Open Source Security

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about how open source deals with malicious events. It's probably impossible to stop these from happening, but the open source universe deals with it in its own unique way. We start to discuss what you can do, since everyone is using open source everywhere now. There will be a second part to this episode where we discuss what the future holds for these sort of problems.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Cloudflare's new Workers service. We spend a lot of time discussing how economics drives technology, not security. It's quite likely this new service is less secure than existing alternatives, but it will be cheaper and faster which will matter more than security.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk to  Liz Rice  about Kubernetes and container security. How did we get where we are today, what's new and exciting today, and where do we think things are going.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Apple's new T2 security chip. It's not open source but we expect it to change the security landscape in the coming years.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about voting security. What does it mean, how does it work. What works, what doesn't work, and most importantly why we may not see secure electronic voting anytime soon.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Bloomberg's story about backdoors and motherboards. The story is probably false, but this is almost certainly happening already with hardware. What does it mean if your hardware is already backdoored by one or more countries?

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the Google+ and Facebook data incidents. We don't have any control over this data anymore. The incidents didn't really affect the users because we have no idea who has access to it. We also touch on GDPR and what it could mean in this context.

Josh  and Kurt  talk about Cloudflare's new IPFS and Onion services. One brings distributed blockchain files to the masses, the other lets you host your site on tor easily.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Linus' effort to work on his attitude. What will this mean for security and IT in general?

Josh  and  Kurt  talk to Michael Piacente from Hitch Partners about the past, present, and future role of the CISO in the industry.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk to Brian Hajost from SteelCloud about public sector compliance. The world of public sector compliance can be confusing and strange, but it's not that bad when it's explained by someone with experience.

Josh  and  Kurt  review Bruce Schneier's new book Click Here to Kill Everybody. It's a book everyone could benefit from reading. It does a nice job explaining many existing security problems in a simple manner.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about actual real world advice. Based on a story about trying to secure political campaigns, if we had to give some security help what should it look like, who should we give it to?

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the new Google Titan security key. There are some in the industry uneasy about the supply chain for the devices. We also discuss the latest Struts security issue. Struts is old and scary now, stop using it.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about TLS 1.3 and DNS. What can we expect from the future for these, how are they related (or not related). We touch on DNSSEC and why it probably won't matter. DNS over TLS is looking pretty great though. There is also a guest appearance from quantum crypto.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Black Hat and Defcon and how unexciting they have become. What happened with hotels at Defcon, and more importantly how many security policies have 2nd and 3rd level effects we often can't foresee. We end with important information about pizzza, bananas, and can openers.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about phishing training and how it doesn't really matter. Josh spoke at OSCon and comes back with some fun observations and advice. People want practical actionable advice and we're not good at that.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the latest attack on bluetooth and discuss phishing in the modern world. U2F is a great way to stop phishing, training is not. We also discuss airgaps in response to attacks on airgapped power utilities.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about modern hardware, how security relates to devices and actions. Everything from secure devices, to the cables we use, to thermal cameras and coat hangers. We end the conversation discussing the words we use and how they affect the way people see us and themselves.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Cory Doctorow's piece on Facebook data privacy. It's common to call data the new oil but it's more like nuclear waste. How we fix the data problem in the future is going to require solutions we can't yet imagine as well as new ways of thinking about the problems.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about some recent backdoor problems in open source packages. We touch on is open source secure, how that security works, and what it should look like in the future. This problem is never going to go away or get better, and that's probably OK.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the Gentoo security incident. Gentoo did a really good job being open and dealing with the incident quickly. The basic takeaway from all this is make sure your organization is forcing users to use 2 factor authentication. The long term solution is going to be all identity providers forcing everyone to use 2FA.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about a Microsoft Research paper titled "The Seven Properties of Highly Secure Devices". We take a real world view into how to secure our devices. What works, what doesn't work, and why this list is actually really good.

Josh  and  Kurt  talk to Michael Feiertag, the CEO of tCell. We talk about what a Web Application Firewall is, what it does and doesn't do, and what the future of this technology looks like. We touch on how this affects a DevOps environment. Security has to fit into the existing model, not try to change it. 

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Bird scooters. The implications of the scooters on the city, segways, bicycles. The topic of how these vehicles interact with pedestrians on the road and trails. It's an example of humans not wanting to follow the rules and generally making the situation annoying for everyone. It's the old security story of new technology without clear rules. The show ends with some hor...