Quantum cryptography is absolutely unbreakable, as it relies on the laws of physics to rat out eavesdroppers. But like other encryption methods, it is sometimes only as good as the users and their hardware.

Investigations into the theft of a $50 million Van Gogh painting from a Cairo museum on last week, continue to reveal more security flops.

When you can't be invisible OR invincible, buy plenty of insurance ...

A man who was hurt in a car crash but was misidentified as a cancer patient claims security guards at Prince George's Hospital beat him up when he tried to leave the hospital to avoid chest surgery he didn't need - "to have a potentially cancerous mass removed from his chest."

DOH!!!

As of 7 p.m. Sunday, authorities were engaged in a standoff with John Marvin Jr., the suspect in the alleged ambush and killing of Hoonah police officers Matthew Tokuoka and Anthony Wallace Saturday night.

Nineteen people have died in a shoot-out between the Chechen president's personal protection detail and suspected separatists in the Caucuses.

But this wasn't just some ordinary carport. And Bunsen is no ordinary sea creature. This was the alcove of a military operating theater. And Bunsen is a foot soldier in the Pentagon's global War on Terror.

Interesting ...

A Wal-Mart shopper reportedly used his handgun to stop an armed robber who opened fire on him.

A man in full combat gear — including body armor and hundreds of rounds of ammunition — opened fire on a Salt Lake patrol officer Friday afternoon near the Grand America Hotel — the third Utah officer to be shot in just two days.

Saturday's attack by unknown gunmen reportedly started at about 5:00 am. in Shama chowk area in Peshawar, an area considered to be very sensitive in the city as many government, military and international organization buildings including the U.S. consulate are located there.

"Fast and furious, incredibly fast," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Security, referring to the pace of exploit postings for the vulnerability in Windows software called "DLL load hijacking" by some, "binary planting" by others.

Spokane police say a 26-year-old security guard was fatally shot in an alley after getting involved in a confrontation with a group outside an apartment complex.

This sounds like it's going to be a sad story all around ...

It's been a while since I did a security review for my site, so I was quite interested when the people at the Dutch site Tweakers.net asked me if I could take a look at the security of the iStorage DiskGenie. Since my previous reviews, I've learned a bit more about hacking microcontrollers and since I was keen on finding a subject to try my newfound skills on, I decided to agree to have the device sent to me.

(via CrunchGear)

When Tony Blair was given a detailed briefing, a few days after becoming prime minister, on the destructive power available to him through Britain's nuclear deterrent, he is said to have gone white in the face.

I imagine so ...

A Hialeah man is in the Broward County jail accused of sexual battery on a woman at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

Belen's information technology director, Lawrence Kaneshiro, said the city had been recording all calls, both incoming and outgoing, in those three departments since early last year after a harassment case involving a municipal court clerk.

In general, one should assume one is under surveillance anytime active counter-measures aren't being taken ... probably even then ...

Let’s compare a crook’s ambush plan to a police officer’s plan of attack when arresting a dangerous suspect. Any similarities?

An effective ambush, like an effective security measure, is indifferent to whether you're a good guy or a bad guy ...

Somali Islamist militants disguised as government soldiers went on a shooting rampage in a Mogadishu hotel Tuesday, killing 30 people including six members of the country's legislature and four government officials.

The South Korean military on Tuesday pledged to shoot back immediately with double or triple the firepower if North Korean shells drop into waters south of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border.

While lawlessness may make for good reality TV, however, it’s certainly not good for business.

The surveillance video posted online by Lola the cat’s owners takes only seconds, but it has outraged thousands of viewers around the world, some of whom posted angry messages pledging retribution.

The lady in the video and the posters pledging retribution are the same in that they both seek after creatures that they can justify (to themselves) wreaking vengeance on. The cat wasn't the cause of the ladies desire to harm, nor is the lady the source of the posters desire to harm. The desire to harm is already present, and is being held in check while waiting for an acceptable (justifiable in their own mind) target.

