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Security & Privacy

The most popular blog posts about security & privacy on Hacker News. 4,335 posts.

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2733

Zero Trust Networks

I am leery of jargon. I am as guilty of using it as the next engineer, but there comes a point where there are just too many precise, narrowly-understood terms polluting your vocabulary. The circle of people you can talk to shrinks until going to the store to buy milk feels like an exercise in speaking a foreign…

2737

Introducing the USB Stick of Death

Several months back we have been playing with different file systems on various system platforms, examining the security posture and robustness of numerous device drivers’ implementations. One of the configurations we spent some time on was the commonly used NTFS on Microsoft Windows – as the file system is rather…

2746

Virtual Machine Detection in the Browser (2019)

Virtual Machine (VM) detection is nothing new. Malware has been doing it for over a decade now. Over time the techniques have advanced as defenders learned new ways of avoiding VM detection. A while back a friend and I were working on a project related to exploit delivery via a web application for redteaming purposes…

2747

NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

MyPayrollHR , a now defunct cloud-based payroll processing firm based in upstate New York, abruptly ceased operations this past week after stiffing employees at thousands of companies. The ongoing debacle, which allegedly involves malfeasance on the part of the payroll company’s CEO, resulted in countless people…

2751

E-Mail Leaves an Evidence Trail

If you’re going to commit an illegal act, it’s best not to discuss it in e-mail. It’s also best to Google tech instructions rather than asking someone else to do it: One new detail from the indictment, however, points to just how unsophisticated Manafort seems to have been. Here’s the relevant passage from the…

2755

The Fallacy of Cracking Contests (1998)

In this issue: The Fallacy of Cracking Contests How to Recognize Plaintext News The Doghouse: Iomega Zip Disks Counterpane Systems News Final Report from the Commerce Department Technical Advisory Committee on Key Recovery Comments From Readers About "CRYPTO-GRAM"

2757

You Know GDPR Is Good Based on Who Hates It

FDR has always been one of my favorite presidents, second maybe to Lincoln. Both were men the establishment assumed were one of them until, to their horror, they governed like they weren't. Both could trash the opposition in one breath and take the moral high ground in the next.