I can’t believe that someone had the gall to do this. My systems are safe enough, because I use long random strings that I’ve been able to memorize, but most of the WiFi networks of my friends and associates — the ones I’ve been given the passwords for — would fall to it quickly. I [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Security (Digital And Otherwise) category.
“Cashless World”
Sometimes I think Scott Adams (yes, the Dilbert guy) is just throwing outrageous stuff out there on his blog, to provoke reactions. I can’t tell if this article, on getting rid of cash and making all financial transactions digital, is one of those though, or if he truly believes that it’s possible. It would offer [...]
“NASA: Civilization will end in 2013 (possibly)”
Need yet another reason to panic? Try this one on for size. It might be a good idea to back up your vital data to optical media (writable DVDs, for example) before that point. Electronic and magnetic media just might not all survive unscathed.
“Protecting Cars with The Club”
I’ve never had a car that invites theft, so I’ve never even considered buying The Club. It turns out that that’s a good thing… it’s not just useless against professional thieves, it can actually attract them. (My preferred theft-deterrent? Drive a decent-looking older car. It has worked for me for a long time. )
Git, Gitosis, and SSH
As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, my previous company was purchased by a larger company (I’ll call it BigCo for the rest of this entry) several years ago, and they still keep me on the payroll for consulting and the more intricate development work on Project Badger. BigCo is not a software company, it’s [...]
“Cybercrooks befuddled by Icelandic volcano name”
Malware authors are always trying to trick you into opening their craptastic payloads, often using the latest news headlines. But it seems that they didn’t care for the volcano story a few weeks ago: Eyjafjallajökull, despite being arguably the biggest news story of the year so far, is simply too difficult to spell for most [...]
“Fun with Secret Questions”
Oh, these had me howling with laughter… I can just imagine some poor bank employee having to ask a customer some of these questions. “Go forth, and kill. Zardoz has spoken.”
“Fear 2012? Bunker hustler has you covered” — NSFW commentary!
(It’s Tax Day! Have you filed your taxes yet? And no, this isn’t the NSFW part. ) Oh, this is a fun one… so many creative ways that the world is on the edge of destruction! So many things to fear! Yes, fear them! “But,” says this Robert Vicino fellow, “if you give me enough [...]
“The real dangers of PDF executable trickery”
If you pay any attention to computer security news, you’ve almost certainly heard of the recently-discovered PDF hack that allows an attacker to embed arbitrary commands in a PDF file. Well, it’s worse than you thought — another researcher has a proof-of-concept hack that allows an infected PDF to infect every PDF file on the [...]
“It’s official: Adobe Reader is world’s most-exploited app”
Poor Microsoft… they’ve lost yet another crown. (And yet another good reason to avoid the PDF format entirely.)