I caution people about social media, though of course I use it myself. The vast majority of people respond, "There's nothing on there that would hurt me." Actually, there's a very great deal, though I usually sound like Chicken Little when I tick through the list of threats. So here, how about this: Don't take it from me.

From the article "Facebook Is Using You":

Even though laws allow people to challenge false information in credit reports, there are no laws that require data aggregators to reveal what they know about you. If I’ve Googled “diabetes” for a friend or “date rape drugs” for a mystery I’m writing, data aggregators assume those searches reflect my own health and proclivities. Because no laws regulate what types of data these aggregators can collect, they make their own rules.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/facebook-is-using-you.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&smid=fb-share

Herbbie's security research picks:

1. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_block_box_and_white_box_testing

2. http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21567723

3. http://blog.watchfire.com/wfblog/2011/11/through-the-looking-glass.html

4. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/

5. http://www.sqatester.com/methodology/WhatisGrayBoxTesting.htm

6. http://www.metasploit.com/

Interesting paths to follow on the different perspectives of how to test/protect/save your data.

Recently there was a rift created in the Occupy movement over the burning of a US flag. Apparently a chorus called to burn the flag, and one brave voice, who probably represented a lot of silent voices, crying out for them to think twice about doing that. So which party represents Occupy?

Now a Sophos analyst notes hateful tactics aimed at outing Nazis, employed by some group or subset calling itself Anonymous. See the article at http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/02/02/anonymous-resorts-to-spamming-to-spread-hateful-messages/#comment-19003.

As is often the case, the comments below it are as interesting as the article, and make some good points. For instance, if I sign a letter "Anonymous," does that mean I'm concealing my name, or a member of a group?

What the analyst definitely misses, and as commentator Innocent Bystander notes:

Well, I guess the hint is not obvious enough: has our author noticed the Guy Fawkes masks, or read V for Vendetta? There is no one, and anyone, behind the mask.
That's exactly what makes it so dangerous: it can be worn by anyone disaffected. The head-slapper is, Why are there so many of them?

Exactly. Is it really a tricky question to wonder why there are so many disaffected people? Though the quote from Mitt Romney certainly deserves to be placed in its context, it is certainly revealing to hear a presidential candidate say, "I'm not concerned about the very poor." I'd suggest, as Freud did, that there are no "slips."

Please Don't Take My Word For It Department:

Companies including utilities, banks and phone carriers would have to spend almost nine times more on cybersecurity to prevent a digital Pearl Harbor from plunging millions into darkness, paralyzing the financial system or cutting communications, a Bloomberg Government study found.

...

Building support for cybersecurity measures is difficult because “we’re guarding against a potential,” he said.

“The pattern in the U.S. is not to do anything until there’s a disaster,” he said. “The way we’re going to find out if someone has the capability is we’ll wake up one day and the lights won’t work.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-31/cybersecurity-disaster-seen-in-u-s-survey-citing-spending-gaps.html