India has finally received the Russian Akula II SSN (nuclear attack submarine) Nerpa it has leased for ten years.

An Army soldier was killed while his companion escaped death by pretending to be dead following an ambush by communist rebels in Gubat town in Sorsogon province Sunday afternoon.

Hmmm ...

The breakneck speed at which China has been moving to build up its naval might is causing concern in the international community, particularly in Japan, the United States—and here in India.

An 18-year-old man has been apprehended by Dallas police after they say he has been accused of shooting a doorman to death last week. The 41-year-old doorman was an employee at an illegal gambling hall.

Turnover at the facility was high, leading to a lack of training. The warden indicated nearly 80% of her staff was new or newly promoted. Officers struggled to load and use weapons during the security review. High-ranking officers "seemed hesitant and less assertive" than counterparts at state-run facilities.

In the next contract, a company's employee-retention rate should be one of the determining factors for continued bid-eligibility.

"All it takes is the revelation of a simple spoken phrase known by a select group of people and everyone who has this mystery file now has all of the secrets," he said.

Hmmm ... novel approach to exposing secrets ...

The Submarine Dismantling Project could see 27 de-fuelled nuclear submarines being stored and cut up at Devonport over the next 60 years.

Intel has just bought computer and software security company McAfee according to a release issued this morning. The all cash deal is worth $7.68 billion, or $48 per share. See the release below.

Back-to-school time sees frantic parents scurrying to prepare children for courses in reading, writing and arithmetic. This year, there is also another subject parents are prepping their children for: bullying and school safety.

Casino security stopped the player, searched him and removed money and chips from his pockets. A casino manager then took five $100 chips away from the customer, who then was escorted out of the casino.

DOH!!!!!

But as it turns out, an obscure encryption code created in 1978 is resistant to all known methods of quantum attack.

The purchase would allow HP to offer a way for businesses to “reduce business risk, meet compliance regulations and protect against malicious application attacks by integrating security assurance.”

"As long as we can maintain a conventional balance so that we don't have to think about using nuclear weapons as a sort of an enigma to compensate for conventional inferiority, then whether the [extended deterrence] work will be done by strategic weapons or nonstrategic weapons" makes little difference, said Kazuyoshi Umemoto, director general of North American affairs at Japan's Foreign Affairs Ministry.

A large submarine volcano off New Zealand's coast has collapsed by more than 100 metres, sending debris to the ocean floor.

Hmmm ...

Among the many polarizing aspects of the ever-raging immigration debate, there is one that should unite all Americans. The violent drug cartels that dominate most of Northern Mexico constitute one of America’s greatest security threats.

Mr. Bauer considers briefly and then discards the one valid solution, choosing instead to favor the increase of force projection. Finance and support for the baddies increases, in this case, in direct proportion to the force projected against them. This is due to the risk premium attending prohibition of any near-perfectly price-inelastic good such as most recreational drugs, firearms and the womb. Imagine how powerful an insulin supply cartel would become, virtually overnight, if insulin were suddenly prohibited. Clearly, the argument can be made that insulin is an absolute necessity to the people that depend on it, but this ignores the fact that the other items behave economically as though they are the exact same sort of absolute necessity.

A warden and a security official have resigned their posts at an Arizona state prison where three inmates escaped last month, setting off a nationwide search.

Computer security researchers are raising alarms about vulnerabilities in some of the web’s most secure corners: the banking, e-commerce and other sites that use encryption to communicate with their users.

It's good that this discussion is finally being had ...

A man accused of going on a stabbing spree across three U.S. states and who was once suspected in a stabbing near his hometown in Israel has baffled profilers, who say murder does not appear to have been his goal.

As Zarathustra would have said "He longs for the happiness of the knife ..."

Both Google and Skype may be asked by India to provide greater access to encrypted information once the country resolves its current security concerns with Research In Motion’s BlackBerry mobile services, which are now under threat of a ban, according to a government document and two individuals involved in the discussions.

I wonder if the Naxals actually have any of these things ...

