Radio Interview about Gold Lock Hacker Challenge

Gold Lock is proud to announce that Douglas Haskins, Channel Manager-North America, is scheduled to be interviewed by Federal News Radio AM1500 in Washington, DC, Monday 12/14/09 at 8:30am (eastern time).  Federal News Radio contacted Gold Lock to schedule the radio interview to discuss the Gold Lock Hacker Challenge: a $250,00o prize to anyone who can hack a 10 minute encrypted conversation.

Would be hackers are free to use any tools or technology at their disposal. This contest is open to anyone, anywhere, unless your participation is specifically prohibited by law.

Hackers have until 12:00 AM (GMT/UTC + 02:00 hours) on February 1st 2010 to provide us with the transcript. Read the contest rules for complete details and restrictions. Be sure to complete the entry form on that page before you start trying to grab the gold.

Smartphone security software market shows strong potential for channel

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Smartphone security business challenge and channel opportunity

Sales and support opportunities for encryption are likely to grow as smartphones use more business applications, such as SAP, and store more corporate data. As discussed earlier, the potential for antimalware sales and support is enormous when smartphones finally become subject to widespread attack.

While encryption vendors offer mobile-specific products on their own, they are also included as part of their overall corporate endpoint encryption suites. Check Point’s Svegby said PC encryption orders for, say 5,000 seats, often come with an additional 150 to 200 licenses for smartphone encryption.

Some vendors, such as Credant Technologies Inc. and Check Point offer only encryption products, others such as F-Secure Corp. and Kaspersky Lab Inc. offer only antimalware, and still others, such as Symantec and McAfee Inc., offer both encryption and antimalware. In terms of operating systems, most vendors support Windows Mobile and Symbian, and some support Palm OS and Blackberry as well. There have been reports that several vendors are working on iPhone antimalware, as well.

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Six ways to get online from anywhere Can’t find a hotspot? Here’s how to make a Net connection without one.

by Glenn Fleishman, Macworld.com

We’re all so accustomed to having Internet access in so many places—at home, at the office, at airports, at coffee shops—that it can be infuriating to travel and find yourself with low-speed service or none at all.

Fortunately, there are six good ways to make sure you—and anyone traveling with you—can can access the Internet using your laptop’s built-in wireless networking, even when you’re nowhere near a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Note: Two of these options—cell phone tethering and using a 3G adapter—connect a laptop to the Net and then share that connection from the laptop.

To set up that sharing, first establish the Net connection to the laptop. Then open the Sharing preference pane (System Preferences -> Sharing) and select Internet Sharing. (Don’t check its box yet.) From the Share Your Connection From drop-down menu, choose the active Internet connection. In the To Computers Using list, check the AirPort box. If you want to password-protect the connection you’re sharing (an advisable thing to do), click AirPort Options and set it there. Finally, check the box next to Internet Sharing to turn sharing on. You may need to repeat these steps each time you enable the connection.

AirPort Express in a hotel room The AirPort Express () is a portable powerhouse of a base station. In hotel rooms that have only wired Ethernet for Internet access, plugging an Express into that wired connection not only lets you work on your laptop from anywhere in the room; it also lets you share that connection with other devices that have Wi-Fi but no Ethernet (such as an iPhone) and with family members or colleagues. Apple says the AirPort Express can support up to ten simultaneous Wi-Fi connections. You may first need to connect your laptop via Ethernet to register or activate the room’s connection, then plug in the AirPort Express. Make sure to activate WPA2 Personal encryption so your shared connection isn’t accessible to just anyone.

 

Tethering with your cell phone Tethering services for cell phones let you turn the mobile device into a modem. The phone connects to the Net over a 2.5G or 3G network; you then connect your laptop to the phone via Bluetooth or USB—voila, you’re online. You can then use your laptop as a base station to share that connection via Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, the iPhone doesn’t yet offer tethering in the United States; AT&T promises that it’s coming. If you’re using another phone, check with your cell provider. Some phones may let you tether, but the provider might slap expensive transfer fees on top of whatever data plan you already pay for.

Make your phone a hotspot A small but growing number of mobile phones have both 3G and Wi-Fi. With the right software, you can turn such phones into hotspots. Joiku’s JoikuSpot Light(free) and JoikuSpot Premium (€15) work on the Symbian S60 smartphone platform. The Light version supports the HTTP protocol alone, so the only thing you can do with it is surf the Web; the Premium version supports all Internet protocols. WalkingHotSpot ($25) works with Symbian S60 as well as many Windows Mobile phones. As with tethering, check with your carrier about extra data fees.

3G adapter for your laptop AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless all offer Mac OS X drivers for a variety of 3G modems, which connect your laptop to the net over 3G data networks; many of those modems connect via the USB port, so they’ll work with any Mac portable. Unfortunately, that access comes at a high price: service plans typically cost $60 a month, with a two-year commitment and a usage limit of 5GB per month (combined uploads and downloads). (Cheaper plans, if a carrier offers them, include ludicrously small amounts of monthly use.)

 

A USB modem may be free with your contract, but it may cost as much as $150 to $250 without one. (If you purchase your modem up front, T-Mobile lets you pay its monthly data rate without a contract.) Fortunately, such modems can be swapped among nearly any Mac or Windows system. You can typically, but not always, share the resulting 3G service via Wi-Fi; some drivers might prevent it.

3G as you go Virgin Mobile (now owned by Sprint Nextel) has a pay-by-the-byte 3G plan. TheBroadband2Go USB modem costs $99; you then buy blocks of usage (in megabytes or gigabytes) as you need them. Pricing starts at $10 for 100 MB (must be used within 10 days) up to $60 for 1 GB (expires in 30 days). For those who travel and need access less frequently, this plan makes great sense. As with other 3G adapters, you can share your Virgin Mobile access via Wi-Fi, too.

