“UC Berkeley Part of $10 Million NSF Study of ‘Human Element’ in Cybercrime"
September 25, 2012 | Steven Brown, San Francisco Business Times
Press
Experts from the University of California and George Mason University will study the "human element" of cybercrime with the help of a $10 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation. The NSF is giving the money to the International Computer Science Institute on Center Street in downtown Berkeley, as well as to teams from UC San Diego and George Mason University.
“Grant to Help Computer Scientists Understand the World of Cybercrime"
September 25, 2012 | Phys.org
Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, the International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley and George Mason University have received a $10 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to map out the illicit activities taking place in the cybersecurity underworld and to understand how the mind of a cybercriminal works.
“PharmaLeaks: Rogue Pharmacy Economics 101"
June 22, 2012 | Brian Krebs, Krebs On Security
Consumer demand for cheap prescription drugs sold through spam-advertised Web sites shows no sign of abating, according to a new analysis of bookkeeping records maintained by three of the world’s largest rogue pharmacy operations. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, the International Computer Science Institute and George Mason University examined caches of data tracking the day-to-day finances of GlavMed, SpamIt, and Rx-Promotion, shadowy affiliate programs that over a four-year period processed more than $170 million worth of orders from customers seeking cheaper, more accessible and more discretely available drugs. The result is perhaps the most detailed analysis yet of the business case for the malicious software and spam epidemics that persist to this day.
“BufferBloat: What’s Wrong With the Internet?”
February 2012 | Vint Cerf, Van Jacobson, Nick Weaver, and Jim Gettys, Communications of the ACM
Internet delays are now as common as they are maddening. That means they end up affecting system engineers just like all the rest of us. And when system engineers get irritated, they often go looking for what's at the root of the problem. Take Jim Gettys, for example. His slow home network had repeatedly proved to be the source of considerable frustration, so he set out to determine what was wrong, and he even coined a term for what he found: bufferbloat.
"Online Privacy Could Keep You and Your Home Safe from Robberies"
January 11, 2012 | Kristen Kella, Northwestern University Medill Reports
Social media and mapping web sites are tools of the trade for criminals looking for the perfect house to rob, ex-burglars told researchers in the United Kingdom. Nearly 80 percent of the burglars used social media to case homes, they told the Crimestoppers Trust, and the wealth of online information helps make an efficient operation of a burglary.
"Internet Accounts for Almost 2 Percent of the World’s Total Energy Consumption"
October 30, 2011 | Paras Shah, The Daily Californian
UC Berkeley researchers have estimated that it takes between 1 and 2 percent of the world’s energy to construct, run and maintain the Internet. According to the research, which will be presented Nov. 14 at the Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks in Cambridge, Mass., the Internet uses between 170 and 307 gigawatts — about 1.1 to 1.9 percent of the 16 terrawatts of energy consumed by humanity.
"The Internet is Responsible for 2% of the Entire World’s Energy Usage”
October 27, 2011 | Eric Limer, Geekosystem
When you’re trying to figure out statistics about something as nebulous and pervasive as “the Internet,” you’re going to have to performs some interesting mental contortions. After all, how many things out there are connected to the Internet? How many of those things would you consider to be actively “using” it, how much power is there in the world? All valid and difficult questions, valid and difficult questions that Justin Ma and Barath Raghavan, of UC Berkeley and the International Computer Science Institute respectively, were determined to tackle.
“Internet Responsible for 2 per Cent of Global Energy Usage"
October 26, 2011 | Jim Giles, New Scientist
How much energy does the internet use? It's hard to know where to start. There's the electricity consumed by the world's laptops, desktops and smart phones. Servers, routers and other networking equipment suck up more power.
“What Is Nicira Up To?"
October 17, 2011 | Quentin Hardy, Bits Blog, The New York Times
With $40 million in funding, an all-star bench of investors and engineers, and technology that has already drawn spies, Nicira is an unusually visible company in the supposedly secretive “stealth” stage of its early life.
"Priv3 Firefox Extension Stops Social Networks Tracking You"
October 6, 2011 | Will Shanklin, Geek.com
We all know that the internet has become saturated with social networking. If you can read it on the web, chances are you can also “Like” it. It’s only natural that, if you share something, Facebook or Google will know that you visited that page. It’s also likely that they’ll use that data to sell advertising. What most of us don’t know, however, is that those same networks can track your visits to many pages even if you don’t click on any sharing buttons. Enter Priv3, a new extension for Firefox that only allows your visits to be tracked when you want them to.