usenix

Security flaw found in feds' digital radios

Expensive high-tech digital radios used by the FBI, Secret Service, and Homeland Security are designed so poorly that they can be jammed by a $30 children's toy, CNET has learned.

A GirlTech IMME, Mattel's pink instant-messaging device with a miniature keyboard that's marketed to pre-teen girls, can be used to disrupt sensitive radio communications used by every major federal law enforcement agency, a team of security researchers from the University of Pennsylvania is planning to announce tomorrow.

Converting the GirlTech gadget into a jammer may be beyond the ability of a street criminal for now, but that … Read more

Disk encryption is no silver bullet, researchers say

SAN JOSE, Calif.--Disk encryption, which people rely on for protecting sensitive data on laptops, can fairly easily be foiled, security researchers said in presenting a paper on a so-called "cold-boot attack" at the Usenix security conference on Wednesday.

In a new type of attack that requires physical access to a target computer, an attacker can cut power to a machine that is in sleep mode, restore the power, and boot a malicious operating system from a USB drive or an iPod that can copy the RAM contents.

But won't the contents of the RAM be lost … Read more

Most drive-by malware comes from China, Google says

SAN JOSE, Calif.--A analysis by Google of Web sites that have malware found most of the malicious drive-by activity is due to computers in China, an engineer for the search giant said at the Usenix security conference on Wednesday.

About 67 percent of all the sites that secretly drop malicious software onto visitors' computers are located in China, as are 64 percent of the compromised servers, said senior staff engineer Niels Provos during a presentation here at the event.

"Web based malware is a significant problem and...there is no real good proactive defense against this," Provos … Read more

Calif. official votes for optical scans, hand tallies

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- California voters this year will be using paper ballots that will be optically scanned and manually audited to protect against fraud and problems that have marred elections conducted with electronic voting systems, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said Wednesday.

In a keynote address at the Usenix security conference entitled "Dr. Strangevote or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Paper Ballot," Bowen said optical scanning was a "pretty good, although not perfect alternative" to direct-recording electronic voting.

"I don't think a perfect voting system exists or can … Read more