Facebook 'Trusted Contacts' Needlessly Complicates Security

By Samantha Murphy2013-05-03 20:44:15 UTC

Facebook announced earlier this week a new feature called "trusted contacts" to help you get back into your account when locked out. Although it's intended to make life easier by leaning on a few friends when you're in need of re-entry (think lending out your spare house keys), the concept is a handful. In fact, you'll need a special code from each of your trust contacts (about three to five people) to get back into your account.

In theory, this sounds like a strong way to triple-lock your account and prevent anyone from entering, but how is this any better than remembering the answer to a few security questions or using Facebook's existing two-factor authentication feature?

First, here's a rundown of how "trusted contacts" works: If you're ever locked out of your account, Facebook will send a code to your chosen list of three to five friends. To gain access to the account again, you need to enter at least three of those codes into a prompt. Theoretically, this will prevent hackers from breaking in. With that in mind, Facebook actually recommends calling these friends to get the codes because you wouldn't want an impersonator sweeping in via email or chat to access your account.

But there are a few problems. To start, you're banking on the ever-accessibility of your friends. What if one of your trusted contacts is out of town for the weekend or is otherwise unreachable? The beauty of the Internet — and now storage in the cloud — is the fact that you can retrieve information without relying on anything or anyone else. Sure, giving a set of keys to a trusted neighbor is good practice if you're ever locked out, but in this increasingly connected and digital world, don't you just wish you could securely unlock the front door remotely and not have to involve the neighbors (or the whole neighborhood, for that matter) to get back in?

In this case, Facebook is blending old-school methods of relying on friends with digital security. But not only is this an inconvenience to your closest friends — at least three, in fact — there's also the problem of getting in touch with someone who might not be around when you need them.

"While you may trust your friend from pre-school who is on sabbatical in Borneo, it might be a better choice to select the people you know that you'll be able to reach," Facebook told me.

"While you may trust your friend from pre-school who is on sabbatical in Borneo, it might be a better choice to select the people you know that you'll be able to reach," Facebook told me.

Does this mean each time a trusted contact goes out of town, they need to let you know or you should just pick friends that just don't get out much? And what if you lose touch with a friend or they even die? Facebook says you'll need to report the issue with the site and select a new contact. Again, more legwork on your part.

Keep in mind this is just an option. You can still answer security questions and thankfully, use two-factor authentication. Facebook rolled out two-factor authentication — an increasingly popular security method, which adds an extra layer of security to an account besides a password. If you log onto an account from a device the service doesn't recognize, it will then send you a text or voice message with a code that needs to be entered before access is granted, just to make sure it's actually you.

What's surprising about this secure method, however, is that many people aren't aware Facebook even has two-factor authentication. You would think the company would spend time informing users about how to sign up rather than rolling out "trusted contacts," which seems like more of a hassle and involves way too many people. Instead, Facebook should focus its efforts more on its more reliable, proven two-factor method, rather than an entire new system which makes users jump through hoops.

Twitter users have long asked for two-factor authentication to come to the micro-blogging site, which has experienced a series of high-profile hacks in the past year. Facebook should make the most of the feature that many other services need.

What do you think about the feature? Should Facebook look for ways to ramp up two-factor authentication and focus less on trusted contacts? Let us know in the comments.

Mashable composite, image via iStockphoto, RUSSELLTATEdotCOM

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Knicks Star's Wife Tweets to Rival: 'You on the Bench for a Reason'

By Sam Laird2013-05-03 17:28:37 UTC

Vines, subtweets and over-the-line insults. This Knicks-Celtics NBA playoffs series was made for the Internet.

Players talking trash on the court, or even Twitter, is obviously not unheard of. But players wives talking smack to opponents via Twitter? That's next level.

Here's our dramatis personae for this entertaining bit of beef between the Knicks and Celtics, who meet again for the sixth game of their series on Friday night:

Carmelo Anthony: Knicks star. Big ego.

La La Vazquez: Anthony's wife. MTV personality and reality star.

Jordan Crawford: Celtics benchwarmer. His ego outpaces his talent.

Kevin Garnett: Aging Celtics star. Fierce competitor and major trash talker.

