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Schneier on SecurityA blog covering security and security technology.
Seems that squid ink hasn't changed much in 160 million years. From this, researchers argue that the security mechanism of spraying ink into the water and escaping is also that old. Simon and his colleagues used a combination of direct, high-resolution chemical techniques to determine that the melanin had been preserved. The researchers also compared the chemical composition of the...
Interesting: Although the plot was disrupted before a particular airline was targeted and tickets were purchased, al Qaeda's continued attempts to attack the U.S. speak to the organization's persistence and willingness to refine specific approaches to killing. Unlike Abdulmutallab's bomb, the new device contained lead azide, an explosive often used as a detonator. If the new underwear bomb had been...
A new study concludes that more people are worried about cyber threats than terrorism. ...the three highest priorities for Americans when it comes to security issues in the presidential campaign are: Protecting government computer systems against hackers and criminals (74 percent) Protecting our electric power grid, water utilities and transportation systems against computer or terrorist attacks (73 percent) Homeland security...
Interesting essay on a trove on surveillance photos from Cold War-era Prague. Cops, even secret cops, are for the most part ordinary people. Working stiffs concerned with holding down jobs and earning a living. Even those who thought it was important to find enemies recognized the absurdity of their task. I take photos all the time and these empty blurry...
Interesting discussion of trust in this article on web hoaxes. Kelly's students, like all good con artists, built their stories out of small, compelling details to give them a veneer of veracity. Ultimately, though, they aimed to succeed less by assembling convincing stories than by exploiting the trust of their marks, inducing them to lower their guard. Most of us...
Interesting paper: "The Perils of Social Reading," by Neil M. Richards, from the Georgetown Law Journal. Abstract: Our law currently treats records of our reading habits under two contradictory rules rules mandating confidentiality, and rules permitting disclosure. Recently, the rise of the social Internet has created more of these records and more pressures on when and how they should...
"Roots of Racism," by Elizabeth Culotta in Science: Our attitudes toward outgroups are part of a threat-detection system that allows us to rapidly determine friend from foe, says psychologist Steven Neuberg of ASU Tempe. The problem, he says, is that like smoke detectors, the system is designed to give many false alarms rather than miss a true threat. So outgroup...
Details are in the article, but here's the general idea: Let's follow the flow of the users: Scammer buys user traffic from PornoXo.com and sends it to HQTubeVideos. HQTubeVideos loads, in invisible iframes, some parked domains with innocent-sounding names (relaxhealth.com, etc). In the parked domains, ad networks serve display and PPC ads. The click-fraud sites click on the ads that...
Interesting article from Wired....
Cheap! As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
In his blog: I think the most important security issues going forward center around identity and trust. Before knowing I would soon encounter Bruce again in the media, I bought and read his new book Liars & Outliers and it is a must-read book for people looking forward into our security future and thinking about where this all leads. For...
I like this essay because it nicely illustrates the security mindset....
