Month: April 2015

Google engineers have released an extension for their Chrome browser that warns users when they accidentally enter their Google password into a phishing page aimed at hijacking their account.

The freely available, open-source extension is known as Password Alert. It stores a user’s Google password in a one-way encrypted format known as a cryptographic hash. If the user types the same Google password into a non-Google website, the extension generates a warning that the user has just been phished and should change the password immediately.

Google

Google security engineer Drew Hintz told Ars that Password Alert will issue the same warning when people use their Google password to log in to other legitimate sites. Such password reuse is a major security taboo, since a breach of one site can lead to takeovers of any other site accounts protected by the same password. Still, for users who insist on ignoring this sage and oft-repeated advice, alerts come with an option that says “always ignore this website.” If a user presses the button, the alert will never appear again for that particular non-Google website.

On the night of May 4, 2007, a tornado classified as a 5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale reached the town of Greensburg, Kansas. Within 20 minutes, the storm ravaged 95 percent of the city’s infrastructure, leaving 11 residents dead and nearly 800,000 cubic yards of debris in its wake.

Tasked with expediting the town’s recovery and preventing future devastation, the state of Kansas allotted funding to various emergency response initiatives: debris removal, reconstruction of roads and buildings, and—less traditionally—the study of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations. In other words, Kansas spent money to study drones. (The term “drones” is generally avoided by commercial aviators and academics given its connections to the military and surveillance services.)

Though born of a specific regional need, the state’s academic investment reflects a nationwide trend: the rise of Bachelor of Science degrees in operating UAS. The beneficiary of the Kansas disaster money, Kansas State University (K-State) Salina, is one of the first three US universities to offer an undergraduate degree in UAS operations. The University of North Dakota introduced a major in Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations in 2009, while Florida aeronautical university Embry-Riddle’s B.S. in Unmanned Aircraft Systems Science debuted in 2011.

On June 1 the legal authority enabling the National Security Agency’s bulk telephone metadata collection program expires. The expiration date of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act comes two years after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the spying to the Guardian.

Ahead of the deadline, three key bills have emerged. They can best be described as the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

One proposal scuttles the bulk metadata program altogether. Another bill tinkers with the snooping. Yet another allows it to continue unabated though 2020.