I should be able to resume posting shortly.

Video: Three Natural Laws of Security is currently unavailable. Seeking new hosting site.

2009-12-31

They seem to have a variety of issues these days ...
Hmmm ...
After the first thousand or so, I can't picture a screener even noticing what a person looks like in the scan ...
They might want to start by developing an understanding of how security works ... maybe by clicking on the link to the video to the right ...

2009-12-29

Don't probe me, bro ...

By the way, Volokh is one of those sites that you should be studying regularly ...
Interesting state of affairs in Iran at this time. I hope we're helping the protesters, or at least not hindering them ...
So desu, ne ...
If he was able to compromise the whole scheme (and it looks like he was) then he is correct that it is long-since time to abandon that particular scheme. It's never good enough to be 'a little bit' ahead ...
Some good news ...

2009-12-27

First: liberty is the result of good security and not something that you can trade for it,  and second: I'd rather walk through a backscatter machine than have a stranger fondle my junk, which is what you have today ...
It would make more sense to have a new rule that every passenger can just reach out and slap the nearest screener to make sure he/she is awake ... that might have resulted in this guy not getting on the plane in the first place ...
Make that man an American ...
Always worth repeating ...
India won her independence in 1947, but our Government still took 12 years to formulate the new Arms Act, 1959 which was further supplemented by Arms Act Rules of 1962. Although a little better than Arms Act of 1878,unfortunately,the new Arms Act of 1962 did not show any sign of Government of Independent India trusting its Citizens. While the new legislation gave vast arbitrary powers to the "Licensing Authorities", to ensure that procurement of Arms License remains a distant fruit for citizens where as the concept of Prohibited and Non-Prohibited bore/calibers remained intact. This concept was used by the British to ensure that the military supply of Ammunition does not find its way to Indians especially freedom fighters as they did not trust Indians who formed major percentage of serving personnel in their Army and Law Enforcement Units.
The difference between a citizen and a subject is the possession of firearms ...

2009-12-26

Flight 253 round-up

According to the Coast Guard, the maritime security zone includes a portion of Kailua Bay, beginning at Kapoho Point and extending westward to the shoreline at Namala Place, near the Castles surf spot. The zone also includes the adjacent Kawainui Channel beginning at Kapoho Point to a point 85 yards mauka of the North Kalaheo Avenue Bridge. Yellow buoys will be placed on the water so mariners can see the zone, officials said.
Now might be a good time to take all the money being spent on identification and behavioral detection and shift it to body scanning and bomb-sniffing dogs ...
Sounds like a 'failure to adequately supervise' to me, and very expensive ...
Gotta love it ...
That is kind of odd ...

2009-12-22

But the Pentagon assumed that foes in the Middle East wouldn't be smart enough to figure this out, and underestimated how quickly the technology to tap in to the feeds would advance, becoming cheaper and widely available. The problems were not fixed, and more and more of these relatively open systems were deployed. Unfortunately, we all know what happens when we "assume" our enemies are dumb (they make something out of "u" and "me."). Using a $26 software package called Skygrabber, originally designed to allow customers to download movies and songs off the Internet (none of them pirated, of course), insurgents were able to tap into the various U.S. military video feeds, The Wall Street Journal reported. U.S. forces became aware of it after they captured a Shiite militia member in Iraq, whose laptop had files of the pirated footage saved on it.
I imagine that the folks that were offering the stuff for sale weren't acknowledging the vulnerability ...
What else is new ...?

2009-12-21

People should be questioning it just because he's a politician ...
Interesting ...

2009-12-20

Security personnel need to be able to think like the people they are securing against or there can be no success ...

Today's the day, every day ...
Hmmm ... one can only assume that this is more of GB's assault on decency ...
This assumes that the client accessing the material is capable of maintaining security while accessing, which,  even if not in jail, it seems very unlikely that they will be able to ...

Aunt Jane round-up

This is a really interesting video, but there doesn't seem to be any way to get a sense of how big it is ...
The question becomes "Show force to whom?" ...

2009-12-19

Cute ...
Never hurts to reiterate ...
Hmmm ... might be all the recent death row exonerations ...
Some cool pics ...
Interesting ...

2009-12-18

It seems fairly unlikely that being able to tap the feed would be helpful without a lot of additional capabilities. You would be hard-pressed to even evacuate a site in the time you would have between the time the plane gets close enough for you to pick up its feed and the time it would be punching your ticket ...

It's very important to disarm the law-abiding to protect the police from armed criminals ...

