security – Techcitement*

Your Data Doesn’t Vanish When You Chuck Your Device

Mordechai Osdoby — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 18:39:40 +0000

I’m a scavenger. My normal reaction to a friend getting a new bit of tech is “What did you do with the old one?” I’m also not above dumpster diving if my eye is caught. In an attempt to use my powers for good, I used to refurbish trashed laptops for a charity. Recently, I […]

Why It’s Your Fault: A Quick Rant About Digital Privacy

Mordechai Osdoby — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 15:50:37 +0000

This is quite a week for the tinfoil hat brigade. I’ve been seeing two particular stories over and over in my social network feed and I feel compelled to address them. Let’s talk about the rant about social network and photos first. I’m not going to link to it, because I don’t want to see […]

Faraday Cages In Your Kitchen

Daniela Weiss-Bronstein — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 15:02:10 +0000

Paranoiacs rejoice! Last week, Heather Murphy of the New York Times explained that Edward Snowden had lawyers place their cell phones in a refrigerator to block the signals, using the fridge as a makeshift Faraday cage. Murphy quoted Adam Harvey, a countersurveillance products designer, who said that a martini shaker is a foolproof Faraday cage that can […]

Just Because You’re Paranoid… Part 1: Securing Your Email

Ari Baronofsky — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:00:06 +0000

The news has been awash with stories lately of how the National Security Agency has the ability to access the telephone records and internet usage patterns of Americans and possibly others around the globe. Our own website featured an article on this subject when the story first broke over a week ago. While bringing down a […]

CISPA Passed This Week Against Objections, Pleas, And Rationality

Tim Twelves — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:00:08 +0000

I guess after being paid craploads of taxpayer money ($174,000 annually), Senators need to show something for it, given they have one of the laxest schedules imaginable. Some of the bills that have gone through the house in the last week or two have included rolling back insider trading rules, making Congress immune to prosecution, […]

Today Is Safer Internet Day; How Safe Are You?

Paul Hurwitz — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:12:39 +0000

In 1999, the European Commission came up with the Safer Internet Programme with the goal of promoting safe and responsible use of the internet by children and young adults. In 2004, Safer Internet Day was developed as a special day each year to promote safer use of the internet and online technologies. That day has […]

Outsource Yourself For Fun And Profit

Tom Wyrick — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:10:52 +0000

What began as an attempt to improve security by reviewing VPN connection logs yielded quite unexpected results last year for a U.S.-based firm. Verizon’s Business Security Blog tells the story of an unnamed “critical infrastructure company” surprised to find a live VPN connection into its network originating from Shenyang, China. Like many businesses, this company […]

Member Of Anonymous Takes Down GoDaddy.com

M. Gilden — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:30:13 +0000

Yesterday was a bad day to be a GoDaddy.com customer. A staggering amount of websites that use GoDaddy to host their content or email have found the service not responding, with websites and email remaining down. In a tweet from someone named AnonymousOwn3r (who claims to be the security leader of the united hacker group […]

No Internet In July Seems Largely A Lie

Tom Wyrick — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:39:01 +0000

Now that the July 9 deadline has come and gone, it appears few experienced a loss of their internet connection after all. According to the FBI (who shut down its temporary replacement DNS servers at 12:01 AM on Monday, as expected), only about 41,800 infected computers were accessing them from the United States as of […]

Wyndham Resorts Draw FTC Ire When Too Much Data Checks Out Early

Tom Wyrick — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 21:00:35 +0000

Only weeks after the FBI warned travelers of an increasing risk of data theft while using hotel internet connection, the FTC files a complaint against the Wyndham hotel chain for alleged failures in data security. Wyndham hotels had three security breaches within less than two years’ time, ultimately leading to hundreds of thousands of customer’s […]