Cryptography

Debate about activist need for anonymity on Facebook

Updated: 2011-02-23 18:37:22

Amid unrest, a hard new look at online anonymity | The Social – CNET News: This article takes an interesting look at the issues with Facebook’s true name policy and the impact it has on activists and dissidents in repressive countries. It quite rightly talks about the fact that for most of the history of [...]

PKI’s Ubiquity

Updated: 2011-02-16 19:58:04

Greetings from the 2011 RSA Conference in rainy San Francisco, CA. Yesterday I attended the opening keynotes of the conference, and a certain statement by RSA’s Art Coviello caught my ear and needs some further discussion. The conference opened with a fantastic video called “Giants Among Us” which provided a brief chronicle of the rise [...]

Two-Factor Authentication Goes Mainstream

Updated: 2011-02-10 17:37:33

Stop and think about what an attacker could do if they gained control of your e-mail account. Many web sites let you reset your password via an e-mailed link. Poorly designed services may even send a copy of the password to your inbox. Much of your personal information is likely reflected in conversations you’ve had [...]

Specter of Mandatory Data Retention

Updated: 2011-01-25 19:57:15

In this CNET article by Declan McCulagh, he reports that the DoJ is planning to request mandatory data retention by Internet providers. Their argument is that the lack of data retention is interfering with law enforcement’s ability to investigate cases. This implies some kind of shift in the balance of privacy vs. access. No such [...]

Reader question on privacy software

Updated: 2011-01-11 15:40:31

A reader of this blog recently emailed me to ask: What s/w do you recommend to keep anonymous while using Gmail, IE, Outlook, and Facebook on a laptop? This is actually a very tricky question because the nature of all of these tools, except Internet Explorer (IE), is to be associated with a visible and [...]