Rick

PDP 1s and Model Trains

Elsewhere on the Internet last week, people were solving a mystery about a PDP-1 running a…
Cities, Disneyland, and Software Security

I like to think of our modern software infrastructure as being like a large city and…
libhairshirt vs libfootgun

Peter Gutmann, an interesting crypto-academic from New Zealand, has proposed discussing two crypto libraries, libhairshirt and…
Cloud Security Specialization Launched

The University of Minnesota now offers a Cloud Security specialization through Coursera. It contains four courses…
Memory Sizes: Now with zetta and yotta!

One of the most popular pages on this site provides a simple conversion to map numbers…
Selling It: Crypto Edition

Here is a crypto version of “Selling It,” a long-running back-page column in the magazine Consumer…
Old Story: Leaked Voter Records

My previous posting on the Proud Boys spam email speculated that voter records were widely available…
“Proud Boys” Emails Are Bogus

The Proud Boys emails aren’t actual threats. They’re the lowest form of anonymous spam.
2021 MSSE Cloud Security Elective

UPDATE: This elective will be offered to second-year MSSE students at the University of Minnesota as…
Krebs’ Three Rules

Like most people, I’m drawn to those small lists of “rules” that promise to make our…
Basic Tech-y Article on Password Hacking

Here’s an article from last year’s Scientific American: The Mathematics of (Hacking) Passwords. If you remember…
Assessing an Email’s Legitimacy

I recently received an email sporting “Wells Fargo” logos. It asked me to do a survey.…
Beware of Phone Phishing

Just because the email (or letter) directs you to a phone number doesn’t mean you aren’t…
Solo Studio for Video Lectures

I’ve been recording video lectures for a Coursera specialization in cloud computing. The first of the…
FCPX and the Solo Studio

In other posts I describe how I’m producing videos for a Coursera specialization. This is a…
“Eyes Only” Revisited

I was poking around declassified documents from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and found a reference…
Self-teaching a little security thinking

There’s a particular mindset we call security thinking. I’ve also seen it called ‘reasoned paranoia.’ The…
About …

Cryptosmith Institute is a retirement-time enterprise of Dr. Rick Smith, author of Elementary Information Security (Jones and…
Detecting a Phish on an iPhone

In their obsession with simplifying the phone interface, the iPhone designers make it a bit harder…
Online Course in Cloud Security Basics

I now offer an online course on Cloud Security Basics under the auspices of the University…
Life Cycle of a Security Bug

Unlike members of the insect family, computer software bugs live forever. Software security bugs (well, flaws)…
“Eyes Only” Security Marking

[This post has been UPDATED three times since first published, most recently on Nov 14, 2019]…
WPA2 Packet Frame Format

Wireless Protected Access, Version 2 (WPA2) is the version of Wi-Fi security used in most cases…
Ethics and Chatbots

I was online chatting at a web site to repair my lawn tractor. Once I finished,…