leaderboard

Home

Hacking your online identity

Wed, 03/03/2010 - 13:00 — sciencestaff

Geo-location services are very useful, helping you find a post office, ATM, decent restaurant, or hooking up with friends. They are commonly used in conjunction with smart phones and other mobile devices that ping your location (based on network coordinates or the global positioning system, GPS) back to the owner of a given system.
Location-based services also represent a security threat, especially if you hook whereabouts up to the likes of FourSquare and other social networking sites that can be set to reveal publicly your status in a timely way and reveal your precise position to all and sundry. Now, a new security awareness site, going by the ironically informative name of PleaseRobMe.com, demonstrates the hazards inherent in location-based services. The site’s strapline proclaims that they are: “Listing all those empty homes out there” and in interviews this week the owners have been telling the media that they’re not helping burglars but warning users about revealing too much about themselves on the networks.
This latest debacle, if you can call it that, highlights once again the fact that individuals are not necessarily aware of the privacy and security issues associated with revealing personal information and their identity online. Some observers have suggested that digital identity online will be “the next big thing”. One can imagine that it certainly will be, especially as governments, businesses, healthcare organizations, and others will increasingly require us to prove our identity digitally when we access their services online. But, wherever there is a lock guarding something precious, there is someone who will go set out to pick that lock.
If you’re not worried about privacy just check out these sites to see what systems can find out about you without your even logging in – EFF Panopticlick experiment and web tracking, what the internet knows about you.
As such, identity management, known in the “industry” as IdM is a more and more important aspect of one’s online persona for joining, interacting, and leaving countless systems. There are numerous protocols available, such as OpenID and the OAuth systems that allow you to login to one service by verifying you with a prior login process on a third-party trusted site.
Researchers in the UK explain that IdM could be reaching crisis point. “There is overwhelming evidence that current IdM is failing us, says Mark Pawlewski of Loughborough University and colleagues. Pawlewski is a Principal Researcher working for BT Innovate and Design.
Countless websites require registration and logins and users are now faced with the task of remembering dozens of usernames and passwords or else suffering “password fatigue” whereby they employ insecure practices, such as using the same username and password combination on multiple sites. The researchers have an explanation for the IdM problem:
At the root of the problem is the fundamental flaw that the internet was not designed, but evolved without a uniform system of digital identity in place. There have been numerous attempts to solve this problem, such as Microsoft Passport, but many of these have failed leaving a scattering of inconsistent, ad hoc, partial solutions.
One of the challenges is to give users immediate access to a particular site where they have not already registered, but do meet the requirements for access, e.g., being over 18 years of age and possessing a valid credit card. The OpenID system (and others such as Card Space and Liberty Alliance) goes part way to addressing this issue, as do the linkage systems employed by Facebook apps and similar systems that allow one to comment on some blogs using Facebook or other credentials. However, it would be foolhardy to trust a Facebook app with the login for one’s bank account. An Identity Provider (IdP) that mediates between users and websites is clearly needed.
But, there are only a very limited number of IdPs around and they provide only very limited functionality, certainly none is at the trust level yet for the average user to connect with the e-commerce sites they use, such as amazon.com, their online banking, or even all of their social media and networking accounts from Facebook to Twitter via LinkedIn.
Unfortunately, preserving the status quo is the approach adopted by sites and internet service providers. After all, the creation of an IdM system and trusted IdPs will not be cheap and will also face the resistance of the millions of internet users happy to create yet another username-password. On the bottom line, it is a matter of preventing fraudsters from getting a key to unlock one’s virtual valuables.
If service providers maintain fraud at an “acceptable”, level then the status quo will persist. However, if there is a surge in identity fraud the costs of which outweigh the necessary investment in IdM, then we might just see the emergence of a system that is simple, secure, and safe. In the meantime, just keep up the good work with those complex passwords and don’t tell everyone on the internet when you’re heading out the door, you might as well not lock up if you do.
So, how do you hack your online identity? Well, there’s lots of advice out there, this post from Liverpool University says it well.
T. Martin, C. Durbin, M. Pawlewski, & D. Parish (2010). Future vision of identity Int. J. Liability and Scientific Enquiry, 3 (1/2), 86-98
Why online identity is important

Related Posts:

Hacking your online identity is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog


Similar entries

  • ScienceDaily: Hacking News

    Hacking and computer security. Read today's research news on hacking and protecting against codebreakers. New software, secure data sharing, and more.

