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27 Jan 2011 11:14

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Tech: Protip: Turn Facebook’s “Secure Browsing” on. Immediately.

  • A word of advice: Turn this “HTTPS” thing on. Trust us. Make it harder for people to hack into your Gibson when you’re sitting in an Atlanta Bread Co. looking at the latest update about that girl who broke your heart when you were in the seventh grade and now long for like a total creepbag. Snoop on your friends without having to worry about others snooping on you. Turn this on. Trust us. You’ll feel better about it in the morning. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Jan 2011 10:51

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World: OOH BURN: Russian opposition leader rips Putin over airport blast

  • The battle against terrorism is clearly not among Putin’s priorities, unless, of course, we discount his daily demagoguery on the subject.
  • Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov • Getting in a major burn on Vladimir Putin in the wake of yesterday’s deadly blast at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. It’s just one of many deadly terror attacks in the country in the last fifteen years, leading to claims like Nemtsov’s, where he takes Putin to task for not taking the work of terrorism quite seriously enough. And he’s not alone – many in the Russian blogosphere feel the same way, that the country is ineffective at actually preventing tragedies like yesterday’s. Are they right? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Nov 2010 21:27

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U.S.: TSA topic du jour: How much we pay the terror-stopping workers

  • $14/hour the amount newly hired TSA employees make to do their high-pressure front-line jobs that involve feeling up people’s junk and ensuring that no bombs get on planes
  • 37% the percentage of TSA workers that work part-time at Chicago O’Hare Airport; the job would pay the equivalent of $29,000 a year if they worked full-time source
  • » Let’s give them raises! You know what’s really sad? These TSA jobs are treated like working at retail (complete with turnover), even at a time when government workers are getting paid more than they’ve ever been. And that’s even considering that they arguably have a more important job than many bureaucrats. Fun fact: If you took the $168 million that the government has planned to, or used for, these full-body scanners and divided it amongst the 56,000 workers on staff as of 2009, it would be the same as giving each worker $2,988 of extra income, or $28 more each week over the next two years. That’s money which we’re sure they’d appreciate, considering they’re attempting to stop bombs and terrorists from getting on planes.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Nov 2010 11:38

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Politics: Posted without comment: Kid strip-searched by the TSA (wow)

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Nov 2010 10:53

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World: Britain is screwed: They entered a security agreement WITH FRANCE.

  • Today we open a new chapter in a long history of co-operation on defence and security between Britain and France. The result will make our citizens safer, more secure and better protected in the global age of uncertainty in which we now live.
  • British Prime Minister David Cameron • Announcing a new security deal between his country and France. The deal includes cooperation on certain military resources, including aircraft carriers, submarines, nuclear technology and ground forces. You may think this is a good idea now, David, but you’ll be eating your hat the second that France surrenders. Just you wait, Davey boy. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Sep 2010 10:01

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Tech: Don’t Mouseover! Twitter nailed by nasty security exploit

  • Protip: Avoid using the Web client for Twitter for a little while. A big bug has managed to bring Twitter to its knees using the onMouseOver Javascript function, meaning it works by simply tapping your mouse over it by accident. Twitter is on the case and the exploit should be patched soon. Still, though. … Yikes. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Sep 2010 21:14

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Tech: Diaspora, post-release: No love at all from programmers

  • Haters gon’ Hate. If you’ve read Hacker News lately, you might have noticed a recent trend of programmers basically tearing apart the code from Diaspora. There are lots of reasons for this, but the biggest one is that the security backbone appears to be lacking. This guy put it this way: “The more I read, the more bad things I found. They’re going to need a complete overhaul to fix this.” These wet-behind-the-ears college students have now been accused of creating some of the worst clearly marked pre-alpha code known to man. Which leads us to ask, have they seen the new Chatroulette? If they really want to feel manly, they should stop ripping on NYU students and start ripping on 17-year-old Russian kids that are friends with Sean Parker. That’ll show ’em.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

19 Aug 2010 09:18

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Tech: Intel to buy out virus-blocker McAfee for a heck of a lot of money

  • $7.68 billion – do they have a really big virus? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Jun 2010 10:45

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Tech: AT&T trashes on Goatse Security for pointing out unsecured hole

  • If not for our firm talking about the exploit to third parties who subsequently notified them, they would have never fixed it. We know what we did was right.
  • Goatse Security representative Escher Auernheimer • Responding to a letter from AT&T notifying its users of the iPad security breach the group found last week. AT&T called his group malicious hackers who wanted publicity. (You’d think the name was enough for that, but …) Auernheimer, on the other hand, called AT&T out for taking a number of days to actually inform its users of the breach. Expect some sort of legal action soon. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Jun 2010 23:08

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U.S.: Meet Obama’s shoulder-tapped nominee for intelligence head

  • Who is this guy?James Clapper, currently working as the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, spent 32 years in the Air Force, then later joined Robert Gates in the Bush administration. Like Gates, he stuck around with Obama.

    Early complaintsDemocrats and Republicans have criticized the choice because Clapper isn’t an outsider and has deep ties to the Defense Department. Oh, and they like complaining. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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