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...
Anatomy of how you get pwned
Today, somebody had a problem: they kept seeing a popup on their screen, and obvious scam trying to sell them McAfee anti-virus. Where was this coming from?In this blogpost, I follow this rabbit hole on down. What we see...
Ethics: University of Minnesota’s hostile patches
The University of Minnesota (UMN) got into trouble this week for doing a study where they have submitted deliberately vulnerable patches into open-source projects, in order to test whether hostile actors can do this to hack things. After a...
A quick FAQ about NFTs
I thought I'd write up 4 technical questions about NFTs. They may not be the ones you ask, but they are the ones you should be asking. The questions:What does the token look like?How does it contain the artwork?...
Deconstructing that $69million NFT
"NFTs" have hit the mainstream news with the sale of an NFT based digital artwork for $69 million. I thought I'd write up an explainer. Specifically, I deconstruct that huge purchase and show what actually was exchanged, down to...
We are living in 1984 (ETERNALBLUE)
In the book 1984, the protagonist questions his sanity, because his memory differs from what appears to be everybody else's memory.The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had...
Review: Perlroth’s book on the cyberarms market
New York Times reporter Nicole Perlroth has written a book on zero-days and nation-state hacking entitled “This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends”. Here is my review.I’m not sure what the book intends to be. The blurbs...
No, 1,000 engineers were not needed for SolarWinds
Microsoft estimates it would take 1,000 to carry out the famous SolarWinds hacker attacks. This means in reality that it was probably fewer than 100 skilled engineers. I base this claim on the following Tweet:<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en"...
The deal with DMCA 1201 reform
There are two fights in Congress now against the DMCA, the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act". One is over Section 512 covering "takedowns" on the web. The other is over Section 1201 covering "reverse engineering", which weakens cybersecurity.Even before digital...
Why Biden: Principle over Party
There exist many #NeverTrump Republicans who agree that while Trump would best achieve their Party's policies, that he must nonetheless be opposed on Principle. The Principle at question isn't that Trump is a liar, a misogynist, a racist, or...
No, that’s not how warrantee expiration works
The NYPost Hunter Biden story has triggered a lot of sleuths obsessing on technical details trying to prove it's a hoax. So far, these claims are wrong. The story is certainly bad journalism aiming to misinform readers, but it...
Beef up security in Firefox with Fission
Jack Wallen shows you how to enable Fission. Firefox developers understand web browser security is at a premium, so they've rolled out a site isolation feature.
Cybersecurity professionals: Positive reinforcement works wonders with users
The blame game is not working; experts suggest using positive reinforcement to improve employee attitude and performance.
Google Patches High-Risk Android Security Flaws
Google this week pushed out a security-themed Android update with fixes for more than 30 security flaws that expose mobile users to a range of malicious hacker attacks.
The latest Android update provides documentation on 33 security bugs, some serious...
Awful transaction and timing: AT&T finally ditches DirecTV
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Ronald Martinez)
AT&T has completed its spinoff of DirecTV after six years of mismanagement in which nearly 10 million customers ditched the company's pay-TV services.
AT&T bought DirecTV for $49 billion ($67 billion including...
Mismanagement Driving Cybersecurity Skills Gap: Research
“To some extent, this data supports the theory that the cybersecurity skills shortage is related to mismanagement rather than a dearth of qualified candidates or advanced skills.”
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