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Security

Study Shows "Secret Questions" Are Too Easily Guessed 303

Posted by kdawson from the name-of-your-late-great-aunt's-fifth-parakeet dept.
wjousts writes "Several high-profile break-ins have resulted from hackers guessing the answers to secret questions (the hijacking of Sarah Palin's Yahoo account was one). This week, research from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University, presented at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, will show how woefully insecure secret questions actually are. As reported in Technology Review: 'In a study involving 130 people, the researchers found that 28 percent of the people who knew and were trusted by the study's participants could guess the correct answers to the participant's secret questions. Even people not trusted by the participant still had a 17 percent chance of guessing the correct answer to a secret question.'" Schneier pointed out years ago how weird it is to have a password-recovery mechanism that is less secure than the password.
Security

A Vision For a World Free of CAPTCHAs 168

Posted by Soulskill from the is-that-an-oh-or-a-zero dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Slate argues that we're going about verifying humans on the Web all wrong: 'As Alan Turing laid out in the 1950 paper that postulated his test, the goal is to determine whether a computer can behave like a human, not perform tasks that a human can. The reason CAPTCHAs have a term limit is that they measure ability, not behavior. ... the random, circuitous way that people interact with Web pages — the scrolling and highlighting and typing and retyping — would be very difficult for a bot to mimic. A system that could capture the way humans interact with forms algorithmically could eventually relieve humans of the need to prove anything altogether.' Seems smart, if an algorithm could actually do that."
Science

Scientists Isolate and Treat Parasite Causing Decline in Honey Bee Population 182

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the buzzing-with-excitement dept.
In a recent report, a team of scientists from Spain claims to have isolated and treated the parasite causing honey bee depopulation syndrome. Their hope is to prevent the continued decline of honey bee populations in Europe and the US. "The loss of honey bees could have an enormous horticultural and economic impact worldwide. Honeybees are important pollinators of crops, fruit and wild flowers and are indispensable for a sustainable and profitable agriculture as well as for the maintenance of the non-agricultural ecosystem. Honeybees are attacked by numerous pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites."
Security

Cops To Start CrimeTube To Report Offenses 238

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the voluntary-participation-clause-to-be-removed-soon dept.
An anonymous reader writes "UK citizens may soon be able to report crimes by uploading videos taken from their mobile phones. Ian Readhead, director of information for the Association of Chief Police Officers, told silicon.com that forces want to build a video reporting portal to allow the public to upload potential evidence. Checking YouTube is now a routine part of many police investigations, he said, and police want to build on the extra functionality that this gives them."

Comment Microsoft + secure? Does not compute. (Score 1) 1010

by French31 (#27583299) Attached to: Vista Post-SP2 Is the Safest OS On the Planet

It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today.

I know Vista being more secure than any of the other MS system, but comparing the security with other OS is pointless when you are named Microsoft, which means "I provide OS for the large majority of computers" for hackers over the world. The more hackers an OS interests, the harder it is to keep it safe. Because I don't believe in a perfectly secure OS.

You want a secure OS? Then don't choose a MS OS. Period.

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