Author Archive

Keeping Your Data Private From the NSA

For the last week news sources have been full of controversy over the NSA’s controversial PRISM surveillance program (check the latest comments on my Security trends for 2013 article) after top-secret slides detailing the massive electronic surveillance programme were leaked last week by ex-CIA techie Edward Snowden. If those newspaper reports are accurate, the NSA’s

Fujifilm HS20 camera wired external trigger

I own Fujifilm HS20EXR digital camera that use to take photos for this blog. One day I thought I wanted to have a wired external trigger. The ready made cables seemed to be expensive and/or hard to find. So I used the DIY approach: search for needed details from Internet and then build my own

Wifi gesture control

Gesture control uses WiFi doppler shift article tells that researchers at University of Washington have built a WiFi-based gesture control system. The system uses doppler shift in Wifi signal combined with Software-Define Radio (SDR) to detect humans moving near the devices. The researchers see WiSee as a novel interaction interface that leverages ongoing wireless transmissions

USB Fume Extractor Idea

USB Fume Extractor project combines a small craft box, 12v case fan, aquarium carbon filter, dc boost converter and some basic electronic components to create a USB powered fume extractor which treats your lungs to some clean air when soldering. Check the USB Fume Extractor video how the project works: USB Fume Extractor was designed

Ethtool and iftop

Ethtool allows you to modify your Ethernet adapter settings inside of Linux. Fun with ethtool article tells you how you can use it for various tasks. You can easily get driver information and statistics with command: ethtool -i eth0 Ever had to trace what physical network card was recorded in linux as ethX? Follow the

sshpass

The recommended way when you need to do SSH communications (let it be SSH or SCP) from a script is to use secure public key authentiaction to authenticate with the other end. With this you can open SSH connections without putting any passwords to your scripts. But sometimes the best solution is what you can

The Politics of Security

Well known security guru Bruce Schneier has an interesting blog posting titled The Politics of Security in a Democracy. It tells that terrorism causes fear, and we overreact to that fear. Our brains aren’t very good at probability and risk analysis: We think rare risks are more common than they are, and we fear them

SCADA security basics

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are used for remote monitoring and control in the delivery of essential services products such as electricity, natural gas, water, waste treatment and transportation. SCADA software runs on regular computers, but is used by owners of critical infrastructure and other various types of industrial facilities to monitor and