Indiana just passed legislation to require schools to ban phones.

They permit them for health reasons, emergencies, when part of lesson, and when part of a formal plan.

I personally don't like the idea of schools requiring locking them up. What would you do in that emergency they mentioned?

Why should kids not be able to use them at lunch?

If you want to control your kid's phone time, there's already apps for that.

Edit: additional comment from a teacher: she said the phone restrictions aren't going to be as effective as one would think with all the kids having watches with data plans. Dude...

For anyone interested in compliance and hardening, here's some links to the DOD/US GOV standards for information systems. This information is available to the public.

Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs)

This is a document that has recommended settings, methods, etc to make a product the most secure it can reasonably be. STIGs break things or turn off features people might be accustomed to. You have to do testing and figure out how to either make something work with STIG settings applied, or do exceptions. These are similar to Internet Security (CIS) Benchmarks.

STIG Viewer

The STIG viewer is a Java app that basically makes the list into a checklist where you can track applying settings.

SCAP

Going farther with automation, Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) can be used to conduct automated checked against systems to determine compliance with a setting. Install the SCAP tool, load the automated checks into it, and then take the results from SCAP tool and import them into the STIG viewer. It will knock out anything that could be checked automatically. The remaining checks would be things that are manually checked.

Compare

Here's a good article that compares STIGs and CIS benchmarks: https://nira.com/stig-vs-cis/#:~:text=The%20Center%20for%20Internet%20Security%20offers%20a%20tool%20similar%20to,robust%20than%20the%20STIG%20tool.

Download STIGs for products: https://public.cyber.mil/stigs/downloads/

STIG Viewer: https://public.cyber.mil/stigs/srg-stig-tools/

Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) content: https://public.cyber.mil/stigs/scap/

https://public.cyber.mil/stigs/supplemental-automation-content/

For anyone who's interested in pen. testing, there's a business from MN that does a podcast where the host and business owner, Brian, talks about doing tests, tells stories, and is generally goofy.

Brian made a podcast intro song, kinda funny. He talks about testing successes, tips for security, personal things, and running the business. They do live streaming where they sometimes get into the weeds and teach some techniques.

(I am not affiliated with 7 Minute Security, just enjoy the podcast/learning)

Looks like Indiana is getting happy hour back.

Article says senators tried to kill carry out drink options.

Indiana allowed carry out drinks during COVID to help businesses during lockdown.

• Did you experience, or come across data that supports the claim that carry out will lead to increasing drunk driving?

• How do you feel about carry out?

• How do you feel about happy hour offerings and encouragement of more or just cheaper alcohol consumption?

For anyone who's interested in IDS, this is a product that's open source, with support.

It can be run as a single standalone, but it's meant to be run tiered, where you can deploy sensors doing packet capture, analysis, which gets sent to a central manager, and then can be retained in search nodes.

It's incredibly powerful, just have to be willing to learn how to tune it.

https://docs.securityonion.net/en/2.4/ https://blog.securityonion.net/

I am not affiliated with the product, just a user of it. I like it.

The article discusses business successes by entrepreneurs, and outlines the realities of obtaining financing for these businesses.

Black-owned businesses in the U.S. are major contributors to the economy, generating $206 billion in annual revenue and supporting 3.56 million U.S. jobs. Many of these businesses are federal contractors and many more are in a good position to become contractors.

Black entrepreneurs apply for business loans at a higher rate, yet we are receiving funding at a much lower rate compared to white entrepreneurs. Studies show that Black entrepreneurs are three times more likely than white entrepreneurs to report that access to financial capital negatively impacts their profits.

Discussion:

Businesses and government are making efforts to roll back DEI, which naturally leaves people imagining we might lose gains made for minorities and opportunity.

Large efforts have been over the years to legislate fairness by making discrimination illegal (effectiveness questionable since we felt like DEI was needed), then tried to legislate including people based on their gender/race/etc.

The DEI ideas were attacked asserting it shifts from qualifications to a person's physical properties.

• Why can't we eliminate gender and racial aspects of applications for things like education, financial support, employment, etc? (Yes, people's names convey some of this)

• What potential efforts could we make that isn't focused on meeting quotas that continues to put people into boxes based on their physical properties and assess true potential?

Just when I thought a piece of legislation was going to just be clean and good, instead I read there's opponents, and it's because it holds back African and Latin kids...

Dammit, I just want kids to be able to read!

Indiana's legislature is getting involved in higher education. Your world view will likely inform whether you think that's good or bad. I can't think of many instances where it's good.

Edit: This post isn't an endorsement of the measure, there are more opposition articles below.

I'll include quotes from the posted article, and include a couple of other related opposition articles.

Indeed, from what I’ve seen, not a single professor or administrator who testified on this bill admitted a lack of ideological diversity in higher education. That is troubling and, at best, reveals an unhealthy institutional blind spot. There are other perspectives.

Today, American public universities are among the least ideologically diverse institutions in the world. Indiana is no exception. I am certain there is more ideological diversity in a typical infantry platoon than would be found at any public university.

