CLOSED: [2014-12-30 Tue 13:30] SCHEDULED: <2014-12-30 Tue>
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:CREATED: [2014-12-30 Tue 11:55]
:ID: 2014-12-30-slur
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- State "DONE"       from "NEXT"       [2014-12-30 Tue 13:30]
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[[http://slur.io/][Slur]] is a new cloud-based market place to trade secret information for
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin][BitCoins]]. If you've got any information about other people or you want
to sell sensible data of your company, this is going to be one
possible service you can use.

Of course, this is highly unethical for the vast majority of cases!

If you want to leak information to unveil evil, you do have [[https://www.wikileaks.org/][plenty]] [[https://www.wikileaks.org/][of
possibilities]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_leak][to do so]] without being greedy as well.

---------------

Judging only from its basic idea, this new platform will be a success.
There too much people out there who [[https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/nicolasc/publications/CEVG-FC11.pdf][do not have any feeling for
security at all]]. At this point, I really don't have to look for
references where people are greedy - just take a look at our financial
and stock exchange system for a starter. There are millions of very
greedy people out there, even trading their soul for money.

However, there is still a positive side to this: Security issues are
getting a price tag.

This is good news for security people in companies out there: with the
rising number of security incidents that almost take down even big
companies like [[http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2014/12/18/why-the-sony-pictures-hack-could-wreak-havoc-on-sonys-ps4-phone-and-tv-sales/][SONY]] or [[http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2014/12/26/this-week-in-credit-card-news-million-cards-hacked-at-staples-hack-proof-pants-now-available/][Staples]] (just mentioning most recent cases),
you have a better position to justify security expenses.

In former times, security was only a necessary evil. The term 'evil'
is going to fade away over the next years - I think. Executive
managers have to worry about leaked emails with their personal
opinions on co-workers, partners, or other companies. It's personal.
And this works better than any IT geek, telling the CEO that the
firmware of the expensive firewall is closed source and therefore is
more likely to contain [[https://leaksource.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/nsa-ant-jetplow.jpg][back-doors not even the manufacturer is aware
of]].

The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28computer_security%29#White_hat][white hats]] get better arguments with every new NSA/GCHQ disclosure
that shows us that the services are not actually working for the
people but against them. All of them. Security issues are not reported
and fixed, they are used to spy on other parties. This causes more and
more security issues being used by various bad guys.

For further opinions on this topic: see [[id:2014-12-30-security-and-extreme-opinions][my next article]].