Cortes faces charges of terroristic threats and acts, interference with government property and criminal damage to property in the second degree, Bankhead said in a news release.

Jeez ...

A device that shuts a door when it detects a weapon or other metal object was used this week in Fairfax County to stop would-be bank robbers, according to police.

There may have been a time when blocking certain sites was acceptable in most office environments.

Be warned: with all versions, exceeding a defined number of consecutive incorrect password attempts and the drive permanently self destructs. This is not merely data destruction – the drive itself becomes useless.

While the program has been extremely successful, participating students have repeatedly expressed shock and dismay over the inaccessibility of America’s national institutions.

Remember: Liberty is the result of good security. If you are trading liberty for improved security, it' won't be your security that's being improved. You may want to figure out whose security IS being improved, and keep an eye on them ...

The issues are hard and the solutions harder, but I'm seeing a lot of confusion in even forming the questions.

Bruce is always thought-provoking ...

When the drive's power supply is severed, Toshiba's Wipe Technology merely invalidates the security key that was originally used to encrypt the stored data. Without the key, data becomes indecipherable and virtually "erased" to would-be snoops.

Priceless ...

"I think it's pretty clear on the video where you see the vehicle will appear very quickly and then come across a parking lot to a stopped location," Price says.

Are your martial arts skills up to thwarting a random attack with a hammer? Let's hope we never have to find out ... also, unless you live around there, the video is a complete waste of bytes.

A Melbourne mug punter who stole a Crown Casino high roller VIP's $355,000 Ferrari from a carpark valet and took it for a spin to regional Broadmeadows in a theft described as "dumb" has been jailed for a period of 4 months.

... mug punter ... ???

Las Vegas Rio Casino Security Tries to take my camera NWO Security Guard (slyt)

One of the hardest things to master is the ability to escalate to the point of scaring someone out of whatever stupid thing they were getting ready to do and then, while still more or less 'in the shit', de-escalate back down to saying please and so forth. I don't know this guy, but by having the self-discipline to back someone off and then back down he managed to avoid having a really unfortunate '15 minutes'. I imagine his associates feel a fair amount of comfort whenever they realize he has arrived on-scene ...

I recently expressed the opinion that individual privacy is indeed important, and should in fact be the default in all business and governmental relationships.

Some interesting points ... although I find it disturbing that anyone should have to defend this position ...

Iran announced the addition of four new submarines to its fleet Sunday, saying the Iranian-manufactured vessels to be deployed in the Persian Gulf have sonar-evading technology and can launch torpedoes and missiles simultaneously.

Despite looking kinda wimpy, it's probably a mistake to underestimate the chaos that could be generated with a couple of these ...

Cops love finding iPhones at crime scenes because the phones carry so much priceless data about your usage habits, or as the cops call it, evidence.

Criminologists call it murder by proxy - rampages by employees who go after their boss, supervisors and even co-workers they link to the source of their outrage. The message is: Look who's doing the firing now.

Have a firearms policy that allows CCW holders to carry at work and the heroes wouldn't have to fight back unarmed ...

By contrast, the consumer BlackBerrys offer no extra encryption, making them no more, or less, secure than other smartphones.

The private browsing options provided by the four major Web browser publishers aren't as anonymous and secure as most users might think, researchers at Stanford University's Computer Science Security Lab said in a new paper (PDF) to be published next week at the Usenix Security Symposium.

Behind Michael Joseph Paprskar is a trail of blood half a century long.

Interesting ...

There's no single answer to this problem, but one of the first things to think about is encrypting your computer. With "whole disk encryption," you have to supply a password before you begin to boot the PC, and the information on the hard drive is scrambled so that even advanced forensics can't see it.

For any fans of the history of the Enigma, or of cryptology in general, there's one place that is a can't miss: the National Cryptologic Museum, run by the U.S. National Security Agency here.

Compared to last month's minor Patch Tuesday, this one is massive. In fact, this is the most bulletins Microsoft has ever released in one month.

