Questions tagged [security]
Questions about security; as it applies to any vulnerable and valuable asset, such as a person, dwelling, community, nation, or organization.
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Do 1.4 million Americans have Top Secret clearance?
One of the claims related to the PRISM scandal is that, regardless what NSA and other agencies assert, leaks are inevitable because of sheer number of people with access to secrets. According to this ...
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Do removable faceplates on car stereos deter theft?
Everyone has probably seen a car stereo head unit with a removable face plate; the idea being you can take the faceplate with you to deter theft. The claim is specifically made in this product ...
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Is there a mechanism to stop theft of supermarket trolleys?
On the supermarket trolley, a notice says that the trolley will stop if you try to take it outside the precincts of the shop.
Is it true?
Is so, how does it work?
Example sign from Hyperorg.com
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Will entering the ATM's PIN in reverse notify the police?
I received a rather intriguing email. It says that if I am at an ATM and I'm in the process of getting robbed, I just enter my PIN in reverse order e.g. 4321 instead of 1234. The ATM will still give ...
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Are locks as easy to pick as in the movies?
Are door locks as easy to pick as in the movies? They seem to only take around 2-3 seconds to pick be it with a credit card or a hairpin. Is this realistic? Or is it simply Hollywood being Hollywood?
...
user7920
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Does United States have no technology to allow Internet voting in a secure way?
In 2011, nearly a quarter (24.3%) of participating voters in Estonia cast their ballot by remote electronic voting (that is, on their computer/phone/tablet via the Internet).
Several larger ...
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What info should I keep secret to avoid identity theft?
According to the New York State police,
All an identity thief needs is any combination of your Social Security number, birth date, address, and phone number.
while the UK ActionFraud police (in the ...
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Now that Facebook is a PLC does this change the privacy of your profile contents [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is the trending Facebook “privacy notice” necessary and/or effective?
I have noticed several people posts a boilerplate notice on their Facebook wall as fallows:
To ...
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Is it possible to recover data on a zeroed hard drive?
Let's assume that I have a modern magnetic (not SSD) hard drive, manufactured within the past ten years, and the hard drive is packed with the only copies of an unpublished paper about cheap cold ...
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Is posting my bank account number online unsafe?
With a credit-card number, validity date and CVV-code, people can make purchases, so this information should be strictly protected. But if I post my bank account details online (IBAN + BIC/SWIFT), ...
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Fooling a commercial security door using printed scan of a fingerprint
According to wikipedia,the popular program called MythBusters were able to fool a security door with a printed scan of a fingerprint
^ "Crimes and Myth-Demeanors 1". Mythbusters. episode 16. season ...
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Is the trending Facebook "privacy notice" necessary and/or effective?
This facebook post has gone viral among my friends
PRIVACY NOTICE: Warning - any person and/or institution and/or Agent
and/or Agency of any governmental structure including but not limited
to ...
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Do Facebook or its third-party partners use my photos in ads?
There's a current scare going around FB that now that it wants to make some actual money, they'll start using profile pics and other things uploaded to facebook in advertisements.
Here is an example ...
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Does scam-baiting make a noticeable difference to the prevention of internet fraud?
So I've recently found out about scam-baiting, and I've discovered a whole community around just wasting the times of scammers, such as 419Baiter and TheScamBaiter.
A lot of the people there are ...
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Is it safer to NOT light your house at night?
At some point, I read a news report that investigators found out it is actually safer not to light your house when you are not there or when asleep. It mentioned that thieves found very dark places '...
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Do home alarm systems reduce burglaries?
Does installing an alarm system in your home have an effect on the number or results of burglaries?
I am about to buy a house with an alarm system installed, with a siren/flash light on the front ...
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Can the USA turn off the whole internet by deactivating root DNS servers based there?
Drinking with a friend, he told me how his lecturer had revealed to his class that the US can turn off the Internet for the whole world if it wants to, because all of the DNS root servers are there. I ...
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Is the number of Windows users without security software now equivalent to the total number of Apple users?
According to Leo Laporte (on the podcast Security Now), Mac users are now targeted by malware because most of the larger base of Windows users use security software.
Here is the exact quote:
LEO: ...
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Was the C compiler trojan horse written by Ken Thompson ever distributed?
This is a followup to the comments in this question. Thanks to Oddthinking for bringing up the issue.
Ken Thompson gave a famous speech upon receiving an award titled "Reflections on Trusting Trust" ...
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Have "backdoors" in software programs been seen in the real world?
Has there ever been a software program that has been shown to have an in-bad-faith "backdoor" allowing privileged access? When I say "in bad faith" I mean, "that cannot be credibly explained by ...
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Can diabetics with pumps be killed from a half mile away?
Black Hat: Lethal Hack and wireless attack on insulin pumps to kill
people Like something straight out of science fiction, an
attacker with a powerful antenna could be up to a half mile away from
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Will unsubscribing from spam get you even more spam?
To quote Rick's Spam Digest:
It’s just too likely that the spammer uses the “removal” feature as a means to compile lists of known-deliverable e-mail addresses, and you could simply wind up getting ...
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Are contactless payment cards/phones insecure?
I've heard claims that contactless cards and NFC is no less secure than chip and PIN as indicated below.
According to Barclays:
All our new Contactless debit cards
include the latest advanced ...
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Is closed-source code more secure than open-source?
My computing teacher told us that closed source software is more secure than open source software, because with open source "anyone can modify it and put stuff in." This is why they do not want to use ...
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Can the Rape-aXe only be removed by a doctor?
The Rape-aXe was a prototype of a female condom designed to attach itself to an attacker's penis with barbs if an attacker attempts to penetrate the woman wearing the Rape-aXe.
The inventor claims
...
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Does US Intelligence have built-in interfaces in major social networking sites that allow them to browse personal information at will?
From this interview from Julian Assange:
He believes the social network is joined by Google, Yahoo and other major US organisations that have “built in interfaces for US Intelligence”:
It’...
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The origin of "99 cents"
I've seen two competing theories on the origin of pricing products at $<desired dollar amount minus 1>.99 (i.e. charging $19.99 instead of $20, of $5.99 instead of $6):
Psychological pricing ...
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Do antivirus vendors write viruses for profit?
I think this forum post sums it up nicely:
I think that anti virus companies [...] are the ones who develop most of the viruses on the market today. If you think about it, it does make sence ...
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Is anti-malware software effective?
I have heard claims that anti-malware software isn't really effective and will "only catch 33% of malware", and so it's best to "get rid of them; you don't have to pay, and your system will be faster"....
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Is there a "cyber war"?
I've been extremely sceptical of this new concept of a cyber war. That is, a malicious country or organisation could attack another country by bringing down their network through, say a DDoS or a well ...
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