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PrivacyNowRadio Episode 11: Time for a road trip

Tris Hussey — Fri, 27 May 2011 16:51:53 +0000

This week we’re talking about Internet (and computer) security when you travel. Render is in Poland so he phoned in a segment called “Render’s Rant”, which actually inspired the rest of the show. Enjoy!

PrivacyNowRadio Episode 10: Dude, where’s my laptop?

Tris Hussey — Fri, 20 May 2011 20:56:17 +0000

It’s one of those dreaded things in our tech-centric lives—losing your laptop, smartphone or tablet. Whether you leave it behind accidentally or someone relieves you of it without your consent, the end result is the same—it sucks and you now have to worry about what is on that device. As (bad) luck would have it, our friend Render’s laptop sprouted legs and walked away on him this past week so we made that the topic of this week’s show: Losing your laptop.

Render is okay, although with a lighter wallet, because he had backups and used full-disk encryption. He doesn’t have to worry about the thief being able to get anything usable off the laptop.

Full-disk encryption might not be for everyone, but it is something people who travel around with their laptops should consider. Lots of tools out there to do it (Windows, OS X, and Linux all have built-in tools as well) and there are factors to consider beyond security so … let’s listen:

My tip of the week is setting up “Find My iPhone” in iOS devices. All it takes is activating MobileMe with your current iTunes account and downloading the app. This works for iPads (1 and 2) and iPhone 4 series running iOS 4—sorry iPhone 3 3GS folks I think you’re left out on this one. Here are the screens on your iPhone that you’ll need to go through to turn on MobileMe and then download the app from the App Store (it’s all free).

Hat tip to Tod Maffin this week because I picked up some great new tips for making this podcast better.

Music is by Derek K. Miller and, yes, he really did write it for me.

PrivacyNowRadio Episode 9: LastPass passes the test

Tris Hussey — Fri, 06 May 2011 12:00:55 +0000

This episode is dedicated to the memory of my friend Derek K. Miller who passed away this week at the age of 41. His last post is something everyone should read and this podcast starts and ends with his music.

While Sony is still big news, and getting bigger with class-action lawsuits being filed this week, there are other things making news in this realm.

A British consumer website rated Hushmail the worst webmail service around. I can’t hardly argue with that, of course.

The Pentagon is taking steps to reduce the chances of another Wikileaks-type incident from happening again—Pentagon takes steps to prevent internal security breaches after WikiLeaks disclosure – The Washington Post—good luck with that.

Nikon’s image verification system was cracked—Hackers crack Nikon’s image verification system | Homeland Security News Wire—which has potentially far-reaching impacts on law and privacy.

Mozilla is standing up to Homeland Security by refusing to take down a Firefox extension that allows people to automatically be redirected to the new URLs of rogue sites taken over by authorities:

Mozilla’s position might not be a popular stance, but it is certainly the right one.

Note to Hungry’s spies, people are spying on you—Spy vs spy: Spyware found at Hungarian secret service | Naked Security—this item has all the twists and turns of a made-for-TV movie.

Finally, the possible breach and at LastPass and the fallout from it. By all accounts, though inconvenient to users for a short time, LastPass did a lot right. Render and I talk about this in depth in today’s episode. Here are just some of the post about it:

In the show Render talks about the book Perfect Passwords, it’s on Amazon, but looks like it might be in short supply, so grab a copy quickly if you want one.

Music is by Derek K. Miller and, yes, he really did write it for me.

PrivacyNowRadio Episode 8: You got gamed

Tris Hussey — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 06:02:55 +0000

The big news over the past week and a bit has been the hack, and later revealed to be massive breach of data, at Sony’s PlayStationNetwork. You can keep up with all the articles I find about the PSN hack, and lots of other news, in my public Evernote notebook. In the meantime, we have a (somewhat belated) show for this week all about …

Yes, the PSN hack. Why? Because the effects are going to be huge in the long term. Maybe having the third kind of data breach in a short while will start a serious discussion about how we transmit, share, and store identity information online.

