Hack The Planet

So there has been a lot of press on the Russian spies and their use of steganography. The idea of hiding something in plain sight that only the sender and recipient know about is interesting in that it has been around as long as humans have needed to hide information from each other. The Code Book by Simon Singh is a good read for anyone that is interested in cryptography in general.

Update: Talking about cryptography being used throughout history, apparently Plato had hidden messages in his writings that were just deciphered.

There is a lot of heat coming down on Google Security Researcher Tavis Ormandy after he released an code to exploit Microsoft Windows XP just five days after alerting M$ to the vulnerability. There is also rumor that is was done to fuel the fire already going between M$ and Google.

I know that there is a lot of bickering between the different giants of technology but I don’t believe that Google would go so far as to have an employee post an exploit just to make a point. It is more likely that “Ormandy seems to believe Microsoft, which is not exactly known for the speed of its responses to security (and many other) issues, would never have acted to patch this hole unless he, or someone else, had also provided code to exploit it.”

Many security experts feel this way but to release the exploit into the wild after only five days is really irresponsible because the people you are really hurting are the folks that get their computers compromised, not M$.

I was just alerted to the fact that a large number (114,000 to be exact) of Apple iPad 3g owners had their information exposed. The list includes military personal, media types and even Mayor Bloomberg. The article goes into specifics of how the breach was done.

Sometimes you have to “reboot your thinking”. It is a little sad and a little hilarious all rolled into one.

Matt Mckeon made a great graphical display of how Facebook’s privacy has eroded to where there really is none now.

Wired writer Ryan Singel wrote recently about how Facebook has gone rogue and it is time for an open alternative.

It makes sense that another service would creep up. Myspace ate Friendster and was in turn eaten by Facebook which has eaten up just about everything. Now to build a service that can compete with Facebook and eat it in turn.

There has been some discussion today around simple ways to thwart identity theives, specifically in regards to your verification questions. Bruce Schneier mentions how Ally Bank wants its customers to make up their questions and answers. Slugsite brought an interesting idea to the table by just making up things for your answers to the static questions.

I think both are good ideas. We need a way to better identify who someone really is, especially when it comes to online banking.

Bruce Schneier posted about Frank Furedi’s essay on Worst Case Thinking. The big take away is that fear is a powerful human emotion and is easily used to develop powerful images of what we imagine could go wrong, not what actually will go wrong.

A Russian/Chinese border crossing was closed down stranding almost 2,000 Russians because the automated system had been compromised by a virus. When 2,000 people have to spend a night unable to cross a border because there is no back up to the automated system then we have already become slaves to our technology.

My first clue that we were slaves though came when I heard someone years ago say “I couldn’t live without my phone.” The revolution happened, we just were too busy staring at the flashing pictures on our internet devices to notice.

A third-grader has been accused of hacking into his school system and changing passwords and other information. Luckily the police are not pressing charges here and are leaving it in the school districts hands. My only hope is they see this as an opportunity to educate and promote the boys talents instead of punishing him. Most the time when kids do these things it is because they are really smart, and really bored.

Trying to catch up on all of the news that I have missed over the last week or so. It is interesting some of the things that are going down.

The Eleventh Circuit handed down a Fourth Amendment case, Rehberg v. Paulk, that eliminates 4th Amendment rights in email. If you had any glimmer of hope that your email was private before you can just let that hope die now.

In other news, Myspace is selling your user data to third party companies. No real surprise there. It will be interesting to see how the analysis of the millions of users on Myspaces mood updates will help decide what message is right for the masses at any given time.