Kirill Kurkin's blog for the E-SPEAIT course

In this post I would like to compare two Linux distributions. For this purpose, I chose Ubuntu Linux and Kali Linux. Ubuntu Linux  Ubuntu is a Linux based Operating System that belongs to the Debian family of Linux. It was released on 20 October 2004. Ubuntu is free to use and is open source. It was developed by a team “Canonical”. Ubuntu consists of everything that is needed for everyday use: Mozilla Firefox browser, video and audio viewers pre-installed with many other useful applications for regular users to download. Also, Ubuntu has a Ubuntu Sever variant that is used for servers. Ubuntu Server is efficient for building top-performance, flexible, and secure data centers. Moreover, Chinese version of Ubuntu is used for running the world’s fastest supercomputer. Ubuntu uses KDE desktop environment and has a user-friendly interface that is perfect for Linux beginners.   Kali Linux Kali Linux, just like Ubuntu, belongs to the Debian family of Linux. It was developed by “O...

In this post I will take a brief look at the ideals of hackers' culture that are mentioned in Hacker Ethic by Pekka Himanen and Hacker HOWTO by Eric S. Raymond and whether they are applicable in the modern world or not. First of all, I would like to mention that cybercrime has drastically risen in the last 10 years and the aim of these crimes is now usually financial profit. We need money for almost everything, and hackers figured out ways to make money on the Internet and there are getting more of these ways every year thanks to the technical development. Therefore, hackers are now often associated with criminals that steal money from ordinary people. Although it is sadly partially true, it is not right to say that all hackers are bad. Secondly, freedom of word and free access to every piece of information, which is the main aim of hackers, becomes less real every year. Popular social media have censorship, which is contrary to freedom. Users' privacy has also become less val...

In this post I will describe three cases: first two of them are connected to the internet censorship and the last one is a privacy issue. These 3 cases are quite fresh, and interestingly, all of them are connected to Facebook.   Venezuela president's Facebook page was frozen On the 27th of March it became known that Facebook has frozen the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's page for 30 days. It happened, because he promoted a thyme-based remedy, Carvativir that, as he says, is supposed to cure COVID-19. It wasn't the first time he mentioned this medicine, so Facebook decided to ban his account for repeated violations of its policy against spreading misinformation. Facebook said it followed World Health Organization guidance showing no evidence of any cure for the disease. In my opinion, it is not right for Facebook to filter what others say. Also, the whole misinformation rule looks quite absurd. Does Facebook know everything and it can always get the most recent informa...

In this post I would like to take a look at the overall digital security situation in Estonia. To better see the result, I will divide the overview into three parts that are connected to three components of Mitnick formula: technology, training, policy.    Technology  Overall, I would say that Estonian citizens have a lot of technological possibilities to protect their personal data, as they are free to choose any antivirus and other protective software they want. Also, there are no legal restrictions on VPN usage in Estonia, which may also contribute to people anonymity and security (as well as to cybercriminals, who can hide their identity). It is also worth mentioning that Information System Authority of Estonia developed the DigiDoc software, which lets you encrypt and sign documents using your ID-Card certificates (Smart-ID and Mobiil-ID were also added in the latest update).   Training  Though Estonia is quite advanced in a technological way, to me it seem...