Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

The whistleblower said: “There have been countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on. These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details, and app data.” #privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/apple-contractors-regularly-hear-confidential-details-on-siri-recordings

I ran into a new security measure the other day: my bank has added complexity requirements to *usernames* now, presumably to make them harder to guess and brute force attacks more difficult. #infosec

Looking forward to #LiveFromHere in a few minutes. Green Music Center is always such a nice venue. It's like being inside of a classical guitar.

I wrote a piece on the @purism blog on why consent is critical for #privacy, the tech industry's failure to get consent, and as a result how "Privacy has become the tattoo removal of the information age". https://puri.sm/posts/consent-matters-when-tech-shares-your-secrets-without-your-permission/

#vanlife at #DEFCON means arriving/leaving when I want and avoiding invasive airport and hotel searches. Last year my DEFCON vanlife experiment was a failure. This year I'm hopefully learning from my mistakes:

1. New AC to replace original that 110F Vegas heat killed last year.

2. Camping on strip, so no 30-min commute from camp to venue.

3. Leaving van plugged in, AC on, taking cabs to venues, so no more parking unplugged in direct sun all day (limited high-clearance parking in garages).

Good: burning post-it notes containing secrets after use.
Bad: holding the post-it by the sticky side as you light it. #protip #closecall

Whoever named this needs a lesson in modern #infosec malware branding. "eCh0raix" really? NASty NAP is the obvious choice: https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-new-ransomware-is-targeting-network-attached-storage-devices/

I imagine many in #infosec will conclude the ends justify the means, and I imagine most Apple users won't care, but I still think silently pushing non-interactive 3rd-party app updates to consumer devices is creepy: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/10/apple-silent-update-zoom-app/