Two weeks ago, the news media breathlessly announced that hackers linked to the Iranian government were said to have breached one of the industrial control systems (ICS) connected to a dam in upstate New York. The fact that this alleged breach took place two years ago did nothing to dampen interest in the story, which…
Ashley Madison’s Resurgence is a Monument to Toxic Masculinity
As the New Year begins, I’ve forcibly restrained myself from writing any of those tiresome “2015 in review” articles, or any of those equally-boring “what to expect in 2016” trend pieces. However, I would like to add one miniscule pixel to the knowledge-pile of things we learned over the last twelve months. Specifically: Men. We…
NSA And Juniper Networks In Extreme Backdoor Shadiness
Two weeks ago, security researchers at Juniper Networks announced that they had found code, not their own, embedded into the operating system of their firewalls. This code had been in included in versions of the operating system dating back to 2012, and would allow a third party to access and decrypt secure communications that had…
Let Us Congratulate The European Union On Another Misguided Attempt To Regulate The Internet
It’s a day ending in “Y,” so the EU is doing something idiotic again. Seriously, I don’t understand how a theoretically enlightened collaborative of liberal-leaning nations can get together and be so pants-on-head stupid about the internet. And yet. Just before Christmas, the civil liberties and home affairs committee of the European Parliament voted for a measure…
The Force Awakens Is Better Than You Imagined (Yes, Spoilers)
As the date of its release approached, The Force Awakens assumed a towering significance. I wasn’t looking for a good movie to watch, or a fun way to divert a couple of hours. No. The Force Awakens represented a promise that all of the harm and wrong from an entire ten years’ worth of terrible…
The FBI Seems to Be Unclear on this Whole “Law Enforcement” Concept
Remember Hacking Team? It feels so long ago, but just this summer, some unknown perpetrator cracked up the hidden files of this little-known Italian company, and revealed a monster. This tiny organization was responsible for creating and selling malware and censorware to oppressive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Bahrain, among others. In a new…
In a Surprise to No One, France Takes a Counterproductive Approach to Stopping Terror Via the Internet
I am a bit disappointed in France. The nation has, of course, coped gallantly with the aftermath of its most recent crisis, especially in the light of its decision to continue admitting Syrian refugees by their tens of thousands. That is not what I am disappointed in. Rather, there is the recent and very depressing…
For Christmas, Give Your Kids the Gift of Getting Hacked
Are you a parent? Have you ever made the mental calculation, “My kids want ToyX, but I can only afford knockoff ToyY, and they’re probably too young to tell the difference?” And to be fair, I’m sure that your two-year old was just as happy getting the $5.00 “Space Wars” R2-D2 knockoff that looked like…
Chrome Extensions are Secretly Evil, Just Like Everything Else You Love
Remember Internet Explorer? I don’t mean the Internet Explorer of 2015, I mean the IE from the bad old days. You know, back before tabs weren’t a thing. Do you remember discovering Mozilla Firefox, and how much like magic that felt? Not just tabs — though tabs were great — but the extensions. You could…
David Cameron is a Tasteless Jerk Who Is Bad at Laws
There is a famous quote, often attributed to Mark Twain (although it is doubtful that he ever said this). It reads, “History never repeats itself, but it does rhyme.” Well, here’s a familiar verse: The conservative leader of a Western industrialized nation is using a recent tragedy to justify the increased surveillance of its citizens.…