It may seem enticing to buy the “Forever stamps” that will always be accepted no matter if the cost of 1st class postage jumps to $1.00.  But, if you actually look at the trends in a) postage increases and b) 1st class mail decline it is not a good economic argument.

I need to post a photo of the sign in my building that actually tells you that the locked stairwell doors will be unlocked if the fire alarm is tripped.  Hmm, so to break in all I have to do is…

TJX sat for months knowing full well they had been breached but didn’t notify anyone.  The downstream impacts for issuers alone are potentially huge.  What do you do knowing that you have a list of customers whose cards you know were breached?  Do you replace them all as a precaution?  Who pays for that cost?  Or do you monitor and hope for the best?  Who pays for the cost of the added monitoring?

TEMPEST risks extended from CRTs to LCDs.  This is really cool stuff.

Adam Shostack provides some useful information on companies who have publicly disclosed data breaches and how to find more later on.  Gotta love the Internet.

'Twas May 11-13th.  I need to keep up on my security blogs and news more…  I’ll be looking for it next year though.

I get at least 400 spam emails every day.  Until I get my new filter setup better trained, I’ve had to manually review my spam folder more than I’ve had to with my older system.  It is illuminating seeing many of the patterns that show up, but in the past month, these are the most frequently seen institutions:

This is another great essay from Bruce in Wired magazine about how people miscalculate risks.  This subject really fascinates me, which is at the heart of many superstitions and beliefs that people can’t seem to shake, even though they use their iPods and HDTVs and seem to believe in science as a way to knowledge of the world.

This is a great point.  The wireless carriers get rich by using the public airwaves; why should they be able to do what AT&T and other companies did and block access to their network?  The Internet is a great success story in how much innovation in such a short period of time can come about from open access to myriad devices.  I also see wireless LANs as a success story as well with innovation with unlicensed spectrum, that may reveal how in the digital age, keeping the public from using their spectrum is not necessarily even technically required any longer and may be harming development of newer applications.  But the lawyers, such as those at AT&T Wireless where I used to work, who fought to control the spectrum and make it illegal for the public to use (since the mobile network lacked actual network security at the time), didn’t think of such repercussions.

kfest