3G Wi-Fi router The Novatel MiFi 2200 () isn’t the first hardware to combine 3G data access with a wireless router in one box. But such gateways—the Kyocera KR2, for example—have typically been the size of regular desktop routers. The MiFi, by contrast, can fit in your pocket. It allows up to five simultaneous connections and has an internal rechargable battery, so it can continue to provide that access even you’re away from a power outlet.

 

The MiFi is sold by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel. Both firms charge $100 for it (after rebates, with a contract). Verizon offers data plans (with a two-year contract) for $40 for 250MB per month or $60 for 5GB per month. Sprint Nextel only offers a $60 plan (for 5GB per month, with a two-year contract). The MiFi can be purchased separately for about $250 and used with Verizon’s network at a $15-per-day rate for on-demand usage.

Glenn Fleishman is editor of Wi-Fi Networking News and author of Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network (TidBITS Publishing Inc., 2009).

http://www.macworld.com/article/144012/makeyourownhotspot.html

Secure Devices for Everyone

Lee Gomes, 02.12.09, 05:00 PM EST 
Forbes Magazine dated March 02, 2009

Once a message is properly scrambled, our sun would burn out before you could unscramble it.

Some perquisites of the American presidency–Air Force One, say–are available only to the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Many others, though, can be had by anyone, including a mobile phone that’s immune to snooping and spying.

President Obama is, like many of us, an e-mail addict, and press coverage of his new BlackBerry has tended to describe it as some sort of top-secret, supersecure device. In fact, owing to advances in both mathematics and computers, presidential-level security is now available on every desktop computer and can easily be added, for a price, to any mobile device as well.

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How To Secure The BarackBerry

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Phone identification and targeting

The first thing that needs to be done is to ensure anonymity. Today, there are two IDs in GSM/UMTS systems that can be exploited if somebody knows them and can get access to the core of the mobile network to find out the current location of the phone up to the level of the radio tower. These IDs are the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) on the SIM card and the International Mobile Equipment ID (IMEI) of the mobile phone itself. Also, knowledge of one of the two values can also be used by someone who has access to the core of the mobile mobile network to intercept non end-to-end encrypted voice calls and Internet traffic.

To ensure anonymity these IDs should be changed in regular intervals. If I were the secret service I would get a large number of IMSI’s of several network operators, get the SIM card vendor on board and devise a scheme to change the IMSI on the SIM card on a regular basis. Concerning the IMEI a changing random number would do. 

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Obama’s new BlackBerry: The NSA’s secure PDA? | Politics and Law – CNET News

Obama’s new BlackBerry: The NSA’s secure PDA?

Posted by Declan McCullagh

President-elect Barack Obama checks his BlackBerry while riding on his campaign bus in Pennsylvania last March.

(Credit: Pete Souza/ Rapport Press )

Bill Clinton sent only two e-mail messages as president and has yet to pick up the habit. George W. Bush ceased using e-mail in January 2001 but has said he’s looking forward to e-mailing “my buddies” after leaving Washington, D.C.

Barack Obama, though, is a serious e-mail addict. “I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry,” he said in a recent interview with CNBC. “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”

One reason to curb presidential BlackBerrying is the possibility of eavesdropping by hackers and other digital snoops. While Research In Motion offers encryption, the U.S. government has stricter requirements for communications security.

“Without more details I would have to say that putting sensitive or classified information on a BlackBerry is a risky proposition,” said Greg Shipley, chief technology officer at Neohapsis, a governance, risk, and compliance consultancy.

via Obama’s new BlackBerry: The NSA’s secure PDA? | Politics and Law – CNET News.

 

Apple iPhone Vulnerabilities Disclosed

The first is a URL display flaw in the iPhone’s Mail that could allow an attacker to send a message containing a malicious URL that looks legitimate, says one security researcher.

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek
October 2, 2008 06:00 PM

After two and a half months of inaction from Apple, security researcher Aviv Raff on Thursday decided to release information about two iPhone vulnerabilities that he found and brought to the company’s attention in July.

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Drawing the line between privacy and security in surveillance

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Not a single day passes in Turkey these days without an official claiming that he or she is being watched or that his or her phone conversations are being monitored. Similar allegations came up during the ongoing investigation into Ergenekon, a criminal network whose members are accused of having tried to manipulate the country from behind the scenes through assassinations and provocations for their ultimate purpose of overthrowing the government. The prosecutors have found evidence leading them to believe that the gang had an intricate system using state-of-the art technology to monitor phone conversations and track individuals.

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India May Crack Blackberry Encryption

By Marin Perez
InformationWeek
June 13, 2008 03:38 PM

An Indian government official said his country may use third-party tools to crack the encryption used by Research In Motion (NSDQ: RIMM)’s BlackBerrys if the company doesn’t open up its network.”If they fail to come up with any satisfactory solution, we will invoke other options. We have been approached by other companies with solutions to decrypt the data passed over the BlackBerry network,” said Telecom Minister A Raja during a presentation to the country’s Department of Telecommunications.

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Sonera Shifting Email Services to Avoid Swedish Spy Laws

Sonera is shifting email services from servers located in Sweden for about half a million Finnish customers, the vast majority of them private individuals. It hopes to have the move completed by 8 AM Monday morning.

The move has been prompted by the Swedish government’s proposed law which would allow the National Defence Radio Establishment to intercept all electronic communications passing the national border.

Once services are relocated to Finland, emails between Finnish clients will not cross the border with Sweden and not be subject to possible legal interception by the Swedish military.

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