Cybersecurity & Privacy
Sanitize your phone while charging it
October 2012, I wrote an article called Stop what you're doing and clean your phone , if you haven't read it, go and read it now. Your phone can get filthy. I mean it can get dirtier than a public toilet yet you routinely jam it against your face close to your ears and mouth. A company has now come up with a neat idea called PhoneSoap (link). they combine the act of sanitizing with charging which ames a lot of sense.
Hack chrome OS and win cold hard cash
Google is sponsoring the Pwnium 4 hacking competition taking place at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver in March. Like previous years, Google will use this contest as an opportunity to confirm the security of its Chrome products or find bugs that need fixing. El Goog (aka the sultan of search, aka Google) is offering : $110,000 USD: browser or system-level compromise in guest mode or as a logged-in user, delivered via a web page. $150,000 USD: compromise with device persistence: guest to guest with interim reboot, delivered via a web page.
Using Non-US cloud providers doesn't protect data
[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] Image by Jaaron under Creative Commons License [/caption] My day job is in security so I read every Snowden leak with great interest. It is fascinating to see how well funded intelligence agencies can collect the data they need. All these these leaks seem to have tickled a nerve with some non American corporate IT managers who are now demanding that their cloud providers store their data outside of the US. But does that really make a difference?
Safespot is your personal safety concierge
Safespot is an Android app that helps keep you safe in unsafe situations. The way it works is like a deadman switch. You choose a group to notify and a virtual button shows up on the screen. You keep your finger on that button as long as things are safe. The minute you let go of the button (in the event of an emergency), it notifies that selected group that you're in trouble and provides a Google Map link to your exact location.
Is your SD card hacking you?
[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] CC Image - Flick user scanlime [/caption] Think of all of the information your SD cards have seen, questionable pictures, sensitive data. Hardware hacker Bunnie Huang (link) gave an interesting presentation to the Chaos Computer Club Congress that highlighted the fact that SD cards are micro controllers with lax security that can easily be used to trick or hack you. He first sets the tone of the presentation with this statement: "lash memory is really cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it’s too good to be true.
Car Thieves go high tech
For as long as people have owned items of value, others have tried to steal them. When someone steals your belongings, it isn't just the monetary value or insurance hassle but also the feeling that you have been wronged. Now car thieves seem to have a new electronic device that allows them to quickly hack a car's control system and open the doors/disable the alarm.
The most secure smartphone messaging app
During the NSA leaks earlier this year, we heard rumors that Apple's iMessage employs end-t-end encryption making covert interception difficult. Anytime you add a new device to your account, your iMessages are automatically downloaded which means Apple could (if compelled by a competent court) hand over an unencrypted list of your messages. I know many of you have nothing to hide but privacy isn't just for the "bad guys". We should all try to be as private as possible and this instant messaging app helps with that.
7 rules of safe online shopping this holiday season
[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“1279”] Creative Common Image- Flickr User Don Hankins [/caption] The holiday season started with black Friday (in the US at least) and millions of people flock to online retailers hoping to snag a once-in-a-lifetime deal. Where there are hordes of people, there are criminals looking to take advantage of unsuspecting netizens. So how can you stay safe? Here are some tips: Risky WIFI - Free WIFI may be tempting but I strongly recommend you stay away from them (unless you have a VPN solution) because someone may be sniffing your traffic looking for passwords or credit card information.
Google to block child sex abuse queries
Google executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, has announced that the company will be taking concrete steps to rids itself of search results related to underage sexual abuse. It seems Google hired a team of 200 to find a solution and their work has already removed over 100,000 potential queries. These improvements are thus forth limited to the English only versions however you can expect these changes to roll-out to the other Google supported languages in the coming 6 months (aka 158 languages if you were keeping tabs).
Bell will track your phone, TV and Internet usage
The Huffington Post has an interesting article that indicates that Bell will start tracking all your usage to deliver targeted ads. Effective November 16, the Bell privacy option are changing to allow them to do this to serve targeted advertising and to "improve network performance". They will track your web history (ADSL, FIBE and mobile), application usage, call metadata (similar to what the NSA did) and your location based on cell phone tower triangulation. They promise not to share your information outside of Bell but does that make you feel warm and fuzzy?