Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast
384 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 days ago - ★★★★★ - 50 ratingsA Podcast on Computer Security & Privacy for Non-Techies
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Backing Up Other Data
July 01, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 91.4 MBWe've talked about how to backup your local device data and how to back up data that is primarily stored in the cloud. But there's a lot of important, irreplaceable data we take for granted: data owned by others. This might be shared online photo albums, cloud document collaborations, eBooks and other digital media, and even websites you frequently rely on. Today we'll talk about how you can make local copies of these files in case they should ever go offline. In other news: European politic...
Means of Control
June 24, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 83.1 MBEvery day, we generate tons of digital exhaust: our web browsing, GPS location, online and in-store purchases, emails and messages, social media posts and feed viewing habits, and much, much more. Online marketers and data brokers have been living off these breadcrumbs for years. The intelligence and law enforcement agencies have found this data to be incredibly revealing, and they can buy most of this data on the open market without requiring any sort of warrant - and they have. This has imp...
Backup Your Cloud Data
June 17, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 75.7 MBUntil recently, most of our important data lived primarily on our devices. Backing up that data often meant choosing a cloud backup service. But today, many of our most important photos and files are actually stored in the cloud. While cloud servers are supposed to be more robust than home computers with flaky hard drives and smartphones that get lost or stolen, it also means that someone else is in control of that data. Cloud services go offline, get bought out or even shut down. We now need...
Anom: The FBI’s Phone Company
June 10, 2024 11:55 - 74.1 MBEncrypted communications are important for everyone, even if you have nothing to hide. But they're also important when you're trying to hide global criminal operations. Drug smugglers and money launderers have special needs when it comes to secure messaging. Several phone companies were created to address this market. Unfortunately for the criminals, the most popular one - Anom - was secretly run by the FBI. Today Joseph Cox from 404 Media will tell us about this astoundingly audacious sting ...
Migrate to Mastodon
June 03, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 74.9 MBMost major social media platforms are a hot mess. Your feed is filled with tons of crap you never asked to see and your data is mined mercilessly to serve you targeted ads. The promise of having a place to trade interesting posts with friends and family is now muddied up with sponsored content chosen by hidden algorithms optimized to keep you scrolling. It doesn't have to be that way. I've found something much better, and I'm inviting you to come join me. In other news: Ticketmaster breach l...
Why Privacy Matters
May 27, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 77.5 MBOur privacy has never been more threatened. While some of us are vaguely aware of this, most of the rampant data collection and sharing is completely opaque. And the consequences are more dire than most of us realize. We can't afford to be complacent. We need to push back, to ask questions, and make better choices. Privacy-respecting apps and services do exist today. Making a deliberate and overt decision to use them will force the market (and our elected representatives) to take notice. My g...
How to Choose a PIN
May 20, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 81.3 MBSecurity experts talk at length about how to choose a good password - but we don't often talk about how to choose a good PIN code. A recent analysis by a researcher shows popular patterns humans use when choosing PIN codes, and therefore what you should avoid doing. In the news: MediSecure e-Rx firm hit by data breach; CISA warns of active D-Link router exploit; a couple cases of insecure APIs being abused; 53k Nissan employees' SSN's leaked; new macOS malware called Cuckoo; Ascension Health...
Inside Ukraine’s IT Army
May 13, 2024 11:55 - 49 minutes - 56.4 MBRussia has been hacking Ukraine for at least a decade now, but since the invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, the cyber war has changed. Instead of being a tactical element, cyber war is now a full-fledged strategic aspect of the conflict, on both sides. At the outset, Ukraine put out an official call to enlist cyber warriors from around the globe to their cause in what's been called the IT Army of Ukraine. Today we'll look at how this group was formed, how it operates, and what we should...
