Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast

We all know how marketers are tracking our every move on the world wide web. But now they’re starting to track you in the real world, too. Security cameras exist everywhere, but companies have now decided to add facial recognition software to those systems in order to track where you go, what you look at, who you’re with and how effective their ads are. I’ll also tell you why the Firefox browser i...

The reports of net neutrality’s death have been greatly exaggerated. We still have time for Congress to reinstate the federal rules that were struck down by the FCC. In the meantime, states like California are taking matters into their own hands, passing landmark state-level legislation to preserve a level playing field on the Internet. Ernesto Falcon from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)...

Bloomberg claims that Chinese manufacturers have implanted tiny spy chips into many of our computer systems. Apple, Amazon and others strenuously deny this. Who’s telling the truth? In today’s show, I’ll cover both sides of this story, discuss the various ways in which our global manufacturing and supply chain systems could be compromised, and delve into the several deeper considerations for these...

Ransomware, the malware that locks up your data and hold it for ransom, has been growing by leaps and bounds in the past few years, WHY? Because it works. Hackers trick you into installing the malware which encrypts your most precious files and demands that you pay Bitcoin to get the key that unlocks them. It’s like a burglar broke into your house and put all your valuables in a safe in your livin...

Between 50 and 90 million Facebook users’ accounts were exposed, appearing to give hackers full access as if they were logged in as you. Facebook has fixed the bug, but it’s not yet clear whose accounts may have been compromised. In other news, researchers have determined that Facebook is using your security contact information and information shared by others you know to target you with ads. In o...

One of the best ways to avoid identity fraud is to freeze your credit reports. Thanks to a new law that just went into effect, freezing and unfreezing your credit is now completely free! Freezing your credit will prevent fraudsters from opening new loans and credit cards in your name, sticking you with the bill. When you actually need to open new credit, you can temporarily thaw your account (also...

Did you know that Google owns Android, Waze, YouTube, Pixel phones and Chromebooks? Did you know that almost 90% of Google’s revenue comes from advertising? There’s hardly any part of your online life that isn’t somehow tracked by Google. By using Google’s email, calendar, docs, search, browser, cloud storage and even phones, we are allowing Google to know just about everything about us. But there...

AT&T is operating top secret Internet monitoring facilities for the NSA in the heart of 8 major US cities according to a blockbuster report from The Intercept. Sitting on top of major digital communications arteries, these surveillance systems can track and record most communications within the US as well as many outside our physical borders. David Ruiz from the Electronic Frontier Foundation expl...

The 2018 DEFCON Vote Hacking Village showed once again that our voting machines are way too easy to hack. Even though election system manufacturers refuse to allow independent researchers to vet their products directly, hackers at DEFCON have managed to get their hands on several systems in use today, and show that they are trivial to compromise. Jacob Hoffman-Andrews from the EFF explains what al...

Facebook’s “Protect” Virtual Private Network is anything but “private”. Facebook has been using this VPN to monitor all of your web surfing, adding even more information about its users to its colossal database. Apple removed the app from it’s App Store due to violations of its recently upgraded privacy policies. You should delete the app from your phone and use a better VPN. In other news, banks...

Security researchers have demonstrated that a modern all-in-one printer machine can be compromised using technology from the 1970s: the venerable fax machine. If you have a fancy printer/fax, you need to update its software ASAP. Presenters are this year’s DEFCON hacker conference have shown that they can compromise HP printer/fax machines by sending it a maliciously formatted fax message. I’ll al...

What do you get when you cross cryptography with a wall of lava lamps? Believe it or not, a much more secure Internet. Cloudflare’s CTO John Graham-Cumming will explain why all our modern communications require sources of randomness to remain secure, and how his company has used a wall of 100 lava lamps to serve as a serious source of entropy. John will explain how to pick strong passwords using d...

How can you go wrong trying to stop sex trafficking? FOSTA, that’s how. The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) tried to fix something that wasn’t broke: under pre-existing law, we already had common sense regulations in place to prosecute online services that facilitated sex trafficking. But perhaps in an effort to appear tough on sex crimes, the US Congress passed additional regulations tha...

A small company has recently bought up a bunch of mobile phone add-ons and browser plugins, and apparently decided to start snooping on its customers. The apps have been downloaded by over 11 million people and appear to be keeping track of every single web site you visit. In another story, a plugin that is supposed to help you pin things on Pinterest is actually injecting code into web pages. Whi...

There’s a data gold rush going on in the United States and without regulation, it’s turning into a Wild West of data mining. Modern humans generate tons of data exhaust every single day: what you buy, what you eat, what you watch, where you live and work and what you do in your free time. These activities and habits may speak volumes about your health risk factors - and therefore how expensive you...

Where were you on the night of June 22nd? Your cellular provider knows. And until that date just a few weeks ago, if law enforcement wanted that info, all they had to do was ask. But we’re not just talking about one night… they know every place you’ve been, throughout the day, every day, going back months or even years. Thankfully, the Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement must now get a warran...

We’ve talked about encryption in just about every single one of these shows but we’ve never actually talked about what it means to encrypt something. Did you know that Julius Caesar used cryptography to send secret messages to his generals? You may have heard about the vaunted Enigma Machine used by the Germans in World War II, but how did it work? I’ll walk you through the basics of creating secr...

Wouldn’t it be great if you could speed up every single website you visit without paying a dime? Every time you go to a website, your computer or smartphone first has to look up how to get to get there - just like we used to have to look up people’s numbers in the phone book. The service we all use is the Domain Name System (DNS), and by default, your DNS provider is probably not very fast.  Today...

This was a huge week for location privacy rights. In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement must now obtain a warrant to obtain your cell phone location history. You cell provider knows where you are 24/7 and keeps records of your whereabouts that can go back for years. Until this ruling, this location information was considered to be unprotected and could be freely provide...

Android devices are everywhere - not just smartphones, but smart TVs, DVRs, streaming TV boxes and tablets. And many of these devices a shipping with a wide open backdoor for hackers. The Android debug port is supposed to only be used during software development, but many manufacturers are shipping popular Android-based products with this debug interface wide open. Hackers can easily use this inte...

There are estimated to be 2500-4000 data brokers in the United States who are collecting, buying and selling your information. Vermont has become the first state to pass laws to regulate this data mining that is largely working in the dark with zero accountability. We need more laws like this and I’ll tell you what you can do in the meantime to take more control over your personal and private data...

When is a Virtual Private Network (VPN) not really private? Answer: When your VPN provider tracks where you go and sells that information to someone else. Today we’ll talk about a recent study that shows that many of the top free VPN services make their money by collecting and selling your browsing information. That seems to violate the “P” part of “VPN”, but let’s face it: if the product is free,...

Summer is upon us and for many of us that means travel - but before you even pack your bags, you need to listen to this podcast! In my interview with Michael Kaiser (the Executive Director of the National Cyber Security Alliance), we discuss all the cyber security and privacy issues you need to consider: before you go and while you’re traveling. Going abroad this summer? There are even more things...

On May 25th, the European Union will begin enforcing the GDPR - a sweeping set of regulations designed to return control of user data back to the users. These rules apply to EU people, not EU companies - so if you have a business or website that deal with folks from the EU, then you need to comply with these rules. Note that even if it’s just a newsletter, you could be on the hook for damages if y...

Ever since WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for a staggering $19B, the extremely popular global messaging app has been losing its focus on privacy. WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum (who grew up in the Soviet Union) has now left Facebook, and with him WhatsApp may have lost its last hope for retaining the user protections Koum carefully put in place. If you even considered leaving Facebook, yo...