Great article (PDF) in the Washington Post about the increasing amount of secrecy in the government and the country - and why it is a disturbing trend. This democracy we live in was built on an open sharing of ideas - remember that the original settlers were escaping religious persecution - and too much secrecy in our government perverts its foundations. As the saying goes, the best disinfectant is sunlight. Hopefully our next administration will reverse the current trend.

But the notion that information is more credible because it's secret is increasingly unfounded. In fact, secret information is often more suspect because it hasn't been subjected to open debate. Those with their own agendas can game the system, over-classifying or stove-piping self-serving intelligence to shield it from scrutiny. Those who cherry-picked intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war could ignore anything that contradicted it. Even now, some members of Congress tell me that they avoid reading classified reports for fear that if they do, the edicts of secrecy will bar them from discussing vital public issues.

Posted by Chris at 09:32 PM in Politics, Security | Comments (0)

People hear about children being abducted on the news what seems like very often these days. So they assume the streets aren't very safe, and as a result, kids don't get the freedom to roam the way that I did when I was young. But are things really the way that they seem - or are people just more paranoid because of their perceptions?

Although statistics show that rates of child abduction and sexual abuse have marched steadily downward since the early 1990s, fear of these crimes is at an all-time high. Even the panic-inducing Megan's Law Web site says stranger abduction is rare and that 90 percent of child sexual-abuse cases are committed by someone known to the child. Yet we still suffer a crucial disconnect between perception of crime and its statistical reality. A child is almost as likely to be struck by lightning as kidnapped by a stranger, but it's not fear of lightning strikes that parents cite as the reason for keeping children indoors watching television instead of out on the sidewalk skipping rope.

And when a child is parked on the living room floor, he or she may be safe, but is safety the sole objective of parenting? The ultimate goal is independence, and independence is best fostered by handing it out a little at a time, not by withholding it in a trembling fist that remains clenched until it's time to move into the dorms.

Posted by Chris at 06:26 PM in Health, Science, Security | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris at 06:10 PM in Computing, Security | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris at 06:58 PM in History, Politics, Security | Comments (0)

Poison for the paranoid, or why everyone should be mindful of ubiquitous surveillance:

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
- Duc de Richelieu 1585-1642

"Even a modestly competent district attorney can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."
- Sol Wachtler, Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals

Posted by Chris at 03:53 PM in Security | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris at 03:27 PM in Security | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris at 08:38 PM in Computing, Politics, Security | Comments (0)

(I always forget to publish these scheduled articles...)
Although the article appears on the front page of the business section (An Obsession with Leaks and Plugs, PDF), it really ought to be a general op-ed. The current climate of secrecy, fear, and paranoia engendered by the administration already seem to be having ill effects on journalism, and as one could possibly even argued by the recent goings on at Hewlett-Packard, big business. The aptly titled "sunshine laws" that have been enacted in many places across the country passed because of the general feeling that democracy works best out in the open, in the brightly visible light of day. Exactly what about that is unclear to the current administration?

Posted by Chris at 10:23 AM in Computing, Politics, Security | Comments (0)

The widening gap between what the administration is saying about the war in Iraq and the war on terror is somewhat disturbing. You know something has got to be wrong when the agencies are quietly reporting things are much worse than the press releases say - they want to be sure when the shit actually hits the fan that they had covered their own ass...

The Guardian reports that the [National Intelligence Estimate] document "contradicts" recent optimistic assessments from the Bush administration. It also "furthers the divisions between the military and politicians in their assessment of the impact of US policy in Iraq."

Posted by Chris at 06:42 PM in Politics, Security | Comments (0)

I recommend reading the short article about the chemicals the English terrorists were planning to bring on the plane (theoretically) and the seriously low probability they would have had in doing any damage.

Posted by Chris at 05:57 PM in Science, Security | Comments (0)

you may be right, but if a very large, well-funded entity brings a lawsuit against you -- being right and being able to win in a court of law usually takes a lot of money. Well it looks like the MPAA finally picked on someone who has the money to defend himself. Hopefully Mr. Hogan is able to decisively showed them the error of their ham-fisted legalistic ways.

Posted by Chris at 07:37 PM in Computing, Music, Politics, Security | Comments (0)

Occasionally your Congressperson does learn something. What they do with that new knowledge is another question.

Almost every piece of personal information that Americans try to keep secret -- including bank account statements, e-mail messages and telephone records -- is semi-public and available for sale.

That was the lesson Congress learned over the last week during a series of hearings aimed at exposing peddlers of personal data, from whom banks, car dealers, jealous lovers and even some law enforcement officers have covertly purchased information to use as they wish.

"We had the impression that there were no secrets any more. Now we know that for sure," said Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican and chairman of the panel's oversight subcommittee.

