A security researcher has figured out a novel way to compromise the security of messages traveling in the Tor anonymizer network. Messages in the Tor network are encrypted as they travel from node to node to their final destination. But the last node has to decrypt the messages before it can deliver them to their final destination on the Internet.… Read More “Rogue Nodes Turn Tor Anonymizer Into Private Listening Post”
The folks at Read/Write Web have a great analysis of AOL’s recent move to support the OpenID initiative. AOL has integrated with OpenID, adding 63 million users in a bid to make AIM handles sticky.
Digg also just announced they are joining OpenID.… Read More “AOL Adds 63 Million Users to OpenID … Digg Joins Too”
D-Wave, a company making quantum computers, claims the first quantum computer will be unveiled next week. If this really happens it could be big. Quantum computing can theoretically enable a massive increase in computing power. The question is what will it cost?… Read More “First Quantum Computer to be Announced Next Week”
This one really takes the cake. Diebold, the makers of the infamously hackable electronic voting machines, has done it again. They posted photos for replacement keys for their voting machines on their Web site. Unfortunately the photos were high enough resolution that anyone who knows how to make keys could easily copy them.… Read More “Almost Unbelievably Stupid — Diebold Posts Photo of Voting Machine Key — Hackers Replicate Key From Photo”
Ok, here’s a very unusual news item:
… Read More “British Ministry of Defense Chief Resigns; Cites Concerns About UFO's”During his time as head of the Ministry of Defence UFO project, Nick
Pope was persuaded into believing that other lifeforms may visit Earth
and, more specifically, Britain.His concern is that "highly credible" sightings are simply dismissed.
Allegations of electronic tampering with Diebold voting machines in previous elections gained new evidence this week. A research paper by a team of researchers at Princeton University has conclusively demonstrated that Deibold voting machines are trivially easy to hack.… Read More “Diebold Voting Machines Conclusively Hackable”
This article discusses a new research project at Google where they are working on a way to run contextual ads on your computer that reflect what is taking place in the room around you. The technology works by using the computer microphone to make brief snippet recordings of your room where you are.… Read More “Contextual Ad Targeting On Your Life”
This article from the Guardian raises the red flag about the vast amount of personal information that search engines are collecting, and the risks to individual privacy that entails. The article was really well written and made some good points.… Read More “A Good Article on Lack of Search Privacy”
Japanese cell phone company KDDI is offering a new GPS-enabled 3D navigational tool to their 17 million subscribers (see article and picture). Their system helps consumers navigate city streets and even within buildings, using an innovative 3D map and audio directions.… Read More “Location Awareness — The Next Big Thing”
This is a good idea…
… Read More “Email Postage Stamps Coming … Now”Companies will soon have to buy the electronic equivalent of a
postage stamp if they want to be certain that their e-mail will be
delivered to many of their customers.America Online and Yahoo, two of the world’s largest providers of
e-mail accounts, are about to start using a controversial system that
gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from
1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered.
The ACLU has a nice little animation of what life will be like once the government, and corporate America, have access to all personal data. It’s a nice little simulation.
The Norwegians are planning to create a deep underground vault near the North Pole to house a backup copy of seeds for all known varieties of crops. The goal is to ensure food supplies and enable humanity to regenerate in the event of nuclear war, global warming or other catastrophes.… Read More “Doomsday Vault to House World Seed Bank”
A system for wireless quantum cryptography has been announced by BBN. This is curious: I wonder how they manage the key exchange? They could be using a laser, I suppose, but that would only be line of sight, or would require airborne reflectors.… Read More “Wireless Quantum Crypto Announced”
This article provides some interesting details on the leading candidate for the next flu pandemic, which is overdue, and appears to be brewing in Asia. Unlike normal flu’s pandemic strains seem to have an uncanny ability to kill off people in the prime of their lives, by causing the immune system to go so far into overdrive that it actually kills the host as well as the virus.… Read More “The Next Flu Pandemic…”
This is quite interesting. It turns out that manufacturers of color laser printers are secretly encoding tracking numbers onto every inch of every printout. These microscopic codes enable printouts to be traced back to particular printers that printed them, and thus to whomever owns those devices.… Read More “Color Laser Printers Secretly Encode Tracking Codes on Printouts”
This meme is spreading rapidly across the Net. Someone figured out that the latest Kryptonite U-Locks can be picked in under 30 seconds, using an ordinary ballpoint pen! Yikes. Bikers beware.
Here’s an idea to help reduce the threat of terrorism against airplanes, and to speed up those long lines at airport security: Separate flights for luggage on high-risk routes.
Typing your password into a website is increasingly risky, especially when logging in via a wireless device or from an Internet terminal. The primary risk is interception of your login information and password by an eavesdropper or via a keystroke-capture spyware installed on the machine you are using without your knowledge.… Read More “Security Idea: One-Time Passwords”
There has been much recent discussion lately about alleged evidence that the Bush administration is issuing terrorist alerts for political gain. While I am not taking a position on this issue, I do have a suggestion that could eliminate any doubts, and in the process protect our upcoming elections.… Read More “How to Save the Upcoming Elections from Terrorism Alert Manipulation”
A new technique has been proposed that appears to be able to determine a shortlist of possible words that can occupy sections of declassified documents that have been “blacked out.” The attack makes use of some clever analytical tactics. Using this method the researchers were able to determine the identity of an intelligence agency in a declassified CIA document.… Read More “New Way to Crack Declassified Documents”
Security agencies are monitoring the emergence of a new type of Trojan Horse that uses peer-to-peer networks of bots to mount denial of service attacks on targeted sites. Dubbed Phatbot, one such Trojan is spreading widely across the Net and is especially difficult to disable due to the peer-to-peer nature of the attack.… Read More “New Security Threat from P2P Bot Networks — "Phatbot"”
Here is an article that accurately depicts the carnage in Madrid. In the USA we only get highly sanitized news and war coverage is usually very minimal — but this article tells it like it really is. Perhaps if the public was shown what was war was really like there would be less of it?… Read More “The Actual Situation in Madrid: Unsanitized News”
A leaked secret report by top Pentagon analysts claims that within 20 years Britain could become “Siberian” and Major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas. In addition the report warns of nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting around the world as massive climate changes reshape the planet.… Read More “Secret Pentagon Report Leaked: Warns of Coming Climate Change, British Ice-Age, Riots, Nuclear War”