This makes yet another year I didn’t make it to DEFCON, the longest-running hacker conference now in its 15th year. Which is unfortunate, because I really would have loved to have been at the opening speech at the Black Hat Briefings, held just prior to the main event this weekend, and at which the National Security Agency got up and asked the hacker community for help.
Linux
If spyware is outlawed, only outlaws will have spyware
Posted: April 19, 2007 8:36 pm
A bill to outlaw certain forms of spyware is making its way through the House of Representatives. But if you think it will actually prevent spyware from getting on your computer, you have a lot to learn about government.
Daylight Saving Time begins this weekend
Posted: March 8, 2007 5:32 pm
This year, Daylight Saving Time begins in the United States this weekend. You’re probably ready, now that you know about it, but your computer probably isn’t.
NSA provided security help for Windows, Mac OS X
Posted: January 9, 2007 5:11 pm
Updated: January 10, 2007 11:53 am
The National Security Agency has provided assistance to Microsoft and Apple in securing their Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, according to a report published Tuesday.
I can take you on one-handed
Posted: December 6, 2006 11:00 am
The second worst nightmare of anyone who uses a computer to make a living is getting a repetitive stress injury. It inevitably leads to the worst nightmare of anyone who uses a computer to make a living: losing the ability to type entirely. The resourceful person then goes shopping for things like one-handed keyboards and promptly discovers what most disabled people already know: adaptive technology is expensive.
Free software, the hacker community, and libertarianism?
Posted: July 21, 2006 5:53 pm
Updated: July 30, 2006 6:05 pm
Richard Stallman launched the GNU Project in 1984 to create an operating system and utilities and make it possible for people to use computers in freedom, that is, free from the power and control proprietary software vendors exert over their users.
Stallman spoke Friday at the Hackers On Planet Earth conference in New York City on free software and the hacker community, explaining how free software arose from hacking and how computer users benefit from hackers hacking free software. He also surprised many in the audience with a number of distinctly libertarian statements.
Windows less secure than Linux: The FSM proof
Posted: April 17, 2006 6:09 pm
The Flying Spaghetti Monster has proved, once and for all, that Windows is less secure than Linux.
Advanced online privacy protection
Posted: April 17, 2006 3:51 pm
Updated: April 17, 2006 5:06 pm
The U.S. government seems to have a dizzying array of programs, both already running and in the pipeline, to gather vast amounts of data on virtually everyone, store that data for who knows how long, and do who knows what with it. One thing they’re doing is data mining, looking for “suspicious” patterns in the data trying to find potential threats. Not only does data mining not work, there’s a chance it could identify you, even if you aren’t doing anything wrong.
Other countries are already putting in place even more Orwellian surveillance on their own citizens. And some countries, as we all know, arrest, torture and kill dissidents or anyone they just don’t like.
Fortunately, there are things you can do to protect yourself from all of these threats.
Never let bureaucrats near computers
Posted: March 27, 2006 3:09 pm
Government bureaucrats are the same everywhere. That is, they’re stupid. And today’s stupid bureaucrat is Jerry Taylor, city manager for Tuttle, Oklahoma.
Muslim extremists deface U.S. websites
Posted: February 13, 2006 1:02 pm
After a newspaper in Denmark published cartoons which Muslim extremists found offensive, they began rioting in the streets, destroying property and even killing people. They’ve also been defacing Danish websites, and now they’ve moved on to defacing U.S. websites. And the frightening part is that website administrators, and large U.S. companies, are not paying nearly enough attention to computer security.
System maintenance in progress; new features coming
Posted: February 10, 2006 5:49 pm
Over the last week or so, you may have occasionally seen, instead of the Homeland Stupidity website you’ve come to know and love, a short message stating, “System maintenance is in progress. Please try your request again in a few minutes.” For those of you who are interested, I’m going to explain why that message appeared and what I’ve done to correct it, so that access to the site remains up and running for everyone.
The role of assurance in security
Posted: December 13, 2005 4:05 pm
Updated: December 14, 2005 10:46 pm
When someone from the National Security Agency talks, I listen. The NSA is one of the government’s most secretive agencies. It has to be, as it deals in SIGINT — signals intelligence. Specifically it has the dual mission of intercepting the communications of other countries while devising methods of protecting U.S. government communications from interception. And recently, someone from the NSA not only talked, but talked a lot.
What’s the government doing on the Internet?
Posted: November 23, 2005 8:15 pm
Updated: January 8, 2006 11:46 pm
Some 300 million people live in the United States of America, and the federal government is spying on an unknown number of them, who have done absolutely nothing wrong, prowling through their most sensitive personal data, and keeping it on file forever. Today I’m going to turn the situation on its head, and show you just how easy it is to gather information on the government, and some amazing bits of stupidity that came out of this experiment.
