Lottery Winner

I just won the TSA lottery and got selected for additional screening. An alarm went off after a swab of my hand was tested. (Really appreciated the giggles and chorus of "ooooo" from the dozen agents/officers/other uniformed people when the machine buzzed. At least I was quickly moved to the area, so they could go back to chitchatting.) During my fondling session, they told me some lotions will trigger the alarm. Sounds like a good system to me. I feel safer already. I didn't pitch a fit as I want to get home today, but I expressed my displeasure to several of them and used the words "ridiculous" and "security theater." The only funny part was the raised eyebrow from one of the agents when he saw them pull a couple copies of American Rifleman (trips are when I catch up on my dead tree reading) from my bag. There are pretty pictures of some Kimbers on the back.

Zuckerburg Thinks Using Real Names Creates a Polite Society

According to this article, Zuckerburg thinks requiring us to use our real names will make us play nice in the sandbox. Has he seen what people say using their real name? I don't argue that he has the right to determine how his business is run. I just think he is wrong.

Via Slashdot.org

A Case for Pseudonyms

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) makes the case for Pseudonyms. I do not fear for my life, but I still think there ought to be some separation between personal and public - on-line pseudonyms seem to be a reasonable method for maintaining that separation. If I started doing evil things with this blog, then there is a legal process for finding out who am. Not that it would be that hard given the various tidbits of personal information I've provided in my posts to track me down IRL.

We know who you are... and what moves you to act.

We know who you are...
When I read about the new features that are browser specific, I again think of how easy it is to differentiate computers using unique markers from various sources (network cards, browser version, ip address, plugins, etc.) There are no secrets on the internet.

And what moves you to act...
Targeted advertising, much like the ads on this humble blog, have evolved to the point that they do a fairly good job of predicting what you might buy. However, marketing technologists are not satisfied - they want to appeal to you using the technique that is most likely to persuade you. So, they've figured out that you would want to buy a BMW X6. Now they are going to show you an ad that has a German engineer describing all the advanced features of the X6 - if you are persuaded by expertise. If you think it will help you pick up chicks, then the ad might feature Pippa driving one.

Of course, business isn't the only one to have an opinion on the matter..
I am not just a number! At least the courts don't think you can equate an individual to an ip address.

Via Slashdot.org and Slashdot.org

Government Openness and Individual Privacy

It is a simple equation: Liberty is a function of Privacy of the People and Openness of the Government. Liberty decreases with the loss of privacy or openness.

I cannot fathom any reasonable arguments that would persuade me to think video-taping the police should be illegal. Who watches the watchmen?

Security in 2020

Apologies for being such a Schneier fanboy, but the guy just makes a lot of sense to me.

Security in 2020

"One old trend: deperimeterization. Two current trends: consumerization and decentralization. Three future trends: deconcentration, decustomerization, and depersonization. That’s IT in 2020—­it’s not under your control, it’s doing things without your knowledge and consent, and it’s not necessarily acting in your best interests. And this is how things will be when they’re working as they’re intended to work; I haven't even started talking about the bad guys yet."

We are all going to end up like the passengers on the ship in WALL-E.

From Brick O'Lore

HTTPS Everywhere

Quoting from an e-mail I received:

"This week, EFF launched a new version of HTTPS Everywhere, a free security tool that provides enhanced privacy protection for Firefox browser users. EFF built HTTPS Everywhere to automatically switch many of the websites you visit from insecure HTTP to secure HTTPS.

EFF and the Tor Project originally built the HTTPS Everywhere software to help users take advantage of secure web searching on Google and a few other sites. Browsers normally prefer HTTP, unless site operators explicitly redirect browsers to HTTPS. HTTPS Everywhere changes the browser to prefer HTTPS wherever it's known to work.

After researchers demonstrated major web security flaws on social networking sites, webmail and search engines, EFF was inspired to expand HTTPS Everywhere to include Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, Bit.ly, Cisco, Dropbox, Evernote, and GitHub. In addition to making HTTPS Everywhere open-source and available for free, EFF has released a technical guide to help website operators implement HTTPS properly, which will improve security and privacy across the web."

Web Privacy

Ah, I didn't need to worry about technology protecting us, policy will save us!

PC Fingerprinting/Tracking

The WSJ has published a story about the increasing sophistication of the tools used to track Internet users.

From Brick O'Lore

I'm not sure this really scares me. Worse case it is an arms race. Anonymizing services or the privacy modes of browsers could be used to fake/randomize timestamps, fonts, and versions.