Please Quit Chrome
May 06, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 83.2 MBGoogle's Chrome browser has dominated the planet - both on desktop computers and mobile devices. Furthermore, many other popular web browsers are actually based on the same Google-made Chromium browser engine, including Microsoft Edge and Brave Browser. This gives Google an inordinate amount of influence on web standards, in particular preventing better privacy protections. We need to support privacy-forward alternatives lest they disappear. In other news: US passes expanded mass surveillanc...
The Rise of CBDC
April 29, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 78.6 MBAI has been grabbing all the tech headlines, but cryptocurrency is still innovating and changing. One of the primary goals of cryptocurrency was to be decentralized and therefore not controlled by governments like fiat currency. That is about to change. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a new type of cryptocurrency that is created and governed by nation states, which comes with serious implications for privacy and global economics. Thankfully I've got cryptocurrency expert Seth for Priv...
Just Do It: Freeze Your Credit
April 22, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 91.9 MBYou've heard people like me recommend this for years. It's time to just do it: freeze your credit report. There are really no downsides at this point. For example, it's now free everywhere in the US, by law. It's also free to temporarily "thaw" your credit. And it's gotten a lot easier to do, too. Freezing your credit is your main defense against financial identity theft. And with the sheer number of data breaches (like the recent massive AT&T leak), the personal information needed to commit ...
Protecting Kids Online
April 15, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 80.5 MBThere's a lot of nasty stuff online - things we would prefer our kids not see, at least not until they're mature enough to handle it. Our elected representatives have proposed various regulations to try to protect kids online, and while this is obviously a laudable goal, the devil is always in the details. Many of the proposed solutions have serious negative consequences for both kids and adults, chilling free speech and blocking useful content. I'll discuss the latest iteration of these prop...
Answering Listener Questions
April 08, 2024 11:55 - 58 minutes - 67.1 MBToday I answer some of the most interesting listener questions from the past several months, including: how to do you get SMS 2FA codes while traveling abroad; should I periodically change all my passwords; how do hackers attack IoT devices inside my home network; can a website fingerprint me based on a hardware security key; can you recommend an email client that protects your privacy; if I give my IoT device permission to see my local network, does that include the guest network; how to hac...
He Said She Said
April 01, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 69.1 MBToday I talk with Justin and Jodi Daniels about that state of privacy today, how we can help consumers and companies better understand the importance of privacy and security, and how companies are dealing with these aspects internally. We talk about the state of privacy regulations (or the lack thereof), why companies are failing to protect their customers, and what we can do about that. Justin and Jodi host a podcast together called She Said Privacy, He Said Security. They've also co-writte...
Account Security is Broken
March 25, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 72.9 MBPasswords, two-factor authentication and even passkeys don't matter if you can access someone's account by answering three simple account recovery questions. Also, just about every account today has a way to reset your password, no matter how strong it is, if you can gain access to someone's email account. Until we can remove these weak links, it doesn't matter how secure our regular authentication schemes are. In the news: old A&T breach data is making the rounds; Apple Silicon chips have a...
Health Data Privacy
March 18, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 78.8 MBThe United States has no general data privacy laws. However, we do have some sector-specific regulations, including HIPAA for health data. But there are many misconceptions about HIPAA. For example, the "P" in HIPAA does not stand for Privacy - it stands for Portability. So, what information does HIPAA cover? Which healthcare and related service providers are governed by HIPAA? And most importantly, what can you do to protect your medical and health data? Today we'll dive deep into this subje...
Backing Up 2FA Seeds
March 11, 2024 11:55 - 1 hour - 76.2 MBTwo-factor authentication (2FA) is a fantastic way to improve the security of your online accounts. However, if you lose access to the device containing your authenticator app, you may lose access to your 2FA-protected accounts. You need to backup the seed codes used to set up each account. I'll give you several methods for doing this. In the news: FBI uses smartphone push notifications to track down criminals; Roku TVs block all access until users consent to force arbitration; cheap video d...
