Fox news reports a suspected Al Qaeda militant from Buena, N.J., is being investigated by the FBI after his arrest in the Middle East for allegedly trying to shoot his way out of a hospital in Yemen, WMGM-TV in Atlantic City reported. Federal sources confirmed that 26-year-old Sharif Mobley is in custody after a shooting rampage This story comes to us via Homeland Security – National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is  Read More →

It’s good to dream: IARPA’s five-year plan aims to design experiments that can measure trust with high certainty — a tricky proposition for a psychological study. Developing such experimental protocols could prove very useful for assessing levels of trust within one-on-one talks, or even during group interactions. A second part of the IARPA proposal might involve using new types of…  Read More →

An Estonian virus writer has been sentenced to jail in Harju, Estonia. The author of the Allaple virus family, 44-year old Mr. Artur Boiko pleaded not guilty. Nevertheless, he was found guilty and sentenced to 2 years and 7 months in prison. Allaple is a complex worm using polymorphic encryption. It spreads over network shares and by modifying local HTML files. When such HTML files are uploaded to …  Read More →

Militant and terrorist groups are using the Internet to streamline their terrorist recruiting, radicalization, and training. The man who allegedly attempted to blow up an American airliner on Christmas Day was contacted, recruited, and trained in just six weeks, officials say. Militant groups can radicalize individuals and train them to carry out terrorist acts much This story comes to us via Homeland Security – National Terror Alert. National... 

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties Knight In Shining Armor many were expecting. Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted . The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the... 

The site set up to locate long lost pals, Classmates.com, has been hit with a class action privacy lawsuit. It alleges the company violated the law when it decided to make user profiles public to compete with Facebook. The suit says Classmates.com duped its paying customers in late January when it sent them an e-mail telling members they’d have to opt out of new Facebook and iPhone apps to keep their data private. That’s a massive... 

The European Parliament delivered a political blow to Hollywood and the Obama administration, voting Wednesday 663 to 13 in opposition to a proposed and secret intellectual property agreement being negotiated by the European Union, United States and a handful of others. Wednesday’s developments concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting and Trade Agreement are substantial because the European Union’s 27 countries vastly outnumber the remaining... 

Really: Since they are hard to conceal, the study says, noses would work well for identification in covert surveillance. The researchers say noses have been overlooked in the growing field of biometrics, studies into ways of identifying distinguishing traits in people. “Noses are prominent facial features and yet their use as a biometric has been largely unexplored,” said the University…  Read More →

ATM skimmers are installed like this: Video source: Spiegel.de & German Federal Criminal Office (Bundeskriminalamt) On 10/03/10 At 12:06 PM  Read More →

I wasn’t sure I’d see this Browser Choice update : I set my computer’s Regional Options for the United States even though it’s physically located in Finland (I’m an American after all). Regional settings might trump my IP address, I thought… but it seems not. I manually ran Microsoft Update and was provided access to KB976002. Cool. If you’re located outside of Europe and are wondering what’s this... 

F-Secure has an additional blog that launched today. It’s called Safe and Savvy . You’ll notice that the name is pink. That’s part of our new brand but it also reflects the authorship. Safe and Savvy’s contributors are the female employees of F-Secure (mostly). Hetta, Marja, Annika, Alia, Melody-Jane, (and Jason) have already gotten started. Read more of Hetta’s  Read More →

My appearance on OWASP Podcast 61 is available. The .mp3 is 36 MB. Thanks to Jim Manico for inviting me to participate. We recorded the podcast in late January. Jim asked me the following questions: Would you care to tell us how did you get into IT and what lead you into a career in information security? What keeps you busy these days? What’s the difference between focusing on threats vs focusing on vulnerabilities? What is your problem... 

Good legal paper on the limits of identity cards: Stephen Mason and Nick Bohm, “Identity and its Verification,” in Computer Law & Security Review, Volume 26, Number 1, Jan 2010. Those faced with the problem of how to verify a person’s identity would be well advised to ask themselves the question, ‘Identity with what?’ An enquirer equipped with the answer…  Read More →

While many are disappointed American turncoat Adam Gadahn was not the al-Qaeda operative arrested in Pakistan, as erroneously reported on Monday, there is still good cause to celebrate: Al Qaeda is on the run. And it is a fitting irony that Gadahn’s latest propaganda video, released last Sunday, serves as an indicator al-Qaeda’s time in Pakistan This story comes to us via Homeland Security – National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert... 

The alleged mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings is believed to have been killed in a shoot-out with Indonesian police on the outskirts of Jakarta today. Dulmatin, nicknamed “the Genius”, was an explosives expert who was believed to have set off one of the Bali bombs with a mobile phone, as well as helping to This story comes to us via Homeland Security – National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America’s trusted...