Google releases Open Source Crypto
Posted by James | Filed under Code, Open Source, Security, Web
photo credit: gruntzooki
Google has released “Keyczar”, a cryptography toolkit that supports encryption and authentication for both symmetric and public-key algorithms.
Why Keyczar?
Cryptography is easy to get wrong. Developers can choose improper cipher modes, use obsolete algorithms, compose primitives in an unsafe manner, or fail to anticipate the need for key rotation.
Cryptography is a common problem for web programmers, and Google aims to alleviate some of these issues by giving programmers a simple API for these functions.
Keyczar abstracts some of these details by choosing safe defaults, automatically tagging outputs with key version information, and providing a simple programming interface.
Keyczar is designed to be open, extensible, and cross-platform compatible. It is not intended to replace existing cryptographic libraries like OpenSSL, PyCrypto, or the Java JCE, and in fact is built on these libraries.
To download Keyczar and for more information, please visit the Google Code project and discussion group.
[Via] Google Online Security Blog
Tags: Cryptography, google, Google Code, Keyczar
Google launches privacy channel on YouTube
Posted by James | Filed under Geek, Privacy, Security, Tube, Web
Google launched a privacy channel on YouTube on Wednesday with videos explaining its privacy policies. The move comes on the eve of a two-day Federal Trade Commission-hosted town hall event on behavioral ad targeting to be held in Washington, D.C.
In a Google video titled “Google Search Privacy: Plain and Simple,” a Google support engineer draws on a whiteboard, explaining what type of information is collected by Google servers, such as IP address and cookie data, when you conduct a Google search.
Read on for the video, and more…
Tags: google, Privacy, video, Web, youtube
Macs don’t get viruses? Think again
Posted by James | Filed under Geek, Security
Oh how the PC users have longed for this day. One of Apple’s main (and much trumpeted) marketing points being that Mac is practically virus free, many have held the view that this stems largely from Macs (and OS X) being less prominent on the market than Windows-based PCs.
As a long time PC user, I cannot deny that I consider some of the applications in Windows a security train wreck (*cough* IE6 *cough*), but I do agree that the myth about Macs being immune to viruses is overrated to some degree.
Now, many reports say that some pornography sites hold a Mac trojan pretending to be a video codec.
Granted, this is not the first Mac trojan nor the first Mac malware. But, this one seems to be particularly nasty.
Named OSX.RSPlug.A, it appears to Mac users as they’re lured into thinking they’re viewing a video, and acts as a necessary video codec. The computers of users who proceed with the installation will be infested by a DNSChanger that hijacks web requests sent to eBay, PayPal and several online banking websites. Not nice.
Welcome to Jimmahdigital.com, personal blog of James Simm, Wigan/Manchester-based .Net developer.