How Our Data is Abused
March 04, 2024 12:55 - 1 hour - 76.8 MBWith the rise of IoT and tracking technologies (both online and in the real word), we are generating staggering amounts of highly personal information. This massive trove of juicy data has drawn the attention of several interested parties outside the realm of consumer marketing. Like chum in the water, it's created a feeding frenzy from data aggregators as well as from law enforcement and intelligence agencies, both foreign and domestic. The journalists at 404 Media have published several blo...
Mitigating AI Risks
February 26, 2024 12:55 - 1 hour - 74.7 MBArtificial Intelligence is the buzzword of the day. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, there has been a flood of AI-based tools and services. Many tech firms are racing to build AI into their products without considering the consequences, let alone taking the time to build in guardrails for privacy and security. Today, I'll tell you about some of the risks, how to mitigate them and explain why you should spend some time playing with AI tools so we can understand how they do (and do...
Car Privacy is Horrid
February 19, 2024 12:55 - 1 hour - 74.2 MBModern cars are chock full of sensors and connected to the internet via built-in cellular modems. That's a recipe for massive data collection. Last September, Mozilla's Privacy Not Included team released a blockbuster report how much data our cars were gathering and it was absolutely staggering. According to the hard-to-find privacy policies, your car can collect extremely personal information including precise location, contact lists from your phone, call and message data, and - believe it o...
Avoiding Tax Scams
February 12, 2024 12:55 - 53 minutes - 61.1 MBIt's tax time here again in the USA, and therefore it's also time for tax scams. I'll explain how to recognize common tax scams, how to respond to them, how to prevent scammers from taking over your IRS account and even filing fraudulent tax returns in your name. In other news: the Mother of All Breaches (MOAB) contains 26 billion records; 23andMe is in trouble after massive data breach and pending class action lawsuits; a viral story about a smart toothbrush botnet isn't true... but could h...
Securing Your Mac
February 05, 2024 12:53 - 1 hour - 83.7 MBAre Macs really safer than PCs? What should you do to make your Mac more secure? How do you know if your Mac has a virus? And how do you know which security apps you can trust? I'll dig into all of these questions and more today with Mac security guru Patrick Wardle. Patrick Wardle is the founder of the Objective-See Foundation. Having worked at NASA and the NSA, as well as presented at countless security conferences Patrick is passionate about all things related to macOS security, writing b...
Data Privacy Week 2024
January 29, 2024 12:55 - 1 hour - 77.4 MBWhile every week is Data Privacy Week here at Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons, the rest of the world stops to join us in focusing on how and why to protect your personal data. I'll give you some of my top privacy tips and refer you to a lot of top privacy resources. In the news: Microsoft executives' emails are hacked by a nation-state actor; Facebook is gathering even more data with the help of other companies; a company is using real-time bidding to track us and sell to intelligence agencies;...
Rise of the Slaughterbots
January 22, 2024 12:55 - 1 hour - 81.1 MBDrones are everywhere today. Cheap and tiny accelerometers, gyroscopes and processors have allowed us to create drones that anyone can afford and everyone can fly. Drones have been used by law enforcement and military forces, as well - for surveillance but also for killing. With the rapid development of AI technologies, what happens when we make these drones autonomous? What are the implications for privacy and security? I'll discuss this and more with Nick Weaver, computer and cybersecurity ...
New Year’s Resolutions: 2024
January 15, 2024 12:55 - 1 hour - 93.7 MBThe new year is here! And I've got a handful of solid tips for you that you should absolutely plan to accomplish in 2024! I also have a lot of news to catch you up on: 23andMe blames its customers for their data breach; Burger King in Brazil using facial recognition to offer discounts based on how hungover you look; Russian agents hack live webcams to hone in on targets in Ukraine; fake celebrity ads for medicare scam on YouTube; Facebook's Link History is a confusing new tracking feature; F...
Investigating Data Leaks
January 08, 2024 12:55 - 1 hour - 72.9 MBData breaches are usually produced by hackers looking for financial gain. Data leaks, on the other hand, are usually published by whistleblowers or perhaps accidentally disclosed via negligence. Journalists today are inundated by such data leaks - to the point where specialized tools and techniques are required to parse through the piles of digital detritus to ascertain the value and import that they may represent. Micah Lee has been performing this function for The Intercept for many years, ...