This is also a special show because Renderman joins me again … and will be joining me more often … more about that in the show. Without more introduction:

In the show Render and I talk about Bruce Schneier’s TEDxPSU talk about security. Really, you should watch it. Which is why I embedded it below for you:

Music is by Derek K. Miller and, yes, he really did write it for me.

PrivacyNowRadio Episode 7: Your iPhone spies on you and Dropbox can tattle

Tris Hussey — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:00:21 +0000

Yessir this is a two episode week here at PrivacyNowRadio. On Tuesday we posted an interview with Hon. Jay M. Cohen about cybercrime and cyberterrorism, but that episode didn’t have any news in it. Just that just wouldn’t do, we have a special second episode this week.

The biggest news this week have been the revelations that Dropbox could decrypt your files that you stored with them and that, if presented with legal orders, decrypt the files and hand them over to the government. This is caused a lot of people to change how they use Dropbox (myself included). One great solution is the FileVault within eCrypt.me—and that happens to be my tip of the week!

The other big news of the week is that since iOS 4 came out iPhones and iPad 3G models have been tracking and recording where you’ve been with the device. Worse the information is stored in plain text on your machine. As you’ll hear in the interview segment, governments around the world want answers from Apple about this. For all our sakes, I hope we get one soon. Speaking of interviews, this week I chat again with Brad “Renderman” Haines about both Dropbox and the iPhone tracking issue.

For the news of the week, I’ve decided that I want to share more news with you than just what I talk about in the show, so I’ve created a special public notebook in Evernote where I’ll store all the articles I think are interesting as I’m reading the news. You can read my PrivacyNowRadio notebook on Evernote’s website and even subscribe to it if you’re an Evernote user.

Enjoy the episode and if you’d like to know more about the eCrypt.me FileVault, here’s a handy screencast to show you all about it:

Music is by Derek K. Miller and, yes, he really did write it for me.

PrivacyNowRadio Episode 6: Cyberterrorism Will Happen

Tris Hussey — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:30:25 +0000

Welcome to a special PrivacyNowRadio show. I had a chance to interview Hon. Jay M. Cohen Rear Admiral, USN (ret) (also a member of the eCrypt Technologies Board) about cybercrime and cyberterrorism. Adm. Cohen is a very uniquely qualified person to talk about these topics as he served as the Navy’s CTO, Chief of Naval Research and after his distinguished Navy career, Under Secretary for Science and Technology at the Dept. of Homeland Security (there are more bits of impressive info in his bio).

Essentially Adm. Cohen has been at the front lines of keeping the digital huns at bay for a very long time. Because this is such an important topic and special interview, today’s show will be comprised solely of the interview. I’ll cover the news of the week in a show I’ll record later this week.

Until then…

Adm. Cohen:

PrivacyNowRadio Episode 5: Interview with the Hacker, he doesn’t bite

Tris Hussey — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:00:53 +0000

This week on PrivacyNowRadio I talk about the U.S. Government not only wanting to spend more wisely on the Internet, but also how the DOJ wants Twitter to cough up IP addresses and how police are tapping into our email and IM more often than we thought. I also cover a few recent security breaches, notably at WordPress.com (change your passwords people). Finally as a reminder to folks keep your machines updated. Windows, OS X and iOS all had updates this week and Chrome was updated to patch a flaw in Adobe Flash.

My interview this week is with Brad “RenderMan” Haines, who is a hacker and we talk about how hackers are portrayed the media.

Finally my tip of the week is to make sure you’re using WPA2 to secure access to your wifi at home or work, disable remote pings, and make sure that remote (WAN) configuration is disabled on your router. Remember, a WPA2 password isn’t considered secure unless it’s at least 20 characters long!

And now the show Interview with the Hacker, he doesn’t bite.

Below are links to some of the news that I talk about in the podcast:

U.S. Government takes down CoreFlood:

DOJ still after Twitter for Wikileaks associates:

WordPress.com Hacked:

New zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash found (Chrome is already patched):

Other interesting news:

If you have suggestions for future shows, let me know at tris [at] ecryptinc.com and don’t forget you can find PNR on iTunes.

Until next week, stay safe.

