November 2010
17 posts
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TSA Backscatter X-ray Backlash →
Things are happening so fast that I don’t know if I should bother. But here are some links and observations. The head of the Allied Pilots Association is telling its members to avoid both the full body scanners and the patdowns. This first-hand report, from a man who refused to fly rather than subject himself to a full-body scan or an enhanced patdown, has been making the rounds. (The TSA...
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How to Fix the TSA →
The latest burst of complaints over TSA are well-documented (see my coverage here). There’s definitely a lot of merit to many of the arguments, not the least being that the focus on perimeter screening suggests a blind naivety that the TSA thinks that a) all threats come through checkpoints, and b) that they’re somehow able to stop all threats (known or unknown). Unfortunately, while...
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EFF's Guide to Protecting Electronic Devices and... →
Amid recent reports that security researchers have experienced difficulties at the United States border after traveling abroad, we realized that it’s been awhile since we last discussed how to safeguard electronic devices and digital information during border searches. So just in time for holiday travel and the 27th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, here’s EFF’s guide for...
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Judge Bars ‘Fair Use’ Defense in Xbox Modding... →
A California man charged with violating the DMCA by installing mod chips in Xbox 360 consoles won’t be allowed to claim “fair use” at his scheduled jury trial next week, a federal judge ruled Tuesday — a decision potentially devastating to the defense, and not particularly favorable to anyone who thinks they have the right to tinker with hardware that they’ve bought and paid for.
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Adobe Reader X: Seeking Safety in the Sandbox →
Adobe has at long last released Reader X, a fortified version of its PDF Reader software that is built to withstand attacks from the sort of zero-day security vulnerabilities that repeatedly have threatened its user base over the past several years. The new Reader X version makes good on a promise Adobe announced in July of this year, when it said it would soon release a new kind of Reader...
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FCC moves to ensure ‘net neutrality’ →
The Federal Communications Commission is expected to announce plans next week for regulations that would forbid internet service providers from blocking or favouring content online. The so-called “net neutrality” rules could be passed by the commission as early as December 15. The move would fulfil a campaign promise by President Barack Obama and infuriate the new Republican majority on Capitol...
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Another Hacker’s Laptop, Cellphones Searched at... →
A well-known and respected computer-security researcher was detained for several hours Wednesday night by border agents who searched his laptop and cellphones before returning them to him. The researcher, who goes by the hacker handle Moxie Marlinspike, was met by two U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the door of his plane when he arrived at JFK airport on a Jet Blue flight from the...
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Pentagon Alerts House, Senate Panels to New... →
The Pentagon warned the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services Committees that the website WikiLeaks.org “intends to release several hundred thousand” classified U.S. State Department cables as soon as Nov. 26. The documents “touch on an enormous range of very sensitive foreign policy issues,” Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Elizabeth King wrote yesterday in an e-mail to the defense...
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FCC Probing Google Wi-Fi Spy Scandal →
Google’s Wi-Fi-sniffing debacle has become the focus of a Federal Communications Commission inquiry, two weeks after another government agency, the Federal Trade Commission, closed its probe without imposing sanctions. The latest development, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is an FCC examination into whether the Mountain View, California-based media giant breached the Communications...
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Changing Passwords →
How often should you change your password? I get asked that question a lot, usually by people annoyed at their employer’s or bank’s password expiration policy: people who finally memorized their current password and are realizing they’ll have to write down their new password. How could that possibly be more secure, they want to know. The answer depends on what the password is...
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Professor Ed Felten Becomes the FTC's First Chief... →
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a long history of promoting commercial competition and consumer protection. Clearly recognizing that many of the trickiest issues facing consumers today are digital, the Commission has made the commendable decision of hiring Princeton professor of computer science and public affairs (and former EFF board member) Ed Felten as its first Chief Technologist.
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Google Offers Bucks For Bugs In Its Web... →
Google has launched a bold, experimental vulnerability reward program that pays researchers who discover legitimate, critical flaws in its Web applications — including Google.com, Blogger.com, Orkut.com, and YouTube.com. Web hacking traditionally has posed some tricky legal challenges for researchers. Google’s new program encourages researchers to poke holes in its Web services and...
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Facebook Changes Photo Memories to No Longer Show... →
In response to numerous complaints, Facebook has changed its Photo Memories sidebar module to no longer display friends who a user was formally listed as in a relationship with. The feature shows thumbnails of old photos tagged with friends while a user browse photos, friends, or other sections of the site, but often made users sad by showing them images of their ex-boyfriends or...
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The End of In-Flight Wi-Fi? →
Okay, now the terrorists have really affected me personally: they’re forcing us to turn off airplane Wi-Fi. No, it’s not that the Yemeni package bombs had a Wi-Fi triggering mechanism — they seem to have had a cell phone triggering mechanism, dubious at best — but we can imagine an Internet-based triggering mechanism. Put together a sloppy and unsuccessful package bomb...
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TSA Body Scanning is COMPLETELY SAFE… unless →
Body scanners that the TSA is basically encouraging use of by threatening to otherwise grope, fondle, or molest you or your children are basically perfectly safe. Well, unless you happen to be any one of the following:
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