Helping you protect your online privacy

Wow the folks over at Google are steamed about what is happening in regard to China. Everyone should read the complete story over at the official Google blog.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html

Reading between the polite legal speak you can see that Google is very ticked off and most importantly they know way, way more than they are letting on in their post about the attack on their security. This might be a case of the big G putting ethics before a boat load of cash. I hope they do.

The Chaos Communication Conference in Berlin lived up to its name with the news that the GSM cellphone encryption algorithm called A5/1 developed by the GSM Association had been hacked. The Chaos Communication Conference is the largest hacker conference in Europe.

German computer science expert Karsten Nohl worked with several other people over a period of months to break the code. The AS/1 code had been established over 20 years ago. The code is used by the millions of GSM phone users since it is the standard way that GSM send their signal. With the cracked code someone with about $30,000 worth of equipment could listen in on any GSM phone conversation according to Nohl.

The GSM Association who developed the code published a statement saying the groups efforts could be viewed as illegal in certain countries. But its better that Nohl and his group brought the development out in the open. The GSM Association also had its doubts that the published information could actually work in the field but its still in the process of developing a new security algorithm called A5/3.

With the holiday season in full affect you might be looking for a late holiday gift idea. well you can give yourself some free books when you make a donation supporting EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).

So if you make a donation on behalf of someone to fill in a late gift idea you can receive some free books from the used book exchange program at Bookmooch. For ever $10 donated you’ll receive one Bookmooch point. Details about the offer are available from ; http://blog.bookmooch.com/2009/12/22/my-holiday-wish-help-out-the-eff/ .