Dark Reading has an excellent article on Nate Lawson’s Black Hat research into vulnerabilities in FasTrak toll devices. Check it out.
Archive for the 'Security' Category
Darryl and I went shooting after work on Friday. We pumped about 100 rounds through a Springfield XD45. Nice action, enjoyed it. We were shooting at The Range in Stafford. According to the gentleman behind the counter, the place has been there for fourteen years. It’s a decent range with fourteen lanes. Hot, though. My eyebrows were sweating. Next time I need to remember to wear a hat. My hair’s too long for hot range action. I like the ammo prices at The Range, they reload there, so it’s significantly cheaper than buying ammo at Wal-Mart. My groupings were pretty good, but not what they should be. As for the Springfield, I like it. Empty, it’s lighter than the Sig P220 I used to carry, because the Springfield has a polymer frame (like a Glock). In fact, field-stripped, the frame alone could pass for a toy. But loaded, it’s fairly heavy, because the double-stack magazine holds 13 rounds. If I remember correctly, my Sig held 8.
It’s time to upgrade your house. With modern advances in Internet-based democracy, and the near ubiquity and apparent legal status of owning lockpick sets, which require a minor amount of skill, and “bump keys,” which require none at all, people can get into your stuff with zero effort. Don’t believe me? Ask me for a demo sometime.
Here are the fixes:
1) replace all your external locks. Abloy, Bilock, Medeco, Schlage Primus, Kwikset Smartkey are examples. Look for “bump-proof.”
2) of course that’s not enough. bad guys can still break and open windows. consider “security film,” a clear adhesive that goes directly on window panes which prevents this.
if bumping was new, i wouldn’t be mentioning it here for my friends. it’s not new, it’s a few years old, and it’s ALL OVER youtube and other venues.
Note to bump kiddies: bump keys ARE considered “burglary tools” in most states. It’s one thing to own them, but don’t get caught using them on someone else’s locks, or you will go to jail.
So once you’re “in the system,” nothing is private. Nothing is sacred. Nothing. In this article, a man accused of murdering his wife and daughter has his google searches and other browsing habits made public. I’ll tell you why it bothers me — one, because it might have no relevance to your behavior, and two, because the average Joe will believe that what he types in that search bar is between him and his computer, and that’s all.
What if he was in the system for another reason, for example, someone hopping wireless networks used his to send a threatening message to a celebrity, and the FBI traced it back to his house. The forensic guys would still search the computer, and as long as he’s a suspect, that information is fair game. What if it happened to you? What do you think they’d find on YOUR home PC? I could tell you one thing they’d find on mine. Last week I remembered that someone at the office mentioned “tofu flavored to taste like human flesh.” You know, one of those geekish attempts at one-upping each other in level of grossness. So since I was near a PC at the time I remembered it, I searched it on Google. Will the forensics examiners make an assumption that I’m a cannibal now, just because I was reading about HuFu?
