Cryptosmith

Cyber and security architecture, not bitcoins

Security

#PodestaEmails are NOT obvious fakes

Emails are notoriously hard to validate. Emails are like typed, signed contracts with no section or…
Election Crypto Conspiracy Theory

I’m not often a fan of conspiracy theories, except for entertainment value. This one is interesting…
Symantec Breaks Trust with the Internet?

Symantec is one of the companies that holds the keys to the Internet: they are a trusted…
Update on the Apple Music Mess

The trouble reported earlier with Apple Music seems to have attracted high level attention. James Pinkstone…
Apple Music Deletes Personal Content

[UPDATE: Apple now claims this was a bug; see the updated post] This is perhaps the…
University: Anti-phishing not really a “policy”

UMN will never ask for personal info via email, except when they can’t help it.
The Apple case isn’t “privacy” versus “safety”

The current fight is about whether we will impose a technological infrastructure which will be exceptionally…
Backing Up OS X with Mirrored Encrypted RAID

Computing technology is insanely reliable when you look at statistical error rates. Hard drives read and…
Threat Agents

A threat agent is an active entity motivated to attack our mobile devices and activities. We…
Communication is Hard

[This post contains text I’m trying out for a new writing project on cybersecurity in the…
NSA re-releases Boak’s Lectures

I’m a fan of Boak’s Lectures – they cover the fundamentals of military cryptography just before…
Recycling an iPhone – not a picnic

I’m upgrading my iPhone and trading in the old one. I had to erase the old one completely…
Encrypt All Hard Drives!

If you have the technical interest to read this, you probably do a lot of your…
Clinton’s Email Server Isn’t Her Scandal

Early last month, Edward Snowden criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for obviously and intentionally mishandling classified…
A Script to Generate Spam Comments

The text attached to this post was submitted as a web site comment. No doubt some…
Free NSTISSI 4011 Certificate

[SORRY – This is posted for historical purposes only! The free certificate is no longer available]…
Standardized Back Door

Matthew Green published an entertaining rundown on the cryptographic back door in ANSI and NIST standards.…
My invitated – a classic phishing attack

Phishing emails can be tiresome. Sometimes, though, they are classically bad. Even better, this one uses…
John Oliver on Net Neutrality

Comedian John Oliver has recorded a classic rant about net neutrality. Here’s my favorite quote: The…
The “Bug-Free Software” fallacy

About 20 years ago, I worked with a fellow who proudly told me that he had…
Multics was flawless?

Last week I participated in a very geeky panel discussion about a now-defunct standard for computer…
Example of KISS

Ok, this is a backwards observation. One of my hot buttons is to spot “cyber security…
Security Design Principles

This is an extended, less-edited version of an article appearing in IEEE Security and Privacy in December 2012. This…
GUIs: Control, Conveyance, Continuity, and Context

I’m a sucker for basic principles distilled into pithy prescriptions. A freelance writer, Brian Boyko, has…