According to a tip going to Jalopnik, Security guards at the Luxor Las Vegas booted a MINI Countryman test mule sitting in garage due to its suspicious camouflage, German car plates and funny looking testing and measurement equipment placed inside the car.

I guess once someone dies in a pipe bomb explosion in your garage you start to take that sort of thing seriously ...

The police suggested that the Koya commandos could have inflicted more Maoist casualties, but they were pulled back, over fears of another major setback.

In this article, I’ll show you proven, uncrackable encryption scheme that can be done with pencil and paper.

Roots encryption ...

South Korea began a five-day naval exercise Thursday near its disputed maritime border with North Korea in spite of the North's warnings of retaliation.

The report, in the mass circulation Apple Daily, quotes an unnamed Taiwanese senior officer as saying that the U.S. Navy will sell Taiwan two Perry class frigates, about to be decommissioned, for $20 million each.

As adults, we're taught to protect our Social Security number as if it were our child. But who is watching our children's numbers? Or worse, who is preying on their clean, unused credit histories?

At the same time, the DDG 1000 is being outfitted with state-of-the-art air defense technology, and undersea capabilities that Raytheon says will make it among the fiercest surface ships on the planet at fighting submarines.

Thornton and Cirigliano left the room, and Thornton said he wanted to get a drink of water in the kitchen next door. When he went into the kitchen, Thornton took out two 9mm Ruger pistols from a red lunch box that he was carrying and came out shooting.

Sounds like he knew what was coming and might have even decided when he first started stealing that this is how it would end if he ever got caught. It's times like these that having CCW holders sprinkled throughout the building is so important. Even so, it sounds like some righteous Americans went 'All In' for their fellows when the chips were down.

Several companies have tried to launch DIY video security systems that promise no-hassle setup for average consumers. But most have failed.

Surprisingly, with the help of quantum mechanics, the task of location verification can be done in a secure way, even in the presence of colluding adversaries, the researchers say.

Very interesting ...

(via Bruce Scheier)

"Coming out with this patch this close to a Patch Tuesday is severe," says Miller. "People should be paying attention to this one, and patch as soon as possible."

The threat by the United Arab Emirates to shut down mobile services on BlackBerrys like e-mail and text messaging underscores a growing tension between communications companies and governments over how to balance privacy with national security.

The problem is that governments actually want to compromise your security to make their snooping into your business easier with the idea of appearing competent by going for the low-hanging fruit rather than actually protecting the country. That isn't quite the same as balancing privacy with national security. It's more like compromising citizen security for government job security. Never forget that privacy (invisibility) is one of two metrics of your security, and when it gets reduced, your security is being reduced.

To that end, a really useful tool called Espionage exists that will encrypt individual folders rather than the entire home directory.

It's been quite awhile since I've used a Mac, but being able to encrypt individual folders is a necessity ...

The 33-year-old victim was standing outside near the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in the 300 block of Ellis Street when he was hit at least once in the face by the hail of bullets around 3:15 a.m., police spokesman Officer Samson Chan said.

It's a sad fact that body armor only protects what it covers, and frequently not even that ...

That is about to change as shipbuilders Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman Newport News in Virginia ramp up to build two submarines annually instead of just one, starting next year.

Hackers competing in a social engineering contest at the Defcon conference here on Friday were able to trick random employees at 10 major U.S. tech, oil, and retail companies into giving them sensitive information over the phone that could be used in targeted computer attacks on the companies.

It's amazing how many security-related issues this would be true on ... for some reason, most folks just don't ever think about security, their own or that of anyone else, until it's too late ...

The Facebook file takes one massive step out of the equation for advertisers – finding and aggregating the data of millions of users.

At Black Hat on Wednesday, a trio of security representatives from Mozilla detailed how the company plans to push the browser to be more secure for users while nudging developers towards safer coding practices.

Security researcher Barnaby Jack drew hoots and applause when he successfully "jackpotted" several ATM cash dispensers on stage, causing them to spew out a cascade of crisp bills.