Robert Lemos

…articles and musings of a technology and science journalist

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Entries Tagged as 'Blog'

A purpose-driven life for viruses?

August 30th, 2006 · No Comments

Defining success in your own life can be fairly straightforward: Figure out what goals matter to you and achieve them. However, for the competitive set–you know, the ones who ask all the milestone questions at high-school reunions–comparing your level of success with others is very difficult: Does my eight kids trump my boss’s vice president [...]

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Tags: Blog · Research · Security · Viruses and worms

So that’s what you’re looking at…

August 28th, 2006 · No Comments

Most people in the security world have heard of TEMPEST systems, whether in reference to attacks that aim to eavesdrop on computer technology by sniffing the electromagnetic signals that leak from all computers or the defensive standard for foiling such attacks. But it’s not everyday that you can see a demo of the attack.

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Tags: Blog · Critical infrastructure · Flaws and vulnerabilities · Research · Security

(Your threat here) on planes

August 21st, 2006 · No Comments

Anyone with kids knows that if you repeat something enough times, it sticks (or drives the parent to distraction, but that’s another post). So the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and their British equivalent should not be surprised at the latest list of stories now appearing describing a mixed bag of perceived threats. But this [...]

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Tags: Blog · Homeland Security · Security

Circumventing copyright through policy, not “piracy”

August 15th, 2006 · No Comments

This will be a bit of departure for my normal all-security-all-the-time (though, not too far). Lawrence Lessing, founder of the Center for Internet and Society and a professor of law at Stanford University, gave the opening keynote at LinuxWorld on Tuesday, and frankly, the presentation was one of the better ones that I’ve seen in [...]

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Tags: Blog · Consumer Tech · Government · Open Source · Security

Security at the airport

August 11th, 2006 · No Comments

It’s Friday morning and things have become a bit clearer. Law enforcement officers in the U.K. have arrested 24 people suspected of planning to blow up planes using liquid explosives disguised as drinks, hair gel and other consumer products.

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Tags: Blog · Government · Homeland Security · Security

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft flaw counts

August 8th, 2006 · No Comments

Here are the counts of the number of documented flaws fixed by Microsoft in the last set of patches. Overall, the company fixed 23 flaws with 10 vulnerabilities deemed critical for the company’s latest software versions.

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Tags: Blog · Research · Security

Angst over a Mac flaw

August 7th, 2006 · No Comments

I’m back from Black Hat and DEFCON, and I’ve vowed to actually start blogging regularly about some of the stories behind the stories. I’m hoping that more transparency about my reporting, more behind-the-scenes looks at the people in the stories and adding tidbits on which I might not otherwise report will end up helping my [...]

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Tags: Blog · Consumer Tech · Research · Security

NSA probably can do napkin math

July 10th, 2006 · No Comments

A brief analysis of the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program using Bayes Theorem concluded that the program has no value for fighting terrorism, but seems to make the mistake of assuming the program operates in a vacuum.

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Tags: Blog · Critical infrastructure · Government · Privacy · Security

I’ve also been known to write haikus…

June 23rd, 2006 · No Comments

CreditBloggers had an informal test of haiku skill, so I put fingers to keys and came up with this:

Obtuse addendum
Hides change to default language
Rates soar, debt deepens

Turns out I won the contest.

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Tags: Blog · Humor

One in 8 (or 9) American adults

May 26th, 2006 · No Comments

I saw this post over at the EmergentChaos blog and wanted to provide some different numbers. Basically, Adam estimates that 8.9 percent of the U.S. population is affected by the recent data leak at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Actually, the percentage at risk is a bit higher, if you look at the right population.

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Tags: Blog · Consumer Tech · Government · Privacy · Security