Monthly Archives: February 2009
Security Review: Face Recognition Software
According to an article, Toshiba is producing PC’s that come with not only fingerprint readers but facial recognition software. The software uses a webcam built into the PC in order to identify the user. This software is designed so only the user … Continue reading
Current Event: Biometric Identification Cards Distributed in the UK, But No Readers
A recent article from silicon.com details the recent issuance of £4.7 billion worth of ID cards containing biometric and biographical data to people of the UK. Critics of the plan are quickly pointing out that with no readers in place, … Continue reading
Current Event: racial profiling no more effective than random screening
In “Study: racial profiling no more effective than random screen”, ArsTechnica reports on a new study by William Press, who claims that using profiling at security checkpoints such as airports is not effective in catching threats. The ineffectiveness, according to … Continue reading
Current Event: Xbox Live DDoS Attacks Become Popular
Xbox Live DDoS Attacks Become Popular Cheating in online multiplayer games has always been an issue. Each genre of game has been plagued with a certain type of hack: Map discovery hacks for RTS games, Aiming hacks in FPS’s, and … Continue reading
Current Event: Rigged Red Lights
Summary In Italy, public officials have been abusing their authority to make more money from the public by making reds come earlier than they are supposed to (a shorter duration yellow than legally allowed). This means that, since they use … Continue reading
Current Event: New Hard Drive Encryption Standard Proposed
The Trusted Computing Group has proposed a new standard for self-encrypting hard drives. Many current hard drives boast encryption features, but some provide little details on the encryption process, and there was previously no single standard among all manufacturers. This … Continue reading
Security Review: Automated Traffic Enforcement
Security Review: Automated Traffic Enforcement Summary: This security review was motivated on a family member of mine receiving a ticket from this technology: the automated traffic enforcement. This is a fairly new system cities are using to enforce traffic laws. … Continue reading
Smashing the Lab for Fun and Profit
Since many people are probably busy working on or wrapping up lab 2, I thought it would be a good time to post a security review based on some interesting findings that I discovered in the course of completing the … Continue reading
Current Event: Malicious Parking Tickets
According to a post on the Internet Storm Center (ISC), some malware writers have turned to leaving false parking tickets in order to lure victims into running malicious programs. The parking tickets contained a URL where one could see a picture of the supposed offense. Upon arrival to the site, users were prompted to download a toolbar in order to view their particular picture(s). Continue reading
Security Review: ShopAds from Adgregate Markets
In early September 2008 during the TechCrunch50 Conference, there we many companies that came forward presenting ideas on how to change the advertising business. One such company, Adgregate Markets, presented an idea they call the ShopAds widget. This widget can … Continue reading