No, a researcher didn’t find Olympics app spying on you
For the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the Chinese government requires everyone to download an app onto their phone. It has many security/privacy concerns, as CitizenLab documents. However, another researcher goes further, claiming his analysis proves the app is recording...
Journalists: stop selling NFTs that you don’t understand
The reason you don't really understand NFTs is because the journalists describing them to you don't understand them, either. We can see that when they attempt to sell an NFT as part of their stories (e.g. AP and NYTimes)....
Example: forensicating the Mesa County system image
Tina Peters, the election clerk in Mesa County (Colorado) went rogue and dumped disk images of an election computer on the Internet. They are available on the Internet via BitTorrent , The Colorado Secretary of State is now suing...
Debunking: that Jones Alfa-Trump report
The Alfa-Trump conspiracy-theory has gotten a new life. Among the new things is a report done by Democrat operative Daniel Jones . In this blogpost, I debunk that report.If you'll recall, the conspiracy-theory comes from anomalous DNS traffic captured...
Review: Dune (2021)
One of the most important classic sci-fi stories is the book "Dune" from Frank Herbert. It was recently made into a movie. I thought I'd write a quick review.The summary is this: just read the book. It's a classic...
Fact check: that "forensics" of the Mesa image is crazy
Tina Peters, the elections clerk from Mesa County (Colorado) went rogue, creating a "disk-image" of the election server, and posting that image to the public Internet. Conspiracy theorists have been analyzing the disk-image trying to find anomalies supporting their...
100 terabyte home NAS
So, as a nerd, let's say you need 100 terabytes of home storage. What do you do?My solution would be a commercial NAS RAID, like from Synology, QNAP, or Asustor. I'm a nerd, and I have setup my own...
Check: that Republican audit of Maricopa
Author: Robert Graham (@erratarob)Later today (Friday, August 24, 2020), Republican auditors release their final report on the found with elections in Maricopa county. Draft copies have circulated online. In this blogpost, I write up my comments on the cybersecurity...
That Alfa-Trump Sussman indictment
Five years ago, online magazine Slate broke a story about how DNS packets showed secret communications between Alfa Bank in Russia and the Trump Organization, proving a link that Trump denied. I was the only prominent tech expert that...
How not to get caught in law-enforcement geofence requests
I thought I'd write up a response to this question from well-known 4th Amendment and CFAA lawyer Orin Kerr:Question for tech people related to "geofence" warrants served on Google: How easy is it for a cell phone user, either...
Of course you can’t trust scientists on politics
Many people make the same claim as this tweet. It's obviously wrong. Yes,, the right-wing has a problem with science, but this isn't it.If you think you don't trust scientists, you're mistaken. You trust scientists in a million different...
Risk analysis for DEF CON 2021
It's the second year of the pandemic and the DEF CON hacker conference wasn't canceled. However, the Delta variant is spreading. I thought I'd do a little bit of risk analysis. TL;DR: I'm not canceling my ticket, but changing...
Ransomware: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Many claim that "ransomware" is due to cybersecurity failures. It's not really true. We are adequately protecting users and computers. The failure is in the inability of cybersecurity guardians to protect themselves. Ransomware doesn't make the news when it...
Some quick notes on SDR
I'm trying to create perfect screen captures of SDR to explain the world of radio around us. In this blogpost, I'm going to discuss some of the imperfect captures I'm getting, specifically, some notes about WiFi and Bluetooth.An SDR...
When we’ll get a 128-bit CPU
On Hacker News, this article claiming "You won't live to see a 128-bit CPU" is trending". Sadly, it was non-technical, so didn't really contain anything useful. I thought I'd write up some technical notes.The issue isn't the CPU, but...
Phishers Add Chatbot to the Phishing Lure
Researchers have discovered a new approach being taken by phishers to increase victim engagement and confidence: the addition of an interactive chatbot. We have all become accustomed to the chatbots used by many of the largest service providers –...
QuSecure Lauches Quantum-Resilient Encryption Platform
New firm launches to provide the Easy Button for implementing quantum secure encryption
The pressure to implement quantum secure encryption is increasing. This isn’t because functioning quantum computers able to crack asymmetric encryption are expected tomorrow, but because of the...
Iran, China-linked gangs join Putin’s disinformation war online
They're using the invasion 'to take aim at the usual adversaries,' Mandiant told The Reg Pro-Beijing and Iran miscreants are using the war in Ukraine to spread disinformation that supports these countries' political interests — namely, advancing anti-Western narratives...
Cyberattacks and misinformation activity against Ukraine continues say security researchers
Malware and fake news continues, says Mandiant.
6 Scary Tactics Used in Mobile App Attacks
Mobile attacks have been going on for many years, but the threat is rapidly evolving as more sophisticated malware families with novel features enter the scene.
