Security quotes of the week

Sure, ASLR helps, but I want a basic browser capable of running Javascript securely in a thread-safe jail without crashing on double frees, running out of memory, and selling more cookies than the Girl Scouts, that somehow manages to maintain more hidden access logs than a Swiss bank on MY personal computer, regardless of the privacy settings I choose.

DARPA is funding research into new forms of biometrics that authenticate people as they use their computer: things like keystroke patterns, eye movements, mouse behavior, reading speed, and surfing and e-mail response behavior. The idea -- and I think this is a good one -- is that the computer can continuously authenticate people, and not just authenticate them once when they first start using their computers.

One attack I hadn't seen before was to try a large number of usernames, and parts of the hostname as password. For a hostname of the style MACHINE.DOMAIN.DEPARTMENT.cam.ac.uk, the attack tried DOMAIN, DOMAIN.DEPARTMENT, MACHINE, then MACHINE.DOMAIN. This clearly isn't a dictionary but a bit of custom code which did a reverse DNS lookup on this host then generated some possible passwords. Using the hostname as a password for a host isn't a good idea, but I can imagine some sysadmins doing so. The fact that some attackers are taking this approach might merit some explicit statement in password selection guidance.