Tag: Security
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Why Unbreakable Codes Don't Make Unbreakable DRM
It’s commonly understood among independent security experts that DRM (i.e., copy prevention) technology is fundamentally insecure, at least based on today’s state of the art. Non-experts often misunderstand why this is true. They often ask, “When you say DRM is insecure, isn’t that just another way of saying that any code can be broken?” Actually,…
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Software and Export Control
Today’s New York Times, in an article by John Schwartz, reports on the availability of export-controlled software outside the U.S. Certain software that has defense applications is not allowed to be shipped to “pariah countries” such as North Korea and Iraq. Unauthorized copies of such software are available for sale in China, and presumably the…
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Report from the ACM DRM Workshop
Yesterday I attended the ACM “Digital Rights Management” Workshop in Washington DC. There were about 100 attendees, most of them computer scientists, with a few lawyers and Washington policy types thrown in. Papers from the workshop are available online. My main impression was that the speakers were more openly skeptical about DRM than at past…
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Early Release of MS Decision Just a Blunder
Ted Bridis at AP confirms, based on an internal investigation by court staff, that the early release to the Web of Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s rulings in the Microsoft case was just a mistake by someone on the staff.
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Garfinkel on Mitnick's Book
Simson Garfinkel has an interesting reaction to Kevin Mitnick’s recent book. Mitnick, “the most famous computer hacker of our time,” claims to have operated mainly by social engineering, that is, by conning people into giving him restricted information. Garfinkel describes how Mitnick-type attacks can be mitigated by wisely-designed technology.
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Microsoft Ruling Released Early
Update (8:42 PM): The item below, which I am leaving here only to maintain a complete record, was INCORRECT. It was based on an inaccurate report from a reader, which was discovered when I asked the reader a few more questions. At this point, although the ruling was put on the Court’s website early, there…
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Wiley's Super-Worm
Brandon Wiley writes about the possibility of a “super-worm” that would use sophisticated methods to infect a large fraction of Internet hosts, and to maintain and evolve the infection over time. This is scary stuff. I have two comments to add. First, the worst case is probably even worse than Wiley suggests. His paper may…
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Slate: Nigerian Scam Emails Explained
Brendan Koerner at Slate explains why we’re all getting so many Nigerian scam emails. Most of them really do come from Nigeria, though the rest of their story is of course fictional.
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Discovery vs. Creation
Last week I had yet another DMCA debate, this time at the Chicago International Intellectual Property Conference. Afterward, I had an interesting conversation with Kathy Strandburg of DePaul Law School, about the different mindsets of DMCA supporters and opponents. DMCA supporters seem to think of security technology as reflecting the decisions of its creators, while…
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One More on Biometrics
Simson Garfinkel offers a practical perspective on biometrics, at CSO Magazine.