Category: IT Security

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Child Pornography And Computer Crime Still a Criminal Offense in Italy

Several misinformed Italian blogs are currently claiming that the Renzi-led government just passed a draft-legislative decree making child pornography and computer crimes no more a criminal offense.

This is not true because what the government actually did was setting the principle that as soon as a crime is punished with a jail term up to five years AND the judge thinks that the crime is of “minimum damage” then either the prosecution or the trial must end. To put it different: only “serious crimes” are going to be tried in court.

One may argue over the ethic or legal acceptance of the notion of “petty-vs-serious” difference (as Cicero use to said, what matters – and deserves the maximum punishment – is the act of killing, not the fact that you killed one man or hundred people) but this legislative decree only turns into a law what already happens on a daily basis in the Italian courts: a confession of failure, in other words.

 

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Twenty Years Of Hacking In About 4 Minutes

Twenty years of hacking in about four minutes. This is a short documentary on the life of ? Metro Olografix, one of the oldest and most active digital NGO in Italy.

Proud to be there since the beginning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eoNBNaKfB4A

p.s. The video is full of trivia about people and technology. But unfortunately, Google can’t help. You have to rely upon memory, culture and experience. Brain, in other words 🙂

 

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Are All 27000-1 Certifications Created Equal?

Say you have to outsource the storage of your corporate data.

Say you have to assess the quality of a couple of (apparently) both “good looking” potential suppliers that give you both access housing/cloud services.

Say both of them are “ISO 27000-1 Certified”.

Which are you going to choose?

Answer: ask to see the “perimeter” that has been certified.

In other words: advertising on the corporate website or wherever else that a company is “ISO 27000-1 compliant” doesn’t always means that the WHOLE company actually is.

Maybe the certification has been obtained for the data-centre only, or just for a small part of the infrastructure, or – say – for the financial departement.

Thus, a fair use of the “label” would be a statement like this: “we are ISO 27000-1 certified for X,Y,Z” instead of a simpler (and deceptive) “we’ve got the ISO 27000-1”.

Next time, ask first.

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The (defunct) Data Retention Directive Still Causes Harm

Notwithstanding the Data Retention Directive has been bashed by the EUCJ Ruling, there is a wide agreement on the fact that its national implementation might still be valid if not in contrast with the main Data Protection Directive.

Just yet, neither the Italian Parliament nor the Data Protection Authority ran the “stress test”, thus leaving ISPs into a void of uncertainty.

Furthermore, the news is new as today, there is a case where the actual providing of Internet access whose contract terminated back in 2010 has been challenged in court by the former customer. Under the Italian Supreme Court jurisprudence, in this case it is the ISP who must provide the evidence that the agreement has been fulfilled. But, guess what? Under the strict (and wrong) interpretation of the Data Retention Directive this ISP deleted the log files and now has problem in supporting its defense.

True, keeping the traffic data for legitimate purposes (such as legal defense) is allowed by the Data Protection Directive.

True, the Data Retention Directive can be interpreted as an exception that doesn’t overrule the Data Protection Directive.

True, an ISP has more than a chance (in theory) to successfully support its choice of keeping the traffic data for legal defense purposes even exceeding the mandatory term seth forth by the DRD.

But all this means fighting an all-round legal battle, explaining to the Court that the traffic data have been legally retained and are, thus, valid evidence, standing against a possible Data Protection Authority investigation, and so on.

To put it short: a waste of time, money and resources, that could be spared if only the Powers-that-be had dedicated a fraction of their time to solve this riddle, instead of toying with this Internet Bill of Right nonsense.

 

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Our Digital Health And Electronic Money. IT Security Gets Tough

Let’s say the truth: IT security is just a bubble that no “serious” manager cares of. There is no possible explanation for the fact that today we keep talking about the very same things I’ve heard back in the early nineties, sold by somebody who wants to re-invent the wheel. But the indirect Paypal attack against Apple targeted at the upcoming Applepay platform and the spin put on the health-related application ? might change the situation: a (very)personal computing device allowing to manage the two most critical things of a (Western) human kind: health and money.

Can a company really afford to market software pre-release as “final” just to meet a marketing-set deadline? Or lure people into trusting a payment platform, risking to become liable in case of problems caused by a poorly implemented security?

It is really (still) possible to discharge any liability with a “simple” contract and put the barrel on the users’ shoulder when serious issues are involved?

IT companies should carefully think about it before entering into a sector where people aren’t so keen in just waiting for the next fix or hardware upgrade. They might be dead or bankrupted, in the meantime.