Category Archives: Availability

Linux Desktop Security Vulnerabilities

Posted on March 13, 2009 by spa

A common method for infection of many operating systems is a malicious executable file–either sent in an email or downloaded otherwise–that the user simply double clicks without thinking. Linux .desktop files allow arbitrary code execution without the need for an executable bit set on the file. Continue reading →

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Wikipedia Editing Could Be Made More Restrictive Due to Vandalism

Posted on January 30, 2009 by jap24

According to this article, the English version of Wikipedia may be implementing a system called “flagged revisions” to the editing software, which would require that edits would have to be approved (“flagged”) by a “trusted” user (see the Wikipedia page … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability, Current Events, Integrity | Tagged | 4 Comments

Security Review: Network Solutions’ Worldnic Domain Name Hosting Service

Posted on January 30, 2009 by Ryan McElroy

Network Solutions runs one of the largest domain registrars and DNS hosting providers in the world. It currently hosts more than 7.5 million domain names, including many of the most popular web sites on the Internet. The domain name servers … Continue reading →

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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

Security Review: Car GPS Navigation Systems

Posted on March 16, 2008 by joyleung

Summary Car GPS navigation systems are handy tool for finding one’s way on the road. With features like local points of interest, address book and SD card backup it would not be surprising if becomes a common everyday item soon. … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability, Privacy, Security Reviews | 8 Comments

Amazon’s S3 Outage: Usage spike or DDoS attack?

Posted on February 17, 2008 by iddav

Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) experienced an outage on the morning of February 15th, causing inaccessible content in the thousands of websites that rely on S3 for data storage. According to Amazon’s official explanation, the outage was due to a … Continue reading →

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ISP vs. BitTorrent

Posted on February 16, 2008 by Kris Plunkett

Since ISPs, most notably Comcast, some time ago began identifying and purposefully destroying or severely throttling BitTorrent connections passing through their networks, the struggles on both sides of the fence have been nothing short of a game of cat and … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability, Current Events, Privacy | 2 Comments

Security Review: Quiet Care

Posted on February 10, 2008 by joyleung

Home monitoring systems like Quiet Care exist to allow independent living for elderly people. The system works by monitoring the person’s daily movements with wireless activity sensors in each room. The information collected from these sensors is gathered at a … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability, Privacy, Security Reviews | 5 Comments

Four Undersea Cables Cut In Middle East In Less Than a Week

Posted on February 5, 2008 by chernyak

As many of you may have heard, two undersea cables were cut on January 31st severing internet to millions of users in the middle east. At first it was reported that these cables were severed by a ship’s anchor, but … Continue reading →

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

Pillaged MySpace Photos Show Up in BitTorrent Download

Posted on January 27, 2008 by felixctc

More than half of the million images that are private photos of MySpace users was stolen and uploaded onto BitTorrent. This is a huge privacy breach to MySpace users. The hacker, “DMaul”, said that he learned the security hole from … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability, Current Events, Privacy | 5 Comments