randomness

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Anatomy of a bug - misplaced parenthesis threatens NetBSD's random numbers

by Paul Ducklin on April 1, 2013 | 23 Comments

NetBSD recently patched a programming bug in its kernel that affected the sanctity of the operating system's random numbers.

One lousy parenthesis misplaced by just two characters...

Kim Dotcom takes issue with critics taking issue with his new MEGA service

by Paul Ducklin on January 23, 2013 | 11 Comments

The party-time news of the past weekend was the launch of Kim Dotcom's comeback file sharing service, Mega.

Crypto critics have already taken issue with some aspects of Mega's implementation, and Dotcom has taken issue right back at them...

Sophos Techknow - Understanding SSL

by Paul Ducklin on August 3, 2012 | 11 Comments

To many of us, SSL isn't much more than "the padlock in the browser." But how does it work? Who verifies SSL certificates? How do we know we can trust them? What happens if we realise we can't?

Duck and Chet discuss all this, and more, in this episode of the Techknow podcast.

BSides Austin - Verizon DBIR, cloud security and the importance of randomness

by Chester Wisniewski on April 13, 2012 | 2 Comments

BSides Austin - Verizon DBIR, Cloud and the importance of randomness

A summary of talks from BSides Austin including the Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, the state of cloud security and the importance of high quality random numbers in cryptography.

Randomness in cryptography - the devil's in the details

by Paul Ducklin on November 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

Kiwicon opened with a software engineering talk which was intensely focused - a case study of a single-line bug in a single source file in a single module in a 70MBbyte programming language distro.

Paul Ducklin reports from Wellington, New Zealand.