“Social net sites do wonders for crooks, spooks and bosses”
Food for thought: “Computers are making people easier to use everyday.”
Archive of posts filed under the Security (Digital And Otherwise) category.
Articles related to computer security, physical security, and similar things.
And in other news…
…someone tried to break into our house while we were out yesterday, in broad daylight. They broke the lock on our sliding glass back door, and were apparently trying to lift it out of the track (to get around the physical barrier of a stick we leave in the track for added security) when our …
“Violent videogames reduce crime”
So violent video games make people who play them more violent, but also absorb that violence, making society safer? A little round about, but whatever works. 🙂
“Isaac Asimov on Security Theater”
In another case of life-imitates-science-fiction, Bruce Schneier reports that someone has discovered the perfect description of today’s “security theater” in a 1956 Asimov story. (For those of you not following along at home, “security theater” refers to all the crap the TSA is doing that is trivial to get around, but that they’re doing just …
“Nissan car secretly shares driver data with websites”
I started programming about thirty years ago, before I hit puberty. I don’t remember how difficult it must have been for me at that point to follow program logic or think on all the different levels that a developer has to while designing something, but I do recall the thrill I got when I figured …
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“Why Is It So Hard to Find a Suicide Bomber These Days?”
A very long article, but the basic gist of it can be summed up by this paragraph from the middle: […] To put this in context: Out of more than 150,000 murders in the United States since 9/11 — currently more than 14,000 each year — Islamist terrorists accounted for fewer than three dozen deaths …
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“The Effects of Social Media on Undercover Policing”
When we tell kids that they have to be careful what they share on FaceBook, that it can affect them in the future, it seems that even we don’t realize all the possible implications.
“Terrorism in the U.S. Since 9/11”
Bruce Schneier points out a newly-published analysis on recent terrorism in the US, and provides his own comments (which I fully agree with). From one of the final paragraphs: The risk of dying in the U.S. from terrorism is substantially less than the risk of drowning in your bathtub, the risk of a home appliance …
“The Growing Harm of Not Teaching Malware”
This fellow (warning, PDF file) claims that all computer science graduates should take a course in writing Trojans, viruses, worms, and the like — “malware” — or at least that it should be offered as a regular part of an elective security course. At first, I was taken aback by the suggestion. You don’t want …
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“Security flaw found in feds’ digital radios”
This, my friends, is what happens when you try to design something securely without talking to security experts. I’m surprised that the manufacturer of the radios involved hasn’t sued the security researchers to keep them silent, in the belief that if the researchers don’t tell anybody about the problems, they effectively don’t exist (known derisively …
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