Friday Squid Blogging: Replicating Reflecting Squid Tissue

New research. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....

IRS Security

Monday is Tax Day. Many of us are thinking about our taxes. Are they too high or too low? What's our money being spent on?

Cheating in Marathon Running

Story of Julie Miller, who cheated in multiple triathlon races: The difference between cheating in 1980 and cheating today is that it's much harder…

Smartphone Forensics to Detect Distraction

The company Cellebrite is developing a portable forensics device that would determine if a smartphone user was using the phone at a particular time.

Hacking Lottery Machines

Interesting article about how a former security director of the US Multi-State Lottery Association hacked the random-number generator in lottery…

Evolution of Stack Based Buffer Overflows

On the 2nd November, 1988 the Morris Worm was the first blended threat affecting multiple systems on the Internet.

2016 Protocols Workshop

Ross Anderson has liveblogged the 24th International Workshop on Security Protocols in Brno, Czech Republic....

Scams from the 1800s

They feel quaint today: But in the spring of 1859, folks were concerned about another kind of hustle: A man who went by the name of A.V.

Friday Squid Blogging: Cooking with Squid Ink

Risotto nero and more. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....

Security Lessons from the Game of Werewolf

I can't believe I haven't posted this before....

Breaking Semantic Image CAPTCHAs

Interesting research: Suphannee Sivakorn, Iasonas Polakis and Angelos D.

Bypassing Phone Security through Social Engineering

This works: Khan was arrested in mid-July 2015. Undercover police officers posing as company managers arrived at his workplace and asked to check his…

IBM Officially Owns Resilient Systems

It's officially final; IBM has "completed the acquisition" of Resilient Systems, Inc. We are now "Resilient: an IBM Company.

CONIKS

CONIKS is an new easy-to-use transparent key-management system: CONIKS is a key management system for end users capable of integration in end-to-end…

WhatsApp is Now End-to-End Encrypted

Data and Goliath Sale

I have a bunch of extra copies of my book Data and Goliath, and I am selling them at a discount. Details here....

Smart Essay on the Limitations of Anti-Terrorism Security

This is good: Threats constantly change, yet our political discourse suggests that our vulnerabilities are simply for lack of resources, commitment…

Friday Squid Blogging: Composite Materials Based on Squid Beaks

Squid-based research is yielding composites that are both strong and flexible.

Reddit's Warrant Canary Just Died

Reddit has received a National Security Letter. I have long discounted warrant canaries.

Hacking Elections in Latin America

Long and interesting article about a fixer who hacked multiple elections in Latin America.

ISIS Encryption Opsec

Tidbits from the New York Times: The final phase of Mr. Hame's training took place at an Internet cafe in Raqqa, where an Islamic State computer…

Lawful Hacking and Continuing Vulnerabilities

The FBI's legal battle with Apple is over, but the way it ended may not be good news for anyone.

Mass Surveillance Silences Minority Opinions

Research paper: Elizabeth Stoycheff, "Under Surveillance: Examining Facebook's Spiral of Silence Effects in the Wake of NSA Internet Monitoring"…

A 1976 Congressional Report on Surveillance

Here's a 1,300-page Congressional report on "surveillance technology" from 1976....

Power on the Internet

Interesting paper: Yochai Benkler, "Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power," Daedelus, winter 2016: Abstract: The original Internet design combined…

Friday Squid Blogging: President Squid

Memphis Airport Inadvertently Gets Security Right

A local newspaper recently tested airport security at Memphis Airport: Our crew sat for 30 minutes in the passenger drop-off area Tuesday without a…

Interesting Lottery Terminal Hack

It was a manipulation of the terminals. The 5 Card Cash game was suspended in November after Connecticut Lottery and state Department of Consumer…

FBI vs. Apple: Who Is Helping the FBI?

On Monday, the FBI asked the court for a two-week delay in a scheduled hearing on the San Bernardino iPhone case, because some "third party"…

Cryptography Is Harder Than It Looks

Writing a magazine column is always an exercise in time travel. I'm writing these words in early December. You're reading them in February.

FBI's Cyber Most Wanted List

The FBI just added two members of the Syrian Electronic Army to its cyber most-wanted list.

1981 US Document on Encryption Policy

This was newly released under FOIA at my request: Victor C. Williams, Jr., Donn B. Parker, and Charles C.

Observations on the Surveillance that Resulted in the Capture of Salah Abdeslam

Interesting analysis from The Grugq: Bottom Line Up Front Intelligence agencies must cooperate more rapidly and proactively to counter ISIS' rapid…

Attack of the Week: Apple iMessage

Today’s Washington Post has a story entitled “Johns Hopkins researchers poke a hole in Apple’s encryption“, which describes the results of some…

iMessage Encryption Flaw Found and Fixed

Matthew Green and team found and reported a significant iMessage encryption flaw last year.

Let's Analyze: Dridex (Part 1)

Due to popular request I'm starting a new reverse engineering article series which will detail how I go about analyzing various samples, instead of…