At the end of Friday night's Game 5, Crawford and Anthony got into a little dustup and had to be separated by teammates. Crawford, by all appearances, said something rhyming with "that mothertrucker pucked your wife," and Anthony tried to go after him. Here's a Vine of the situation, taken by Sean Dutton:

Crawford was, of course, referring to Vazquez, who then on Thursday morning responded with a stinging subtweet that belittled his lack of playing time (The Instagram reads, "Strong women only intimidate weak men."):

Try again. You on the bench for a reason. instagram.com/p/Y0QM3-xjT5/

— LA LA(@lala) May 2, 2013

And because this is the NBA, where amazing happens, the little tiff gets even better once you're filled in on the backstory. The "He" Crawford was (apparently) referring to was Garnett. Anthony and Garnett nearly fought during a January Knicks-Celtics matchup, then Anthony tried to confront Garnett in front of the Celtics bus post-game, after Garnett reportedly talked some out-of-bounds trash during the game. Vazquez, Garnett apparently told Anthony, "tastes like Honey Nut Cheerios."

Yes, Honey Nut Cheerios.

So ... yeah. Friday night's Game 6 should be highly entertaining.

Photo by Donald Bowers/Getty Images for Samsung Galaxy S III

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Pentagon: North Korea Likely to Seek Foreign Help With Cyberwarfare

Aliya Sternstein for Nextgov 2013-05-03 17:01:49 UTC

North Korea is expected to mooch off other nations for cyber offensive tools because it is not plugged into the global web, according to the Defense Department’s first report to Congress on the regime's military might.

These are some of the spare details describing Pyongyang’ network operations found amidst a larger discussion of the regime's antagonism with South Korea and pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"As a result of North Korea’s historical isolation from outside communications and influence, it is likely to employ Internet infrastructure from third-party nations," states the 26-page report, which Defense Department Secretary Chuck Hagel released on Thursday.

The unclassified 2012 assessment concludes the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea "probably" has the capability to carry out military computer network operations. Since 2009, the nation has been linked to cyber espionage campaigns and distributed denial of service attacks that externally flood websites with paralyzing traffic, according to the Pentagon.

Cybersecurity researchers speculated suppliers for North Korean cyber fights could range from Chinese telecommunications giants to unwitting nations with connectivity that is not hard for Pyongyang to steal.

“Two of the world's biggest Internet infrastructure suppliers are Huawei and ZTE and there's a good chance North Korea's Internet infrastructure relies heavily on their equipment,” Martyn Williams, editor of the North Korea Tech website, which chronicles the regime’s use of information technology, said in an email. “Chinese providers are really the only choice as the DPRK can't really interconnect with South Korean or Japanese providers.”

That said, it’s easy for commodity products to take a detour through a third country on their way to sanctioned destinations; that reportedly was the route censorship technology took to Syria. “If, for example, the North Koreans wanted Cisco routers it probably wouldn't be difficult to get them,” Williams added.

North Korea sends military youth to India and China for university training, so both Internet-enabled countries might offer resources, suggested Jeffrey Carr, a cyberwar analyst and author of Inside Cyberwarfare (O'Reilly Media 2009).  

And then there’s the atomic bargaining chip. North Koreans “also have a good relationship with Iran, which would certainly provide the DPRK with whatever they asked in exchange for the DPRK's help with nuclear fuel enrichment,” Carr said.

Congress in 2011 required Defense to produce annual classified and unclassified reports on military development in North Korea.

Pentagon officials informed lawmakers that the Seoul Central Prosecutor’s office reportedly implicated DPRK in 2011 cyber incidents affecting servers at South Korea's Nonghyup Bank. Remote "actors rendered the bank’s online services inaccessible and deleted numerous files concerning customer bank accounts while removing all evidence" of unauthorized activity on the servers, the Defense report states.

Several high-profile cyber events involving the regime are not mentioned. For instance, in March, experts worldwide accused North Korea of immobilizing computers at South Korea's key broadcasters and ATMs. This was one of a series of cyber spats between North Korean and South Korean supporters that began when the United Nations imposed sanctions on the northern nation for nuclear tests.

“The report is worded carefully,” Williams said. “You'll note it doesn't accuse North Korea of doing anything, but rather says the South Korean government or local newspapers have reported the DPRK is [behind] the attacks.”

The study indeed acknowledges that proving North Korea responsible for network abnormalities is difficult because of the web's inherent anonymity and distributed structure.

Williams added, "The evidence is growing that North Korea is behind at least some of these attacks, but everyone is still pretty much guessing."

