Researchers Find Flaw in an Online Encryption Method
Posted on | April 11, 2012 | Comments Off
from The New York Times, February 14, 2012 Researchers Find Flaw in an Online Encryption Method
Last paragraph:
The researchers whimsically titled their paper “Ron Was Wrong, Whit Is Right,” a reference to two pioneers in public key cryptography, Ron Rivest and Whitfield Diffie. Mr. Diffie was a developer of the first method for two people who had not previously physically met to share a secret message safely. However, what became known as the R.S.A. algorithm, created by and named after three mathematicians, Mr. Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, ultimately became the dominant standard. (They later helped found the security company RSA.) The so-called Diffie-Hellman method, developed by Mr. Diffie, Martin Hellman and Ralph Merkle, required only a single secret prime number.
Nightly Business Report, Feb. 10, 2009
Posted on | June 22, 2011 | Comments Off
Reporter Scott Gurvey: The microprocessor is high on our list of innovations; also, the personal computers they make possible. Flash memory and liquid crystal displays are on the list. Also the programs which control the machines: productivity products like spreadsheets and word processors; programming paradigms like open source software and services. Many of the innovations fall in the category of connectivity: the Internet, broadband and the worldwide web, mobile phones and electronic mail. Professor of computer science Edmond Schonberg calls this connectivity revolutionary.
Edmond Schonberg, Professor Emeritus, Computer Science, NYU: The fact that information is instantaneously distributed is a change in the way we live, that is as profound as the invention of the printing press.
Cryptography at World Science Festival: Humans Are the Weakest Link
Posted on | June 21, 2011 | Comments Off
June 8, 2011
Popular Mechanics
by Mary Beth Griggs
At the World Science Festival this weekend, four very different cryptography experts gathered to discuss the history of humans’ attempts to keep our information secret from one another. As our security measures improve, so do hacker tactics. But, the experts say, there’s one thing that never changes—a system is only as good as the humans who build and use it (and, hopefully, don’t write down their passwords).
Also
NSA Declassifies 200 Year Old Report
Posted on | June 21, 2011 | Comments Off
Secrecy News
June 9th, 2011
by Steven Aftergood
The National Security Agency announced June 9th that it has declassified a report that is over two hundred years old.
The newly declassified report, entitled “Cryptology: Instruction Book on the Art of Secret Writing,” dates from 1809. It is part of a collection of 50,000 pages of historic records that have just been declassified by NSA and transferred to the National Archives.
The NSA said the new release demonstrated its “commitment to meeting the requirements” of President Obama’s January 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.
Battle of Midway veterans recall shaping history
Posted on | June 21, 2011 | Comments Off
4 June 2011
written by Troy Moon
pnj.com
The history of the Battle of Midway has been told and told and told.
Retired Lt. Col. Fred Cooke was part of the military force that participated in the epic World War II battle. But he’d rather talk about the after-party.
Cooke, “95 years old and holding,’’ said that some Midway warriors were sent to Hawaiian resorts in the days after the battle for some well-deserved rest and relaxation.
“They hired hula dancers to teach us how to hula,’’ Cooke said after a ceremony on Friday at Corry Station to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the Battle of Midway.
“I learned to hula, and I can still hula today.’’
Cooke was one of four local Midway veterans who attended the ceremony. And while the veterans might not have played up their efforts at the decisive military battle in the Pacific, those who came after them had no such hesitation.
Image Gallery: Government’s 10 Most Powerful Supercomputers
Posted on | June 20, 2011 | Comments Off
J. Nicholas Hoover
Information Week
The United States government owns many of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, including six of the top ten. These supercomputers are being used for everything from climate modeling to building spaceships to basic science research.
Observations: Not That Secure after All: Cryptography in a Connected World
Posted on | June 20, 2011 | Comments Off
Not That Secure after All: Cryptography in a Connected World
blog post in Scientific American
By Neda Afsarmanesh | Jun 6, 2011
“Keeping Secrets: Cryptography in a Connected World,” ended June 4 at the World Science Festival. But the lively panelists, often in disagreement with one another, seemed to be unanimously content with this assertion. The main problem is what Snow and fellow panelist Orr Dunkelman, a cryptanalysist (i.e. breaking ciphers and then analyzing them to see how secure they are), call the human factor. That is, to paraphrase Dunkelman, the problem with ciphers designed to enforce cybersecurity is not in the algorithms or encryption systems necessarily, but in their implementation by humans—we are the erratic and unpredictable flaw in most cybersecurity systems.
NSA Information Assurance
Posted on | June 16, 2011 | Comments Off
April 09, 2010
The National Security Agency will spend $902 million on information assurance next year, according to an NSA budget request posted on a Department of Defense Web site, providing a rare insight into a sliver of the secretive intelligence agency’s spending.
Hi, Robot
Posted on | June 15, 2011 | Comments Off
By Sam Anderson
New York Times Review of Books
4 April 2010
The history of the vocoder, cryptography’s top-secret funk machine.
The vocoder—code name Special Customer, the Green Hornet, Project X-61753, X-Ray, and SIGSALY—started distorting human speech in earnest during World War II, in response to the excellence of German wiretapping.
Spook Stories
Posted on | June 15, 2011 | Comments Off
Freedom’s John Hogan leads New England chapter of Naval crypto veterans
by Daymond Steer
Staff Writer<
April 01, 2010
FREEDOM — Former Navy spook John Hogan traveled the world monitoring America's enemies for about 20 years.
Now in retirement, Hogan is helping to keep Cold War history alive as the president of the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association's New England chapter.