Category Archives: General

Fourteen Years of SQL Injection

Posted on 2013-08-28 by jcs

Mavituna Security has a nice post up on SQL Injection. They give a brief history of SQL injection and the three common mistakes that enable it. They have some astounding facts. Here’s a small sampling: In 2012, 97% of all … Continue reading →

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Dinner With General Alexander

Posted on 2013-08-27 by jcs

Jennifer Granick has an excellent article, My Dinner With NSA Director Keith Alexander, in Forbes. Unlike most reporters, Granick doesn’t waste her (and our) time with sideshows such as the whereabouts of Edward Snowden. Instead, she zeros in on the … Continue reading →

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Is the NSA Really Abuse-Proof?

Posted on 2013-08-26 by jcs

President Obama, General Alexander (the Director of the NSA), and Senator Dianne Feinstein (Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) have all assured us that we needn’t worry about NSA snooping on Americans because the NSA has several systems … Continue reading →

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Keeping the French Safe From Terror

Posted on 2013-08-25 by jcs

Rick Fallvinge has a jaw droppingly funny (or sad, depending on your point of view) story about French efforts to stop terror. His story is at the expense of the French but, really, I’m sure no country is immune to … Continue reading →

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Implementing Prism Break

Posted on 2013-08-23 by jcs

A while ago I wrote about Prism Break, a site dedicated to helping you choose private and secure alternatives to many popular proprietary systems and programs. Now Laurent Eschenauer has posted a description of his personal Prism Break. Some of … Continue reading →

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Simon on =eshell=

Posted on 2013-08-22 by jcs

Ben Simon has a couple of nice posts on eshell. In the first, he talks about finally wrapping his head around eshell and shows some of the things you can do with it that you can’t do or that are … Continue reading →

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Your Last Warning

Posted on 2013-08-21 by jcs

I’ve been writing a lot about the NSA, government snooping, and what it all means for us. I’m an American and my writing has reflected that by viewing the events through the lens of what it means to America and … Continue reading →

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Iain M. Banks Gets an Asteroid

Posted on 2013-08-20 by jcs

Regular readers—or those who have read the quote in the masthead—know that I am a big fan of Iain M. Banks’ work. I was incredibly saddened by his premature death and (selfishly) the end of the Culture novels. Now, in … Continue reading →

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My Solution to the Latest VimGolf Challenge

Posted on 2013-08-18 by jcs

Readers contributed many good solutions to this challenge. The mundane solution involves using query-replace-regexp with regular expressions \(w+\) → (\1) for 14 keystrokes or, if you’re a bit more clever w+ → (\&) for 10. Actually, I have electric-pair-mode enabled … Continue reading →

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Schneier Gives Tech Firms Some Advice

Posted on 2013-08-17 by jcs

Bruce Schneier has an excellent article in The Atlantic entitled The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet. This is a great read and I urge you to take a look if you haven’t already. The title is a little misleading, however. … Continue reading →

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