A recent Arstechnica article discussed several U.S. states that are considering adding a “roadside textalyzer” that operates analogously to roadside Breathalyzer tests. In the same way that alcohol and drugs can impair a driver’s ability to navigate the road, so can paying attention to your phone rather than the world beyond. Many states “require” drivers to consent […]
Apple, FBI, and Software Transparency
March 10, 2016 by
The Apple versus FBI showdown has quickly become a crucial flashpoint of the “new Crypto War.” On February 16 the FBI invoked the All Writs Act of 1789, a catch-all authority for assistance of law enforcement, demanding that Apple create a custom version of its iOS to help the FBI decrypt an iPhone used by one of the San […]
U.S. Citizenship and N.S.A. Surveillance – Legal Safeguard or Practical Backdoor?
October 15, 2013 by
The main takeaway of two recent disclosures around N.S.A. surveillance practices, is that Americans must re-think ‘U.S. citizenship’ as the guiding legal principle to protect against untargeted surveillance of their communications. Currently, U.S. citizens may get some comfort through the usual political discourse that ‘ordinary Americans’ are protected, and this is all about foreigners. In […]
The Linux Backdoor Attempt of 2003
October 9, 2013 by
Josh wrote recently about a serious security bug that appeared in Debian Linux back in 2006, and whether it was really a backdoor inserted by the NSA. (He concluded that it probably was not.) Today I want to write about another incident, in 2003, in which someone tried to backdoor the Linux kernel. This one […]
The Debian OpenSSL Bug: Backdoor or Security Accident?
September 20, 2013 by
On Monday, Ed wrote about Software Transparency, the idea that software is more resistant to intentional backdoors (and unintentional security vulnerabilities) if the process used to create it is transparent. Elements of software transparency include the availability of source code and the ability to read or contribute to a project’s issue tracker or internal developer […]
