encryption

A New Hacking Tool

       The Yahoo Tech News of July 8 gives some details on a new hacking system with the headline "No One is Safe: $300 Gadget Steals Encryption Keys Out of the Air, and It's Nearly Unstoppable."

         At the end of the report it states, "The team plans to present its creation at the Worship on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems this coming September." An on-line  search shows several such workshops scheduled in California and  France. 

Worried About Dropbox?

        Here's the latest on Dropbox from Jim Hamm.  "If you use Dropbox, as I do, you might have been concerned a few days ago when they updated their Terms of Service -- I certainly was. It appeared that by using Dropbox they owned everything we put in there. Not good. They are now backpedaling quite a bit, and this article gives an explanation of the subsequent revisions to Dropbox's T of S. Take a read and see if you feel more comfortable using Dropbox."  (Earlier postings about Dropbox are here, dated 6-2-11 and 7-3-11.)
        After questioning him about encryption Jim expounds further this morning (7-9), "Yes, there’s a Mac version for TrueCrypt available.   If I were going to store sensitive data in Dropbox I might try TrueCrypt. Reading through the instructions it’s a bit of work to use TrueCrypt, though. Not something I want or plan to do with the data I use Dropbox for. I don’t like the idea of using any ‘Cloud’ service to store sensitive data, say, like a password to Amazon or a bank account. I keep that stored on my own Mac."