DESTROYING ANGEL ranks high on Amazon after just one day

Amazingly, Destroying Angel ranks #10 in "Crime Fiction" and #32 in the "Action & Adventure" categories after just one day in the free promotion category:

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: 
  • #10 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Crime Fiction
  • #32 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure

Yeah, I know. Free is free. But something is resonating out there with my "deep dive into Black Box Portability" of computer virus technology (see my Principle #7 of the Perfect Virus here).

My 1st Novel DESTROYING ANGEL available free on Amazon until Sunday, 9/1/2013

In case you're wondering if you should spend $2.99 on Amazon for Daddy's Little Felons, here's your chance to see if you like my style at all. My first novel, Destroying Angel, is available free through Sunday at Amazon (click here for the link).

Best wishes,

Rick Bennett

If I Were a Jihadist, Part III (Adios New York Times)

Back on Valentines Day 2011, I waxed poetic/operatic and changed the words to a song made famous by Johnny Cash as well as Bobby Darin (see the post here), changing the lyrics of If I Were A Carpenter to If I Were A Jihadist. I pointed out that I wouldn't have to painstakingly hack specific target sites. I'd just take down the Domain Name Servers. I called it the "…(cyber) nuclear option."

Well, guess what? That whacky Iran-supported FTW Syrian Electronic Army with their backs against the wall have done a small version of just that. They didn't have to hack the New York Times. They just went after vulnerable DNS servers (see the Time Magazine story here). Et tu Huffington Post and Twitter feeds of The Associated Press, Al-Jazeera English and the BBC.

The guy I passed in New York's Times Square had the right idea as he waved his bible and shrieked, "The End is Near!" He did give me a funny look I winked at him and said that I'd been saying the same thing. He might not have been some poor soul off his meds, after all. When I said he must know how the Old Testament prophets felt, he kind of recoiled. Then all I did was raise my hand to straighten my hair and he started to run away. Go figure.

So my question is, are you willing to leave world cyber security up to a bunch of politicians and generals who don't know an outer join from a double hernia, and who sit around a table wringing their hands after each "extinction-event scenario dry run"just as real as the Armageddon movie comet headed for the earth, or might you at least participate a public debate on Real Internet Security and the Enforcement of Such by Licensed and Bonded Cyber Privateers?

I concluded my article with these words:

One way or another the Internet is probably going to cease to exist as we know it. Either because of a physical pygmy in North Korea or a mental pygmy in Tehran. And remember, in a world full of emotional pygmies, the patient man is king. 

Think "DNS Security" my friend. Then just try to get a good night's sleep.

Selah.

"Hell no, we're not in the #&@*%$ cloud!"

With all the hype about investing in cloud technology, I have yet to see any software firms say "Hell no!" to the cloud. Given Saturday's UK Guardian story on the incestuous relationship between the NSA and Silicon Valley cloud vendors (see the story here), maybe somebody should put that skunk on the table.

Google: Gmail users have no "legitimate expectation of privacy."

Today's Time Magazine story makes the NSA inroads to Silicon Valley rather unambiguous (see Time's story here). In Google's motion filed on June 13, 2013 regarding class action complaints that "…allege the company violates wiretap laws by poking around in email…" we read:

Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient’s ECS [electronic communication service] provider in the course of delivery. Indeed, “a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties."

Hey, I don't mind unambiguous. Good for Google. I just wish our government would be equally unambiguous and let us stop playing defense-only tactics with people trying to hack our systems.

In fact, realizing that some übersnooper is looking at my email for keywords, I've had some ideas about responding to spam that would put a national security bullesye on spammers. For the time being, I'll keep those to myself.