  • Hacking toy EEGs

    Frontier Nerds has an excellent guide to toy EEGs (the commercially available 'mind control' games) and detailed instructions on how to hack the MindFlex to use it as a brain-computer interface.

  • Hacking the Smart Grid

    One researcher shows how your house's power could be shut down remotely, but the threat is only theoretical--for now.

    Components of the next-generation smart-energy grid could be hacked in order to change household power settings or to spoof communications with a utility's network, according to a study of three pilot implementations.

  • Hacking BioShock 2

    Stratasys, a leading 3D printer manufacturer, has signed a definitive agreement with HP for Stratasys to manufacture an HP-branded 3D printer. Stratasys' currently most affordable professional unit begins at $15k, so combining that with the cost savings of mass-manufacturing, prices can potentially become reachable to anyone.

  • Hacking BioShock 2

    Anti-war activists rally to unplug a high-tech recruitment facility in PA.

  • Harnessing the Cloud for Hacking

    Cloud password cracker is a sign of things to come.

  • Hacking Your Way Though School

    They're commonly known as cyber criminals, but these days being a hacker doesn't necessarily mean breaking the law. Universities across the UK are offering courses in ethical hacking, to teach students the skills to protect businesses. (Dec. 9)

  • Teen Sues Mom for Hacking his Facebook

    Teen Sues Mom for Hacking his Facebook is a post from Chris Pirillo

  • Hardware Hacking is the New Black

    I haven’t always been a solder-wielding hardware nerd.  In fact, merely a year ago I didn’t even know what solder was, or why it was useful. So what changed? Well, my love of hardware hacking started something like this:

  • Hacking a Ferrari

    Can't Find Evidence of Problems in Electronic Throttle Systems

  • Slideshow - Victorian Hacking

    CONTROL CABINThese valves and gauges are part of the engine controls on Mallard, the world’s fastest steam-powered locomotive, with a top speed of 202.7 kilometers per hour (126 miles per hour). Built in 1938 by the London and North Eastern Railway, it operated until 1963 and is now on display at the National Railway Museum, in York.

  • Hacking the planet: who decides?

    And if we're even thinking about artificially cooling Earth, science needs to test the proposals pronto

  • Hacking your online identity

    Geo-location services are very useful, helping you find a post office, ATM, decent restaurant, or hooking up with friends. They are commonly used in conjunction with smart phones and other mobile devices that ping your location (based on network coordinates or the global positioning system, GPS) back to the owner of a given system.

  • As Phones Do More, They Become Targets of Hacking

    Security companies are poised to sell products to protect phones, just as Symantec and McAfee sell products for PCs.

  • Teen Sues Mom for Hacking His Facebook Account

    It’s tough work raising teenagers. As if worrying about their studies, drinking, partying, driving, and raging hormones wasn’t all-consuming enough, parents have recently had to fret about their Facebook usage. But one mom in Arkansas may have taken her parental concern too far.
    A 16-year-old boy in the town of Arkadelphia is suing his mom, claiming that she hacked into his Facebook account and posted slanderous stuff about him on his page. The teen, Lane New, also alleges that his mom changed his email and Facebook passwords to lock him out of his accounts.

  • New Point of Inquiry: Eli Kintisch–Is Planet-Hacking Inevitable? | The Intersection

    The show just went up--you can stream the audio here and download to iTunes here. I have to say, I think this is the best episode of Point of Inquiry that I've hosted yet. But judge for yourself; here's the write up:
    For two decades now, we’ve failed to seriously address climate change. So the planet just keeps warming—and it could get very bad.

  • New Point of Inquiry: Eli Kintisch–Is Planet-Hacking Inevitable?

    The show just went up--you can stream the audio here and download to ...

  • Teen Sues Mom for Hacking His Facebook Account | Discoblog

    It’s tough work raising teenagers. As if worrying about their studies, drinking, partying, driving, and raging hormones wasn’t all-consuming enough, parents have recently had to fret about their Facebook usage. But one mom in Arkansas may have taken her parental concern too far.
    A 16-year-old boy in the town of Arkadelphia is suing his mom, claiming that she hacked into his Facebook account and posted slanderous stuff about him on his page. The teen, Lane New, also alleges that his mom changed his email and Facebook passwords to lock him out of his accounts.

