MetaFilter posts tagged with encryption

AES à la XKCD

Electric Dragon — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:29:32 -0800

A stick figure guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard. [via Bruce Schneier]

The dry, technical language of Microsoft's October update did not indicate anything particularly untoward.

The Whelk — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:40:29 -0800

Its reach is impossible to measure precisely, but more than 3 million vulnerable machines may ultimately have been infected. : The inside story on the Conficker Worm at New Scientist.

Clearly unprotected

dejah420 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:43:51 -0800

Clear passenger data stolen. A unencrypted laptop with the personal data, including name, address, SSi number, passport number, date of birth, etc. of every one of the 33,000+ users of the the Clear system has been stolen. The Clear system allows travelers who register and pay an annual fee to bypass airport security lines by using a smart card in some airports. TSA has suspended new registrations until Verified Identity Pass, Inc., a subsidiary of GE, figures out how to install PGP. VIP is the only private contractor allowed to register users to the Clear system. Via

Because DRAM doesn't get frostbite.

Skorgu — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:12:14 -0800

Whole-disk encryption defeated with canned air. [via.] Main site, with video. The security of whole-disk encryption rests on the fact that the secret key used to read the encrypted disk resides in the computer's main memory and thus disappears when the power is removed. It was widely believed that occurred quickly enough not to be trivially exploitable, an assumption that has proven incorrect.

3.14159265itwasthebestoftimesitwastheworstofti...

TimeTravelSpeed — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:20:32 -0800

Ever wondered if and where a specific set of numbers could be found in pi? Maybe you'd like to know where your birthday is? Or maybe just something funny. [prev. here, here] Psh, that's child's play. Old news. If you wanna be hip and play with the big boys and girls, you're gonna have to think bigger [previously]. Since computer files are simply numbers, then, in theory, images, audio, video, even wikipedia articles all exist in pi. In fact, all existing data in the universe must be somewhere in pi since it is an infinite, non-repeating sequence of numbers which appear with equal probability (so the theory goes). Some have suggested this is a useful file compression/encryption mechanism. Some have to see a doctor after hearing about it. And some just find its implications amusing. Too bad it's all bunk. But don't lose hope, there may be alternatives. My solution to the debate? -- f*ck it, let's just call it 3. I was surprised by the number of references to this all-things-in-pi concept throughout MeFi, but there was no post explicitly on the subject. I tried to give credit where it was due. Enjoy!

Want another ID?

adamvasco — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 03:49:40 -0800

New "Hi - tech" passport cracked. Standards for the new passports were set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in 2003 and adopted by the waiver countries and the US. The UK Home Office has adopted a very high encryption technology called 3DES - that is, to a military-level data-encryption standard times three. However they used non-secret information actually published in the passport to create a 'secret key'. That is the equivalent of installing a solid steel front door to your house and then putting the key under the mat.

Quantum Encryption

PreacherTom — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:25:47 -0800

Quantum Encryption Scientists have created an unbreakable cypher through the use of quantum physics, where a photon is observed and used as the basis for an encryption key. "Uncertainty is the principle we exploit. It's impossible to find the key, because the photon can be measured once and only once. An eavesdropper can't measure it, and so can't get the key." Props to Heisenberg!

Synchronized Chaos

ozomatli — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 14:50:03 -0800

The synchronization of two pendulum clocks was discovered in 1665 by Huygens. Two pendulum clocks mounted on the same wall always fell exactly out of phase with each other no matter what the starting conditions. Regardless of the initial conditions the system always ended up the same. In stark contrast, a chaotic system is extremely sensitive to initial conditions. How can these two seemingly seperate things be tied together? The synchronization of chaos. When two chaotic systems are synchronized together, information can be shared between them. It immediatly brings to mind applications for encryption, but it is still far away from everyday use.

technophobia?

Smedleyman — Fri, 27 May 2005 17:47:37 -0800

Technophobia? or ignorance? or mendacity? A Minnesota appeals court has ruled that the presence of encryption software on a computer may be viewed as evidence of criminal intent. The specific crime here aside, why is encryption - and by extension privacy - viewed as something seedy?

Vetinari — Thu, 11 Jul 2002 05:44:34 -0800

Homer Simpson: Hack your DVD player. It seems in countries in which the DVD Copy Control Authority doesn't own the government, even the giants of corpmedia don't like the "protection" features the platform foists on consumers. On Fox's Simpsons UK DVD release FAQ page, Homer himself says "I have no idea whatsoever what regional coding means. But it is essential that you buy a multi-regional player. Do it now." Is the DVD region-coding system really only relevant in the United States?

myl — Mon, 29 Apr 2002 07:29:37 -0800

Putting free, unencrypted copies on the web increases book sales, according to science fiction writer Eric Flint.

