Tag: security

How big is 5 Zettabyte?

2013-06-23 rolfje 3 Comments

Since the interview of Edward Snowden with the Guardian, the discussion about privacy and companies storing and sharing unencrypted private data is picking up. Particularly Americans are worried about what it does for their National security and their private data. But that’s actually a naive thought, given the NSA stores worldwide data.

In a recent coverage on theblaze.com (a rather tabloid-looking news station in the U.S.), the interviewers are shocked to see that the NSA spies on “every American”.

This is a limited view of the world and failing to see the importance of spying on people outside the U.S., but lets start with technical side of things first. What data are they storing and how big is their hard-disk?

Read More “How big is 5 Zettabyte?” »

Uncategorized

Linked-In not really Opt-in?

2011-09-07 rolfje 1 Comment

Recently there was some kerfuffle about LinkedIn silently changing privacy settings. In fact, they didn’t do that “silently”, nor was it “recent”. Remember that large chunk of text nobody reads with the “Agree” button you clicked on? Those were the new terms, and deeply buried in them was this privacy settings stuff. LinkedIn’s Eric Heath blogged about that, bringing it as “more control over your LinkedIn information”. Sadly, the default setting for this new “control” is “rather open”. But you can change that.

Uncategorized

Replacing Dropbox with Spideroak

2011-07-03 rolfje 38 Comments

After lies about Dropbox Employees not being able to see your files, then proving that they do not do regression testing on their security, the latest change in terms of service really was the last drop. So I dropped dropbox.

I had become dependent on Dropbox to transfer files between my private and work machines, having my notes, configuration files and (encrypted thank god) password databases handy at all times. Searching around, there is really no other service like it. Although lots of products claim to have the same functionality, the “share this folder between all my machines” feature which dropbox proviced is really unsurpassed.

I had to find an alternative solution which would meet the following criterea:

has to be a single, native folder, instantly syncing with all other machines
has to be free or *really* cheap, minimum 2GB
has to use an encryption technology where no one else can ever read my files, not even the hosting party, not even at gunpoint
has to have client software for Windows, Mac and Linux
accessing data on my iPhone would be a nice bonus.

After some browsing around, there are two solutions that come close, one is Wuala, and the other is Spideroak.

For one additonal GB of storage for life, use my referal link to register at SpiderOak. Read the whole article to add another 5GB to that.

Read More “Replacing Dropbox with Spideroak” »

Software

Want Security?

2006-07-05 rolfje No Comments

According to Sophos security, the whole world should switch to macs to get rid of the security problems. This would be great for business! Currently I do not order with companies who put up Word or Excel formatted price lists, simply because I can’t (and to some extent refuse) open them.

In the long run however, this would shift the security problem to the Mac side of the world. Why do Microsoft machines get attacked so often? Simple: because their user base is large, which means there are more Microsoft (black hat) hackers out there. Additionally, the targeted audience is large in numbers. When the whole world uses Macs, the black hat hackers will turn to OSX as target.

But then again, the security model of OSX is (luckaly) a lot better than that of a Windows machine so the damage done largely depends on how the system is secured by the user. At least on a Mac you have the means of securing stuff properly.

Apple