Bug Crushing, Microsoft, and the NSA

Danger – Microsoft Inside

Ever wonder why Microsoft has historically been so bad at crushing bugs? I think I know why.

NSA Spying Scandal – An Analysis

NSA Logo

Like a lot of people, I’ve been following the NSA Spying Scandal closely. In fact, I’ve been following it for several years, since before I first ran into Barrett Brown. Seriously. The leaks about go back a long way, and most writers appear to have missed the implications.

National Security Agency Wins – Groklaw Shuts Down

Groklaw

On Tuesday August 20, 2013, PJ announced that Groklaw would shut down. To quote her final post:

The owner of Lavabit tells us that he’s stopped using email and if we knew what he knew, we’d stop too.

There is no way to do Groklaw without email. Therein lies the conundrum.

What to do?

The whole NSA spying on emails thing came out of left field to most people. I knew a fair bit about it before it hit the news – I’d been corresponding with a variety of people who were nibbling around the issue from various directions. The problem was that they were all working on different angles, and everything seemed to lead into one direction, which seemed like pure paranoia.

Unfortunately it wasn’t.

Doing the Password Polka

Me and my junior editor, Kleopatra

Kleo and I got a nasty reminder about password security today. A fellow writer’s preteen daughter has a Facebook account. Yes, I know the rules say that you have to be over a certain age, and she is barely that age.

Facebook and Windows Security Breach

For those who’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I’m still off celebrating my Silver Wedding Anniversary. This however is an emergency.

Computer Security Suggestions For Microsoft Windows Users

A while back I was asked to toss something together about computer security for a message board. I’ve posted it there, and decided to post it here as well.

This is mostly useful to people running Microsoft Windows.