14 posts tagged “security now”
Here's Merlin Mann's video on Internet Pants. This is also the name of episode 83 of MacBreak Weekly, with the regular cast minus Leo, who is in Tasmania. The episode will post at a little after 1 p.m. Pacific today (Thursday). Security Now will be posted later today, around 5 p.m. Pacific.
Ed Bellis, the chief information security officer for Orbitz, recently praised Security Now on his personal blog.
"The Security Now podcast with Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte is chock full of security technology goodness. Go check it out."
Note: This is his personal blog which says these are his personal views only, not his employer's.
Thomas Brand's Newton Blog is worth a look-see purely as a unique example of web design.
CNET's TechRepublic ranked TWiT and Security Now as Top 10 podcasts in "Tech Sanity Check."
Does everyone know this word except me? I noticed that Leo offhandedly use the word "MacGuffin" in the latest episode of Security Now - Episode 131 (about 80% into the show). I hadn't heard the word until I was watching the special features on a Hitchcock DVD recently. Hitchcock used a MacGuffin as the driving theme of a movie plot, which ended up not being so important in the end. Hitchcock explained the MacGuffin with this joke:
Two men were riding on a train in Scotland. One turned to the other and said, “What's in that black box on the luggage rack?”
“A MacGuffin,” the other replied.
“What does it do?”
“It catches lions on the Scottish highlands.”
“But there are no lions on the Scottish highlands,” the man protested.
“Oh? Then that's no MacGuffin.”
I asked Leo about the reference and he said basically that he knows he's got a smart audience so he imagined many had heard of a MacGuffin. Anyway I love that kind of stuff and I think I'll buy this book "Hitchcock" by Francois Truffaut, where they discuss the MacGuffin and a lot of other things.
Also, perhaps Leo read the latest story about Indiana Jones 4 and was reminded about the MacGuffin.
If you missed Security Now 119: Third Party Cookies last week because it was released on Thankgiving, take another look.
During this show, Steve Gibson goes into depth about how the close business association of PayPal and DoubleClick may be giving DoubleClick (and possibly their suiting acquirer, Google) significant access to PayPal account holders' information. Steve describes something that seems to have been previously unknown or unnoticed -- that PayPal apparently makes it mandatory that its users be tracked by DoubleClick, going significantly beyond the third-party cookies that usually track DoubleClick ads (this applies even to those who turn off third-party cookies).
Security Now mostly caters to IT professionals, and it often has a bit of jargon, but in this episode, Steve goes into great depth during the first 45 minutes to decribe what cookies are and how users can shut off third-party cookies to protect their privacy. However, at 45 minutes into the show, he begins to detail how the PayPal/DoubleClick relationship makes it mandatory (on many key pages) that people be tracked on PayPal even if they specifically turn off third party cookies.
To get to the meat of the matter, fast forward and begin listening at 45 minutes into the show, then go back to the beginning to get the background on the problem. You can also read the transcript of the show at http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-119.htm.
Note: Both TWiT and Steve Gibson's GRC are customers of PayPal.
Update: Here's what one listener responded in an open letter to Steve.
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Security Now
On Security Now 103, Steve Gibson chatted with Michael Vergara, Director of Account Protections at PayPal about the PayPal Security Key. Listeners like Mike Midona have now decided to get them some of that good ole "Third Factor Authentication."
