Hacking quantum cryptography with lasers

Quantum hackers have performed the first ‘invisible’ attack on two commercial quantum cryptographic systems. By using lasers on the systems — which use quantum states of light to encrypt information for transmission — they have fully cracked their encryption keys, yet left no trace of the hack. via Hackers blind quantum cryptographers : Nature News.

Haystack: masks Iranian activist traffic as being innocuous

Haystack. The anti-censorship software is built on a sophisticated mathematical formula that conceals someone’s real online destinations inside a stream of innocuous traffic. You may be browsing an opposition Web site, but to the censors it will appear you are visiting, say, weather.com. Heap tends to hide users in content that is popular in Tehran, Read more about Haystack: masks Iranian activist traffic as being innocuous[…]

Adobe behind best selling iPad app

The Apple / Adobe Flash spat has reached a new level, with Adobe having a good laugh: The best selling iPad  App, Wired’s June Edition, it turns out, was built using Adobe’s new Adobe Digital Publishing Technologies. “Bwahaha!” says Adobe. “We Were Behind Wired’s iPad Magazine All Along!”. The Digital Publishing Platform being developed by Read more about Adobe behind best selling iPad app[…]

Social Engineering

This site has quite a few examples of social engineering as well as links to a toolkit that allows you to easily clone sites for use as harvesting mechanisms of information. Prevention of Influence, Deception, Identity Theft and Phishing Through Education.

GSM Locations and name / number combinations easy to get at

A pair of security researchers has discovered a number of new attack vectors that give them the ability to not only locate any GSM mobile handset anywhere in the world, but also find the name of the subscriber associated with virtually any cellular phone number, raising serious privacy and security concerns for customers of all Read more about GSM Locations and name / number combinations easy to get at[…]

Using makeup to thwart face detection

A student has studied openCV for his masters thesis and determined how face detection algorythms should work. By putting dark makeup around your eyes and cheekbones, you should be able to break the  detection and make the system think you’re something else. Reverse-engineering artist busts face detection tech • The Register.

US Army takes down CIA / Saudi extremist website

Showing there is little unity and policy when it comes to cyber warfare in the US, the military took down a website used to gather intelligence on extremists. In the process of doing so they took down around 300 servers around the world and pissed off all the other intelligence gathering agencies that were covertly Read more about US Army takes down CIA / Saudi extremist website[…]

Chip and PIN broken

Cambridge University security researchers have demonstrated how it might be possible to trick the card into thinking it’s doing a chip-and-signature transaction while the terminal thinks it’s authorised by chip-and-PIN. The flaw creates a means to make transactions that are “Verified by PIN” using a stolen uncancelled card without knowing the PIN number. Fraudsters would Read more about Chip and PIN broken[…]