I just gave notice at my day job. I'll be leaving the UMN on January 14. The long lead-out is due to on-call and holiday coverage.

Howling Moose, here I come!

I know this sounds crazy, but your new passport and your new credit cards can expose your identity by just existing. Now is the time to buy a new wallet that blocks the signals your passport and creditcards are sending out all the time (or being induced to send out. Same difference, really, in these cases).

The technology is RFID chips. Handy, ( Read more... )

The Daily Paranoid
"The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston.

Now might be a very fine time to learn about encryption products:

gpg/pgp - encrypt your ( Read more... )

I work in the computer security field. I get asked a lot by users, and by friends/family/acquantances why people write viruses, worms, spyware etc.

There are many reasons, there have been many articles written on the subject, but recently Brian Krebs, of the Washington Post, published an article, "Invasion of the Computer Snatchers" on the subject ( Read more... )

The Daily Paranoid

This is just creepy.

I was reading Wired today, and stumbled upon this article: http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,70020-0.html "When Search Maps your Privacy ( Read more... )

The Daily Paranoid

News.com.com has an article about a recent law signed by Bush with "a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity ( Read more... )

With this new and extremely dangerous windows exploit in the wild, Microsoft has actually stepped up to the plate and offered Free telephone support. Find more info here, at the ISC (SANS internet Storm Center).

I mentioned this vulnerabilty earlier. It has many cool heads in computer security hot-headed.
slithytove blogged about it hereYou can have your ( Read more... )

On the 28th, a critical windows flaw was found, that can be exploited on fully patched windows computers that merely visit an infected website, or preview an infected image (i.e. as a thumbnail in a folder).

THIS IS SERIOUSLY BAD, FOLKS.
Read up on this and protect yourself.
Firefox, Opera, Lotus Notes and other apps are not immune, because the ( Read more... )

The Daily ParanoidSome of you have heard about what Sony Music did to some of their recent CDs - installed spyware and a rootkit that could destroy the user's operating system, all in the name of copy protection ( Read more... )

I know a fair number of people in the writing community use Skype to make free internet phone calls. If you do, please patch ASAP ( Read more... )