PEDES3ANTECH

B altimore - Shortly after midnight on March 5, 1976 Mrs. Patricia Mcdonough was robbed just outside her home. She was able to take a good look at the robber and his 1975 Monte Carlo automobile. A few days after the robbery, Mrs. McDonough started receiving threatening phone calls from the man claiming to be the robber. Mrs. McDonough started recording some of these threatening phone calls and notified the police. On March 13, the police asked the telephone company to install a terminating accounting equipment on Mrs. Donough's telephone line to determine the origin of the calls she was receiving. The police found out that most of the calls were made from pay-phones near McDonough's residence.  On March 16, in the general vicinity of Mrs. McDonough's home, someone asked a police officer for help in opening the locked door of his 1975 Monte Carlo. The officer helped the man, took down his plate# and notified the investigating officer.  The police ran the pla...

First Edition Cover - image  source   This book resonated a lot with me. If you follow my blog or my twitter timeline you will see one theme that I am very passionate about - privacy and how the surveillance state is trying to eradicate it.  I became very passionate about this topic when I read about Snowden's revelations. Reading about the NSA's surveillance program and their seeming disregard of individual privacy was shocking to me. It made me want to know more about how our data is being collected and how it is being exposed to surveillance. Reading George Orwell's 1984 felt like it was a critique of our current state. There were three themes in the story that really struck me the most and I will go through each one of them in this post. The mere threat of constant surveillance is enough to kill dissent.  In the book the Party had installed countless Telescreens and listening devices as part of its surveillance infrastructure. The Thought Police could...

Obama during his January 17, 2014 speech. Photo credit thinkprogress.org We are coming up to the 1 year anniversary of President Obama's speech promising the American people reforms on how the NSA works (see transcript of speech here ). Although the speech was an exercise in political babbling it had some promised reforms that would have limited the NSA's capabilities. On January 17, 2014 President Barack Obama promised the following reforms to the American people; Strengthen Executive oversight and review of Intelligence operation.          Obama said: " This guidance will strengthen executive branch oversight of our intelligence activities. It will ensure that we take into account our security requirements, but also our alliances, our trade and investment relationships, including the concerns of American companies, and our commitment to privacy and basic liberties. And we will review decisions about intelligence priorities and se...

The year 2014 was a big year for security and privacy. Big in a sense where people around the world were exposed to the reality that our privacy and security is at risk each and everyday. It was a great year for security and privacy awareness because there has never been a year in my memory when security and privacy took a very central role in our public debate. This is why I want to take a look back at the most important events in 2014 that highlighted the importance of security and privacy protection. Data Breaches in Major Retailers Less than a year after the Target data breach, two major US retailers fell victim to another attack. This time it was Home Depot and Staples. The Home Depot data breach saw the theft of 56 million email address, credit and debit card numbers. The attackers apparently gained access to their network using a vendor username and password - almost similar to how the Target attack began. The Staples data breach was smaller in scope - it exposed just a l...

Photo Credits: Digitalreins It is probably the biggest and most important revelation since wiki-leaks and it has already been forgotten. The story of how the US government has been spying on everyone- including its own citizens has been reduced to a Tom Clancy like saga of one person. What started of as a serious discussion on the limits of government power has been reduced to a ridiculous attack on one man's credibility. What slowly developed as an unveiling of how much information private companies have on individuals has turned into an orchestrated effort from the media (both liberal and conservative) to divert our attention.  What happened to this story? and what does it tell us about how serious we are about our digital privacy? The snowden effect As soon as Edward Snowden decided to come out from hiding, the story and the debate he started was doomed. Don't get me wrong, I still consider him as a modern day hero. Although the government and most of the pa...