Image via KNS/AFP/Getty Images

This article originally published at Nextgov here

Topics: cyberterrorism, cyberwar, department of homeland security, North Korea, Pentagon, Politics, U.S., US & World, World Nextgov is a Mashable publishing partner that is the all-day technology resource for federal decision makers, delivering news, analysis and a nationwide community of expert voices on how technology and innovation are transforming government. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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Google Maps Adds 'Seven Bridges' Imagery for Math Fanatics

By Samantha Murphy2013-05-03 15:59:57 UTC

OK math nerds, hold on to your protractors. Google Maps has just added Street View imagery of Russia's Seven Bridges of Köenigsberg — the landmark behind the classic mathematical problem that has had people scratching their heads for centuries.

As a part of an effort to roll out more map coverage of Russia, the Street View team landed in the seaport town of Kaliningrad (the the modern name for Köeningsberg). The town is home to seven bridges made famous in the 1700s by mathematician Leonhard Euler, who was recently featured in a Google Doodle.

Euler believed there was no possible way to go over each of the seven bridges once... and only once. Google sums up the challenge in a blog post: "find a route through Kaliningrad—which was once separated by the Pregel River—by crossing each of the seven bridges in town. The catch? One could only cross each bridge exactly once."

"This famous problem and Leonhard Euler’s nonresolution paved the way for important discoveries in the field of mathematics including graph theory and topology," Google adds.

In fact, some of his findings are even used to calculate optimal driving routes for Google's Street View cars.

"We use sophisticated algorithms, based on graph theory, to determine the best route through a city or town helping us capture all the images we need to make Google Maps comprehensive, in the shortest amount of time," Google said. "Though these algorithms are complex, in simple terms, it's equivalent to solving the problem of drawing a house without lifting your pen and never going over the same segment twice."

Although only five of the original bridges still remain — two were destroyed in World War II — Google Maps takes you over them and through town.

If you look close enough, you can see the engraved padlocks hanging on the sides of the bridges, which is considered tradition for newly married couples to add one to the collection.

Images via Google Maps and The MAA Mathematical Sciences Digital Library

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J.J. Abrams on Star Wars: 'You Have to Force Yourself to Start Over'

By Chris Taylor2013-05-03 15:47:36 UTC

They were supposed to discuss their new movie Star Trek: Into Darkness, but J.J. Abrams and actor Simon Pegg can't resist geeking out about their shared passion for Star Wars in this just-released video.

Pegg, who plays Scotty in Abrams' rebooted Trek franchise, makes a rather pointed compliment about Abrams and Star Wars: "I feel like it's in safe hands now ... you get it. You get it like a Star Wars fan gets it." Translation: the guy who directed the last three movies may not necessarily have gotten it the way a fan gets it.

And in case Pegg's take on the Star Wars prequels isn't clear, this scene from his UK comedy show Spaced might give you a clue:

Abrams, meanwhile, is as circumspect as we've come to expect from the director when it comes to discussing Episode VII, tentatively due in 2015. (When asked multiple questions about it in a Playboy interview published last week, Abrams' answers were repeatedly rendered as follows: "[smiles].")

But Abrams does talk about how he's approaching Star Wars in a different way from the Trek movies. Trek, he explains, was easier because he was never really a fan. He could approach the franchise fresh. Not being a fan was "a safety net" when it came to directing.

Since Abrams, like Pegg, was blown away by the original movie as a child in 1977 — indeed, he recalls reading about it and being enchanted before the release, in 1976 — Abrams recognizes he has to take a different approach.

"Part of the challenge of anything you come to pre-loving is you have to force yourself to start over," Abrams says, "and not assume anyone's going to care or be impressed."

Pegg then teases Abrams with the deadpan assertion that the title of the as-yet-unnamed movie will be The Further Adventures of Jar Jar Binks. Abrams' reaction could be best described as "[smiles]".

Thumbnail courtesy of Flickr, Gage Skidmore

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Now You Can Buy 3D Printers From Staples

By Seth Fiegerman2013-05-03 15:06:53 UTC

Staples just became a little more cutting edge.

The office supply chain announced Friday that it is now selling 3D printers through its website and will start selling 3D printers in select stores by the end of next month. Staples is touting itself as the first "major U.S. retailer" to sell the product.

Staples, which announced in November that it planned to bring the devices to its European stores, will be selling the Cube 3D Printer from 3D Systems for $1,299. The printer has built-in WiFi and comes with more than two dozen 3D design templates, with more available to download online. Staples will also sell accessories for the 3D printers like plastic cartridge refills.

Selling 3D printer at Staples will likely help the technology to reach more of a mass market, although the printers may end up losing some of their cool factor when placed in the same store that sells fax machines and surge protectors.

Would you consider buying one of these 3D printers for $1,299? Share in the comments.

Image courtesy of 3D Systems

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