Music is by Derek K. Miller and, yes, he really did write it for me.

PrivacyNowRadio Episode 4: Who is that email really from?

Tris Hussey — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:00:57 +0000

Another week, another story about a company getting hacked, or information stolen, or pretty much anything that didn’t go as planned. No interview this week, don’t fret I have a couple of great ones lined up for the next couple weeks. On with the (shorter) show:

The big news of the week (and I wrote about it earlier on the eCrypt blog) was the hack at email marketing company Epsilon. While people weren’t directly put at risk from the loss of thousands of email addresses to hackers, what is more likely is that we’re more vulnerable to targeted spam and phishing attacks. For more info on this attack see my post above and these other articles:

The EFF is keeping up the pressure and discussion about flaws in how secure certificates are issued with their research on “unqualified domain” certificates. A wee technical, but really important to understand:

On the hacking front, it looks like smartphones are the new hot target. Hackers got their hands on the code for the Stuxnet worm and have released it to the world (like folks probably didn’t have it already. And 2011 has started off with a surge of malware. Oh goody.

On the side of the good guys, Google is extending download protection to Chrome users like users of IE9 have. An excellent article on CNET reminds us to be watchful of scams and how to avoid them. And WordPress was updated to version 3.1.1 with stability improvements, but also some crucial security fixes:

Finally the Conservative Party of Canada is catching some (well deserved) heat for allegedly not allowing someone into a rally because the person has a picture with the Liberal leader on her Facebook page. And there is a new Hacker sitcom on the air. I haven’t seen it yet, but believe me I will. Just as soon as I finish watching Firefly.

There is no interview this week, but my tip of the week is to make an emergency boot drive to bail yourself out in a jam. I suggest using Ubuntu or Jolicloud and Lifehacker has great instructions on how (and more whys) to do it. PCWorld even has more tips on how and why as well.

Don’t forget, you can subscribe to PNR through iTunes!

Music is by Derek K. Miller and, yes, he really did write it for me.

PrivacyNowRadio Episode 3: Just what’s on your laptop?

Tris Hussey — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:26:55 +0000

Another interesting week in the privacy and security world. Samsung dodged a bullet with first it did, then it didn’t, install keyloggers on laptops, the FBI needs your help cracking a code, I chat with Theresa Lalonde of the CBC about consumers and their gear, and my tip of the week is to force HTTPS connections whenever possible.

News mentioned in the podcast:

Coilhouse Magazine looks like it will be a very interesting weekend read for me. Read more about it on io9.

For my tip of the week to force SSL when you browser (aka using HTTPS instead of plain old HTTP). KB SSL Enforcer is the extension I like for Chrome. HTTPS Everywhere from the EFF is great for Firefox. I can’t find my usual suggestions for IE and Safari, so recommendations are welcome in the comments.

Thanks again to Theresa Lalonde for chatting with me this morning.

Music is by Derek K. Miller and, yes, he really did write it for me.

If you have questions, comments, topics for future episodes, or would like to be a guest on Privacy Now Radio, leave a comment or drop me a line at tris [at] ecryptinc.com.

Subscribe to PrivacyNowRadio on iTunes.

Privacy Now Radio Episode 2: Certificate hacks and questions of trust

Tris Hussey — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 01:53:56 +0000

It’s been an interesting week since Episode 1 aired, the biggest news—which BTW wasn’t covered by the main stream media—was the hack of a reseller of Comodo one of the people who can issue trusted secure certificates (for SSL connections). This is a big, big deal and brings into question how we can improve how information is secured on the Internet. I had a great chat with Chet Wisniewski of Sophos about this news, but that’s not all I also cover some of the privacy and security headlines of the week as well as my tip of the week.

Go have a listen:

Chet posted how OS X folks (like most of the eCrypt team) can set our systems to check for revoked certificates. It isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing.

Some of the news and links mentioned in the podcast can be found through these links:

Music is by Derek K. Miller and, yes, he really did write it for me.

If you have questions, comments, topics for future episodes, or would like to be a guest on Privacy Now Radio, leave a comment or drop me a line at tris [at] ecryptinc.com.