Freedom to Tinker readers are probably aware of the current controversy over Google’s handling of ongoing security vulnerabilities in its Android WebView component. What sounds at first like a routine security problem turns out to have some deep challenges. Let’s start by filling in some background and build up to the big problem they’re not […]
Striking a balance between advertising and ad blocking
December 11, 2014 by
In the news, we have a consortium of French publishers, which somehow includes several major U.S. corporations (Google, Microsoft), attempting to sue AdBlock Plus developer Eyeo, a German firm with developers around the world. I have no idea of the legal basis for their case, but it’s all about the money. AdBlock Plus and the closely […]
Your TV is spying on you, and what you can do about it
November 19, 2013 by
A recent UK observer with a packet sniffer noticed that his LG “smart” TV was sending all his viewing habits back to an LG server. This included filenames from an external USB disk. Add this atop observations that Samsung’s 2012-era “smart” TVs were riddled with security holes. (No word yet on the 2013 edition.) What’s […]
Engineering an insider-attack-resistant email system and why you wouldn't want to use it
October 16, 2013 by
Earlier this week, Felten made the observation that the government eavesdropping on Lavabit could be considered as an insider attack against Lavabit users. This leads to the obvious question: how might we design an email system that’s resistant to such an attack? The sad answer is that we’ve had this technology for decades but it […]
Lavabit and how law enforcement access might be done in the future
October 14, 2013 by
The saga of Lavabit, the now-closed “secure” mail provider, is an interesting object of study. They’re in the process of appealing a court order to produce their SSL private keys, with which a government eavesdropper would then have access to the entirety of all traffic going in and out of Lavabit. You can read Lavabit’s […]
