Security through nagging

found on Dump A Day

Just like there is no security through obscurity, there's no security through nagging either. If nagging worked, you'd still have the option to opt out of windows update.

And I'd be concerned about the ones that are

from here (source article)

This kind of location data seems like a stalker gold-mine. You might be inclined to think that things are different for gay male hook-up culture, but gosh it seems to me that group has people after them too.

How are we still here?

from here

Learning that the nuclear launch codes were 00000000 was scary but you could maybe trick yourself into believing it was a one-off, and aberration that has thankfully been rectified.

But learning that the password for a certain model of voting machines was abcde makes it clear that there's a larger pattern at play and it makes you wonder how many other critical things have bad passwords still to this day.

Nagware reinvented

found on Acid Cow

Nagware used to refer to a really annoying form of shareware. Does anyone release their software as shareware anymore? I haven't seen it in quite a while, so software updates seem to have become the new king of nagging.

Scam Detected

found on Meme Center

I wonder what people encounter more often - virus alerts that actually came from their installed AV or fake alerts meant to trick you into installing malware. If only there was something that could protect us from scams the way AV protects us from viruses.

A blast from the past

found on Fail Blog

Remember, remember, these nameless offenders. It was a great prank, but wow has anonymous ever changed since those days.

By all accounts this image is supposed to have actually come from Fact Republic, but I was not able to find it there (a similar one, yes, but not this one)

No master keys allowed

found on Imgur

A password that a lot of people use is a password that will get you into a lot of accounts without much effort. Eliminating this is a good thing.

The weird thing is that it would have been harder to do this without all the password breaches because they're what tell us what the commonly used passwords are.

Have you ever wondered why they're called patches?

found on Reddit

Like many people, I'd heard the story of the actual bug found inside a computer giving rise to the term debugging, but this explanation of the origin of patching is just perfect. (Thanks to Alex Girard for sharing this with me)

Deception Detection

excerpt of the infographic on the Randommization blog

In theory, your eyes, your body language, your word choices, etc. can all give away the fact that you're trying to keep the truth hidden. The linked infographic describes some of the ways people think they can detect such deception.

This isn't the full infographic here, by the way, it's just one small part of a much larger infographic which I could not adequately reproduce using picasa web albums (which resizes images that are too big). According to both Buzzfeed and Jezebel the full infographic is supposed to be here, but as of writing apparently something's busted in the series of tubes that is the internet because where the infographic is is just a broken frame pointing to AWS. It's a good thing this copy can be found on the Randommization blog

Don't Smudge Our Spy Window

tweeted by @sehnaoui

Thanks to @sehnaoui for tweeting this interesting bit of privacy advice. I'll be honest, though, the only two-way mirror I've ever encountered was conspicuous enough to not need such a technique.

Passwords Are Like Underpants

tweeted by @andreasdotorg

Thanks to @andreasdotorg for tweeting this memorable infosec infographic.

Which Reason Are You?

found on the meta picture

People say security should be invisible to the user but maybe nagging actually works.

More Isn't Always Better

found on the meta picture

I don’t normally like infographics, but this one has an explanation and isn’t overly busy trying to fit a ton of info into a small space. Also, wow the USA must be doing something wrong with it’s authorities.

Thought You Should Know This

found on the meta picture

Be honest; you thought sharks were a bigger risk than horses or ants, didn't you? It just goes to show how bad we we can be at estimating risk.

I don't always appreciate infographics, but this one at least is pretty straight forward and uncluttered.

Computer Security Career Paths

tweeted by @Trojan7Sec

Thanks to @Trojan7Sec for tweeting this commentary on the state of where computer security "expertise" comes from.