A piece I wrote for Reuters. BBC version here. Making cars safer: have the driver do less By Jeremy Wagstaff SINGAPORE Tue Nov 11, 2014 4:00pm EST Nov 12 (Reuters) – As millions of cars are under recall for potentially lethal air bags, designers are trying to reduce the need for the device – using… Read More »
You would expect that if you choose an elite, premium product or service that it was more secure than its lesser, bog standard one. But after an incident today I’m not so sure. I happen to have a fancy premium account at my bank. I didn’t really want it, and object to such things on… Read More »
Here’s a useful innovation for foiling scammers stealing money from ATMs with their heads covered to avoid identification: a system which “can distinguish between someone whose face is covered or uncovered, and only grant access to those who bare their faces.” No face, no dosh According to Taiwan’s Central News Agency (no story URL available;… Read More »
It’s not happy days for Diebold, the company behind ATMs and electronic voting. Its e-voting machines have been the source of much controversy — earlier this month it withdrew its suit against people who had posted leaked documents about alleged security breaches in the software. Now its automatic teller machines have been hit — by… Read More »
Conspiracy theorists reckon the big power blackout in the U.S. Northeast and part of Canada may have been caused by the Blaster worm. Here’s Robert X. Cringely from InfoWorld: “Many plants on the grid run a Windows-based SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system that receives remote commands through the same RPC (Remote Procedure Call) protocol… Read More »