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Topics /
Security & Privacy
The most popular blog posts about security & privacy on Hacker News. 135 posts.
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There’s a rootkit in the closet
Part 1: Finding the rootkit It's monday morning and I am for coffee in downtown Thessaloniki, a partner calls: - On machine XXX mysqld is not starting since Saturday. - Can I drink my coffee and come over later to check it ? Is it critical ? - Nope, come over anytime you can... Around
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Schneier on Security: Recording the Police
I’ve written a lot on the “War on Photography,” where normal people are harassed as potential terrorists for taking pictures of things in public. This article is different; it’s about recording the police: Allison’s predicament is an extreme example of a growing and disturbing trend. As citizens increase their…
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Don't Talk to the Cops
Don't talk to the cops about any significant crime ...ESPECIALLY if you're innocent. Here's why.
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The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work
So, when I read that Assassin's Creed 2 for the PC would fight piracy by requiring a live internet connection all the time when you were pla...
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Microsoft patent trolls Salesforce
Microsoft has filed suit against Salesforce for infringing the following patent: Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu Method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display Aut…
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Default HTTPS access for Gmail
Posted by Sam Schillace, Gmail Engineering Director In 2008, we rolled out the option to always use https — encrypting your mail as it trav...
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Would you have spotted the fraud?
Pictured below is what’s known as a skimmer, or a device made to be affixed to the mouth of an ATM and secretly swipe credit and debit card information when bank customers slip their cards into the machines to pull out money. Skimmers have been around for years, of course, but thieves are constantly improving them…
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Indian Electronic Voting Researcher Arrested
Updates:8/28Alex Halderman: Indian E-Voting Researcher Freed After Seven Days in Police Custody 8/26Alex Halderman: Indian E-Voting Researcher Remains in Police Custody 8/24Ed Felten: It’s Time for India to Face its E-Voting Problem 8/22Rop Gonggrijp: Hari is in jail :-( About four months ago, Ed Felten blogged about…
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Apple's secret "wispr" request
When an Apple iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod) connects to a WiFi network, the first thing it does is make a request to the URL http://www.ap...
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Write your passwords down
Here's my advice on password security based on the collected opinions of others: 1. Write them down and keep them in your wallet because you...
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Worst-Case Thinking
At a security conference recently, the moderator asked the panel of distinguished cybersecurity leaders what their nightmare scenario was. The answers were the predictable array of large-scale attacks: against our communications infrastructure, against the power grid, against the financial system, in combination with…
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Security in 2020
There’s really no such thing as security in the abstract. Security can only be defined in relation to something else. You’re secure from something or against something. In the next 10 years, the traditional definition of IT security—that it protects you from hackers, criminals, and other bad guys—will undergo a…
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Don’t Hash Secrets
Building secure systems is difficult. It would be nice if we had a bunch of well-designed crypto building blocks that we could assemble in all sorts of ways and be certain that they would, no matte…
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Rackspace passwords are visible to customer service
I just had a very disturbing conversation with a Rackspace Cloud CSR. It went something like this: CSR: Can I have your account user name a...
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DuckDuckGo Searches Are Not Anonymous
DuckDuckGo didn't log IPs, but favicons loaded from Amazon S3 leaked every search term in the Referer header. It was fixed two days after I posted.
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Using WolframAlpha to Hack Text CAPTCHA
I’ve been playing around with the Text CAPTCHA demo page and wondered how well WolframAlpha is at logic questions. As it turns out, Wolfram is pretty smart! Although, since a CAPTCHA requir…
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Fun with your bank's secret questions & answers
My new bank, Ally Bank , configures a security question and answer for customer service calls. In addition to your SSN, date of birth, and mother's maiden name they also ask you the question you specify and wait for the answer you've provided. This is good, because many standard questions are…
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EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement
The entire family of devices built on the iPhone OS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) have been designed to run only software that is approved by Apple—a major shift from the norms of the personal computer market. Software developers who want Apple's approval must first agree to the iPhone Developer...