Practical Technology

Tragically, Aaron Swartz, hounded by an apparently over-zealous prosecutor, committed suicide in early 2013. His just-unveiled major open-source privacy project, DeadDrop, lives on in a citizen and press protection program, The New Yorker’s Strongbox. Strongbox is the first use of DeadDrop technology. The New Yorker magazine will use it so that its readers can “communicate [...]

[Read more →]

As computer security guru Bruce Schneier likes to say, “Security is a process, not a product.” He was proven right again when Google announced that, while its Linux-based Chrome OS hadn’t been cracked in its Pwnium Chrome OS contest, one hacker was successful in creating an unreliable exploit. Specifically, the hacker known as Pinkie Pie, [...]

[Read more →]

What makes a “perfect” smartphone? Some of my fellow journalist buddies and I wrestled with the question, and here’s what we came up with: First, some part of “perfection” depends on the person. For example, I love QWERTY keyboards, so my personal favorite phone is a Motorola Droid 4. Most people could care less about [...]

[Read more →]

The Chrome web browser on Windows is breakable, but its little brother, the Linux-based Chrome OS, proved to be essentially uncrackable at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, Canada, Linux triumphant: Chrome OS resists cracking attempts. More >

[Read more →]

In the eternal war between crackers and security professionals, the hackers have won the latest battle. At the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, Canada, the HP Zero Day Initiative’s (ZDI) annual Pwn2Own competition has ended its first day of competition and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 10, Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox Web browsers have all been [...]

[Read more →]