Pod slurping and Bluesnarfing: Words of the Day
I do a lot of work for high tech companies and while typesetting for them I run across a lot of industry specific words. While typesetting a paper today I ran across Podslurping. I laughed and laughed for I am an imaginative person and pod slurping conjured up just about the right image for what they actually mean. A pod (think something like an iPod or another small storage device) sucking data out of a computer and you pretty much have the correct visual. Ingenious. I have mentioned before how much my family likes wordplay and I have to say this is right up our alley.
I was intrigued enough to look it up on Wikipedia and got the following definition below. It also led me to another word of the day: Bluesnarfing. Try to guess what that one is… Give up? Then look at the definition below.
Enjoy! —Maureen on the Go (MoGo)
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Pod slurping
is the act of using a portable data storage device such as a digital audio player to illicitly download large quantities of confidential data by directly plugging it into a computer where the data is held, and which may be on the inside of a firewall. As these storage devices become smaller and their storage capacity becomes greater, they are becoming an increasing security risk to companies and government agencies. Access is gained while the computer is unattended.
There has been some work in the development of fixes to the problem, including a number of third-party security products that allow companies to set security policies related to USB device use, and features within operating systems that allow IT administrators or users to disable the USB port altogether. Unix-based or Unix-like systems can easily prevent users from mounting storage devices, and Microsoft has released instructions for preventing users from installing USB mass storage devices on its operating systems. [1]
Additional measures include physical obstruction of the USB ports, with measures ranging from the simple filling of ports with epoxy resin to commercial solutions which deposit a lockable plug into the port.
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Bluesnarfing
is the unauthorized access of information from a wireless device through a Bluetooth connection, often between phones, desktops, laptops, and PDAs. This allows access to a calendar, contact list, emails and text messages, and on some phones users can steal pictures and private videos[citation needed] . Some programs must allow connection and to be ‘paired’ to another phone to steal content, but other programs can break into the phones without any control.[citation needed] Phone companies have also admitted that they own phones which are weak and can be broken into by blue snarfing software very easily.[citation needed]
Recently there have been cases of people calling premium rate numbers, without the user knowing.[citation needed] Bluesnarfing is much more serious in relation to Bluejacking, but both exploit others’ Bluetooth connections without their knowledge.[citation needed] Any device with its Bluetooth connection turned on and set to “discoverable” (able to be found by other Bluetooth devices in range) can be attacked.[citation needed] By turning off this feature, the potential victim can be safer from the possibility of being bluesnarfed; although, there are ways to bluesnarf a device that is set to “hidden”.[citation needed] For example, bruteforce can be used to guess the device’s MAC address. However, this is difficult because Bluetooth uses a 48-bit unique MAC Address, so there are over 280 trillion possible addresses to guess. Because bluesnarfing is an invasion of privacy, it is illegal in many countries.
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