What is computer hacking? In this Wired video, computer security researcher and hacker Samy Kamkar explains the concept to five people, starting with a bright 9-year-old child, then a 13-year-old,  then a computer science college major,  then a computer science PhD student,  and finally an assistant professor.

Prolific and dramatic security researcher Samy Kamkar (previously) has unveiled a terrifying device that reveals the devastating vulnerabilities of computers, even when in sleep mode.

Last summer, security researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek were so alarmed at the terrible state of information security in cars that they demo'ed a hack that let them take over Chrysler Jeep Cherokees over the public Internet, controlling the steering and the brakes and the acceleration.

Hardware hacker/security researcher Samy Kamkar is legendary for his legion of playful, ha-ha-only-serious gadgets that show how terrible information security is, and now he's turned his attention to the American Express company, which turns out to be a goddamned train-wreck.

Sean Gallagher's long, comprehensive article on the state of automotive infosec is a must-read for people struggling to make sense of the summer's season of showstopper exploits for car automation, culminating in a share-price-shredding 1.4M unit recall from Chrysler, whose cars could be steered and braked by attackers over the Internet.

RollJam costs $32 to make and will get you in. Andy Greenberg profiles the cute wireless widget and its creator, Samy Kamkar, who announced it at this year's DefCon hacker conference.

RollJam, as Kamkar describes it, is meant to be hidden on or near a target vehicle or garage, where it lies in wait for an unsuspecting victim to use his or her key fob within radio range.

Applied Hacking's Samy Kamkar (previously) has released Opensesame, an app for hacked IM-ME texting toys that can open millions of fixed-code garage doors in less than a minute.

Well-known security researcher Samy Kamkar has discovered a simple method for cracking the popular Master Lock padlock in eight or fewer tries, meaning that most gym lockers can be popped in less than two minutes.

Keysweeper is a super-creepy keystroke logger disguised as a USB wall charger that piggybacks on GSM networks. — Read the rest

Samy Kamkar has a proof-of-concept attack through which he plugs a small USB stick into an unlocked Mac OS X machine and then quickly and thoroughly compromises the machine, giving him total, stealthy control over the system in seconds, even reprogramming the built-in firewall to blind it to its actions.

Glenn Fleishman on the tricky new user-tracking method that sees through privacy controls.

Samy Kamkar, an open source developer whose motto is "think bad, do good" has released an API called "evercookie." Evercookie sets a nigh-undeletable tracking cookie in your browser, storing the information in eight separate ways; if you try to delete it but leave even one copy of the data around, it will repopulate itself using that last shred. — Read the rest