Comment woohoo! (Score 1) 1582
Woohoo! Made it into one of the UID clubs! Now if only I had registered when I actually started reading it, I'd be in the 4 digit club... Oh well...
Submission + - Fingerprints at School 2
Inda writes: "My daughter, 7, is about to start at a new school that likes to think they excel in technology. They use an interesting system for checking out library books using a single thumb print. When I first heard this, alarm bells rang. The way I understand it, once a fingerprint is compromised, it is compromised forever.
I'm told the children enjoy using the fingerprint system and I would not want to single my daughter out as being different. The alternative to fingerprints are library cards, with barcodes, that are scanned manually.
I am not confident that the school's security is up to scratch. Their website is poorly written in FrontPage by the headmaster, all the staff use the Comic Sans MS font; I'm sure you get the picture. At the end of the day, they're teachers, not security experts. Security is not my field of expertise either.
Should I be concerned? Have I been reading Slashdot too long? Should I put the tinfoil hat down?"
I'm told the children enjoy using the fingerprint system and I would not want to single my daughter out as being different. The alternative to fingerprints are library cards, with barcodes, that are scanned manually.
I am not confident that the school's security is up to scratch. Their website is poorly written in FrontPage by the headmaster, all the staff use the Comic Sans MS font; I'm sure you get the picture. At the end of the day, they're teachers, not security experts. Security is not my field of expertise either.
Should I be concerned? Have I been reading Slashdot too long? Should I put the tinfoil hat down?"
Submission + - FBI remotely installs spyware to trace bomb threat (com.com)
cnet-declan writes: "There have been rumors for years about the FBI remotely installing spyware via e-mail or by exploiting an operating system vulnerability from afar — and now there's confirmation. Last month, the FBI obtained a federal court order to remotely install spyware called CIPAV (Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier) to find out who was behind a MySpace account linked to bomb threats sent to a high school near Olympia, Wash. News.com has posted a PDF of the FBI affidavit, which makes for interesting reading, and a summary of the CIPAV results that the FBI submitted to a magistrate judge. It seems as though CIPAV was installed via e-mail, as an article back in 2004 hinted was the case. In addition to reporting the computer's IP address, MAC address, and registry information, it also gave the FBI updates on which IP addresses the user(s) visited. But how did the FBI get the spyware activated and past anti-virus defenses? Two obvious ways are for the Feds to find and exploit their own operating system backdoors, or to compromise security vendors..."
