Cryptography


Yahoo to Give Users Option for SSL on All Web Properties

Following months of criticism from security experts and privacy advocates for not deploying SSL across its Web offerings, Yahoo on Monday announced that it will be giving users the option to encrypt all of the data they exchange with the company by the end of the first quarter next year. The change is a long […]


The existing state of affairs in which government agencies and intelligence services work to insert backdoors into various hardware, software and networks is not only a problem in terms of civil rights but also represents a serious security risk to most users and the Internet itself, a recent report by the Citizen Lab says. And, […]

The RC4 and SHA-1 algorithms have taken a lot of hits in recent years, with new attacks popping up on a regular basis. Many security experts and cryptographers have been recommending that vendors begin phasing the two out, and Microsoft on Tuesday said that is now recommending to developers that they deprecate RC4 and stop using the SHA-1 hash algorithm.

While researchers and academics are just at the beginning of the process of trying to judge the value of a recent paper on a vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol, some are arguing that there is a smaller point that’s being missed in all of the back and forth: There is a problem with the peer-to-peer set-up of the Bitcoin network that could be exploited for profit.