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What was that TSA guy doing with my driver’s license?

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I boarded a plane at a small regional airport two weeks ago. And noticed some new and unusual behavior by the TSA screener at the security checkpoint.

After I walked thru the metal detector, he took a small penlike device and scanned it across the name, address and photo on my driver’s license. Slowly. Twice. Which is why I figured he was scanning. At first my reaction was that he was optically scanning the information into this “pen” and that it would be dumped into a computer later on.

Bruce Schneier is a fantastic source of information and particularly the debunking of security and security myths. From what I’ve read on Bruce’s blog, it’s possible that the TSA guy was just running an ultraviolet light across the license to look at the holograms on the license. But my eyes are pretty sensitive to UV and honestly I didn’t see any reflection. (Cool video of Bruce’s Q&A at defcon 15.)

So I’m still working the theory that he scanned an image that would later end up in a TSA computer. (See IRIS pen scanner, or look at what the New York Times reported last year.)

What would happen to that scanned information? Well, if banks and healthcare institutions are any indication, it would likely go (via USB) onto a laptop computer somewhere, later on to be stolen.

I am continuing to research this, but wonder if anyone else has run into this scanning behavior by TSA?

A hacking epidemic

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…and I’m not talking about a hacking cough here.

Google warning on hacked siteTwice this week, clients or friends of mine have had their web sites hacked. One was hacked for the second time in a couple of weeks.

I can tell a lot from the forensic analysis as I clean up a site. A bit of CSI as it were.

There is one really big problem that contributes a lot to these hacking epidemics. [Read more…]

The All-seeing eye (in China)

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chinaI’m going to start a series of articles (and references) on how our governments are watching us.

I’ll start with China, which is of course very much in the news right now for repressive measures it takes against its citizens. Many of you will know already that China monitors and censors Internet (particularly web) users, but may not be aware how widely it monitors its citizens.

This article China’s All-Seeing Eye by Naomi Klein in Rolling Stone, should get you started. Her subtitle is With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export.

China is notable because what we in the U.S. might regard as fundamental freedoms, like the right to free speech and dissent, seem to be viewed as hindrances to social and economic development.