Aunt Jane round-up

2009-12-16

Perhaps to the British Columbia government and VPD, the solution then is to increase “the perception of safety” instead of actually doing something to address the real underlying issues of crime. Installed cameras may not be effective crime fighters as proven across party lines in London, but then again, it is well demonstrated by actions here that it is all too often perception, and perception only, that is the lodestone of public servants. Some citizens no doubt will feel secure knowing the cameras are installed, however misguided that is proven to be. The very citizens whom advocate surveillance should remember that the descent down the slippery slope of Orwellian observed society will not be abated once this concept is embraced, even through inaction. The future of Canadians will hold no line of personal freedom nor will any right to privacy be safe or guaranteed. The proposed action of government monitoring cameras and the intrusion they represent to the population speak directly against our Charter of Rights, its founding principles and the future freedoms of our children.
Regardless of which side of this equation you're on, it's a struggle to keep up ...
I was about half way through this before I realized it was comedy ...
We're not in the prisoner-takin' bidness ...
Hmmm ...

2009-12-15

The only folks that make arguments like those described in the article are the folks that have never been in the situation or have ulterior motives ...

2009-12-14


Hmmm ... thought provoking ...

An Israei scientist, Moshe Stern, may have licked the problem. Based on Soviet technology, Stern's company, C.En. Ltd, has found a way to stuff hydrogen into lightweight glass tubes. BAM, the German Federal Institute for Materials Research & Testing, last month announced the results of two years of testing Stern's product: "The lightweight storage and safety factors give the technology a huge commercial potential for a whole range of industries." "Glass has proven to have three times the storage capacity at only a third of the weight of steel containers that are now commonly used for hydrogen storage, and it's far cheaper," says C.En's chief scientist Dan Eliezer. There are other potential commerical applications, but the dream of a practical hydrogen-powered car is the most alluring, for foes of Islamism and foes of global warming alike.
Interesting ...

2009-12-13

I wonder if he meant that the way it came out. Too bad for the guard, though. SGs never think that they will end up in prison over a routine take-down, but it can certainly happen ...
Hmmm, it's nice to know that encryption can be done on that scale, but I wonder how long it will take to be compromised on a wide scale. It's seems unlikely that they are using a different key for each box ...
This seems to happen a LOT to the BritGov guys ...
Interesting ... and a cool pic, too.

This reminds me: There's nothing funnier than seeing a young ruffian that's wearing his pants belted below his buttocks try to run from the police ...

2009-12-12

The real story is that the video is probably going to cost your former employer (and  maybe you) a lot of money because you and your associates allowed your egos to take the reigns from your professionalism. You can be a solid pro for years but if the few-second lapse is caught on video, that will be seconds that you are judged on ...
The solution that I found was on Lifehacker.com and was written by Gina Tripani. She recommended using a password system. You start out with a 6 or 8 or 10 character core that you will remember. Whatever works for you is fine. A combination of letters and numbers is preferred. Even a word followed by numbers that mean something to you is fine. So, say 1234qwer is your 8 character core. (I know it looks random, but look at your keyboard to find where I got that character core) That core will be used everywhere. But what will make it unique, is adding letters at every different Web site. Take the first two vowels in the domain name of the Web site and add them to the beginning of your core and take the first two consonants and add them to the end of your core. For example, I will use Amazon.com, a fairly popular online retailer. With this system, your password for Amazon.com would become aa1234qwermz. I took the first two vowels in Amazon.com, aa, added the core in the middle, 1234qwer, and the first two consonants in Amazon.com, mz, to the end. That left me with aa1234qwermz, a strong password and a very easy system to remember at every Web site. You can change the system to whatever works best for you. If you want to use the first three consonants and the last vowel or last two consonants and first three vowels, that is fine. Just pick a system and a core and you are good to go. There will be some exceptions. Some Web sites require a certain number of characters and that may not conform to your system. Or they may require just numbers, but the vast majority of Web sites will work with this system.
Sounds quite workable ...

That's the way to have it, OS and up ...
Surprise, surprise ...
It would be better if they weren't becoming such totalitarians ...
Hmmm ...

2009-12-09

You might want to hire some competent help. It just isn't that big of a job ...
It's worth noting that if the program effectively precluded the possibility of getting on a plane with the means to interfere with the flight, there wouldn't be any reason to keep it a secret. Beyond that, Sonny Barger pointed out years ago that three people can keep a secret as long as two of them are dead ...
I know, it's fun, but don't do it ...
Hmmm ... Truecrypt ...
Hmmm ... must have forgotten what Cyprus was like in the 60s ...
Sincere study is called for in such serious matters ...
Hmmm, they appear to have gone off the deep end for some reason ...
I guess it depends on what the goals are. I suspect that nein-won-won was intended to show us that they could mess with us, too. If you can call that a political goal I would say that terrorism was an effective tool for achieving it. I think that all the curtailment of liberties and general inconvenience at the point of an implied gun that we put up with is more of a reflection of our collective ignorance and laziness than evidence of the efficacy of terrorism ...

2009-12-06

Hmmm ... cheap at twice the price ...

It's a good idea to speak the language fairly well, too ...
Need to get rid of them before someone gets seriously hurt or killed ... the Board of Regents, that is ...
The rest of the article sounds like they're trying to convince the other 'friends' that they aren't considered accomplices of the 'Judas'-variety. Uhhh, aren't guns outlawed in Toronto ...?
Today's the day, every day ...
Cool ...

