Monthly Archives: March 2008

Happy Spring Break!

Posted on March 25, 2008 by Tadayoshi Kohno

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 →

Posted in Announcements, Security Reviews | 1 Comment

Security Review: IMA

Posted on March 20, 2008 by patriw

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 →

Posted in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments

Security Review: Husky Union Building

Posted on March 18, 2008 by esoteric

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 →

Posted in Miscellaneous, Physical Security, Security Reviews | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Security Review: Wireless Home Automation Systems

Posted on March 17, 2008 by chernyak

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 →

Posted in Physical Security, Privacy, Security Reviews | 4 Comments

Ethics…?

Posted on March 17, 2008 by robert

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 →

Posted in Ethics | 8 Comments

Security Review: “Smart Guns”

Posted on March 16, 2008 by Trip Volpe

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 →

Posted in Availability, Physical Security, Policy, Security Reviews | 18 Comments

Microsoft, Yahoo, and Internet Breakage

Posted on March 16, 2008 by Justin McOmie

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 →

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Current Events: Wikileaks

Posted on March 16, 2008 by alpers

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 →

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Security Review: credit cards stored in company databases

Posted on March 16, 2008 by Justin McOmie

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 →

Posted in Security Reviews | 6 Comments

Security Review: The Human Heart

Posted on March 16, 2008 by chrislim

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 →

Posted in Ethics, Integrity, Miscellaneous, Security Reviews | 6 Comments