Friday, December 23, 2005

Holocaust Survivors Recall Revenge on Nazis. A group of elderly Holocaust survivors came forward Friday with accounts of a death squad they formed after World War II to take revenge on their Nazi persecutors, recounting a brazen operation in which they poisoned hundreds of SS officers. In a broadcast on Israel Channel Two TV, the survivors — some of whom fought in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising — recounted hunting down former SS officers at night. Disguised as British or American officers, they dragged the men out of their homes and killed them, they said. [...] It also considered an attempt to poison the water supply of five German cities but decided against it, Bar-Zohar said. Rotem confirmed some plans were called off because the group feared killing innocent people. [AP World News] comment () trackback ()  6:08:37 PM     Drip, drip, drip. CNet. Federal police may monitor the locations of Americans by constantly tracking their cell phone signals without providing evidence of criminal activity, a magistrate judge has ruled (NOTE: this is a limited ruling but points to the larger trend). [John Robb's Weblog] The lesson from this is to avoid carrying a cell phone. If that's not possible, buy one of the prepaid disposable kind that you can by anonymously with cash. The Feds can't track you by your cell phone if they don't know it's yours. comment () trackback ()  2:36:10 PM     Idiotic Article on TPM. This is just an awful news story. "TPM" stands for "Trusted Platform Module." It's a chip that may soon be in your computer that will try to enforce security: both your security, and the security of software and media companies against you. It's complicated, and it will prevent some attacks. But there are dangers. And lots of ways to hack it. (I've written about TPM here, and here when Microsoft called it Palladium. Ross Anderson has some good stuff here.) In fact, with TPM, your bank wouldn’t even need to ask for your username and password -- it would know you simply by the identification on your machine. Since when is "your computer" the same as "you"? And since when is identifying a computer the same as authenticating the user? And until we can eliminate bot networks and "owned" machines, there's no way to know who is controlling your computer. Of course you could always “fool” the system by starting your computer with your unique PIN or fingerprint and then letting another person use it, but that’s a choice similar to giving someone else your credit card. Right, letting someone use your computer is the same as letting someone use your credit card. Does he have any idea that there are shared computers that you can rent and use? Does he know any families that share computers? Does he ever have friends who visit him at home? There are lots of ways a PIN can be guessed or stolen. Oh, I can't go on. My guess is the reporter was fed the story by some PR hack, and never bothered to check out if it were true. [Schneier on Security] That's probably exactly what happened. The loss of anonymity isn't the only threat from this chip. comment () trackback ()  2:33:57 PM

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