News in the Category "Type"
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The Bookstore: Applied Cryptography
If you are seriously interested in computer security, then Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier is a must-read. The book is exceptionally literate and accessible. Schneier keeps your attention with statements like, “It is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws; we need to protect ourselves with mathematics.”
The book is both an introduction to the field and a comprehensive reference. Although some areas could have been covered in more detail, that might have turned Applied Cryptography into an encyclopedia (the book is 758 pages long). Schneier manages a fine balance between conveying information and covering all important topics. The five parts of the book cover cryptographic protocols, including public key, digital signatures, key exchange, and digital cash; cryptographic techniques such as key length, key management, algorithm types, and hardware encryption; cryptographic algorithms including block ciphers like DES, public key, key exchange, and identification schemes; the real world including example algorithms and politics; and source code…
Review of The Electronic Privacy Papers
The Electronic Privacy Papers is not about electronic privacy in general: it covers only United States Federal politics, and only the areas of wiretapping and cryptography. The three topics covered are wiretapping and the Digital Telephony proposals, the Clipper Chip, and other controls on cryptography (such as export controls and software key escrow proposals).
The documents included fall into several categories. There are broad overviews of the issues, some of them written just for this volume. There are public pronouncements and documents from various government bodies: legislation, legal judgements, policy statements, and so forth. There are government documents obtained under Freedom of Information requests (some of them partially declassified documents complete with blacked out sections and scrawled marginal annotations), which tell the story of what happened behind the scenes. And there are newspaper editorials, opinion pieces, submissions to government enquiries, and policy statements from corporations and non-government organizations, presenting the response from the public…
Book Review: The Electronic Privacy Papers
This is not an academically neutral book on the subject of privacy. Both Schneier and Banisar are security and privacy advocates of long standing, and they like to refer to the information superhighway as the information “snooperhighway.” Here, they have collected previously classified documents from both government and industry sources. Coverage includes digital wiretapping, E-mail security, cryptography, the National Security Administration’s perspective on telecommunications, the clipper chip, softkey escrow, and much more. Recommended for all libraries…
Keeping Secrets in the Digital Age
Used with permission
As the world goes digital, encryption standards become more important.
Even those who don’t use the Internet are affected by security in the online age—everything from bank account and medical information to credit card numbers and transactions requires some form of coding to protect it from prying eyes.
Yet all is not well—with each new standard comes crackers to break it. And, at the other end, governments—particularly that of the United States—are trying their darndest to ensure that encryption technology doesn’t get too powerful. After all, they reason, if encoding techniques become too good, crooks can use them to subvert society…
Electronic Mail Security (Book Review)
Electronic mail, or e-mail, has become an important communications tool. Businesses have accepted it with great zest, the Internet has allowed it to explode with growth, and its ease of use has made it an integrated part of our personal lives. Even commercials now show dads and morns using e-mail to let their grown kids know they love them and to remind them to take their vitamins.
E-mail has become fun and easy, and many take advantage of being able to send a quick message without having to get caught up in the “how are you—how are you” courtesies of a phone call. And compared with traditional (snail) mail, you can’t beat the speed of transmission…
Electronic Mail Security (Book Review)
Electronic mail, or e-mail, has become an important communications tool. Businesses have accepted it with great zest, the Internet has allowed it to explode with growth, and its ease of use has made it an integrated part of our personal lives. Even commercials now show dads and morns using e-mail to let their grown kids know they love them and to remind them to take their vitamins.
E-mail has become fun and easy, and many take advantage of being able to send a quick message without having to get caught up in the “how are you—how are you” courtesies of a phone call. And compared with traditional (snail) mail, you can’t beat the speed of transmission…
Common Sense Crypto
When Thomas Paine published Common Sense in 1776 – arguing that the American cause was not merely a revolt against unfair taxation, but a demand for independence – he had no idea that more than 200 years later, the struggle for freedom would be waged between privacy advocates and the national-security establishment. This time, the dispute is over not taxation without representation, but communication without government intervention.
One of today’s crypto revolutionaries is Bruce Schneier, the neatly dressed, ponytailed author of Applied Cryptography…
Cellular Can Be Cracked
A few minutes work on a computer can break the codes that are supposed to protect new digital cellular phone technology from eavesdroppers, a team of researchers said Thursday. The cellular phone industry claimed the impact on users would be “virtually none,” since engineers were working to strengthen the encryption and since a separate code that scrambles voices was not broken.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association also denied that its codes could be broken so easily.
"It involves very sophisticated knowledge," an association statement said. "The announced attack requires multiple minutes—up to hours—of high speed computer processing to break the coded message."…
WirelessNOW Exclusive—Extra Edition
used with permission
In 1992, the wireless industry adopted an encryption system that was
deliberately made less secure than what knowledgeable experts recommended
at the time. It was accepted by the industry because it was a standard that
would meet federal export regulations and would enable digital cell phone
manufacturers to make one phone that could be sold in either the US or
abroad, thus saving money.
As a result, the potential for eavesdropping has always existed and,
some say, has been waiting for criminals with advanced techniques to…
Security Experts to Reveal Cell Phone Flaw
A group of prominent cryptographers will announce today that they have discovered a hole in the privacy protection in next-generation digital cellular telephones. The new phones were supposed to be far more secure from eavesdropping and fraud than the analog phones used by most mobile-phone customers today. But Bruce Schneier, a well-known expert on code breaking, and other researchers have found a way to easily monitor any numbers dialed on a digital phone, such as credit card numbers or passwords. In addition, they say, voice conversations can easily be deciphered. The findings could be a setback for the telecommunications industry, which has touted the security features of the new digital cellular and PCS systems…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.