Blogroll

Even as U.S. officials warn of an inevitable outbreak of coronavirus in the United States, and are alerting Americans to take precautions, some health agencies charged with protecting the public appear unprepared to deal with the threat.

(Reuters Health) - Human rabies deaths are so rare in the United States that even healthcare providers may not recognize a rabies infection - or the role that bats might play - which puts patients and the public at further risk, researchers say.

The Saudi ministry of tourism temporarily suspended on Thursday issuing electronic tourist visas for those coming from China, Italy, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Kazakhstan, the Saudi news agency (SPA) reported.

Some 130 guests were cleared on Thursday to leave a Tenerife hotel placed on lockdown after four cases of the coronavirus were detected there, but there were no signs that would happen soon while authorities scrambled to address the situation.

(Reuters Health) - Discomfort in the calf and upper legs during walking is a hallmark of narrowed blood vessels due to heart disease, but walking more - not less - can help ease the pain, experts say.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday there were no reported shortages of medical devices within the country due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

The Center for Democracy and Technology has a good summary of the current state of the DMCA's chilling effects on security research. To underline the nature of chilling effects on hacking and security research, CDT has worked to describe how tinkerers, hackers, and security researchers of all types both contribute to a baseline level of security in our digital environment... Bruce Schneier

In Tokama, Japan, you can watch the firefly squid catch and eat them in various ways: "It's great to eat hotaruika around when the seasons change, which is when people tend to get sick," said Ryoji Tanaka, an executive at the Toyama prefectural federation of fishing cooperatives. "In addition to popular cooking methods, such as boiling them in salted water,... Bruce Schneier

Interesting research: "'Won't Somebody Think of the Children?' Examining COPPA Compliance at Scale": Abstract: We present a scalable dynamic analysis framework that allows for the automatic evaluation of the privacy behaviors of Android apps. We use our system to analyze mobile apps' compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), one of the few stringent privacy laws in the... Bruce Schneier

Good article about how difficult it is to insure an organization against Internet attacks, and how expensive the insurance is. Companies like retailers, banks, and healthcare providers began seeking out cyberinsurance in the early 2000s, when states first passed data breach notification laws. But even with 20 years' worth of experience and claims data in cyberinsurance, underwriters still struggle with... Bruce Schneier

Last year I wrote about the Digital Security Exchange. The project is live: The DSX works to strengthen the digital resilience of U.S. civil society groups by improving their understanding and mitigation of online threats. We do this by pairing civil society and social sector organizations with credible and trustworthy digital security experts and trainers who can help them keep... Bruce Schneier

DARPA is launching a program aimed at vulnerability discovery via human-assisted AI. The new DARPA program is called CHESS (Computers and Humans Exploring Software Security), and they're holding a proposers day in a week and a half. This is the kind of thing that can dramatically change the offense/defense balance.... Bruce Schneier

This vulnerability is a result of an interaction between two different ways of handling e-mail addresses. Gmail ignores dots in addresses, so bruce.schneier@gmail.com is the same as bruceschneier@gmail.com is the same as b.r.u.c.e.schneier@gmail.com. (Note: I do not own any of those email addresses -- if they're even valid.) Netflix doesn't ignore dots, so those are all unique e-mail addresses and... Bruce Schneier

This is interesting. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here.... Bruce Schneier

This is a really interesting research result. This paper proves that two parties can create a secure communications channel using a communications system with a backdoor. It's a theoretical result, so it doesn't talk about how easy that channel is to create. And the assumptions on the adversary are pretty reasonable: that each party can create his own randomness, and... Bruce Schneier

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission is holding hearings on IoT risks: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC, Commission, or we) will conduct a public hearing to receive information from all interested parties about potential safety issues and hazards associated with internet-connected consumer products. The information received from the public hearing will be used to inform future Commission risk... Bruce Schneier

Interesting history.... Bruce Schneier

Rising sea temperatures is causing market squid to move north into Alaskan waters. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here.... Bruce Schneier

It's routine for US police to unlock iPhones with the fingerprints of dead people. It seems only to work with recently dead people.... Bruce Schneier

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, news articles and commentators have focused on what Facebook knows about us. A lot, it turns out. It collects data from our posts, our likes, our photos, things we type and delete without posting, and things we do while not on Facebook and even when we're offline. It buys data about us... Bruce Schneier