Scientists are attaching cameras to Humboldt squid to watch them communicate with each other. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Powered by WPeMatico
Month: February 2015
Over the next two weeks, I am speaking about my new book — Data and Goliath, if you’ve missed it — in New York, Boston, Washington, DC, Seattle, San Francisco, and Minneapolis. Stop by to get your book signed, or just to say hello. Powered by WPeMatico
In December, Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was interviewed at the CATO Institute Surveillance Conference. One of the things he said, after talking about some of the security measures his company has put in place post-Snowden, was: “If you have important information, the safest place to keep it is in Google. And I can assure … Read More “Everyone Wants You To Have Security, But Not from Them” »
Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Edward Snowden did an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit. Point out anything interesting in the comments. And note that Snowden mentioned my new book: One of the arguments in a book I read recently (Bruce Schneier, “Data and Goliath”), is that perfect enforcement of the law sounds like a good … Read More “Snowden-Greenwald-Poitras AMA” »
New paper: “Surreptitiously Weakening Cryptographic Systems,” by Bruce Schneier, Matthew Fredrikson, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Thomas Ristenpart. Abstract: Revelations over the past couple of years highlight the importance of understanding malicious and surreptitious weakening of cryptographic systems. We provide an overview of this domain, using a number of historical examples to drive development of a weaknesses … Read More “"Surreptitiously Weakening Cryptographic Systems"” »
On Monday, I asked Adm. Rogers a question. EDITED TO ADD: The question. Powered by WPeMatico
AT&T is charging a premium for gigabit Internet service without surveillance: The tracking and ad targeting associated with the gigabit service cannot be avoided using browser privacy settings: as AT&T explained, the program “works independently of your browser’s privacy settings regarding cookies, do-not-track and private browsing.” In other words, AT&T is performing deep packet inspection, … Read More “AT&T Charging Customers to Not Spy on Them” »
New research on tracking the location of smart phone users by monitoring power consumption: PowerSpy takes advantage of the fact that a phone’s cellular transmissions use more power to reach a given cell tower the farther it travels from that tower, or when obstacles like buildings or mountains block its signal. That correlation between battery … Read More “Cell Phones Leak Location Information through Power Usage” »
This is freaky: A new study showcases the first example of an animal editing its own genetic makeup on-the-fly to modify most of its proteins, enabling adjustments to its immediate surroundings. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Powered by … Read More “Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Can Recode Their Genetic Makeup” »
It’s not just national intelligence agencies that break your https security through man-in-the-middle attacks. Corporations do it, too. For the past few months, Lenovo PCs have shipped with an adware app called Superfish that man-in-the-middles TLS connections. Here’s how it works, and here’s how to get rid of it. And you should get rid of … Read More “Man-in-the-Middle Attacks on Lenovo Computers” »