thomasbarker.com

Interesting: Preface The TCP/IP protocols were conceived during a time that was quite different from the hostile environment they operate in now. Yet a direct result of their effectiveness and widespread early adoption is that much of today's global economy remains dependent upon them. While many textbooks and articles have created the myth that the Internet Protocols (IP) were designed...

Contrary to popular belief, homicide due to mental illness is declining, at least in England and Wales: The rate of total homicide and the rate of homicide due to mental disorder rose steadily until the mid-1970s. From then there was a reversal in the rate of homicides attributed to mental disorder, which declined to historically low levels, while other homicides...

At this moment, Adi Shamir is giving an invited talk at the Crypto 2008 conference about a new type of cryptanalytic attack called "cube attacks." He claims very broad applicability to block ciphers, stream ciphers, hash functions, etc. My personal joke -- at least I hope it's a joke -- is that he's going to break every NIST hash submission...

Illegally diverting water is terrorism: South Australian Premier Mike Rann says the diversion of water from the Paroo River in Queensland is an act of terrorism during a water crisis. Anonymously threatening people with messages on playing cards, like the Joker in The Dark Knight, is terrorism: Giles County deputies arrest two county teenagers they say made terroristic threats to...

This is interesting: Exactly who was behind the cyberattack is not known. The Georgian government blamed Russia for the attacks, but the Russian government said it was not involved. In the end, Georgia, with a population of just 4.6 million and a relative latecomer to the Internet, saw little effect beyond inaccessibility to many of its government Web sites, which...

Wow: The provisional, 8,000-man Cyber Command has been ordered to stop all activities, just weeks before it was supposed to be declared operational....

An index of fiction. The site was inspired by Margaret Atwood's infamous comment that Oryx and Crake isn't really science fiction, because science fiction is "talking squids in outer space." This prompted a hunt for science fiction which actually did feature talking squids in outer space....

This comment is absolutely correct....

They said -- and it's almost too stupid to believe -- that: the balaclava "could be used to conceal someone's identity or could be used in the course of a criminal act". Don't they realize that balaclavas are for sale everywhere in the UK? Or that scarves, hoods, handkerchiefs, and dark glasses could also be used to conceal someone's identity?...

In the middle of a sensationalist article about risks to children and how giving them cell phones can help, there's at least one person who gets it. Since the 1999 Columbine High School shootings and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many parents feel better having a way to contact their children. But hundreds of students on cell phones during an emergency...

I don't know any of the details, but this seems like a good use of data mining: Mr Tancredi said Verisign's fraud detection kit would help "decrease the time between the attack being launched and the brokerage being able to respond". Before now, he said, brokerages relied on counter measures such as restrictive stock trading or analysis packages that only...

Some reality to counter the hype. The Bottom Line While there has been much consternation and alarm-raising over the potential for widespread proliferation of biological weapons and the possible use of such weapons on a massive scale, there are significant constraints on such designs. The current dearth of substantial biological weapons programs and arsenals by governments worldwide, and the even...

The UK has made public its previously classified National Risk Register. The National Risk Register is intended to capture the range of emergencies that might have a major impact on all, or significant parts of, the UK. It provides a national picture of the risks we face, and is designed to complement Community Risk Registers, already produced and published locally...

Seems like the procedure has changed: Mr. Peters nodded, and then looked down at the sheet which I had filled out and signed. “I’m going to have to make some calls to verify your identity.” I nodded. He pulled out a cell phone. I had assumed that we would be going to some separate screening room, but that wasn’t the...

Obama has a cyber security plan. It's basically what you would expect: Appoint a national cyber security advisor, invest in math and science education, establish standards for critical infrastructure, spend money on enforcement, establish national standards for securing personal data and data-breach disclosure, and work with industry and academia to develop a bunch of needed technologies. I could comment on...

This is huge: Two security researchers have developed a new technique that essentially bypasses all of the memory protection safeguards in the Windows Vista operating system, an advance that many in the security community say will have far-reaching implications not only for Microsoft, but also on how the entire technology industry thinks about attacks. In a presentation at the Black...

Interesting analysis: Since its birth 12 years ago after a fatal kidnapping in Texas, Amber Alert has quickly become one of the best-known tools in the national law enforcement arsenal. The warnings are familiar to anyone who watches cable TV news, especially during the summer, when the drumbeat of abduction stories seems to increase. Last year, 227 alerts were issued...

Squids will be Squids....

The Onion reminds us that we can never be too careful....

According to a recent court ruling, we are all subject to the provisions of the DMCA, but the government is not: The Court of Federal Claims that first heard the case threw it out, and the new Appellate ruling upholds that decision. The reasoning behind the decisions focuses on the US government's sovereign immunity, which the court describes thusly: "The...