He started from hacking for fun (cracking phone systems), then he founded DefCon and Black Hat hacker conferences (btw, we had a chance to visit DefCon9 in 2001) and now Jeff Moss is chosen to take care of US cyber security affairs. No doubt, Jeff Moss has the guts to resist cyber terrorism and protect national interests. Good luck, Jeff!

Securing home Wi-Fi remains uncertain when it comes to law. Some urge users are not liable when they use default security settings and it is manufacturer who is guilty when/if wireless network was ‘successfully’ abused. Others put whole responsibility on users. This is practically a question to law and usually its resolution depends on lawyers’ skills to gather and manipulate the details. Your security encompasses not only security against the law when you happen to fall a victim to an intruder, but also protection against that very intruder. In the long run, it’s up to you whether to endeavor to prove your innocence or take measures to build a reliable fence.

Sorry I did not write blog for some time… Just returned from one-week vacation at Rhodos (Greece).

 Jerry Fishenden, Microsoft National Technology Officer in the UK leaves his post to work on his own. He intends to elaborate “a guidebook for politicians and policymakers about what does and doesn’t work in terms of delivering an effective technology policy”. 

When it comes to Larrabee one of most intriguing things is its performance. Official information provided by Intel was not enough to get good estimation. In my previous post I’ve estimated it as "roughly equivalent to GTX 295". Well, it seems I was too optimistic. Latest rumors are that current Larrabee samples deliver same performance as GTX 285.

It looks like AMD has outrun NVIDIA today. Its World’s First Microsoft DirectX® 11 Graphics Processor, presented a few hours ago in Taipei, is currently the best hardware for Windows 7. Catch up, NVIDIA! However not many details of it suggested. At least enjoy the graphics:  

ElcomSoft is launching a survey intended to collect more information on how people handle their passwords, which remain a major way for user authentication. Whether you are ElcomSoft customer or haven’t seriously thought about password security, we hope you will answer our questions.

Want to get an overall picture of all potential threats to your unprotected pc and how it can be used when hacked? Have a look at the vivid graph drafted by Brian Krebs. It’s not only credit cards and passwords… Hey, Brian says this monstrous list not complete, I wonder if you have something to add? 

About a month ago annual Eurocrypt conference took place in Cologne, Germany. This is rather academic event (as most if not all events held by IACR) so it is not always easy to read its proceedings filled with formulas and theorems. Nonetheless there are usually couple of very interesting works presented at each such event. Let me tell you a little bit about this year’s highlights.