Monthly Archives: March 2008
Happy Spring Break!
Have a great spring break everyone! To readers of this blog: Please expect low activity for a while. The University of Washington is on the quarter system, and our quarter just ended. Everyone in the class is, of course, encouraged … Continue reading
Security Review: IMA
The IMA is a rather public place where students, faculty, and spouses can take fitness classes, lift weights, or use an expansive cardio room. The assests include fitness machines, sports equipement, and simply the space, which when occupied by a … Continue reading
Security Review: Husky Union Building
The Husky Union Building is the center of life on campus. It is home to the Associated Students of the University of Washington, hundreds of student clubs and organizations, the university bookstore, food vendors, university employee payroll and accounting, information … Continue reading
Security Review: Wireless Home Automation Systems
Summary:Home automation systems in general attempt to enable home owners to have a “smart” house. Instead of light switches you have integrated panels that control everything from your lights, to your shades, to your entertainment system, climate control, alarm system, … Continue reading
Ethics…?
This blog post on freedom-to-tinker came up in my feed reader today: http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1265 The post is an e-mail from a company that makes e-voting machines that is threatening legal action if their voting machine is analyzed and the results published. … Continue reading
Security Review: “Smart Guns”
Overview This is a security review of “Smart Guns,” a general class of locking/use prevention mechanisms for firearms that rely on biometrics or other authentication indicators (such as “smart” chips embedded in the gun and in rings or other tokens … Continue reading
Microsoft, Yahoo, and Internet Breakage
In a recent interview with “Condé Nast Portfolio”, Google CEO Eric Schmidt warns us all that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger might “break the internet” due to the consolidation of web-mail, instant messaging, and other services that would follow as a result. … Continue reading
Current Events: Wikileaks
Something that really piques one’s curiosity are the documents and reasons why governments and institutions choose to go in the paths they do. One site that caters to uncovering these sensitive documents is Wikileaks, which has been frequently featured on … Continue reading
Security Review: credit cards stored in company databases
Summary: It is now very common to do business with companies that will by default (or even as a requirement to patronize) permanently store credit card and associated personal information in a database to help speed up future transactions or … Continue reading
Security Review: The Human Heart
As our professor has continually emphasized throughout the quarter, one of the primary aims of our course has been to go beyond technical details of current computer security in order to learn the security mindset. This new way of thinking … Continue reading