Topic: SECURITY - on February 7, 2007 at 1:11:00 PM CET
Warning over ePassport microchips
Microchips in Britain's new ePassports only have two-year warranties, a National Audit Office report says.
They are so new, no-one knows how long they will last, or how the scanners reading them will work, the NAO said.
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Topic: SECURITY - on February 6, 2007 at 3:13:00 PM CET
SecureIX: Free Secure Personal VPN
As soon as you connect to our VPN server your computer is assigned a new IP address, an IP address that is owned by us, not your ISP. Then all of your Internet traffic is encrypted and is tunneled to our VPN server. Once there, it is decrypted and allowed to travel to its intended destination. Your local ISP will only see a single encrypted data stream between you and our VPN server. Your ISP can no longer monitor, log or control your Internet usage.
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Topic: SECURITY - on February 5, 2007 at 10:23:00 AM CET
Bundesgerichtshof verbietet heimliche Online-Durchsuchungen
Heimliche Online-Durchsuchungen durch die Polizei sind nicht zulässig. Der Bundesgerichtshof in Karlsruhe entschied heute, die Strafprozessordnung decke nicht die heimliche Durchsuchung der im Computer eines Beschuldigten gespeicherten Daten.
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Topic: SECURITY - on January 16, 2007 at 10:15:00 AM CET
FBI: Terrorists Can Operate Airport Webcams, You Know
Key U.S. security agencies warn that terrorists might exploit pictures of sensitive facilities such as airports that can be routinely viewed by the public through Internet feeds.
A confidential assessment jointly prepared by the FBI and the U.S. Homeland Security Department says online webcams could be a valuable tool for extremists determined to attack critical targets.
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Topic: SECURITY - on January 5, 2007 at 1:35:00 PM CET
PDF security hole
Wow, this is massive
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Topic: SECURITY - on December 17, 2006 at 2:38:00 PM CET
ePassport cloned in five minutes
So when Lukas Grunwald and Christian Bottger realised they could clone the new ePassport they were pretty sure it would be identical to the original, and undetectable. So how did they do it?
The chip inside the ePassport is a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip of the type poised to replace the barcode in supermarkets.
The good thing about RFID chips is that they emit radio signals that can be read at a short distance by an electronic reader.
But this is also the bad thing about them because, as Lukas demonstrated to me, he can easily download the data from his passport using an RFID reader he got for 200 Euros on eBay.
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Topic: SECURITY - on December 9, 2006 at 2:19:00 PM CET
Laser system zaps missile into mincemeat
Shoulder-fired missiles, referred to in military-speak as MANPADS (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems) are showing up on the black market more and more these days and U.S. officials are becoming increasingly concerned about their risk to commercial aircraft.
As a result the Department of Homeland Security is nearly doubling its spending on counter-measure research to $110 million this year.
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Topic: SECURITY - on December 8, 2006 at 11:57:00 AM CET
Der trojanische Polizist
Strafverfolgungsbehörden in Deutschland und der Schweiz wollen so genannte Trojaner dazu einsetzen, die Kommunikation verdächtiger Personen zu überwachen. ORF.at sprach mit dem Sicherheitsexperten Josef Pichlmayr über Anwendungen und Grenzen dieser Technik.
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Topic: SECURITY - on December 3, 2006 at 3:21:00 PM CET
Emerging technology sees through clothing
Security in airports and other sensitive areas may get a huge boost, thanks to a technology under development that is straight out of science fiction, said to be capable of looking through clothing to detect weapons and other dangerous items. But privacy advocates—and shy people—may have cause for alarm.
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Topic: SECURITY - on November 29, 2006 at 3:58:00 PM CET
What is psiphon?
psiphon is a censorship circumvention solution that allows users to access blocked sites in countries where the Internet is censored. psiphon turns a regular home computer into a personal, encrypted server capable of retrieving and displaying web pages anywhere.
Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto
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Topic: SECURITY - on November 17, 2006 at 2:51:00 PM CET
British "Secure" Passports Cracked
The Guardian has cracked the so-trumpeted secure British passports after 48 hours of work: 'Three million Britons have been issued with the new hi-tech passport, designed to frustrate terrorists and fraudsters. So why did Steve Boggan and a friendly computer expert find it so easy to break the security codes?'
Privacy issues with new digital passport
Q. What could a boarding pass tell an identity fraudster about you? A. Way too much
Burce Sterling's copy of this article with embedded commentary
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Topic: SECURITY - on November 4, 2006 at 10:26:00 AM CET
How a virus crashed Homeland Security
A computer virus that infected computers connecting the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) US-VISIT border screening system last year first passed through the backbone network of the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement bureau, according to documents obtained by Wired, following a year long legal fight.
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