Christopher Soghoian created the Northwest Airlines Boarding Pass Generator to demonstrate flaws in the government’s implementation of airport security and the so-called no-fly list. Then the FBI agents kept a federal judge awake until two in the morning to get a search warrant and raided his house in a predawn raid Saturday morning.
Category: Main Digg
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British the most spied-on people in western world
“The linkage of databases and surveillance systems mean Brits are now having their movements tracked, habits profiled and photograph taken hundreds of times a day.” — digg
I guess big brother really is watching. The U.S. is next for sure. I am not opposed to security but not at the expense of freedom and basic privacy and civil liberties. My main reason for this is that I don’t trust the government with my pirvacy. In a secular society in which morality and elections can be bought to the highest corporate bidder, I just don’t believe that most representatives will have our best interest at heart.
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IE7: Are we right back where we started from?
The long-awaited Internet Explorer 7 debuted last week
—and a brand-new flaw promptly debuted a day later. While Redmond argued that the vulnerability actually comes from Outlook Express, it still affects IE7. But Mike Mullins says it doesn’t bode well for the browser update, whose security enhancements Microsoft has been touting. -
Track Down
Kevin Mitnick will probably totally disagree, but the movie Track Down was pretty entertaining.Â
Its a hollywoodized version of Tsutomu Shimomura‘s book called Takedown detailing his attempts to capture computer (now reformed) cracker Kevin Mitnick. Russel Wong plays Shimomura and living legend Kevin Mitnick is played by none other than Skeet Ulrich. Skeet does a great job.
I found myself laughing out loud at some of the stuff Kevin pulled off in the movie. I have not read Shimomura’s book so I don’t know how much of the movie was acurate.  But either way they made Kevin out to be one bad, bad MF. Â
Appearently, there is some controversy on how truthful Track Down and Takedown are to the the events that actually took place with Kevin’s conviction. A lot of this is talked about in Emmanuel Goldstein’s Freedom Downtime. I guess I’ll have to check that out next.
If you’re an overall security geek like my self you’ll get a kick out of the movie. Just keep in mind that it is a work of fiction… with actors like Master P, I suppose that is not hard to do. I also noticed that Shimomura appears in a scene in which he is laughing at his character getting heckled… ironic.
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Hacking contactless credit cards made easy
US security researchers have demonstrated how easy it might be for crooks to read sensitive personal information from RFID-based credit and debit cards.
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Microsoft: Windows Defender for Windows XP Released.
Its not been officially announced but Its out of beta and has been released. Windows Defender is a free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software. It features Real-Time Protection, a monitoring system that recommends actions against spyware..
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Telephone banking system recognizes your voice
Welcome to the begining of the future of total security.
RSA Security has introduced a product that adds voice as a way for automated telephone banking services to identify users. BIOMETRICS at the bank! Incredible. This is really exciting… at least for a security geek like me.
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The world’s most sophisticated Trojan uncovered
Botnet software installs its own anti-virus engine. Security experts have discovered new spambot software that installs its own anti-virus scanner to eliminate competition, alongside a number of other sophisticated features.
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Spammer kills coffee shop’s connection
“For a spammer looking to dump a couple million e-mails into inboxes and spam filters around the world, it’s quite a bargain. The unknown user took advantage of the caf
é’s inexpensive access and its router’s open ports to get the word out about mortgages, fake Rolexes, and other wonderful commercial opportunities.” -
Does anyone EVER check credit card signatures? (+Photos)
Great story on how a guy started drawing pictures on his credit card receipts and hey – no one even blinked an eye…