Archives for Computer Security

It is Never a Good Time to Change Your Password

Many people, including (I am embarrassed to say) myself, have given people advice to periodically change their computer passwords. The more I learn about computer security and human factors, the more I come to realize this is fundamentally bad advice. A Boston Globe article from a couple of weeks ago explains this far better than [...]

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Face Painting for Confusing Face Recognition Software

A researcher named Adam Harvey published some of his findings about how face paint can confuse face-recognition software. He has pictures on his Web site. This makes me think of science-fiction games, especially cyberpunk games. I kind of like the idea of characters painting their faces with camouflage patterns before they run the shadows. And, [...]

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Thoughts on the Boston Subway Hack

This happened while I was on vacation, so by now it is rather old news. That won’t stop me from sounding off about it, though. A couple of weeks ago, now, there was a national news story about a group of MIT students who “hacked the subway system” in Boston. Basically they took a hard [...]

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