Steve Bellovin’s Retirement Talk
Steve Bellovin is retiring. Here’s his retirement talk, reflecting on his career and what the cybersecurity field needs next. [...]
Showing only posts tagged history of security. Show all posts.
Good Essay on the History of Bad Password Policies
Stuart Schechter makes some good points on the history of bad password policies: Morris and Thompson’s work brought much-needed data to highlight a problem that lots of people suspected was bad, but that had not been studied scientifically. Their work was a big step forward, if not for …
List of Old NSA Training Videos
The NSA’s “ National Cryptographic School Television Catalogue ” from 1991 lists about 600 COMSEC and SIGINT training videos. There are a bunch explaining the operations of various cryptographic equipment, and a few code words I have never heard of before. [...]
Adm. Grace Hopper’s 1982 NSA Lecture Has Been Published
The “ long lost lecture ” by Adm. Grace Hopper has been published by the NSA. (Note that there are two parts.) It’s a wonderful talk: funny, engaging, wise, prescient. Remember that talk was given in 1982, less than a year before the ARPANET switched to TCP/IP and the …
Brett Solomon on Digital Rights
Brett Solomon is retiring from AccessNow after fifteen years as its Executive Director. He’s written a blog post about what he’s learned and what comes next. [...]
The NSA Has a Long-Lost Lecture by Adm. Grace Hopper
The NSA has a video recording of a 1982 lecture by Adm. Grace Hopper titled “Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People.” The agency is (so far) refusing to release it. Basically, the recording is in an obscure video format. People at the NSA can’t easily watch it …
Declassified NSA Newsletters
Through a 2010 FOIA request (yes, it took that long), we have copies of the NSA’s KRYPTOS Society Newsletter, “ Tales of the Krypt,” from 1994 to 2003. There are many interesting things in the 800 pages of newsletter. There are many redactions. And a 1994 review of Applied …
The Story of the Mirai Botnet
Over at Wired, Andy Greenberg has an excellent story about the creators of the 2016 Mirai botnet. [...]
Security Analysis of a Thirteenth-Century Venetian Election Protocol
Interesting analysis : This paper discusses the protocol used for electing the Doge of Venice between 1268 and the end of the Republic in 1797. We will show that it has some useful properties that in addition to being interesting in themselves, also suggest that its fundamental design principle is …
Spaf on the Morris Worm
Gene Spafford wrote an essay reflecting on the Morris Worm of 1988—35 years ago. His lessons from then are still applicable today. [...]
Kevin Mitnick Died
Obituary. [...]
Snowden Ten Years Later
In 2013 and 2014, I wrote extensively about new revelations regarding NSA surveillance based on the documents provided by Edward Snowden. But I had a more personal involvement as well. I wrote the essay below in September 2013. The New Yorker agreed to publish it, but the Guardian asked …
October Is Cybersecurity Awareness Month
For the past nineteen years, October has been Cybersecurity Awareness Month here in the US, and that event that has always been part advice and part ridicule. I tend to fall on the apathy end of the spectrum; I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it before. But …
Cold War Bugging of Soviet Facilities
Found documents in Poland detail US spying operations against the former Soviet Union. The file details a number of bugs found at Soviet diplomatic facilities in Washington, D.C., New York, and San Francisco, as well as in a Russian government-owned vacation compound, apartments used by Russia personnel, and …
Medieval Security Techniques
Sonja Drummer describes (with photographs) two medieval security techniques. The first is a for authentication: a document has been cut in half with an irregular pattern, so that the two halves can be brought together to prove authenticity. The second is for integrity: hashed lines written above and below …