The two major events of the Technical Committee year have finished, and this Cipher issue features a report on the talks at the Computer Security Foundations Symposium from Avijit Kumar. The symposium explores many of the theoretical questions arising from work done in more general conferences and are valuable resources for researchers. Kumar's summaries give us an inviting glimpse into current trends.
Richard Austin's book review gives us another glimpse, this one into the criminal and greedy minds that lurk at the edges of our network connected computers, looking for ways to separate the unwary user from his money.
I ran across an interesting news story just today that has a delightful twist on computer theft. An instructor's computer vanished from a college classroom on the day a visitor had been present. There was no kind of security monitor in the room, but the instructor was able to give police what they needed to recover the computer and arrest the visitor. It seems that the computer had a built-in webcam and was configured to upload images to a website. When the suspect's picture appeared on the website, the police knocked on his door. Where will mote cameras show up next? I sing "tiny cameras, in the wine, tiny cameras, make me feel fine."
If no malware be icumen in, lhude sing cuccu,