FC: Usenix notes: PGP usability, road trip, Freeh, Palms, etc.

[Declan McCullagh <declan () vorlon mit edu>]

[A few notes from the 1999 Usenix security symposium. Complete text at URL
below... Reply to declan () well com. --Declan]


http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/21484.html

                     Tales From the Crypto
                     by Declan McCullagh 
                     3:00 a.m.  28.Aug.99.PDT

                     DUMB CRYPTO: Talk to any non-geek
                     who's struggled to puzzle out secure
                     encryption programs like PGP, and you'll
                     hear that they're just too darn difficult to
                     use. But Carnegie Mellon University
                     researchers have found that usability
                     problems are worse than expected. 

                     ROAD TRIP: What do a bunch of security
                     geeks in town for Usenix do for a good
                     time? Answer: A road trip to the National
                     Cryptologic Museum. 

                     HACKING HOTELS: When the JW
                     Marriott on Pennsylvania Avenue dropped
                     Ethernet connections into each of its
                     hotel rooms, it also installed a system to
                     charge guests $10 a day for the service. 
                     But the hotel never anticipated hosting a
                     convention of Unix security experts.

                     PASSWORDABLE PALMS: Worried about
                     thieves nabbing a copy of the private
                     encryption key saved on your hard drive?
                     If you have a PalmPilot, some Princeton
                     researchers have a solution. 

                     SPIES ON US: The FBI's unrelenting drive
                     to spy on all of our supposedly private
                     communications is because bureau
                     director Louis Freeh takes encryption
                     personally, a Usenix speaker said. Sun
                     researcher Susan Landau said Freeh and
                     other agents-turned-bureaucrats grew up
                     on wiretaps and can't quite kick the
                     habit.


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