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Your WiFi Can See You
And it's so much worse than you think
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Pwned or Bot
It's fascinating to see how creative people can get with breached data. Of course there's all the nasty stuff (phishing, identity theft, spam), but there are also some amazingly positive uses for data illegally taken from someone else's system. When I first built Have I Been Pwned
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MSI's (in)Secure Boot
Before we start, maybe I will quickly explain what Secure Boot is. It is a security feature, which allows our computer to decline booting operating systems that have not been signed by a key that the firmware trusts.
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Memory safety is necessary, not sufficient
TL;DR: I think that a focus on memory safe languages (MSLs) versus non memory-safe languages is a bit of a red herring. The actual distinction is slightly…
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Analyzing the Monoprice Blackbird HDCP 2.2 to 1.4 Down Converter
I got my hands on a Monoprice Blackbird 4K Pro HDCP 2.2 to 1.4 Converter . According to the marketing copy it “is the definitive solution for playback of new 4K HDCP 2.2 encoded content on 4K displays with the old HDCP 1.4 standard.”
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Who wants to be tracked?
“We value your privacy…”, the clichéd beginning of many a privacy notice. I legitimately do value my own online privacy, and whenever I read that phrase as part of a website consent banner it sounds like lip service at best. Consent banners ostensibly exist to give users control over their data & personal privacy. Far…
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What every IT person needs to know about OpenBSD (2021)
How to have fun with the world’s most important free software project "Functional, free and secure by default", OpenBSD remains a crucial yet largely unacknowledged player in the open source field. This talk aims to highlight the project's signature security features and development practices -- razor sharp focus on…
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PostgreSQL Encryption: The Available Options
On an episode of Postgres FM , the hosts had a (very brief) discussion of data encryption in PostgreSQL. While Postgres FM is a podcast well worth a subscribe, the hosts aren’t data security experts, and so as someone who builds a queryable database encryption system , I found the coverage to be somewhat… lacking. I…
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Apple Has Begun Scanning Your Local Image Files Without Consent
Preface: I don’t use iCloud. I don’t use an Apple ID. I don’t use the Mac App Store. I don’t store photos in the macOS “Photos” application, even locally. I…
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OpenSSH versus SSH
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
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A Critique on “A Critique on the OpenPGP Updates”
An occasional blog about OpenPGP keyservers and related issues
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An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects
UPDATE: 24 May 2023: A Proposal for “Enhanced Recovery Services” for Locked Out Google Accounts
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Maybe you should store passwords in plaintext
“Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.” – Charlie Munger, American billionaire investor.
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Put an io_uring on it – Exploiting the Linux Kernel (2022)
Put an io_uring on it - Exploiting the Linux Kernel - chompie at the bits
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How do you know when macOS detects and remediates malware?
macOS may alert you when you’re trying to open or run a file, with an alert informing you that malware was detected. But what about in scans?
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Unix shells are generally not viable access control mechanisms any more
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
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Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates
Tim Perry recently claimed in an article that “Android 14 blocks all modification of system certificates, even as root”. This sparked significant discussion on Hacker News. Thankfully my tests show that it is still possible to adjust the system certificate store in Android 14.
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How to date a recording using background electrical noise
Three men were accused of selling firearms to South London gangs. At their 2012 trial in Croydon Crown Court, the prosecution played the jury a recording, taken undercover, of the trio allegedly arranging a sale. But the men’s lawyers claimed that the recording was a fake, and that the police had fabricated it by…
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I quit infosec and I couldn't be happier
This article aims at providing you some insights about the experience I had in the “infosec world” for the past few years. I had an amazing journey and grateful for everything that happened. Don’t get me wrong with the title, even if the road was sometimes “bumpy” (aka ‘bad’ experiences), I got some good lessons…
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Please Sell My Personal Information
I accidentally clicked the "do not sell my personal information" link at the bottom of your website.
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UK sets up fake booter sites to muddy DDoS market
The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has been busy setting up phony DDoS-for-hire websites that seek to collect information on users, remind them that launching DDoS attacks is illegal, and generally increase the level of paranoia for people looking to hire such services.
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Looking into the Stadia Controller Bluetooth Mode Website
With the end of Google's Stadia platform on January 18, 2023, Google published a website allowing people to "Switch the Stadia Controller ...
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Experts fear crooks are cracking keys stolen in LastPass breach
In November 2022, the password manager service LastPass disclosed a breach in which hackers stole password vaults containing both encrypted and plaintext data for more than 25 million users. Since then, a steady trickle of six-figure cryptocurrency heists targeting security-conscious people throughout the tech…