Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Fix It Already! Apr 01, 2019

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How often have you run across something so obviously bad or behind the times that you just want to scream: Hey, fix this already! Electronic Frontier Foundation to the rescue! Gennie Gebhart explains the EFF's new #FixItAlready campaign - a "most wanted" list of no-brainer bugs and shortcomings in today's most popular services and products that just should not be. Examples include no end-to-end encryption of Twitter DMs, using two-factor Facebook phone numbers for marketing, and not being able to set your own password on iCloud or Windows 10 hard drive encryption. Gennie Gebhart is the Associate Director of Research at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where she does research and advocacy on consumer privacy and security issues. She holds a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington. Further Info: Fix It Already! https://fixitalready.eff.org/Donate to EFF: https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-eff-4

Preparing for Your Digital Afterlife Mar 25, 2019

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What happens to your digital life when you die? The answer is only slightly less philosophical than what happens to your soul. The laws, as least in the US, haven't kept up with the times and there aren't clear rules for who has legal rights to your online accounts or the files you've stored in the cloud. In today's episode, I'll tell you how to prepare for your inevitable digital afterlife. In other news, Facebook revealed that 100's of millions of its users passwords were left open on internal servers, ransomware has hit one of the world's largest producers of aluminum, the Pwn2Own bug hunt contest shows us how to do responsible disclosures, a critical flaw has been found in implanted defibrillators leaving them vulnerable to hacking, and DARPA is hoping to fix our broken voting systems. Further Reading My blog article on Digital Afterlife: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/preparing-for-your-digital-afterlife/Facebook's password screwup: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/03/facebook-stored-hundreds-of-millions-of-user-passwords-in-plain-text-for-years/Critical defibrillator bugs: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/critical-flaw-lets-hackers-control-lifesaving-devices-implanted-inside-patients

Enter the Panopticon (Part 2) Mar 18, 2019

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In second half of my interview with EFF's Bill Budington, Bill helps us understand how we can at least attempt to disguise ourselves on the web and basically try to blend in with the crowd. We'll also see how tools like EFF's Panopticlick can hep us pinpoint the things that are making us stand out, which enables us to be tracked more easily. Finally, we'll discuss several browsers and plugins that can help you preserve your privacy. If you missed Part 1, you can listen to it here: http://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2019/03/10/enter-the-panopticon-pt1/. Guest Bio: Bill is a Senior Staff Technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). He works on privacy and security-enhancing projects, such as the HTTPS Everywhere browser add-on and Panopticlick, a tool that alerts users users to how vulnerable they are to browser tracking. He has also contributed to projects such as Let's Encrypt and SecureDrop. Further Info: Is your browser giving you away? EFF's Panopticlick will tell you: https://panopticlick.eff.orgEFF's Surveillance Self Defense guide - learn how to keep yourself safe online! https://ssd.eff.org/Help EFF to help you: https://supporters.eff.org/

Enter the Panopticon (Part 1) Mar 11, 2019

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In the first part of my discussion with Bill Budington from the EFF, we're going to talk about some of the key ways in which we are tracked around the web as we surf from site to site. I'll ask Bill who is tracking up, why they're tracking us, and we'll get into some of the clever and downright devious methods by which we are tracked and recognized on the web. In part 2 (next week) Bill will help us understand why it's so hard to disguise ourselves on the web and how tools like EFF's Panopticlick can show us what's going on under the covers. We'll also offer up some solutions or at least mitigations for all this tracking. Guest Bio: Bill is a Senior Staff Technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). He works on privacy and security-enhancing projects, such as the HTTPS Everywhere browser add-on and Panopticlick, a tool that alerts users users to how vulnerable they are to browser tracking. He has also contributed to projects such as Let's Encrypt and SecureDrop. Further Info: Is your browser giving you away? EFF's Panopticlick will tell you: https://panopticlick.eff.orgEFF's Surveillance Self Defense guide - learn how to keep yourself safe online! https://ssd.eff.org/Help EFF to help you: https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-4

Account Defense in Depth Mar 04, 2019

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The Mayor of Tampa, Florida, had this Twitter account hacked due to "the usual weaknesses, including poor passwords." The hackers used the account to tweet pornographic images and even an incoming ballistic missile alert. Comcast's Xfinity Mobile service used a default account security PIN of "0000", which allowed several customers to have their accounts taken over. You not only need strong passwords, you need strong second factor authentication. That's defense in depth. In other news, Microsoft's Edge browser was found to have a whitelist for almost 60 websites that bypass the Flash Player click-to-run protections, a Canadian province is allowing the mass sale of anonymized medical records, the fast Thunderbolt USBC ports are found to be vulnerable to a memory access hack called Thunderclap.

