As you may recall, back in January I wrote a post declaring this the year of “fighting back against the black hats. Now it’s mid-October, and I am finally getting around to the second post in the series. So maybe 2012 will be a year of fighting back as well… What is Phishing? Simply put, [...]
Archives for Computer Security
Changing Auto-Run Programs in Windows 7
I’ve been running Windows 7 for about a year and a half now. I have never been a Windows fan but Windows 7 definitely seems the least annoying — and most reliable — version of Windows I’ve seen. One of the remaining annoyances though is that even though I’ve been pretty careful about what I [...]
Best Password Advice Ever
I have actually been mulling over posting about passwords and my current beliefs about how to choose them, but the Web comic xkcd beat me to it, and of course said in about 100 words what would have taken me 10 times as many:
Installing Ubuntu 10.10 on a Dell inspiron 1210 (mini 12)
This post is a bit more technical than what I usually write for this blog, but I spent a lot of time and trouble trying to fix an issue with my Dell mini 12 laptop. I wanted to I document it to help make it easier for others. A couple of years ago I bought [...]
2011: The Year of Fighting Back Against Black-Hats, Part 1
Happy New Year! 2010 was a big year for me in terms of learning about computer security. First and foremost, last year was the first full year I had worked in security-related research. I also took a course at the Harvard extension school and attended meetings of a local industry group for computer security. So [...]
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 [...]
Why Wireless Encryption Matters
If you were to set up a wireless network in your home, you would need to buy a wireless router. If you were to do that today, chances are the router would come pre-configured with some kind of password probably a nonsensical string of gobbledigook. There’s a good reason for this. A few years ago [...]
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 [...]