New

The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,333 posts.

Security & Privacy
Any year
1627

Testing Phone-Sized Faraday Bags

Complex software is, to put it mildly, hard to get right (for details, see almost any other posting on this or any other security blog). Especially for gadgets that are rich with microphones, cameras, location and environmental sensors, and communication links (such as, you know, smartphones), errors and security…

1629

No U PNP

Previously on Deep Space Nine, we discussed (read: I complained about) the short life and quick death of DLNA. On the way, I mentioned DLNA's dependence on UPnP as an underlying autoconfiguration protocol. Let's talk a bit more about UPnP, because it's 1) an interesting protocol, 2) widely misunderstood, and 3)…

1637

I hate password rules

The other day, I was creating a new account on the web. It was financial in nature, which means it gets one of my most secure passwords. I used Password Safe to generate this 16-character alphanumeric password: :s^Twd.J;3hzg=Q~ Which was rejected by the site, because it didn’t meet its password security rules. It took…

1646

ProctorU is dystopian spyware

As part of my MSc, I have to take an online exam. Obviously, this means I am highly likely to cheat by looking up things on Wikipedia or by having a bit of paper with notes on it. EVIL! So, the exam body requires me to install ProctorU. It's a service which lets someone watch you through your laptop camera while you…

1650

Beg Bounties

When someone passed me hundreds of thousands of records on kids taken from CloudPets a few years ago [https://www.troyhunt.com/data-from-connected-cloudpets-teddy-bears-leaked-and-ransomed-exposing-kids-voice-messages/] , I had a nightmare of a time getting in touch with the company. They'd