Guiding the Development of AI Feb 25, 2019

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for decades, but has only recently begun to fulfill the promise of truly replicating human-like decision making. The Information Age has generated enormous quantities of data and modern technology has given us unprecedented power to ingest and analyze this data. AI systems today control airplanes, financial and insurance systems, and even criminal sentencing recommendations. We can use AI to conduct law enforcement and intelligence gather operations. AI has even generated audio, video and photos that are completely fake but nearly impossible for a human to detect. Our guest today, Lorraine Kisselburgh, is working with international organization to define common-sense guidelines for the creation and use of these AI systems, to maximize potential and minimize abuse. Lorraine Kisselburgh (Ph.D., Purdue University) is a Scholar with the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., a former professor of media, technology, and society, and a visiting lecturer in the Center for Entrepreneurship at Purdue University. She studies the social implications of emerging technologies, including privacy and ethics in emerging technology contexts. Her research has been awarded funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security, and recognized by the National Academy of Engineering. She currently serves on the executive committee of Association of Computing Machinery’s (ACM) US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC) and was a member of the ACM Task Force on Code of Ethics. Email: lorraine@purdue.eduWebsite: www.lkisselburgh.netTwitter: @lkisselburgh, @EPICPrivacyFacebook: EPICPrivacy Further Information: Universal Guidelines for AI: https://thepublicvoice.org/AI-universal-guidelines/Electronic Privacy Informantion Center (EPIC): https://www.epic.org/"Deep Fake" Obama PSA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0 Lyrebird fake Trump and Obama voices: https://soundcloud.com/user-535691776/dialogOpenAI fake news articles: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/researchers-scared-by-their-own-work-hold-back-deepfakes-for-text-ai/AI Now Institute: https://ainowinstitute.org/Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society: https://cyber.harvard.edu/Data & Society Intelligence and Autonomy Initiative: https://autonomy.datasociety.net/WEF’s AI and Machine Learning: https://www.weforum.org/communities/artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning

Toying With Security Feb 18, 2019

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The European Union has recalled a GPS smart watch meant to be worn by children so that their parents can keep tabs on them. Unfortunately, due to horrible security, anyone can track these watches - and even send messages to the children. The Internet of Things (IoT) is well-known for having lax or non-existent security protections. Connecting our children's toys to the internet in this manner is raising serious (and valid) privacy concerns. In other news, there's a devious new Facebook and Google phishing scam that would fool many pros, the Chrome browser will soon help you spot fake look-alike websites, Apple cracks down on apps that surreptitiously record their users' interactions with their apps, and many modern Android phones are vulnerable to hacking simply by loading a malicious image. Help Me to Help You! Visit my page on Patreon for details: https://www.patreon.com/FirewallsDontStopDragons

You Must Stop Reusing Passwords Feb 11, 2019

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Last week I told you about the literally billions of email addresses and passwords that were released by hackers as "Collections 1-5". I also told you how you can check to see if your information was contained in these (or other dumped data) by checking haveibeenpwnd.com. And today I'm interviewing the man behind this wonderful, free service: Troy Hunt! He tells us how he gets his hands on all of this data and what we should be doing to mitigate the damage from these inevitable breaches. The worst thing you can do? Reusing passwords on multiple sites! In today's episode, I also reveal the winners of my Pod-Centennial contest! Five lucky people will be getting signed copies of my book, signed copies of Bruce Schneier's latest book (Click Here to Kill Everybody), and a selection of other cybersecurity books! Troy Hunt is an Australian Microsoft Regional Director and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Developer Security. You'll regularly find Troy in the press talking about security and even testifying before US Congress on the impact of data breaches. Further Info HaveIBeenPwned.comEthics of running a data breach search service: https://www.troyhunt.com/the-ethics-of-running-a-data-breach-search-service/Authentication evolved: https://www.troyhunt.com/passwords-evolved-authentication-guidance-for-the-modern-era/

You Have Been Pwned Feb 04, 2019

Show notes

Last week we saw perhaps the single largest data breach dump in history, close on the heels of another massive data disclosure from the same group. Dubbed "Collections 1-5", together these data dumps represent literally billions of unique user email addresses and passwords. Using the online tool Have I Been Pwned will tell you whether your email address or password is contained in this hacker's treasure trove. I will also tell you how you can mitigate the damage from this and future breaches. In other news, Apple's FaceTime app contains a huge bug that could let other people eavesdrop on you and potentially even view you through your camera; Google and Firefox are offering competing visions of browser privacy with controversial new features; and a recent Mac malvertising campaign is using a classic technique called steganography to disguise its malicious intentions. Further Information Have I Been Pwned: https://haveibeenpwned.com/Pod-Centennial Contest Details: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/celebrate-my-pod-centennial/CLICK HERE TO ENTER the PodCentennial Contest!

Data Privacy Day Pod-Centennial! Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

We're celebrating international Data Privacy Day along with the 100th episode of Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons! And what a show we have! My guest today is none other than Bruce Schneier: internationally renowned security technologist and author of 14 books, including the best-seller Click Here to Kill Everybody)! Bruce and I discuss the current state of data privacy and what it's going to take to rein in the corporations that are buying and selling our data with abandon. In this show I will also walk through my personal privacy checklist, including several things you could do RIGHT NOW to improve your online privacy. Along the way, I will share some tips from some of my favorite past guests on the show. But that's not all! To celebrate my Pod-Centennial, I'm giving away 5 signed copies of my book as well as 5 signed copies of Bruce's latest book, a stack of some of my favorite cybersecurity books, and MORE! You have to listen to this show to learn how to enter the contest - so there's no better time to subscribe and listen! Further Information: Transcript of my interview with Bruce Schneier: http://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Ep100-interview.txtData Privacy Day Checklist: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/data-privacy-day-checklist/Pod-Centennial Contest Details: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/celebrate-my-pod-centennial/CLICK HERE TO ENTER Bruce Schneier interview transcriptDownload

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