I’m naturally suspicious of governments, and the suspicion seems to be mutual. Since I’m not trying to do any harm, that annoys me more than a bit: they want to treat me like a criminal, even though I mostly want to be left alone to live out my life without being interfered with by their wars, walls, economic collapses, and oligarchs. Is that too much to ask?
There are many agencies that have some degree of charter for computer security – but “defense” has been a bit of a hot potato. Meanwhile, the NSA (and now we know CIA, and probably every other Three Letter Agency) used to go to security conferences like DEFCON and advertise that they were hiring hackers. Of course they were.
Today the news is all a’flutter about the massive malware/extortion attack on hospitals all over the place. The sky is falling!
Apparently we’re going to have to have regular discussions about email security, until politicians get their heads out of the sand and realize that they are targets and regular victims of mid-skill-level attack, and they need to level up their game if they don’t want to periodically look stupid.
Email security is not hard. I’d say “it just takes a little attention to detail…” but it doesn’t even take that much. I can only conclude that politicians are just blockheads about information technology and politics and it just shows how eminently qualified they are to lead high-tech civilizations. [stderr]
…. that would come from Washington, if the North Koreans were launching cyberattacks against US nuclear assets, and strategic missile development programs.
Code Obfuscation’s really neat stuff. Or, it can be.
I recently made a comment about The Best And The Brightest and went to amazon to get a link to the book.
Verizon was ready with new spy tech, to force onto people’s phones when it became legal for them to begin tracking and selling customer data. [boingboing]
You’re probably familiar with the upcoming relaxation of companies’ ability to sell users’ browsing and internet history. [guardian]
I loathe the way the media soft-peddle their service to the state.
Britain reopens privacy debate after attack, presses tech firms [reuters]