blog » August 27, 2006/Security news

It’s summer, so more people are flying. And after the terrorism-related arrests a few weeks ago, more people are paranoid. And so, I suppose, it’s inevitable that we have more people overreacting to normal incidents.

Here’s one man’s story of what happened when his [iPod accidentally fell in the airplane toilet http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=32DA4C09BEB07855088A6F20EBB8C4DE?topicId=11211166&sid=1]. (Schneier, /., Ottawa Citizen) While the details of his story aren’t independently verified, it has at least been confirmed that someone’s iPod did in fact fall in the toilet, causing security to evacuate the plane and question all the passengers.

12 passengers, all Indian men, were removed from a flight after the crew noticed some passengers fiddling with cell phones. The 12 were later cleared and released without charges.

And when they’re not overreacting, they’re giving strange advice. The “[TSA] [encourages] everyone to pack gel-filled bras in their checked baggage.” (Schneier) So if you’re flying, and don’t have a gel-filled bra, make sure you go out and buy one, and pack it in your checked baggage. Because the TSA says so.

Here’s a Bob the Angry Flower comic on security. Which sounds a lot like the Department of Homeland Security’s list of top terrorist targets. (Schneier)

This is camping season as well, Schneier has a short posting on security tradeoffs in bear-proof garbage bins.

An old post: Schneier announced the movie-plot threat contest winner.

Moving on to computer security, 123456 is the most common password. (Schneier) That’s the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage.

And Stephen Colbert gives his computer security tips (part 1, part 2) (Schneier)

A new attack against SHA-1 has been developed. (/.) This is a collision attack (not a preimage attack), and allows part of the text to be chosen. It’s still not practical, but it’s still a further weakness in SHA-1.

And finally, here are some facts about Bruce Schneier (Schneier)