  • Hacking Memory to Break Drug Addiction

    Can fMRI Really Tell if You're Lying?

  • Schools accused in Google hacking case ask "why us?"

    JINAN, China (Reuters) - With Google expected to decide soon whether to close its Chinese search engine, students at one of the schools cited by some reports for being behind hacking attacks on the Internet giant are decidedly ambivalent.

  • China Rebukes U.S. Calls to Investigate Hacking

    BEIJING — China said any U.S. suggestions that China condoned or directed hackers’ attacks against Google were “groundless.”

  • China Rebukes U.S. Calls to Investigate Hacking

    China said any U.S. suggestions that China condoned or directed hackers’ attacks against Google were “groundless.”

  • Lessig on NPR: The law and iPhone hacking (audio)

    Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig recently spoke on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” about a new ruling that allows Apple iPhone users to “hack” into their phones so they can choose a different carrier. Lessig, the director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard, also discussed recent changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

  • Hacking Voting Machines For Election Security

    Computer scientist Hovav Shacham has figured out a way to hack into older, seemingly more secure voting machines. Shacham talks about the "hack-ability" of electronic voting systems, election security and the best way to run an election with the current machines.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Hacking Voting Machines For Election Security

    Computer scientist Hovav Shacham has figured out a way to hack into older, seemingly more secure voting machines. Shacham talks about the "hack-ability" of electronic voting systems, election security and the best way to run an election with the current machines.

  • Hacking Voting Machines For Election Security

    Computer scientist Hovav Shacham has figured out a way to hack into older, seemingly more secure voting machines. Shacham talks about the "hack-ability" of electronic voting systems, election security and the best way to run an election with the current machines.

  • Teen’s DIY Energy Hacking Gives African Village New Hope


    Some people see lemons and make lemonade. William Kamkwamba saw wind and made a windmill.
    This might not seem like a mighty feat. But Kamkwamba, who grew up in Masitala, a tiny rural farming village off the grid in Malawi, was 14 years old in 2001 when he spotted a photo of a windmill in a U.S. textbook one day. He decided to make one, hacking together a contraption from strips of PVC pipe, rusty car and bicycle parts and blue gum trees.
    Though he ultimately had big designs for his creation, all he really wanted to do initially was power a small bulb in his bedroom so he could stay up and read past sunset.
    But one windmill has turned into three, which now generate enough electricity to light several bulbs in his family’s house, power radios and a TV, charge his neighbors’ cellphones and pump water for the village’s fields and household use.

  • Teen’s DIY Energy Hacking Gives African Village New Hope


    Some people see lemons and make lemonade. William Kamkwamba saw wind and made a windmill.
    This might not seem like a mighty feat. But Kamkwamba, who grew up in Masitala, a tiny rural farming village off the grid in Malawi, was 14 years old in 2001 when he spotted a photo of a windmill in a U.S. textbook one day. He decided to make one, hacking together a contraption from strips of PVC pipe, rusty car and bicycle parts and blue gum trees.
    Though he ultimately had big designs for his creation, all he really wanted to do initially was power a small bulb in his bedroom so he could stay up and read past sunset.
    But one windmill has turned into three, which now generate enough electricity to light several bulbs in his family’s house, power radios and a TV, charge his neighbors’ cellphones and pump water for the village’s fields and household use.

  • Ultrasound System Overcomes Implant Hacking Attempts

    Ever since it has been shown that modern implantable devices can be hijacked by hackers, researches have been working to overcome the issue. Now engineers at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control developed a technology that uses ultrasound to gauge the proximity of the device communicating with the implant.

    MIT Technology Review explains:

  • Bill Gates Funds Research Into Climate Hacking

    Bill Gates has sunk at least $4.5 million of his personal wealth into geoengineering research.

    While it’s only a small chunk of his vast personal fortune, it’s a sign that the founder of Microsoft thinks we should at least be looking into the controversial practice of intentionally altering the Earth’s climate on a global scale.