Image via EFF / Flickr (CC 2.0)
How to look cute on your webcam that the government is definitely spying on
7 years later, US court of appeals rules that NSA program leaked by Snowden was illegal after all
From The Guardian, where the Snowden revelations were originally published in 2013: Seven years after the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans' telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful – and that the US intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were… READ THE REST
Ingenious Cold War keylogger the Russians used to bug Selectric typewriters in the US embassy
In the 1970s, the Soviets managed to intercept top secret communications in the US embassy in Moscow and nobody could figure out how. While an antenna was eventually found hidden in the embassy's chimney, it took years to determine how what data was being collected for transmission and how. As a last resort, all equipment… READ THE REST
Assessing the security of devices by measuring how many difficult things the programmers tried to do
The Cyber Independent Testing Lab is a security measurement company founded by Mudge Zadko (previously), late of the Cult of the Dead Cow and l0pht Heavy Industries and the NSA's Tailored Access Operations Group; it has a unique method for assessing the security of devices derived from methods developed by Mudge at the NSA. READ THE REST
The DeliverySafe is the ultimate foil for porch pirates and it could save your holidays
With everyone stuck in COVID quarantine for much of the year, online sales for Amazon and other retailers have gone through the roof. That means more and more packages coming right to your door, to the sheer delight of a more loathsome brand of COVID opportunist: the porch pirate. Thieves taking off with delivered packages… READ THE REST
Become a machine learning aficionado with this training bundle
In the past few days, the U.S. Air Force rolled out new tools fueled by machine learning to help stem the spread of misinformation about COVID. Additionally, the Library of Congress has launched a project on how to use machine learning to better cross-reference all 170 million items in its overflowing archives. Every day, we… READ THE REST
This portable USB charger can get an Apple Watch back to full power on the go
The Apple Watch is a great addition to any tech arsenal–until it runs out of juice, that is. Then, you have to go about the process of recharging. Of course, the Apple Watch only recharges via wireless charging, meaning it can sometimes end up being pretty inconvenient to power up, especially if you're out and… READ THE REST