Best of 2023 Bonus Content
January 01, 2024 12:50 - 58 minutes - 66.6 MBEvery week, I record a special, private bonus podcast for my patrons. Until today, all of that content was restricted to my supporters. But today I've got a sampler platter of some of the best snippets from my bonus Q&A with my interview guests, along with an episode of my more-technical bonus series I call Merlin's Musings. You'll hear from Josh Corman (CISA and I Am the Cavalry), Ernesto Falcon (EFF and CA Senate candidate), Omega and Deth Veggie (Cult of the Dead Cow), Michael Littman (AI ...
Classic Replay: Lavabit
December 25, 2023 12:55 - 1 hour - 79.8 MBToday, I dip back into the archives to bring you a classic interview from the first year of this podcast. In Episode 21 (Aug 2017) I interviewed Ladar Levison, the founder of the secure email service Lavabit. He started Lavabit in 2004 as one of the first truly secure, end-to-end encrypted email services focused on the privacy of users, almost ten years before Proton Mail launched. But when the FBI came (literally) knocking in 2013 asking him to subvert the encryption so that they could monit...
Best of 2023
December 18, 2023 12:55 - 1 hour - 77.2 MBI've culled through the podcasts from the last year and put together an hour's worth of the best content! Here's a nice little charcuterie sampler of the top interview segments from 2023. Episode Links Ep347 (Oct 16) What’s Your Threat Model? https://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2023/10/16/whats-your-threat-model/ Ep342 (Sep 18) Your Face Belongs to Us https://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2023/09/18/your-face-belongs-to-us/ Ep336 (Aug 7) Cult of the Dead Cow https://podc...
Restoring Trust in Elections
December 11, 2023 12:55 - 1 hour - 78.7 MBWe here in the US like to believe that we're the gold standard for democracy. And yet, in recent years, much of the electorate has lost faith in the outcome of our elections. Many security researchers have found concerning vulnerabilities in our voting systems, and yet we have no evidence that those vulnerabilities have actually been exploited. Many people believe that people are voting multiple times or that ineligible people are voting, and yet study after study shows that voter fraud is ne...
Using Email Aliases
December 04, 2023 12:55 - 1 hour - 82.4 MBYour online account credentials have two parts: a user name and a password. Today, most online providers force you to use your email address for your user name. This gives the service provider a guaranteed way to contact (and spam) their users, but it also means that bad guys know half of all your credentials and data brokers have a unique ID to track you across all your accounts. Today I'll explain the value of using email aliases for your online user names. In other news: Iranian hackers a...
Smart City Blues
November 27, 2023 12:56 - 57 minutes - 65.9 MBCity governments are relying more and more on a vast network of sensors to tell them what's going on: stop light cameras, gunshot detectors, air quality sensors, license plate readers, automated toll booths, and much more. While these technologies can help the powers that be allocate precious resources and gain helpful insights, they can also lead to over-policing, chilling of free speech and mass warrantless surveillance. Today I'll discuss the dangers of smart cities with Eleni Manis from t...
Best & Worst Gifts for 2023
November 20, 2023 12:56 - 1 hour - 70.5 MBThe holiday gift-giving season is upon us - and therefore it's time for my annual guide on the best and worst gifts for your loved ones, at least in terms of security and privacy. There are some perennial favs on the nice and naughty lists, but there are some newcomers, as well. And I've got some top tips for how to shop for privacy-respecting, security-protecting products! I've even got some ideas for free and helpful stocking stuffers. In the news: FCC tried to protect consumers from SIM-s...
