Security Notes

it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these.

• The NSA has backdoors everywhere.  Here’s the big problem with a backdoor:  you can’t control who uses it.  Even if we assume that no NSA agent would ever do anything wrong (a silly notion, certainly), it’s only a matter of time before somebody else finds this backdoor and exploits it.
• Speaking of the NSA and Bruce Schneier, Bruce has an essay up on conspiracy theories.  Schneier recommends an external party create a full report to enlighten people on what our government has been doing.  Good luck with that; more likely, we’ll see further strangulation.
• Escrow firms are supposed to reduce risk in transactions.  Unfortunately, they don’t reduce all forms of risk.
• To help counteract the problems that banks have had recently and the relative weakness of protections for small business bank accounts, Brian Krebs has some excellent online banking tips.
• Things you can do to harden a SQL Server instance.  For the most part, this is a solid list, although some of it is fairly archaic:  there is no guest user anymore (and the guest role is mandated in certain system databases).

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