Mar 31
Cars and hacking, at least the digital kind, aren’t two things you usually associate with each other, but the rise of smart cars might make that a source of headaches … Continue reading
Mar 31
A couple weeks ago, we learned from leaked documents that the NSA has the capability to record an entire country’s calls, texts, and email in real time. That’s a hell of a capability, and those documents revealed that it was being used in one country. Now, thanks to a retired NSA leader, we know which country that is: Iraq.
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Mar 31
PasswordBox Partnership Lets The Nymi ECG Wristband Log You In Anywhere On Mobile
Posted in: Today's ChiliThe Nymi armband from Toronto-startup Bionym is edging closer to reality, and a new partnership announced today helps make it more clear how it’ll be useful to everyday consumers. Bionym is teaming up with PasswordBox to make it possible to authenticate your mobile logins using your heart rate automatically, for super fast access to sites, devices and services. PasswordBox is a login locker,… Read More
Mar 29
NY1 news is saying that Daniel Vasquez, assistant security director at One World Trade Center, is resigning after two separate events where thrill-seekers were able to break in to the building.
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Mar 28
When posting online, how much personal information is too much? A lot of people post statuses, pictures, and videos on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that often reveal more than they intend to.
For example, someone could simply be posting a selfie shot in their garden, but other people (like would-be stalkers, for example) might be able to identify where they live from that photo alone.
This is the premise that Jack Vale worked with in his social media experiment. Jack began by searching Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter profiles of people within his current location. He noted down personal information that these users have posted and then approached them in real-life. He then proceeded to reveal the personal (and often, private) information that he was able to gather, which lead to more than a few shocked reactions.
While Jack’s video is mildly humorous, it’s worth noting that internet privacy and security isn’t something that should be ignored these days. According to Trend Micro, many people have already had their identities, bank information, and money stolen through social media scams and phishing emails, so remember to be vigilant so you won’t become a victim.
If you haven’t already, then maybe it’s time to tweak your accounts’ privacy settings before it’s too late.
[via Laughing Squid]
Mar 28
Photo: Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
A new iOS app called FireChat is blowing up in the App Store. But it’s not the app itself that’s causing such a stir, it’s the underlying networking technology it taps into.
The idea behind FireChat is simple. It’s a chatting app. After registering with a name — no email address or other personal identifiers required — you’re dropped into a fast-moving chatroom of “Everyone” using it in your country. The interesting aspect, however, is the “Nearby” option. Here, the app uses Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity framework, essentially a peer-to-peer feature that lets you share messages (and soon photos) with other app users nearby, regardless of whether you have an actual Wi-Fi or cellular connection.
You read that correctly. You’re able to send and receive messages even when you don’t have a data connection. FireChat accomplishes this magic by allowing each device to connect directly to others nearby using Bluetooth, peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, or traditional Wi-Fi networks. Because you’re connecting directly with other users, you don’t actually need to be connected over Wi-Fi or a cellular network.
Needless to say, this is a big deal. Engineer Mattt Thompson notes that Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity APIs “allow developers to completely reimagine how mobile apps are built, and to redefine what is possible.” The technology can be used for everything from “collaborative editing and file sharing, to multiplayer gaming and sensor aggregation.”
Apple gives a good high-level overview of how the Multipeer Connectivity Framework works on its developer site. Basically, your phone goes through separate discover and session phases. In the former, the app browses for other users nearby while simultaneously broadcasting to peers that it is available to connect to. This allows you to be invited into a “session” with multiple users all daisy-chained together. Once a session invitation is accepted, you can directly communicate with those other users independent of a cellular signal or Wi-Fi access. This creates what’s known as a wireless mesh network.
“Mesh networking is like this unicorn,” FireChat’s Christophe Daligault says. “We’ve been talking about it for 20 years. DARPA has put a lot of money into it. But it hasn’t really taken off in a big way anywhere.”
Mesh networks have been successfully implemented on the small scale, though. Sonos, for instance, creates a wireless mesh network with its audio products in the home — as long as one is connected to the internet via the Sonos Bridge, other devices can communicate with one another regardless of whether they are in range of the bridge. Miracast is also a small scale form of mesh networking.
But Apple’s implementation has the potential to make mesh networking useful on a grand scale. After all, a lot of people have iOS devices (over 700 million were sold by last October). And many are using the latest Multipeer Connectivity-supporting version of iOS. The company has essentially provided a necessarily massive platform where developers can harness the power of mesh networking.
FireChat has done a great job exploiting it already. The app has seen an astounding uptick in downloads over its first week in the App Store. It jumped to the number one spot in Social Networking in countries like Australia, Taiwan, and in Latin America, and is doing extremely well in a number of other markets too.
Indeed, the ability to connect without technically being connected has obvious benefits. If you’re out in the woods camping and need help, you could broadcast your needs in the hope someone picks it up. At a conference or music festival, when communication lines are normally completely clogged, you could share photos, plans, and thoughts with friends around you. Similarly, during a natural disaster, you could help locate loved ones and people in need, even with non-operational cellular towers.
Those in countries limiting its users’ access to the Internet or social media could also spread their message without fear of recourse. There is no way to tie an individual to their device other than with his or her username, which you can change at will. Messages also get deleted as soon as you close the app: anonymous, and ephemeral, Daligault says. The only hitch is, in Nearby mode, you don’t have any choice over who receives your messages — they go out to anyone within range.
This type of networking technology could disrupt other industries, too, diminishing the need for cloud services or storage (why upload to Dropbox when you can drop it directly)? And with easy access to peer-to-peer connections, file sharing (legal or illegal) becomes a snap. An untraceable snap (assuming bandwidth holds up).
In a time when the idea of any sort of digital privacy increasingly seems laughable, this type of networking promises true privacy and anonymity. On top of that, it’s a way of communicating that cannot be centrally controlled or shut down, Daligault says. And that is truly exciting.
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Mar 27
Hackers operate by the same rules of economics as we all do. Thanks to a high profile breach like Target’s
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Mar 27
A source speaking to The New York Times on Tuesday hinted at upcoming legislation that would aim to end the NSA’s controversial bulk phone records collection. Today the Obama administration … Continue reading
Mar 27
Google has released its latest Transparency Report, and in it is a reflection of our increasingly digital world. The number of data requests in the last half of 2013 was … Continue reading
Mar 27
In the 2000 AD comics, anyone who had the balls to disarm the brutal Judge Dredd and attempt to use his Lawgiver pistol against him would be left flailing, with the weapon smart enough to know when it wasn’t being wielded by the lawman. It’s a concept that’s now set to become a reality thanks to the Sentinl Identilock.
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