If you're going to ever pay for the mayor's, or any other politician's, security, you should pay for it the entire time that they're in office. The fact that a mayor or governor would need security is certainly troubling, though ...

2009-12-05

Congratulations ...
Oopsy daisy ...

Aunt Jane roundup


Interesting ...

Passware Kit Forensic 9.5 recovers encryption keys for hard disks, secure Technology and BitLocker. the way that this software work is by scanning HD image searching for cryptographic keys and decrypt the image to make it in a clear file. Now the Software is available in several versions and there is a mobile version that gives user the ability to have it on a USB stick and use it directly on the desired machine without leaving any trace on it. This is not all because this tool also offers 8 different password recovery attacks (Dictionary , Brute-force, Xieva , Known Password/Part , Previous Passwords, Decryptum, SureZip , Join Attacks, and Append Attacks) these 8 types gives the user a way to customize the desired attack according to the type of file and available information so it reduces the Time of operation.
Hmmm ...

2009-12-03

Suppose you decide to protect one of your documents from prying eyes. First, you create an encrypted copy using an encryption application. Then, you “wipe” (or “secure-delete”) the original document, which consists of overwriting it several times and deleting it. (This is necessary, because if you just deleted the document without overwriting it, all the data that was in the file would physically remain on the disk until it got overwritten by other data. See question above for an explanation of how file deletion works.) Ordinarily, this would render the original, unencrypted document irretrievable. However, if the original file was stored on a volume protected by the Volume Shadow Copy service and it was there when a restore point was created, the original file will be retrievable using Previous versions. All you need to do is right-click the containing folder, click Restore previous versions, open a snapshot, and, lo and behold, you’ll see the original file that you tried so hard to delete! The reason wiping the file doesn’t help, of course, is that before the file’s blocks get overwritten, VSC will save them to the shadow copy. It doesn’t matter how many times you overwrite the file, the shadow copy will still be there, safely stored on a hidden volume.

(via Bruce)
Bad Security turns everything it touches into 'FAIL'.
What makes this newsworthy is that the students are for keeping the current policy. Student-government spokesman Matt Strauch was surprised.  He said "I honestly thought students would be against guns on campus, and we just haven’t heard that. The majority of the comments we’ve received from students is that they are in support of having concealed-carry remain permitted on campus."   Indeed, from the comments on the first article I have found on this issue, the students understand perfectly what the issues are.  They know that disarming legal carriers will leave them more vulnerable than they are now.  They know that in a crisis such as happened at Virginia Tech, their best hope for stopping the killing is a normal person who is also armed on site with them. As one commenter put it, "An armed campus is a polite campus."
Gotta love it ...
Probably a case of too little, too late, but it's nice to hear anyway ...
So, are these the men most likely to have done it, or merely the men least able to defend themselves against the charges ...
Sounds like three out of five commissioners have lost sight of right and wrong ...
Cool ...

Aunt Jane roundup

And

2009-12-02

Conditioning yourself to always put your phone or whatever back in its holder and not laying it wherever is convenient will also go a long way toward preventing your losing it ...
Cool ...

Interesting ...
Yeah, they definitely would have been better off unarmed ...
What? No terrorism charges ... Anchorage po-po must value their credibility more than some others we've seen lately ...
Hmmm ... unfortunate video ... no Security happening on it ...
Is it just me or have there been a lot of these lately ...?

2009-12-01

Interesting exercise ...
There's a lot to be said for making it a felony for a TSA agent to take or allow to be taken and type of photo, etc. but even absent that, this is the only really effective method of ensuring that passengers don't have the MEANS of interfering with a flight. All the ID and profiling is foolish and utterly unnecessary if the passengers don't have the means to interfere ...
Arrive on vacation, depart on probation ...
I wonder if it works after you drop it ...
I wish they were less totalitarianism-oriented these days ...

Also ...

2009-11-30

Once upon a time, we took a look at why creating black holes in particle colliders and using them to generate energy for our power grids was fraught with problems. However, if at sometime in the future we could scale up our lasers and use them to create a black hole with a mass energy equivalent of a million tons, relativistic rocketry would be within our reach. Artificial black holes that small would evaporate away in about a century or so while radiating so much energy, they could power a spacecraft to near light speed in just a decades. Or at least that’s the big idea advanced in a paper by Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland, mathematicians with a passion for theoretical physics and inspired by science fiction novels which sought to provide exotic power sources for highly advanced alien civilizations crisscrossing the cosmos in giant spacecraft at their leisure.
Interesting ...

2009-11-29

7. Never simply dip your lower half of your body into ink in an effort to appear to be wearing pants. Please.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this story because it's pretty obvious what happened. However, in reference to the statement above, I will point out that inconceivability is the most potent weapon used against security. If no one would conceive of attempting a particular form of interference the interference will virtually always work because no one will be actively preventing it ...
Good stuff, follow the links, too ...
It's poor reasoning to assume from his pedigree that he isn't nutz, but with that said - Best of Luck on your suit ...