Tag: Security

House of Lords Committee wanted to redesign the Internet, until told they couldn't

web_image.gifWhether they’d been talking to Elton John, or just wanted to live up to their popular reputation, isn’t clear, but the House of Lords’ Science and Technology Committee (bet you didn’t know they had one, did you?) recently decided that the Internet had bad things in it, and needed to be redesigned in order to make it more secure.

Believing the Internet to be like “‘a Wild West’ operating outside of the law”, their report claimed that, “While the internet supports astonishing innovation and commerical growth, it is almost impossible to control or monitor that traffic that uses it. So we have to ask the question, whether it is possible to redesign the internet more securely?”

Andy Merrett Internet

Panasonic eyes up new walkthrough iris-recognition gate

panasonic-iris-gate.jpgOne of the best technology launches I’ve ever attended was for some new iris-recognition based ID systems for airports. Why? It’s the only press conference where serious security journalists were asking questions like ‘Could it detect severed eyeballs?’ and ‘Can it tell a live person’s eyes from a dead person’s?’. I wanted their jobs.

Stuart Dredge Science

Nimzy ProtoKey: padlocks your files and makes them invisible to others

nimzy_protokey_usb_secure_stick.jpgWidget UK has come out with a USB device for the security-conscious PC users who wants to protect their files.

Though it looks like a fairly standard memory stick, it isn’t. Instead, it allows users to encrypt and hide the personal and sensitive data on their PC hard drive, and any external storage devices attached to it, so that it effectively becomes invisible, secure, and untraceable, to anyone else who uses that PC.

Andy Merrett Computers, Gadgets, Peripherals

Microsoft executive claims security flaws are patched quicker in Windows than other operating systems

vistaosx.pngJustified or not, Microsoft get a lot of flak for the security of their Windows operating system. Now, Jeff Jones, who is strategy director of Microsoft’s security technology unit, has posted findings to show that Microsoft releases patches for vulnerabilities in Windows faster than Apple, Novell, Red Hat, and Sun do for their respective operating systems.

Symantec (who we know aren’t exactly best buds with Microsoft) has acknowledged Microsoft’s findings.

The calculations show that Windows had under 29 days of risk last year, compared to 46 days for Mac OS X, 74 days for SuSE Linux Enterprise, 107 days for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and 168 for Sun Solaris.

Andy Merrett Computers