Schneier on Security

A blog covering security and security technology.

• — Friday Squid Blogging: Office Squid

  Office squid....

  

• — The Pros and Cons of Password Masking

  Usability guru Jakob Nielsen opened up a can of worms when he made the case for unmasking passwords in his blog. I chimed in that I agreed. Almost 165 comments on my blog (and several articles, essays, and many other blog posts) later, the consensus is that we were wrong. I was certainly too glib. Like any security countermeasure, password...

  

• — The Insecurity of Secrecy

  Good essay -- "The Staggering Cost of Playing it 'Safe'" -- about the political motivations for terrorist security policy. Senator Barbara Boxer has led an effort to at least put together a public database of ash storage sites so that people can judge the risk to the areas where they live. However, even this effort has been blocked not by...

  

• — Information Leakage from Keypads

  Can anyone guess the entry codes for these door locks? There are 10,000 possible four-digit codes, but you only have to try 24 on these keypads. The first is most likely 1986 or 1968. The second is almost certainly 1234....

  

• — More Security Countermeasures from the Natural World

  The plant caladium steudneriifolium pretends to be ill so mining moths won't eat it. She believes that the plant essentially fakes being ill, producing variegated leaves that mimic those that have already been damaged by mining moth larvae. That deters the moths from laying any further larvae on the leaves, as the insects assume the previous caterpillars have already eaten...