Bexley IT Solutions

From their website....

It's getting worse: More counterfeiters are using today's ink-jet printers, computers and copiers to make money that's just good enough to pass, he said, even though their product is awful. In the past, he said, the best American counterfeiters were skilled printers who used heavy offset presses to turn out decent 20s, 50s and 100s. Now that kind of work...

No surprise, really....

Video. Looks like a Humboldt squid....

American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989, by Thomas R. Johnson: documents 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. In response to a declassification request by the National Security Archive, the secretive National Security Agency has declassified large portions of a four-part "top-secret Umbra" study, American Cryptology during the Cold War. Despite major redactions, this history discloses much new information...

Real-world data on software security programs....

This account, "bruceschneier," is not me. This account, "schneier," is me. I have never posted; I don't promise that I ever will....

We already knew that MD5 is a broken hash function. Now researchers have successfully forged MD5-signed certificates: Molnar, Appelbaum, and Sotirov joined forces with the European MD5 research team in mid-2008, along with Swiss cryptographer Dag Arne Osvik. They realized that the co-construction technique could be used to simultaneously generate one normal SSL certificate and one forged certificate, which could...

From 1999. (It's a PDF.)...

The NSA has patented a technique to detect network tampering: The NSA's software does this by measuring the amount of time the network takes to send different types of data from one computer to another and raising a red flag if something takes too long, according to the patent filing. Other researchers have looked into this problem in the past...

Alexander is a former Special Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq in 2006. His op-ed is worth reading: I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority...

From the New York Times: Police departments across the country say that shoplifting arrests are 10 percent to 20 percent higher this year than last. The problem is probably even greater than arrest records indicate since shoplifters are often banned from stores rather than arrested. Much of the increase has come from first-time offenders like Mr. Johnson making rash decisions...

Putting it in a clear plastic baggie magically makes it safe: Mind you, I had packed the stuff safely. It was in three separate jars: one of charcoal, one of sulphur, and one of saltpetre (potassium nitrate). Each jar was labeled: Charcoal, Sulphur, Saltpetre. I had also thoroughly wet down each powder with tap water. No ignition was possible. As...

Sad squid news. ...vandals got in by taking advantage of a temporary door, smashed windows and broke display cases containing male and female giant squids each measuring ten metres long as well as skeletons of whales, tortoises, marine birds and fossils. Where was the security?...

Me eating grilled squid in Wuxi, China, earlier this month....

Another one....

This is not surprising at all; when money is scarce, these sorts of things go unfunded. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that people thought the cameras were ever monitored -- generally, they're not....

"Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency," by the Center for Strategic and International Studies....

Just declassified, this document -- A History of U.S. Communications Security (Volumes I and II); the David G. Boak Lectures, National Security Agency (NSA), 1973 -- is definitely worth reading. The first sections are highly redacted, but the remainder is fascinating....

From the Washington Post. Other important differences: Slot machine are used every day, 24 hours a day. Electronic voting machines are used, at most, twice a year -- often less frequently. Slot machines involve money. Electronic voting machines involve something much more abstract. Slot machine accuracy is a non-partisan issue. For some reason I can't fathom, electronic voting machine accuracy...