Brilliantcrank — Tue, 20 Nov 2001 20:42:48 -0800

FBI software cracks encryption wall The FBI is developing software capable of inserting a computer virus onto a suspect’s machine and obtaining encryption keys...

tpoh.org — Mon, 01 Oct 2001 14:08:07 -0800

The Terrorists Did NOT Use Encryption. None of the communications, authorities said Sunday, involved the use of encryption or other code to disguise the contents of the messages.

aaron — Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:46:37 -0800

War on Civil Liberties Watch: Usable encryption is in deep doo-doo. A new poll finds 72% of Americans now supporting a ban on unbreakable encryption. (Apparantly breakable, and thus useless, encryption is just fine.) Besides the obvious fact that this stuff is already out there and cannot be taken back, particularly from non-US citizens who don't give a damn about our laws (such as, say, the exact people we're trying to defeat), is there any hope that the courts will find any such new laws unconstitutional?

skallas — Thu, 13 Sep 2001 19:05:57 -0800

Terrorism's first win? Bye-Bye crypto. The rubble is still burning and the Republicans are ready to strip of our right to use crypto products. Opportunists feeding off fear. That's how you win at the terrorist game.

Steven Den Beste — Fri, 03 Aug 2001 22:55:18 -0800

The crypto used in 802.11 wireless networking has been cracked. The crack is devastating; it's fast and passive. Simply by listening, the 40-bit key can be cracked in 15 minutes. Worse, the crack scales linearly with the number of bits in the key, so raising the key length to 128 bits would raise the crack time to about an hour. 802.11 is used in such products as the Linksys Etherfast Wireless and the Apple Airport. From now on those products should be considered to be completely insecure.

davidchess — Wed, 18 Jul 2001 04:50:04 -0800

A Russian security expert has been arrested for showing how easy it is to crack an e-book. All hail the DMCA! Some information is just Too Dangerous to be Revealed! (See also wildly detailed coverage, including the affidavit, from Planet eBook.)

skallas — Wed, 04 Jul 2001 22:39:01 -0800

European Parliament says Echelon exists and is more or less powerless to stop it. All the more reason for government and industry to create encryption standards.

tiaka — Sat, 23 Jun 2001 14:50:01 -0800

Future of computing - Light or Molecules?

luser — Thu, 07 Jun 2001 13:36:57 -0800

Tivo hackers today released the hack that enables you to get MPEG-2 video out of the box and put it on CDs, share it over the net, etc. No details because the AVS Tivo site (registration required) is being slashdotted...but will this precipitate a TiVo crackdown on the hackers?

rushmc — Wed, 30 May 2001 09:56:34 -0800

ALL YOUR EMAIL ARE BELONG TO US! How serious is this threat? What precautions do you routinely take? What precautions do you think you *should* be taking? What viable options do we have today, for those of us who aren't computer programmers by profession? And how secure are they, anyway?

Jako — Tue, 20 Mar 2001 09:10:55 -0800

Wincent Colaiuta has seen and reviewed the new Mac OS but you can't read the review. He's encrypted the whole thing using PGP and he's not releasing the key until the OS is released. He says he's done this to avoid law suits from Apple.
I say he's begging for hits.
If he wanted to avoid lawsuits, he could just wait to publish the review...

deftone — Wed, 07 Mar 2001 14:40:24 -0800

Descramble DVD encryption in 7 lines of perl code ...created by 2 MIT programmers. Will the MPAA threaten to sue you if you include it in your email signature? Yah for civil disobedience.

quirked — Tue, 06 Feb 2001 10:13:07 -0800

"Now it's possible to send a verse from the Koran, an appeal for charity and even a call for jihad and know it will not be seen by anyone hostile to our faith, like the Americans." Osama bin Laden and others are reported to be using encryption to post instructions for terrorist activities on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and other Web sites.

Steven Den Beste — Mon, 08 Jan 2001 09:32:41 -0800

The battle for unrestricted encryption continues. Professor Bernstein won't rest; he's not going to let this go. More power to him and let's hope he ultimately wins. [He's challenging the US government restrictions on private encryption on free-speech grounds, and so far he's won in every court where the case has been heard. The government has been using delaying actions, and their relaxation of restrictions may partially have been in hopes he'd give up, leaving them still capable of some control. He's not going to, though. He's got blood in his eye, so to speak.]