Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Hazards of camouflage

from here (image source)

While not being seen has some obvious advantages if you're up to something people would disapprove of, it can also backfire if you're not careful. For example, how could the Invisible Man cross the street without getting run over?

As for the example above, it turns out that outfit was knitted, and it's part of a collection of knitted camouflage.

It seed too much

found on Reddit

On the one hand it's refreshing to see people concerned about their privacy, but on the other hand it's disheartening to see such profound lapses in critical thinking leading people to worry about all the wrong things.

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

They'd have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling kid

from here

I'd love to hear more about the pint-sized prodigy who found threats that adults had missed but I understand why that kind of information shouldn't be made public.

Gone Phishing tote bag

Product Page

I thought this was a clever design. I imagine people asking questions about it, and those questions could be learning opportunities.

Monday, September 28, 2020

It would be smarter to avoid this situation entirely

from here and here (image and article source)

Thankfully this is just a proof of concept (for now), but it provides a visceral demonstration of the problems in adopting IoT technology. Thankfully I'm not a coffee drinker, but I imagine there are a lot of people out there who would get chills at the thought of this scenario.

No, Mr. Bond, I expect privacy to die

found on Funny Junk

I'm not familiar enough with this game to know if the image has been altered, but the resemblance certainly is amazing. Uncanny, even.

Friday, September 25, 2020

Letting Amazon record your comings and goings

from here and here (image source one, two, and three)

Letting a Ring camera fly around inside your home is pretty invasive, much more so than just having a camera at your front door, and it makes one wonder what's next?

(I know the last image isn't actually of a butt plug with a camera in it, but it certainly looks like it could be that)

When they say they're keeping you for observation

found on Acid Cow

I certainly hope this wasn't billed as a private room, because it seems like anything butt.

Thursday, September 24, 2020

What could possibly go wrong?

from here and here

I imagine Alexei Navalny would advise against accepting vaccines from these particular strangers.

Never mind the fact that "free" is often used to lure in unsuspecting victims for all sorts of scams and  the fact that a vaccine for something no one else has a vaccine for yet meets the criteria for too good to be true. This is a nation that has a reputation for poisoning people.

Rachel Ray Show: Self-Defense Lessons with a Former CIA Agent

Watch on YouTube

The flashlight idea is probably pretty obvious, but the other 2 techniques are definitely getting filed away in my memory for future reference.

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Just wait 'til TLS falls out a window

from here and here

OK, maybe it's not the absolute best, but it's certainly way up there. If Russia doesn't want it, we'll take it

Password policy will get new claws

found on Piximus

Sometimes I too am filled with a mixture of confusion and anger at password policies - even when I'm the one who wrote the system's code.

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

It's gonna be YUGE

from here and here

It's hard not to come away from the "Clean Networks" idea and not think they're talking about some kind of firewall (though probably more like the Great Firewall of China than anything you can get at Best Buy), and with the demand for a transaction fee to allow China to comply with the other demands it's easy to make the association with Trump's past election promise of a border wall that Mexico would pay for.

Cyber Security mouse pad

Product Page

I originally saw this design on a shirt, but I'm a little tired of featuring people's shirts all the time so I browsed the artist's shop and found it on this mouse pad. I'm sure if you look you'll find other things of interest there as well.

Monday, September 21, 2020

Annoy surveillance capitalists with this one weird trick

from here

You can put a sticker over your camera to prevent image-based spying, but what are you supposed to do about your devices listening in on your conversations through their microphones? Perhaps we can learn something from lonely people.

You've got to get up pretty early to get past him

found on Reddit

Under the right circumstances these animals can in fact be quite vicious. If someone put up this sign there's a good chance that you should  be at least as cautious as if there were a beware of dog sign.

Friday, September 18, 2020

Only America gets to have backdoors

from here

I may be dating myself here, but back in the day Oracle tried to market their software as "unbreakable". I don't think I need to tell you how that worked out for them. Now they're going to be looking for problems in someone else's code - good luck with that. Hopefully it works out better this time.

Of course the aim is to prevent Chinese backdoors, and this was all prompted by a government that keeps trying to add backdoors to things (they're obsessed with the back door, it seems). It all seems very self-serving, to be honest.

How quickly we forget the lessons of Snowden

found on Reddit

Virtually every one of those people who are afraid of microchips in vaccines is carrying a cell phone around with them that tracks their location at all times, even if they turn off location services. To a certain extent that was known about even before Snowden, but the documents he leaked expanded our knowledge about that.

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Blocking malware is just a bonus

from here

I may spend way too much time thinking about security, but the truth is that I was blocking ads before malvertizing became a thing, and I'd still be blocking ads even if malvertizing stopped being a thing.

Just Say OK To Scammers

Watch on YouTube

Here's a way to cause scammers to lose their tempers and waste their time with the least amount of effort. I almost want to try this myself (if only they didn't make me lose MY temper).

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Blank IVs - Not Even Once

from here

This may go over a lot of people's heads, but as someone who has encountered crypto code that ignores initialization vectors because the programmer was just following examples in MSDN, the fact that Microsoft themselves have mishandled IVs in their own code just fills me with such schadenfreude.

Where'd she go?

found on Meme Base

Blending in to the furniture seems like a good way to be forgotten.

