NSA is coming to town

You better watch out
You better not try
To keep a secret
I'm telling you why
NSA is coming to town

They're making watch lists
And checking them twice
Grab your data
As you get off your flight
NSA is coming to town

They hear you when you're speaking
They know how you behave
They know if you click on that link
So don't click for goodness sake

Oh, you better watch out
You better not try
To keep a secret
I'm telling you why
NSA is coming to town
NSA is coming to town

I came up with this back in September, but that was way, way too early for Christmas songs. Also, I can't yet execute on song parodies quite as well as organizations can so good on ya ACLU for coming up with a parallel idea.

Maybe it'll still work if it's detached

tweeted by They Might Be Giants

I don't think we've really plumbed the depths of the problems biometrics present us with.

Three legs and spam

I would not like a giant dong
I would not like it all day long

I would not like your sketchy pill
I would not like to be made ill

I would not like to slow-rub in
Your creams and lotions from a tin

I would not like to impress men
If my towel falls again

I would not like to stop divorce
By being hung like a stud horse

I would not like to drown my date
In juices meant to impregnate

I would not like to make her gasp
Or have my thing exceed her grasp

I do not like enlargement spam
I do not like it Scam I Am

"Green Eggs & Ham" meets enlargement spam. I'm sure I'm not the only person who was heavily influenced by Dr. Suess as a kid.

Remember the good ol' days?

tweeted by @bartblaze

I remember too, Pepperidge Farms Guy. I remember too.

Finally, a password worse than '123456'

from here (source article)

It's amazing to me that we managed to survive the Cold War with security practices that bad.

World of Warcraft: NSA Edition

tweeted by @_cypherpunks_

I suppose from that vantage point a spy could see a whole lot.

Fear the giant space Kracken

from here (source image)

This is a real logo placed on a real spy satellite by the National Reconnaissance Organization, one of the many organizations overseen by James Clapper (that guy who lied to Congress about government spying), the Director of National Intelligence. Apparently the Office of the Directory of National Intelligence live-tweeted the launch of a classified spy satellite (OpSec?) emblazoned with this logo.

Let me just say, if your organization identifies with a giant space Kracken, there's something wrong with you people.

That's my username

found on memebase

Normally the only one of those you can't actually see is your password, which means you should be able to tell if it's your username that's wrong. That is unless you've forgotten your username and are trying to guess it, but usually the people trying to guess that sort of thing aren't the real account holders and helping them make better guesses kinda makes security worse.

Secret farming

from here (source article)

I think it's telling that there's no indication that this ever foiled a terrorist plot. The idea of terrorists using online games to organize their terror plot seems like something out of the movies rather than real-life. I suspect this has more to do with giving analysts an avenue to goof off than collecting actionable data.

Social Media Experiment

Thanks to Martijn Grooten for tweeting this interesting (and a little scary) demonstration of how people might misuse the information many people are broadcasting on social media sites everyday. Be careful what you post, and see what you can do to take the location info out of it.