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Security & Privacy

The most popular blog posts about security & privacy on Hacker News. 612 posts.

2020
271

Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

Persuasion is as old as our species. Both democracy and the market economy depend on it. Politicians persuade citizens to vote for them, or to support different policy positions. Businesses persuade consumers to buy their products or services. We all persuade our friends to accept our choice of restaurant, movie, and…

286

Letsencrypt, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Letsencrypt is a pretty neat concept: free secure certificates for web servers, in order to increase the adoption of HTTPS across the web. The basic idea is that certificates should be free, that the barrier to install them should be as low as possible and that updating certificates should be automated. It protects…

289

Cryptic Rumblings Ahead of First 2020 Patch Tuesday

Sources tell KrebsOnSecurity that Microsoft Corp. is slated to release a software update on Tuesday to fix an extraordinarily serious security vulnerability in a core cryptographic component present in all versions of Windows . Those sources say Microsoft has quietly shipped a patch for the bug to branches of the U.S…

294

Signal PINs

At Signal, our goal is to build a reliable, secure, and private communication experience that is broadly accessible and simple to use. From the beginning, we’ve designed Signal so that your information is in your hands rather than ours.

295

Crouching T2, Hidden Danger

Let’s talk about that thing nobody’s talking about. Let’s talk about a vulnerability that’s exposing 2018-2020 Macs while most are declining to act nor report about the matter. Oh, and did I mention it’s unpatchable?

296

Secure by Design

I really like Secure by Design. The key idea is that there is a big overlap between secure code and good software design. Code that is strict, clear and focused will be easier to reason about, and …

298

TSA considers new system for flyers without ID

According to a solicitation to potential contractors published last week, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) wants to outsource its current questioning of airline passengers without ID , and its decisions about which travelers without ID to allow to travel and which to prevent from flying , to a…

299

Turn on MFA Before Crooks Do It for You

Hundreds of popular websites now offer some form of multi-factor authentication (MFA), which can help users safeguard access to accounts when their password is breached or stolen. But people who don’t take advantage of these added safeguards may find it far more difficult to regain access when their account gets…