I pulled the server logs for this site from October 1 to yesterday, November 22, and analyzed them to find anyone from a U.S. government agency who visited the site. Even I was startled by what I found. Let’s take a look at what government bureaucrats were doing when they crossed paths with homeland stupidity, or in a few cases, exhibited it.
Is your computer endangering homeland security?
Posted: November 17, 2005 5:03 pm
Though you may be entirely unaware of it, there could be software on your computer which endangers your security — and that of the whole country. What software is out there? How safe are you online? And how do you protect your computer and yourself from the latest security threats?
FBI to control what software you can run?
Posted: September 30, 2005 10:35 am
Updated: September 30, 2005 11:17 am
In an obscure policy decision published last Friday, the FCC decided that the FBI would have veto power over what software Americans can run on their computers.
The Flock has landed: Round Two launches new social networking tool
Posted: August 5, 2005 3:56 am
Updated: August 5, 2005 3:46 pm
Round Two, sponsor of well-known Firefox extensions such as the Tabbrowser Extension, FlashGot, TinyURL Creator, and several others, has released Flock, a unified social networking tool, for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows.
Which is more secure, Windows or Linux?
Posted: July 13, 2005 8:55 pm
The debate rages over whether Windows and proprietary applications or Linux and open source applications are more secure, but is it the right question to ask?
Government computer security still sucks
Posted: July 10, 2005 1:46 am
For most of us who know anything about computers or the Internet, it’s been no secret that security on government computer systems has never been much good. Now finally the rest of the world is finding this out as well.
Fox News reports that the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee released a report (PDF) on government [...]
Information security best practices
Posted: July 9, 2005 1:31 am
Updated: July 9, 2005 11:08 am
Security is not a program, it’s a process.
Partitioning to dual boot Linux and Windows walkthrough
Posted: June 18, 2005 1:13 pm
Updated: July 9, 2005 11:30 am
How to install Linux without getting rid of Windows? A walkthrough with screenshots on preparing your computer to dual-boot Windows XP and Linux.
Windows XP almost ready for the masses
Posted: May 27, 2005 11:17 pm
Updated: May 28, 2005 12:21 am
Robin “Roblimo” Miller has posted an excellent review of the Windows XP Home Edition operating system over at NewsForge. A long time Linux user, Miller concludes:
Given Microsoft’s current development rate, it’s entirely possible that within a few years Windows may be almost as good a choice for most users as Linux, . . . and [...]
A year without Windows
Posted: May 21, 2005 4:27 am
Adams-Blake Co. has been running its business completely free of Windows for an entire year. Company president Alan Canton tells the full story.
Our business is not that different from most others. We have products (books), services (consulting), and employees. If we can go Windowless, others can as well.
While the year wasn’t without its technical challenges, [...]
The state of Microsoft today
Posted: May 12, 2005 12:45 pm
The BBC has done an excellent two-part series on Microsoft. Part one gives an overview on Microsoft’s competition, including Linux and Apple, and includes the revelation that Bill Gates has downloaded and used Firefox, while part two shows how Microsoft plans to beat back its growing competition and maintain its dominant place in the market. [...]
BitTorrent IO Error
Posted: April 13, 2005 3:30 am
Updated: December 16, 2005 1:59 pm
People are actually visiting here looking for technical help with BitTorrent. Here’s a nice list of common BitTorrent IO Error messages and the solutions that actually work.
Fedora Core 3 Walkthrough Part 2: First Boot, Updates and Security
Posted: February 18, 2005 8:01 pm
Updated: July 9, 2005 11:31 am
So I finally got my shit together and assembled all the screenshots for Part 2 of the series.
If you recall from Part 1 I installed Fedora Core 3 on a fresh, clean hard drive, showing each step of the process. Now if you did the same, and actually waited all this time to see what [...]
Fedora Core 3 Walkthrough Part 1: Installation
Posted: December 23, 2004 8:13 pm
Updated: July 9, 2005 11:31 am
This is the first of a multiple part series on Fedora Core 3. I put this together in response to a discussion regarding whether Linux, and specifically Fedora Core, is ready for the masses. My response is: I’ll show you and you can decide for yourself. To that end, I’ve included several screenshots and an ongoing narrative explaining the installation process. In future installments I’ll cover starting the system for the first time, keeping the system up to date and secure, as well as the software you get with Fedora Core.
Securing your Windows computer
Posted: November 20, 2004 8:01 pm
Updated: June 26, 2005 9:34 pm
I make no secret about my love for Linux, and I make no bones about it either. I understand many of you still run Windows and you have good reasons (and sometimes really bad ones) for doing so. But if you must run Windows and connect it to the Internet, please take some steps to secure it, not only for your own sake, but for the rest of us.