Posted by Chris at 07:24 PM in Politics, Security | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris at 05:51 PM in Computing, Security | Comments (0)

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Posted by Chris at 05:12 PM in Politics, Security | Comments (0)

I was working for Sun Microsystems in 1999 when Scott McNealy famously said "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." I did not really want to believe him then, but I knew if we did not do something about it we would end up exactly in that spot.

On his blog, Bruce Schneier has posted one of his best all encompassing privacy essays to date, The Future Of Privacy. One of the good and bad things about wholesale surveillance is that it is so un-specific. We may no longer be anonymous with all this data about us stored in who knows how many databases, but just because it passes through a filter does not mean we are being watched in the same way it did thirty years ago. The problem lies in the filtering then, when a combination of things that we do raises a flag in some computer somewhere - and we become yet another example of an unduly harassed false positive. The numbers are so great at this point - the amount of data so large - that it does not seem to work out in our favor (the innocents) or that of law enforcement. And the amount of data seems like it will just keep pace with computing power and algorithm development.

Posted by Chris at 06:26 PM in Computing, Politics, Security | Comments (0)

The Transportation Security Administration Secure Flight program has been suspended, supposedly because they have found a number of security vulnerabilities in it. Maybe they are suspending it (for now) because it does not seem to be working - $150 million spent and only lots of unhappy false positive matches (ordinary people who can't fly because they are matched for the wrong reasons). Not a very good benefit-to-cost ratio.

Bruce Schneier has said many things better than I could about how little this program would do to enhance our security.

Posted by Chris at 10:22 PM in Politics, Security | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris at 06:25 PM in Computing, Politics, Security | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris at 05:00 PM in Politics, Security | Comments (0)

New Jersey Transit is trying to make it even harder to take pictures of their trains. Apparently you already have to get a permit to take pictures of the trains, but now they want to institute a 24 hour call ahead rule even after you get a permit. What's next - a note from your mother? Didn't anyone tell them that the MTA gave up on this idea?

I understand the increased need for security these days, but these ridiculous no photograph rules are quite unnecessary restrictions. Anyone that really wanting the photographs for an illegal purpose is probably not going to register or obey any restrictions anyway, so all they end up doing is penalizing lawful citizens. One more baby step towards a police state.

Posted by Chris at 03:45 PM in Security, Transportation | Comments (0)

News.com with a good article on some of the privacy implications of using Google or any of the other search engines.

It's all good and great until somebody steals one million full personal profiles...

Posted by Chris at 02:53 PM in Security | Comments (0)

Apple is moving to Intel chips for its new machines, will it also start using the Trusted Computing architecture? (From boingboing)

Posted by Chris at 12:55 PM in Computing, Security | Comments (0)

The HIPAA laws and those privacy informational notices then you get each time you go to the doctor were put in place to protect the privacy of your medical records. Even President Bush decided it was a good idea when he first came into office. Now his administration, through the Department of Justice seems to have rolled over for the Medical industry and taken the teeth out of the legislation by removing important criminal penalties.

Posted by Chris at 05:54 PM in Health, Politics, Security | Comments (0)

You can spend all you want on fancy technologies to secure data (or buildings, or airports, etc.), but if a person can still just walk in or make a phone call and convince the right person that they belong there, they can just walk out with your data. Or do what ever else they like, and the technology means little.

Posted by Chris at 12:16 PM in Computing, Security | Comments (0)

From USA today:
Unprotected PCs can be hijacked in minutes: Simply connecting to the Internet — and doing nothing else — exposes your PC to non-stop, automated break-in attempts by intruders looking to take control of your machine surreptitiously.

There is always the Macintosh...

Posted by Chris at 11:15 AM in Computing, Security | Comments (0)

There is a new book out on spam: Spam Kings: The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and %*@)# Enlargements

More than sixty percent of today's email traffic is spam, according to email filtering firm Brightmail. This year alone, five trillion spam messages will clog Internet users in-boxes, costing society an estimated USD10-billion in lost productivity, filtering software, and other expenses. Spam Kings:The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and Penis Enlargements is the first book to expose the shadowy world of the people responsible for the junk email problem.

Posted by Chris at 12:56 PM in Computing, Security | Comments (0)

An eWeek article talks about all the security problems in Internet Explorer, and how the Computer Emergency Response Team recommends using an alternative browser.

Posted by Chris at 05:28 PM in Computing, Security | Comments (0)

If you are at all interested in security topics, especially where national security and electronic security issues intersect, than I highly recommend the once-monthly Crypto-Gram newsletter written by Bruce Schneier, the CTO of Counter Pane Internet Security. Even if you are not so much into the computer and technology side of security, his views on the larger picture of National Security are quite interesting.
An opinion piece on news.com last month on how we are all security consumers is a good example of his views.

Posted by Chris at 08:32 PM in Computing, Security | Comments (0)