Month: December 2008

Kip Hawley: "No, the TSA is Necessary Because This is War!"

By jesper

CBS News did a story a few days ago on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Basically it was a tit-for-tat between Bruce Schneier, security pontificator extraordinaire, and Kip Hawley, the administrator of the TSA. Mr. Hawley's maintans that the TSA provides a necessary service because we are at war, and the obvious battleground, apparently, is airplanes. Surely, we must all realize that just because the terrorists used airplanes once, they can't possibly have enough imagination to go for another target next time. Mr. Schneier, wisely, disagrees, points out all the flaws in what the TSA does, and calls the whole … Continue reading Kip Hawley: "No, the TSA is Necessary Because This is War!"

One "Hacker" Attempts to Rule The World

By jesper

Wired, always a source for amusement and interesting literature, just carried a story on a "hacker" (the magazine's use of the term equates to "criminal") who attempted to dominate the market in stolen credit cards. It's a neat story about an unsavory character who is not going to get enough prison time.  If you are too busy to read it, here is a synopsis: — Once upon a time, there lived in a far away land an evil dark lord. He lived in a dark castle with all kinds of dark objects around him. His most priced possession was the … Continue reading One "Hacker" Attempts to Rule The World

You need to manually undo your MS08-078 mitigations

By jesper

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-alt:"Calisto MT"; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1107304683 0 0 159 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-alt:"Times New Roman"; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 … Continue reading You need to manually undo your MS08-078 mitigations

Lock your USB Token

By jesper

Recently, Lev Bolotin of Clevx gave me a production sample of a USB token with a keypad on it. It's a pretty neat idea for certain uses. My immediate thought went to BitLocker in Windows Vista. You can store the BitLocker key on a USB stick, but you cannot prevent anyone who gets their hands on the USB stick from stealing the key. Nor can you require a PIN and the USB stick to unlock your drive. With Lev's stick, however, you can put a PIN on the USB stick itself. Unless you enter the PIN on the device before … Continue reading Lock your USB Token

Believe it or not; DRM for Zune is down!

By jesper

Shocking, yes, I know, but in only four hours this evening Microsoft has managed to alienate over 150 additional customers with its insistence on Digital Rights Management (DRM). This time it is the DRM component of the Zune store that is down, according to the 164 posts so far over on the Zune forums. OK, so realistically, that probably means that about 100 times that many customers have been alienated, including my oldest son who is unable to use the $15 worth of Zune points that his mother just purchased for him because "Error C00D12F6: Can't verify your media usage rights. A … Continue reading Believe it or not; DRM for Zune is down!