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Security & Privacy

The most popular blog posts about security & privacy on Hacker News. 236 posts.

2013
95

Beginner's Guide to Wi-fi Interception

You know how security people get all uppity about SSL this and SSL that? Stuff like posting creds over HTTPS isn’t enough, you have to load login forms over HTTPS as well and then you can’t send auth cookies over HTTP because they’ll get sniffed and sessions

103

SecureDrop

SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower support system, originally written by Aaron Swartz and now run by the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The first instance of this system was named StrongBox and is being run by The New Yorker. To further add to the naming confusion, Aaron Swartz called the system DeadDrop…

104

An update on Truecrypt

Several people have been asking for an update on our public audit of the Truecrypt disk encryption software. I’m happy to say that the project is on track and proceeding apace. Here I wanted …

105

The NSA Is Breaking Most Encryption on the Internet

The new Snowden revelations are explosive. Basically, the NSA is able to decrypt most of the Internet. They’re doing it primarily by cheating, not by mathematics. It’s joint reporting between the Guardian, the New York Times, and ProPublica. I have been working with Glenn Greenwald on the Snowden documents, and I have…

109

Edward Snowden and Gen Y: a sign of leaks to come?

(Before I begin: there are participants in the discourse who would say that we're supposed to natter on about Edward Snowden , and not the contents of his disclosures, because turning it into a personal issue rather than a political one is useful to the machineries of state. But the point I'm about to make here is…

115

Changes to the Blog

I have made a few changes to my blog that I’d like to talk about. The first is the various buttons associated with each post: a Facebook Like button, a Retweet button, and so on. These buttons are ubiquitous on the Internet now. We publishers like them because it makes it easier for our readers to share our content. I…

119

Blowback from the NSA surveillance.

There’s one piece of blowback that isn’t being discussed—aside from the fact that Snowden has killed the chances of any liberal arts major getting a DoD job for at least a decade—and that’s how the massive NSA surveillance of the Internet affects the US’s role in Internet governance. Ron Deibert makes this point: But…

120

Evading Airport Security

The news is reporting about Evan Booth, who builds weaponry out of items you can buy after airport security. It’s clever stuff. It’s not new, though. People have been explaining how to evade airport security for years. Back in 2006, I—and others—explained how to print your own boarding pass and evade the photo-ID…