Smartphone Spyware
November 13, 2023 12:55 - 1 hour - 82.3 MBToday there is a thriving market for legal, for-profit smartphone spyware (aka mercenary spyware). Companies like the NSO Group are free to create and sell highly sophisticated, zero-click malware such as Pegasus which has been used to spy on dissidents, politicians, activists and journalists around the world. There are also several apps available to parents to track their children, but are often used to abuse or stalk adult partners or ex-lovers. Today I'll discuss the state of these malicio...
The Rise of Cellular IoT
November 06, 2023 12:55 - 1 hour - 73.7 MBConnecting all our stuff to the internet – making devices “smart” – brings with it a lot of risks. Besides the more obvious cybersecurity vulnerabilities, these devices are also collecting a lot of personal data, offsetting razor thin profit margins by monetizing our data. In most cases, we can limit this data exfiltration using outbound firewalls and DNS services, or just by disconnecting the devices from the internet altogether. But lately I've been seeing devices coming configured with cel...
Reclaiming the Internet
October 30, 2023 11:55 - 1 hour - 79.9 MBWhat happened to the internet? It had so much promise. Social media and search results are full of stuff we never wanted to see. Surveillance capitalism is monetizing our most private information to serve us so many ads that we can never seem to consume the actual content. And if we're all so unhappy with the incumbents, where are the competitors offering better service? Cory Doctorow helps us understand how the internet got so crappy and what we can do to fix it. Cory Doctorow is a science ...
It’s Time to Try Proton
October 23, 2023 11:55 - 56 minutes - 64.8 MBEmail is old and was never built for security and privacy. Thankfully there are several modern secure email services. My personal favorite is Proton Mail and I'll explain to you today why you should really give it a try. I will also (finally) answer several interesting "Dear Carey" questions from listeners. In other news: If you use WinRAR, you need to update right away; hackers are targeting a company that brokers Emergency Data Requests between law enforcement and Big Tech companies; Googl...
What’s Your Threat Model?
October 16, 2023 11:55 - 1 hour - 69.8 MBThere are several privacy-focused services available today. And the products we use have a dizzying array of privacy and security settings. How do you know which products you need and which vendors you can trust? How do you know which protections you need and which ones you don't? It comes down to understanding your personal threat model. We each have different things to protect and different consequences for failure. Today I'll speak with Andy Yen, CEO and founder of Proton, to help us figur...
Cybersecurity Awareness Month
October 09, 2023 11:55 - 1 hour - 76.5 MBOctober is national Cybersecurity Awareness Month here in the US. One of the four key themes this year is Recognizing and Reporting Phishing. We just discussed this at length with Nick Oles, but I wanted to give my perspective and tell you how to report phishing emails to the proper authorities. In other news: cheap Android TV boxes come laced with malware and fraud software; 23andMe investigating massive data breach; US agencies caught using location data illegally; Meta proposes subscripti...
Catching Phish
October 02, 2023 12:02 - 1 hour - 80.2 MBThe weakest link in most cybersecurity systems is you - that is, human beings. And one of the primary ways that people are tricked into infecting their devices (and potentially then threatening other devices on the network) is through phishing. We've all seen the Nigerian Prince scams, but with AI tools like ChatGPT, scam emails are going to get a lot harder to spot. On today's show, author and cybersecurity expert Nick Oles will teach us how to recognize phishing emails, introduce us to tool...
iOS 17 Security & Privacy
September 25, 2023 11:58 - 1 hour - 73.6 MBApple has just released a major update to its mobile operating system: iOS 17. There are tons of fun new features, but today I'll walk you through some of the security and privacy enhancements. These include new protections in Lockdown Mode, the Check In feature which can alert loves ones if you fail to arrive at your destination, some privacy-enhancing web browser features, and support for securely sharing passwords and passkeys with others. In other news: a critical WebP vulnerability mean...
Your Face Belongs to Us
September 18, 2023 12:09 - 1 hour - 70.9 MBWhen the New York Times broke the Clearview AI story in 2020, we suddenly had to face the reality that no one could truly be anonymous in public any more. This powerful app could take a picture of any face and find dozens of public images on the internet that they were in - even just in the background. And if those pictures were associated with a social media profile, we could identify the owner of the face along with their friends and family - all in an instant. Today I speak with Kashmir Hi...
