami judge) – Intenational crime: case study

(11:00 – 11:15) – Franco Sivilli(University “G. d’Annunzio) – From digitization to

datizzatione: the phenomenon of the Big Data in the era of Cloud

Computing

(11:15 – 11:30) – Arije Antinori (University La Sapienza) – The integration of Osint,

Webint and Socint in the analysis of complex criminal phenomena

(11:30 – 11:45) – Gianmarco Cifaldi – Tatiana Yugay (University “G. d’Annunzio“,

Moscow State University) – Smart security versus Smart crime

(12:00 – 12:15) – Elisabetta Narciso (Dirigente Polizia Postale) – New criminal

phenomena in the web

(12:15 – 12:30) – Paolo Piccinelli (Col C.C.) – Micro-crime and prevention strategies Discussion

12:30 – 13:45 –Violence, crime and justice. Temporal and spatial Trends

Chair: Francesco D. d’Ovidio – Discussant: Elizabeth Florescu

(12:30 – 12:45) – Mara Maretti – Elizabeth Florescu ?(University “G. d’Annunzio,

Millennium Project) – Gender-based violence: a sociological reading of

past, present and future

(12:45 – 13:00) – Francesco D. d’Ovidio, Rossana Mancarella, Laura Antonucci

Spatial relationships between changes in crime and the efficiency of

riminal justice in recent years

(13:00 – 13:15) – Antonio Cilli(University “G. d’Annunzio) – Digital investigations

and crime mapping

(13:15 – 13:30) – Pasqualino Cipolla – Italo Cucci(University “G. d’Annunzio,

Journalist) – Violence in sport and criminal tendencies

(13:30 – 13:45) – Gianmarco Cifaldi (University “G. d’Annunzio) – Violence against

children: from virtual to real

Discussion and Interview to Italo Cucci – Live broadcast on: www.unich.it

14:00 – 15:30 – Lunch

15:30 – 16:00 – Theodore J. Gordon“Some Future Ethical Issues”

16:00 – 18:30 – Round table on future of crime

Organizer: Sergio Sorbino (Gen C.A. (Ris) CC) – Moderator: Antonio Cilli

Participants:

– Vincenzo D’Antuono (Prefect of Pescara) – Arije Antinori (Coordinator CRI.ME LAB, Rome University) – Filippo Barboso (Quaestor of Chieti) – Angelo Battisti (Sapienza University) – Giuseppe Falasca (Magistrate) – Giovanni Febo (Quaestor of Teramo) – Paolo Passamonti (Quaestor of Pescara) – Paolo Piccinelli (Col. CC) – Fabio Santone (V.Q.A. Polizia di stato) – Yair Sharan (Director General of EPI/FIRST – Israel) – Aurelio Soldano (Cap. GdF) – Armando Tartaro (Univ. G. d’Annunzio)

Conclusions

17:00 Coffè Break

SATURDAY, JUNE 21 – 2014

Room “Paolo V”

Seminars

(09:00 – 09:45) – Arije Antinori – 10 Years of Digihad. The Evolution of Global Digital

Jihadism

(09:45 – 10:00) – Debate

(10:00 – 10:45) – Yair Sharan – New Technologies and Their Implications

(10:45 – 11:00) – Debate

11:00 – 11:15 – Coffee Break

(11:15 – 12:00) – Theodore J. Gordon – New data sources and The Evolution of

Analysis

(12:00 – 12:15) – Debate

(12:15 – 12:45) – Antonio Pacinelli, Simone Di Zio

Conclusions, thanks and future opportunities

13:00 – Lunch

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The XP’s EOL. History Will Teach Us Nothing

Windows XP is dead in Redmond, but alive and kicking in a huge quantity of devices such ? ATMs. When the news hit the media, waves of “concerns” for the security of our money and safety stormed the public, with no actual effect on the Microsoft’s strategies. And history keeps repeating with domotics, wearable technologies and in-car systems.

This aftermath was easy to foresee when some “clever” IT manager chose to go proprietary when moving its ATM infrastructure “to the next step”, but between this and the open source alternative a third option would have spare us all the current trouble: just put into the agreement a source-code escrow provision, to guarantee the (big) client against the End-of-Life of the software.

Sure, this wouldn’t have been a cheap solutions (we’re not talking about a bunch of PHP code, here) but there are no free beers and easy life can’t last forever. If you go proprietary and enjoy the safety(?) of having somebody else who cares about bugs, patches and updates, you need to have a contingency plan for the moment when your licensor plugs-off the cord that keeps alive the software you’re using.

And now history is re-repeating itself. We’re on the edge of a new invasion of pervasive technology based on Apple’s OSX or – again – Microsoft Windows Whatever, and in a bunch of years we will complain again that because of a copyright issue we can’t enter our home, use the fridge, watch the television, start the car, know what’s the time, have a medical diagnosis and so on…

A final, collateral, question: where do the corporate lawyers were, when those agreement have been signed?

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The Italian Data Protection Authority to start a code reviewing investigation

Better late then ever: a press release from the Italian Data Protection Authority ? advertises the data-protection oriented review of a certain number of apps.

This initiative should be a major concern for the (yet unaware) software industry, whose intellectual and industrial property might be endangered by a deep peep into its well protected secrets. Neither are clear the criteria that will lead to the app selection, nor whether or not the DPA will asks the developers for source code access.

Unless this IDPA investigation is just an empty PR stunt, it should be carried on by accessing the source code or reverse-engineering the executables: but doing so without signing NDAs and/or provide guarantees of non exploitation is an approach that the industry will likely reject.

Furthermore, if the software check will target only a certain kind of companies, leaving the other players of the same market safe from the scrutiny, this might be held as an unfair alteration of the market dynamics. And things might be much worse if the targeted companies are the smallest one, instead of the big fishes in the pond.

Mind, the lack of data-protection compliant programming isn’t a new or unforeseen issue – as the history of software can witness – but the IDPA never actually cared that much. For instance, it didn’t move a finger when back in 2002 ALCEI (a civil-rights Italian NGO) asked in vain the IDPA to check the claims of the existence of hidden features of a certain series of Telindus routers that posed significant threats to the users’ data protection.

 

 

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Data Protection vs Data Retention

One of the oddities of the Data Protection legal framework is the relationship between Data Retention and Data Protection and the (wrong) notion that when the retention period has expired, the retained data must be deleted.

Let’s start from scratch: as soon as the services work properly, an ISP has no need to preserve the traffic data, but since we don’t live in a perfect world, problems happen so it is necessary to retain some information for troubleshooting and traffic shaping; furthermore, customers’ claims, billing and legal issues strongly support the need to save some more information. Thus, ISPs – though on a voluntary basis – do collect and retain traffic-related information as long as these information are useful to pursue legitimate goals.

Enter the Data Retention. With a questionable motive, ISPs are now forced – forced – to retain for a limited time some traffic data for the sake of the law enforcement community. In other words, what before the Data Rention Era was voluntary, now is mandatory.

But what happens when the mandatory retention period expires? The answer is (supposed to be) easy: the ordinary Data Protection legal regime comes back into force, so the ISPs are – or should be – free to either continue keeping those data (for legitimate purposes) or deleting it.