Category Archives: Security

Libya’s Stuxnet?

A group of security professionals who have good credentials and strong links to the U.S. government have outlined a Stuxnet-type attack on Libyan infrastructure, according to a document released this week. But is the group outlining risks to regional stability, or is it advocating a cyber attack on Muammar Gadhafi? The document, Project Cyber Dawn… Read More »

The Gmail Phish: Why Publicize, and Why Now?

This Google Gmail phishing case has gotten quite a bit of attention, so I thought I’d throw in my two cents’ worth. (These are notes I collated for a segment I did for Al Jazeera earlier today. I didn’t do a particularly good job of getting these points across, and some of the stuff came… Read More »

Using Data to Find Bin Laden

Where they thought he was and where he was. Great piece — Geographers Had Predicted Osama’s Possible Whereabouts – ScienceInsider (thanks Daily Kos- Geographers predict Osama’s location) which tells the story of Thomas Gillespie, a UCLA geographer who, along with colleague John Agnew and a class of undergraduates, authored a 2009 paper predicting the terrorist’s… Read More »

Osama bin Laden’s Death on Twitter

(Updated timeline to include subsequent accounts) There was, by all accounts, no Internet or phone access to Bin Laden’s compound. Had there been, might he have known about the attack in advance from social media? This depends on what was being said on twitter, and when. Although lots of people in Pakistan are on Facebook,… Read More »

How Long Was the iPhone Location Vulnerability Known?

I’m very intrigued by the Guardian’s piece iPhone keeps record of everywhere you go | Technology | guardian.co.uk but I’m wondering how new this information is, and whether other less transparent folk have already been using this gaping hole. Charles Arthur writes: Security researchers have discovered that Apple‘s iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves… Read More »