Let me be clear by what I mean about ideology. I teach Karl Marx to first year students. That isn’t indoctrination. Likewise, a biology professor should ignore public opinion on evolution or photosynthesis. Our research and teaching should pursue and reflect truth, no matter the distress it causes. I am not referring to party affiliation or support for a particular candidate. By ideological imbalance, I mean there is an artificial closed-mindedness that stifles debate, isolates important perspectives and diminishes the richness of a college education.

One clear example comes from a Ball State University colleague who attended a brainstorming session on how to convince more faculty to live near the university. He suggested that highlighting the many high quality local schools would help attract new faculty. Most normal folks view this as self-evident. Yet, this professor was scolded by a senior university administrator, who said the university would not discuss that because “concern about school quality is white privilege.”

Opposition articles:

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2024/02/26/senate-bill-202-receives-pushback-public-universities-indiana-purdue-ball-state-general-assembly/72743950007/

“If you’re saying that you want to be able to fire faculty for not promoting intellectual diversity, it’s basically giving a gag order to them to say: ‘Don’t upset students. Don't challenge them, or we might have to fire you,'” Erickson said.

While Purdue has not yet made a formal statement, their faculty-led Senate released a statement claiming the bill poses a near-existential threat to faculty tenure, making retaining and recruiting faculty harder and potentially eroding academic freedom.

Ball State's University Faculty Council chimed in as well in a statement condemning the bill and rejecting "the provisions in SB 202 which grant the Board of Trustees oversight of intellectual diversity on campus."

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2024/02/29/indiana-senate-bill-202-universities-purdue-deery-tenure-expression-holcomb/72780178007/

House Democrats for the last several weeks have railed on the bill in the chamber's education committee and on the House floor arguing against the premise that Indiana universities need the free expression requirements.

Historical and contemporary examples of such purposefully diminished intellectual spaces abound: from Communist Party-controlled university curriculum in China, to routine dismissals of free-thinking faculty in Islamist-controlled universities in Iran, to countless suspensions, intimidations, and even forced migrations of academics at the behest of political strongmen in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, to countless other similar or worse cases across the globe.

Discussion comments:

First, it's very well known that no one likes American republicans, there's likely no need for party bashing/name calling since there's already tons of posts for that. Please keep party related comments in context on specific educational legislation trends if possible. One of the articles mentions US conservative students though, so it's still relevant.

• Have you ever attended an educational institution that you felt scolded for expressing an ideological view? Examples: Political, economic, religious, etc? What were those views and how were they received?

• Have you attended an educational institution where the course curriculum was heavily influenced by political ideology? What was it? What is the context of your region/locality's views and how did it align or differ from what you were being taught?

• "Our research and teaching should pursue and reflect truth, no matter the distress it causes." Do you have any examples of teachings like this you received? Was it to your benefit or not?

• Did you ever experience a professor in your higher education track teach heavily political view points, even in a class that was not related to politics (like Biology)? What about one's you identify with? Progressive, Liberal, Conservative?

“concern about school quality is white privilege.”

• Do you believe that mentioning good schools in a community to attract talent is 'white privilege'?

• Does that mean areas with good schools are for whites, and areas with bad schools are for underprivileged? Is this racial, or socioeconomic?

• From your higher education experience, what institutional issues did you experience related to this article? Did you experience legislature interference? Did you experience faculty's personal views being reflected in your teaching? Did you get affirmation or rebuking of your original world view before education. Did you feel enlightened or have your original views changed after being exposed to broader viewpoints?

Edit:

• Would good educators in your area be fired for expressing dissenting view points based on the composition of your legislative bodies?

• Do you believe there are more progressive, liberal, or conservative educators?

• Do you believe there should be a mix of all viewpoints?

• Do you believe research topics should be a mix of views, if the research crosses from scientific into political/ideology realms?

The content creator for RealLifeLore explains how the USSR transformed the Asia for agriculture, and destroying the world's 4th largest lake in the process.

Edit to add further description:

Author outlines water diversion for crops, effects on ecosystem, resulting complications from further chemical and pesticide use, predicts future potential conflict due to lack of water resources.

This article outlines an opinion that organizations either tried skills based hiring and reverted to degree required hiring because it was warranted, or they didn't adapt their process in spite of executive vision.

Since this article is non industry specific, what are your observations or opinions of the technology sector? What about the general business sector?

Should first world employees of businesses be required to obtain degrees if they reasonably expect a business related job?

Do college experiences and academic rigor reveal higher achieving employees?

Is undergraduate education a minimum standard for a more enlightened society? Or a way to hold separation between classes of people and status?

Is a masters degree the new way to differentiate yourself where the undergrad degree was before?

Edit: multiple typos, I guess that's proof that I should have done more college 😄

ALL,

I have noticed a bunch of slightly overlapping communities, or some that just don't seem super active.

There are a couple of security related news communities already.

Is there actually interest in INFOSEC projects, blogs, frameworks, TTPs, etc?

Perhaps people who are interested would weigh in, and we could pick a community to work in? I know people don't always like the idea of consolidation, but I'm more interested in gauging people's continued interest.

• Do people here actively work on info sec projects that would post walk throughs, configs?
• Do people work within security frameworks and have sharable configurations?

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

I don't have a problem blocking it, just seems like a pro Russian influence operation to me, since I don't know anything about this group or the culture.