News in the Category "Text"
Page 26 of 64
How to Sabotage Encryption Software (And Not Get Caught)
In the field of cryptography, a secretly planted “backdoor” that allows eavesdropping on communications is usually a subject of paranoia and dread. But that doesn’t mean cryptographers don’t appreciate the art of skilled cyphersabotage. Now one group of crypto experts has published an appraisal of different methods of weakening crypto systems, and the lesson is that some backdoors are clearly better than others—in stealth, deniability, and even in protecting the victims’ privacy from spies other than the backdoor’s creator.
In a paper titled “Surreptitiously Weakening Cryptographic Systems,” well-known cryptographer and author Bruce Schneier and researchers from the Universities of Wisconsin and Washington take the spy’s view to the problem of crypto design: What kind of built-in backdoor surveillance works best?…
Big Data: The Revolution Is Digitized
Excerpt
Neither Borgman nor Lohr truly grapples with the immensity of the big-data story. At its core, big data is not primarily a business or research revolution, but a social one. In the past decade, we have allowed machines to act as intermediaries in almost every aspect of our existence. When we communicate with friends, entertain ourselves, drive, exercise, go to the doctor, read a book—a computer transmitting data is there. We leave behind a vast cloud of bits and bytes.
Bruce Schneier, a security analyst known for designing the Blowfish block-cipher algorithm—a fast and flexible method of encrypting data—grasps this revolution’s true dimensions. In Data and Goliath, he describes how our relationships with government, corporations and each other are transformed by ordinary, once-ephemeral human interactions being stored in digital media. The seemingly meaningless, incidental bits of data that we shed are turning the concept of privacy into an archaism, despite half-hearted (and doomed) regulations to protect “personally identifiable information.” As science-fiction pioneer Isaac Asimov wrote some 30 years ago: “Things just seem secret because people don’t remember. If you can recall every remark, every comment, every stray word made to you or in your hearing and consider them all in combination, you find that everyone gives himself away in everything.”…
Kirkus Review of Data and Goliath
A jeremiad suggesting our addiction to data may have made privacy obsolete.
Prolific technological writer Schneier (Fellow/Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School; Carry On: Sound Advice from Schneier on Security, 2013, etc.) clearly examines how technology has transformed every interaction, noting how our intimate communications are now “saved in ways we have no control over.” He suggests that most Americans remain unconcerned about the relationship between data and surveillance, due to the attraction of “free” products like Gmail. He focuses on the social costs of surveillance, which “puts us at risk of abuses by those in power—exacerbated by the fact that we are generating so much data and storing it indefinitely.” He also argues that this “pervasive mass surveillance” will inevitably chill progressive movements—e.g., gay rights and cannabis decriminalization. The problem is more sprawling than most realize: Edward Snowden’s revelations clarified “how much the NSA relies on US corporations to eavesdrop on the Internet,” and corporations are using such technologies for their own ends. Yet both the NSA and corporations are blithe about how they treat the fruits of this nonstop spying. “From the military’s perspective,” writes the author, “it’s not surveillance until a human being looks at the data.” Such strange pronouncements about the common good are hard to counter, since whistleblowers such as Snowden are prohibited from explaining their actions in court. Schneier argues that all this invasion of privacy is unlikely to succeed in its alleged goal: “Even highly accurate terrorism prediction systems will be so flooded with false alarms that they will be useless.” He concludes this grim catalog of privacy erosion with a set of prescriptions for governments, corporations and “the rest of us,” advocating a mix of legal framework, incentives for fairer business models and a more realistic understanding of the current moment’s potential for harm…
Top Influencers in Security You Should Be Following in 2015
Excerpt
In December of 2011, Tripwire published a list of security’s top 25 influencers. More than three years later, we are pleased to announce a new list for 2015—The Infosec Avengers!
For each influencer whom we have selected, we include their Twitter handle, blog URL and reasoning for selecting them. We also include their answer for what infosec-related superpower they would choose to have.
This year’s list (in no particular order) has some old faces and some new. Do you agree with our choices? Who else would you have chosen?
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Bruce Schneier | …
Once More Undo the Breach
After the online breach of JPMorgan Chase, cybersecurity awareness is growing in the financial world. But what exactly is cybersecurity (and cybervulnerability)? What can or cannot be done to make sensitive information more secure?
A leading computer security and privacy expert, Bruce Schneier is one of the world’s most recognizable voices on cybersecurity, author of the popular security blog Schneier on Security, board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and CTO of Co3 Systems. His new book, Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Capture Your Data and Control Your World…
Video: Security Expert: We Saw Sony Attack Coming
The security hack that happened to Sony could happen to anyone. Co3 Systems’ Bruce Schneier explains on the News Hub with Geoff Rogow.
Top 10 Information Security Bloggers in 2014
Excerpt
Schneier on Security by Bruce Schneier
One of those security blogs you cannot afford to avoid, it focuses on a wide range of subjects, and one of the most common topics in 2014 was the NSA and Edward Snowden affair. I like this blog because Bruce doesn’t publish only his articles: he also comments on various other security news and publications, so you can use it as a kind of a portal to a wider picture of the security world.
One of his most popular posts was on the Heartbleed bug—almost 300 comments there.
Bruce Schneier: Sony Hackers "Completely Owned This Company"
The Sony hack is “every CEO’s worst nightmare” and the leaked data is probably going to send someone to jail, security expert Bruce Schneier says. That, not any threat of violence, is the real power of this hack.
The “Guardians of Peace,” as the group behind the attack has called itself, posted a new dump of emails today, this time from CEO Michael Lynton. The hackers also issued a warning implying that any theater screening the political comedy The Interview, which is about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, could be the target of a physical attack as well…
Sony Hackers: It's Not the North Korean Government, nor an Insider, Suggests Security Expert Bruce Schneier
Cryptographer and security expert Bruce Schneier has suggested that the hackers behind the devastating hack and leak of internal data from Sony Pictures is neither the work of the North Korean government, nor of insiders.
"At this point, the attacks seem to be a few hackers and not the North Korean government. (My guess is that it’s not an insider, either). That we live in the world where we aren’t sure if any given cyber attack is the work of a foreign government or a couple of guys should be scary to us all," he wrote in a blog post.
Instead, he added, …
Reboot 25: Industry Pioneers
Excerpt
According to Bruce Schneier, his career in IT security has been an endeavor he naturally “flowed into.” Schneier, a prominent cryptologist who developed numerous encryption algorithms, including Blowfish and Twofish, has continued to contribute to the industry through his musings and insight on his esteemed blog “Schneier on Security,” and newsletter “Crypto-Gram,” which have garnered a major following in the community. Having gotten his start in cryptography, Schneier says he eventually moved into computer security, network security and security technology as a focus. In his attempt to “understand context” as it pertains to the threat landscape, Schneier also turned to examining the economics, psychology and sociology of security and now he primarily studies and shares his views on the political science of security, he tells …
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.