inThirty 98 – Looking Through the PRISM

Always be looking over your shoulder and don’t talk to anyone. After a full week of press and paranoia, we enlisted the help of Tom Webster to explain PRISM and its effect on our personal security.

Show Notes

Tom Webster

PRISM | Wikipedia

PGP | Wikipedia

Tor

Cryptocat

Would Metadata Have Caught Paul Revere?” | Duke Today

Edward Snowden” | Wikipedia

Apple’s Commitment to Customer Privacy

PRISM Is Bad for American Soft Power” | The Atlantic

Change Your Password

We know – you really miss our typical, amusing, pun laden titles, but, for our 53rd episode, we have to get serious. After putting our schadenfreude aside, we use the computer security horror story of a certain senior writer at Wired to begin a discussion about how to keep safe online. We compare the security mentality of Apple, Google, and Amazon and decide which company’s cloud is most secure. You know, the best place to store your baby pictures. We also factor in two-step authentication (that’s almost a pun) and discuss whether it should be widely adopted. We also give a retrospective on the biggest hacks of the last year and reflect on the annoyance of dealing with password resets…and end the show wallowing in despair. You can’t miss it! And, remember listeners, change your passwords! Throw a % or a ^ in it for good measure. Trust us, you’ll be happy you did.

Show Notes
How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking” | Wired.com
LinkedIn Confirms Account Passwords Hacked” | PCWorld.com
Dropbox Links Spam Attack to Employee Account Breach” | PCMag.com
Amazon fixes security flaw” | The Verge
Apple temporarily suspends phone password resets” | Macworld
How to configure Google’s two-step authentication” | Macworld
I’m Happy That Your Password Got Hacked” | ChaimTime.com

Correct Horse Battery LastPass

Can’t remember if your bank password has a ^ before the p or an * after the q? On episode 37 of inThirty we cover passwords and guest Amber Gott of LastPass takes us through her company’s password management software and their goal of reducing to exactly one the number of passwords you have to remember. We talk about the best way to share passwords and discuss whether the expanded use of Facebook Connect diminishes the need for traditional passwords.

Don’t get locked out of your bank account, listen to inThirty.

Show Notes: LastPass / Password Strength, xkcd