Remediate Your Network
September 11, 2023 11:55 - 1 hour - 76.6 MBToday I wrap up my four-part series on how to secure your home network. We've enumerated our devices, gotten rid of stuff we don't need, assessed the state of our devices and now it's time to actually remediate any vulnerabilities we found. I'll walk you through everything you need to do. In other news: Chrome's Topics API has rolled out (and I'll tell you how to shut it off); Apple fixes two zero-day, zero-click exploits; FBI dismantles and even fixes the Qakbot malware network; the UK back...
Containing Big Data
September 04, 2023 11:55 - 1 hour - 80.7 MBIn the US today we're dealing with a completely unfettered free-for-all of data harvesting. Without meaningful privacy regulations like the EU's GDPR, our private information is being collected, collated, packaged and sold by data brokers to all comers. Ad companies like Google and Facebook collect and hoard our data to sell targeted ads for high profits without commensurate benefits to the people placing the ads. How does it all work? What's our data worth? And how can we protect it? I'll di...
Assessing Your Network Security
August 28, 2023 11:55 - 59 minutes - 67.9 MBIn the third part of my series on securing your home network, we'll assess your security and privacy vulnerabilities. In prior weeks, we've exhaustively listed our network devices (Scan) and removed any devices that we no longer need or don't need to be "smart" (Simplify). Now it's time to investigate the remaining devices and think about what we need to do to secure them. In other news: an old Mac malware info stealer is back; thousands of Android apps are evading detection using an interes...
Demystifying AI
August 21, 2023 11:55 - 1 hour - 78.9 MBUnless you've been living under a rock, you've seen several news stories about AI, machine learning and so-called Large Language Models. While tools like ChatGPT hold a lot of promise, many are deeply concerned about AI replacing jobs, generating potent malware, and being used in phishing and disinformation campaigns. Today I will ask AI expert Michael Littman to explain clearly what AI is and what it isn't, how the technology actually works, and what we should and maybe shouldn't be worried ...
Hacker Summer Camp 2023
August 15, 2023 03:51 - 56 minutes - 64.4 MBEvery summer, hackers from around the US and around the globe descend on Las Vegas, Nevada, for a series of computer security conferences which are lovingly referred to as hacker summer camp. These conferences - BSides Las Vegas, BlackHat and DEF CON - run for over a week, each overlapping the other. They bring top tier security researchers, government and industry leaders, and eager hackers to learn about new vulnerabilities, new defense mechanisms, and everything in between. There are conte...
Cult of the Dead Cow
August 07, 2023 11:55 - 1 hour - 88.5 MBIn the early 1980s, personal computers started entering our homes. Prior to the internet and services like America On Line (AOL), there were online bulletin board systems (BBS) where people could share text files via phone modem connections. Of course, if you wanted to connect to a BBS outside your home area code, you would have to dial long distance - which at the time could be prohibitively expensive. Necessity is the mother of invention and it's no coincidence that some of the earliest hac...
Less is More
July 31, 2023 11:55 - 5 MBLast time, I told you how to enumerate all the devices on your home network. Before we go to the trouble of analyzing and mitigating their vulnerabilities, we should take the opportunity to cull the inventory. Do you really need all of these devices? Or could you forego the "smart" features that require them to be connected to your network? Today we'll talk about reducing your attack surface before we bother trying to secure it. In other news: the White House announces new cybersecurity labe...
The Politics of Privacy
July 24, 2023 11:55 - 1 hour - 77.1 MBDespite growing demand from US citizens for privacy protections, the federal government has failed repeatedly to enact basic privacy laws. However, one US state - California - has led the charge on privacy and passed regulations that have benefited people outside the state. Today I'll speak with Ernesto Falcon who is currently running for California State Senate in District 7. He has decades of experience in public policy, particularly in the realm of privacy rights, both in politics and with...