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Maybe you're supposed to hold it up?

from here (image source)

You could hold it up. It's not like you're going to need that hand to wipe with since there doesn't appear to be any toilet paper.

I Drink Because Your Password Is Password shirt

Product Page

Normally with shirts I try to highlight both men's and women's shirts but on this particular site they seem identical. That's less than ideal, but I still really like the design, and I feel for people who have to deal with users like that.

Monday, September 14, 2020

Choosing a memorable password? What could possibly go wrong?

from here and here

It's absurd to use one of your most well know phrases as your passphrase, and yet the old advice about passwords/passphrases clearly stipulates that it should be something that's easy for you to remember. What's more memorable than your own personal catch phrase?

Thanks to Graham Cluley for writing and tweeting about it.

Let's see you try to take candy from this baby

found on Sharenator

Supposedly this is a pet snake, but I'm pretty sure this snake is on guard duty, and it's doing a good job. No one wants to get anywhere near the kid.

Friday, September 11, 2020

Beware of Peeping Tom

from here and here (image source)

You've got to hand it to this gentleman. At least he's giving people a heads up about what they can expect from him.

You shall not pass

found on Evil Milk

Go ahead and try to unlock that without disturbing the nest. I dare you.

Thursday, September 10, 2020

Scumbag spymaster has a particular set of skills

from here and here (image source)

It can't be a coincidence that a company with products like Alexa (that listens to your conversations), Ring (which watches everything and shares footage with police and possibly other agents of the state), and Rekognition (which can power all sorts of biometric surveillance applications) acquired the ex-director of the National Security Agency for it's board of directors. With a member of the Intelligence Community in a position of influence, Surveillance Capitalism has never looked more menacing.

Go Go Gadget Case!

Watch on YouTube

If those bars extended any further they'd hoist the crook and his crushed fingers into the air - then he definitely wouldn't get very far.

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

So much for "trust but verify"

from here

Trusting without verifying is basically blind faith, and that's no way to hold an election. Voting technology vendors should not get to decide when, where, how, or by whom their technology is tested, and they certainly shouldn't be soliciting their customers to call the feds on students doing that testing.

Every airport screener

found on Imgur

You may be able to opt out of facial recognition, and maybe even body scanners, but when it comes to the pat-down your only way to opt out is to not go in the first place.

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

What else can one click prove?

from here and here (image sources one and two)

It's amazing to me how much heavy lifting a single click can do. It can prove your identity, your humanity, that you read and agreed to the terms and conditions, etc.

Fridge Locker

Product Page

I never even knew these existed. If I had ... I probably wouldn't have used it because I've been fairly lucky about the people I lived and worked with. However, if you don't trust the people you live or work with then this might be for you.

Monday, September 7, 2020

Only as strong as the weakest link

from here and here (image source)

I couldn't resist the pun.Sorry, not sorry.

Your password manager would like a word with you

found on Izismile

The worst is when your password expires right before your vacation, so it's no longer what you trained yourself to remember through rote repetition and you've had no practice with the new one that you selected weeks ago.

Friday, September 4, 2020

Bring Your Own Body-Cam

from here

Officer-worn video cameras aren't ideal for establishing officer accountability. They're better at capturing details to justify police action (and thereby cover the officer's arse) than at capturing the officer doing things they shouldn't be doing. Surveillance, after all, is a tool of the state and tools of the state can't be easily turned against the state.

Citizen-worn video cameras (aka souveillance) on the other hand are much better at capturing improper police action because they can be pointed at cops and because the police can't disable them or obstruct their view (so long as the police action isn't against the wearer, so some redundancy may be called for) .

Make sure no one rains on your parade

found on Reddit


Thursday, September 3, 2020

Like the Adobe Acrobat of content management systems

from here

When I look at blogging platforms, somehow it seems that the one everyone uses is the one that's always getting exploited. It makes you wonder why people continue to use it when stuff like this keeps happening.

You can't grab if you can't smash

Watch on YouTube

They put in so much effort but seemingly it was all for naught. This kind of thing requires the crook to be able to get in and out quickly, because alarms were probably already triggered. The polycarbonate glass won't hold up to that kind of attack forever but it doesn't need to. It only needs to slow the robbers down enough that they either run out of time or get caught.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

High 'Security'

from here (image source)

According to the source, this oddity remained like this for at least 7 years, so I guess it really was secure because clearly no one had a ladder to retrieve those other keys.

They'll never be able to break into here

found on Good Bear Comics

It might be a bit on the subtle side, unless you've spent time looking into squirrel-proof bird feeders. That little bit below the birdhouse is a barrier that squirrels are supposedly unable to get past (though you may find that some are acrobatic enough to find a way). Check the comic on it's original site, though - there's a bonus panel that explains how the bird intends to deal with those acrobat squirrels.

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

The personal touch has personal consequences

from here

The story about the attempted compromise of a Tesla factory is surprising to me because of how much trust the criminals placed in their would-be accomplice. Certainly there are other ways to get this done, even if the old thumb drive in the parking lot trick doesn't work. Allowing himself to be not only seen but to engage on a personal, even friendly basis is what did this crook in. This is why anonymity is so valuable in criminal enterprises.

Gas Can Purse

Product Page

If you're concerned about purse snatchers, then a purse that's disguised rather convincingly as something a purse snatcher wouldn't be interested in seems like an excellent idea.