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Comment Re:Stupid people prevent us from having secure thi (Score 1) 448

by lostfayth (#46102889) Attached to: Developer Loses Single-Letter Twitter Handle Through Extortion

This is only an issue of semantics - You don't offer your users a choice of "more" or "less" security, you have something along the lines of the following options:

(*) Allow account recovery if I forget my password (Default)
( ) Do not allow account recovery if I forget my password (This option is more secure, but makes your account unrecoverable if you forget your password!)

In other words, not "less or more" but "standard or more."

Submission + - Senator files bill prohibiting phone calls on planes (bizjournals.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander today filed legislation to prohibit cell phone conversations on commercial flights.

The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to hold a hearing today on a potential rule change, having recently eased restrictions on the use of other wireless devices during flights.

"When you stop and think about what we hear now in airport lobbies — babbling about last night's love life, next week's schedule, arguments with spouses — it's not hard to see why the FCC shouldn't allow cell phone conversations on airplanes," Alexander said in a news release. "The solution is simple: text messages, yes; conversations, no."

Submission + - NSA Head Asks How To Spy Without Collecting Metadata (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: NSA Director Keith Alexander, testifying before the Senate this week, got weirdly petulant, asking his critics how he was supposed to do his job without collecting metadata on American communications. "If we can come up with a better way, we ought to put it on the table and argue our way through it," he said. "There is no other way that we know of to connect the dots." He also implied that major U.S. tech companies might have greater capacities than his organizations, and that they should help him out with new ideas.

Submission + - Google Cuts Android Privacy Features, Says Release Was Unintentional (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Peter Eckerlsey at the EFF reports that the 'App Ops' privacy feature added to Android in 4.3 has been removed as of 4.4.2. The feature allowed users to easily manage the permission settings for installed apps. Thus, users could enjoy the features of whatever app they linked, while preventing them from, for example, reporting location data. Eckersley writes, 'When asked for comment, Google told us that the feature had only ever been released by accident — that it was experimental, and that it could break some of the apps policed by it. We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it.1 The disappearance of App Ops is alarming news for Android users. The fact that they cannot turn off app permissions is a Stygian hole in the Android security model, and a billion people's data is being sucked through. Embarrassingly, it is also one that Apple managed to fix in iOS years ago.'

Submission + - Google Autocomplete Ruins Man's Life (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Google's autocomplete function turned a mild-mannered man into a terror suspect and four years of sustained harassment by various US government investigators, according to a lawsuit filed today. Jeffery Kantor says that Google's autocomplete changed ""How do I build a radio controlled airplane?" to "How do I build a radio controlled bomb?" triggering a sequence of events which saw him lose his job. He is seeking $58million in damages.

Submission + - Huawei Using NSA Scandal to Turn Tables on Accusations of Spying (slashdot.org) 2

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom giant banned from selling to U.S. government agencies due to its alleged ties to Chinese intelligence services, is trying to turn the tables on its accusers by offering itself as a safe haven for customers concerned that the NSA has compromised their own IT vendors. “We have never been asked to provide access to our technology, or provide any data or information on any citizen or organization to any Government, or their agencies,” Huawei Deputy Chairman Ken Hu said in the introduction to a 52-page white paper on cybersecurity published Oct. 18. Huawei was banned from selling to U.S. government entities and faced barriers to civilian sales following a 2012 report from the U.S. House of Representatives that concluded Huawei’s management had not been forthcoming enough to convince committee members to disregard charges it had given Chinese intelligence services backdoors into its secure systems and allowed Chinese intelligence agents to pose as Huawei employees. But the company promises to create test centers where governments and customers can test its products and inspect its services as part of an “open, transparent and sincere” approach to questions about its alleged ties, according to a statement in the white paper from Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei. Can Huawei actually gain more customers by playing off the Snowden scandal?

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