Articles related to computer security, physical security, and similar things.
After I wrote about it so much, it’s odd to me that everyone else has gone so silent on the IPv4/IPv6 transition. Here’s the latest on it. On my side, my router is still the same “venerable” model that doesn’t offer any IPv6 support, but apparently my ISP is moving in that direction, so that …
Continue reading ‘“Whatever happened to the IPv4 address crisis?”’ »
I have a widget on my browser’s home page that shows me what’s going on on several other pages, and Geek Drivel is one of them. Today when I sat down at the computer, I discovered that it apparently didn’t have any posts whatsoever. As I’d had close to two thousand posts the last time …
Remember what I said last year, about how governments will soon find themselves responsible for the mental health of their citizens? Academics have just taken another step toward it.
I wouldn’t have bothered posting about this, except for one throwaway line near the top: […] In the end, the nuclear apocalypse failed to appear – the scientific consensus is that absolutely no health effects due to the Fukushima radiation will ever be detectable […] So to sum it up: the worst nuclear disaster in …
Continue reading ‘“OMG! New ‘CRISIS DISASTER’ at Fukushima! Oh wait, it’s nothing. Again.”’ »
This is utter nonsense, as far as I can tell. There simply wouldn’t be enough volatile material to create something that would explode with any amount of force. At best it could turn someone into a walking fireball for a (very) short time, which is bad enough on an airplane, but would hardly bring it …
Continue reading ‘“Latest Movie-Plot Threat: Explosive-Dipped Clothing”’ »
It is with great sadness that I have to agree with this article. When I was growing up, we were taught that the US was the greatest nation on Earth. There was even some evidence that objectively supported it — the Manhattan project (and the fact that we were so collectively horrified at the fates …
Continue reading ‘“NSA Prism: Why I’m boycotting US cloud tech – and you should too”’ »
Has anyone mentioned recently that you should use really strong passwords — or how hard it is to come up with them? I use truly random passwords, generated (and kept track of) by LastPass, for most sites; for the ones that need to be remembered, I’ve got a pretty good password-selection algorithm (which I can’t …
Continue reading ‘“A Really Good Article on How Easy it Is to Crack Passwords”’ »
Bruce Schneier, the well-known security expert (warning: that’s an extremely tongue-in-cheek encryption-geekery fan-site), has a new essay on his (real) site today, and it touches on a subject that I’ve talked about before: how at some point in the near future, technology will make it possible for single individuals or small groups to cause destruction …
Those of us who think about these things have been saying that for decades. I hope people listen soon enough for it to do humanity some good.
In which the villains finally get their come-uppance. Remember the scammers I talked about several times last year? They didn’t stop, I just stopped reporting on them. We’ve been averaging a call from them every couple weeks since then, all from the “Windows Support Department” or “Windows Technical Service Department” (of what company, they never …