Data makes the world go round, more often than not via advertising and its tracking mechanisms. Whether you think making money from large volumes of PII to keep the web ticking over is a good thing, or a sleazy data-grab often encouraging terrible ad practices, it’s not going to go away anytime soon. A detailed analysis of ad tracking mechanisms on popular charity websites has been released by … [Read more...]
September 17, 2020
August 27, 2020
August 14, 2020
Explosive technology and 3D printers: a history of deadly devices
Hackers: They’ll turn your computer into a BOMB! “Hackers turning computers into bombs” is a now legendary headline, taken from the Weekly World News. It has rather set the bar for “people will murder you with computers” anxiety. Even those familiar with the headline may not have dug into the story too much on account of how silly it sounds, but it’s absolutely well … [Read more...]
August 4, 2020
July 31, 2020
July 23, 2020
July 15, 2020
Website misconfigurations and other errors to avoid
Website owners, listen up: There are lots of things you shouldn’t do with your site, and many more you should avoid with the domains you’re responsible for. Insider malice, bad luck, and the stars aligning in impossible ways can all give your online portfolio a bad hair day. However, if you want to tempt fate, you can bring on the mayhem with website misconfigurations and other ill-fortuned … [Read more...]
June 30, 2020
Bluetooth beacons: one free privacy debate with your next order
Apps and their permissions have been in the news recently, particularly in relation to tracking/privacy issues and Bluetooth. Why Bluetooth, though? What is it, and what is it doing to raise concerns in some security quarters? Bluetooth: your cool, then uncool, but mostly cool again cousin Bluetooth has had a slightly odd reputation down the years. Pre-smart phones, for many people it was … [Read more...]
June 17, 2020
End of line: supporting IoT in the home
Trouble is potentially brewing in Internet of Things (IoT) land, even if the consequences may still be a little way off. System updates and issues surrounding expiring certificates will pose problems for manufacturers and headaches for consumers. System updates for fun and profit One of the first mainstream collisions of putting updates out to pasture and angry device owners yelling “Why … [Read more...]
June 3, 2020
A brief history of video game saves and data modification
Games consoles and handhelds have always been an interesting battleground for hacking activities. The homebrew scene for using hardware in interesting ways has a long and varied history, especially where porting games to run on different platforms is concerned. Tampering with games while playing them to gain a distinct advantage has always been frowned upon by the majority of players and … [Read more...]
