On the Wire Podcast: Adam Shostack
Adam Shostack has done just about everything in the security community over the course of his career. He spent years at the late, lamented privacy start-up Zero Knowledge Systems, then moved to Microsoft, where he worked on a variety of projects. But he’s probably best known for his work on threat modeling at Microsoft and […]
Harvard Study Questions ‘Going Dark’ Crypto Problem
The FBI and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have warned for years that the increased use of encryption by consumers is making surveillance and lawful interception much more difficult, impeding investigations. But a new study by a group of experts at Harvard’s Berkman Center says those claims are largely overblown and that the IoT […]
GCHQ Says Voice Crypto Protocol Not Backdoored
A week after a researcher published a detailed analysis of the MIKEY-SAKKE voice encryption standard that broke down how it could enable key escrow and mass surveillance, the U.K.’s GCHQ, which designed the standard, has come out in defense of its security and integrity. CESG, the information security group at GCHQ, developed the MIKEY-SAKKE standard several […]
Online Ad Blockers Blocked by Online Advertisers
The problems of malicious ads and ad fraud have become widespread and are major annoyances and threats to users. Those issues have led to the huge popularity of ad blocking extensions for browsers, but a backlash from the online ad industry has now reached a fever pitch as industry groups work to frame the issue as […]
UVA Hit With Another Data Breach
A mistake by an employee who clicked on a link in a phishing email and unwittingly granted access to an attacker has resulted in a data breach at the University of Virginia that dates back to late 2014 and exposed personal information of about 1,400 people. The breach includes allowed attackers to get access to some […]
On the Wire Podcast: Steven Murdoch
Steven Murdoch is a researcher at University College London and this week published a detailed technical analysis of the MIKEY-SAKKE protocol that is implemented in the U.K.’s Secure Chorus standard for voice encryption. Secure Chorus is set up for key escrow by design, a fact that Murdoch explains in his analysis. In this podcast, Dennis […]
California Bill Seeks Phone Crypto Backdoor
A week after a New York legislator introduced a bill that would require smartphone vendors to be able to decrypt users’ phones on demand from law enforcement, a California bill with the same intent has been introduced in that state’s assembly. On Wednesday, California Assemblyman Jim Cooper submitted a bill that has remarkably similar language […]
New York Wants to Force Vendors to Decrypt Users’ Phones
A bill that is making its way through the New York state assembly would require that smartphone manufacturers build mechanisms into the devices that would allow the companies to decrypt or unlock them on demand from law enforcement. The New York bill is the latest entry in a long-running debate between privacy advocates and security experts on one […]
The Silent Tracking Beacon in Your TV Ads
It turns out that the weird guy in your office who keeps telling you that his TV is spying on him isn’t totally insane. Well, he might still be insane, but his TV also might be spying on him. An Indian company called SilverPush has developed a technology that allows advertisers to track users across […]