Here’s an IDEA-variant with a 128-bit block length. While I think it’s a great idea to bring IDEA up to a modern block length, the paper has none of the cryptanalysis behind it that IDEA had. If nothing else, I would have expected more than eight rounds. If anyone wants to practice differential and linear … Read More “The IDEA Encryption Algorithm with a 128-bit Block Length” »
Category: Security technology
Auto Added by WPeMatico
Remember back in 2013 when the then-director of the NSA Keith Alexander claimed that Section 215 bulk telephone metadata surveillance stopped “fifty-four different terrorist-related activities”? Remember when that number was backtracked several times, until all that was left was a single Somali taxi driver who was convicted of sending some money back home? This is … Read More “Basaaly Moalin: The One "Terrorist" Caught by Section 215 Surveillance” »
Today, as part of a Harvard computer science symposium, I had a public conversation with Edward Snowden. The topics were largely technical, ranging from cryptography to hacking to surveillance to what to do now. Here’s the video. Powered by WPeMatico
Giggling Squid is a Thai restaurant chain in the UK. 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
Last year, two Swiss artists programmed a Random Botnot Shopper, which every week would spend $100 in bitcoin to buy a random item from an anonymous Internet black market…all for an art project on display in Switzerland. It was a clever concept, except there was a problem. Most of the stuff the bot purchased was … Read More “When Thinking Machines Break the Law” »
It’s a common fraud on sites like eBay: buyers falsely claim that they never received a purchased item in the mail. Here’s a paper on defending against this fraud through basic psychological security measures. It’s preliminary research, but probably worth experimental research. We have tested a collection of possible user-interface enhancements aimed at reducing liar … Read More “Defending Against Liar Buyer Fraud” »
At a CATO surveillance event last month, Ben Wittes talked about inherent presidential powers of surveillance with this hypothetical: “What should Congress have to say about the rules when Barack Obama wants to know what Vladimir Putin is talking about?” His answer was basically that Congress should have no say: “I think most people, going … Read More “Accountability as a Security System” »
Late last year, in a criminal case involving export violations, the US government disclosed a mysterious database of telephone call records that it had queried in the case. The defendant argued that the database was the NSA’s, and that the query was unconditional and the evidence should be suppressed. The government said that the database … Read More “US Law Enforcement Also Conducting Mass Telephone Surveillance” »
Appelbaum, Poitras, and others have another NSA article with an enormous Snowden document dump on Der Spiegel, giving details on a variety of offensive NSA cyberoperations to infiltrate and exploit networks around the world. There’s a lot here: 199 pages. (Here they are in one compressed archive.) Paired with the 666 pages released in conjunction … Read More “New NSA Documents on Offensive Cyberoperations” »
Classic song written by Arthur Scammell and performed by Hank Snow. 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