Voters at Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007 poll have chosen "w00t" as 2007's most iconic word. M-W says that the word is a gamer's acronym for "we own the other team," but I'm inclined to think that that's a backronym, a back-formed acronym created to explain a word already in use.

I am simultaneously amazed and annoyed at the misattribution of this word.

w00t is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007 - Boing Boing

Search engine Ask.com deployed a new tool today that allows users to purge records of their searches from the Ask.com database. Initially announced in July after talks with the Center for Democracy and Technology, the AskEraser feature was created in response to growing concerns about the privacy implications of search engine data retention.

Ask.com adds new "AskEraser" search privacy feature

NIST has opened a public competition to develop a new cryptographic hash algorithm, which converts a variable length message into a short “message digest” that can be used for digital signatures, message authentication and other applications. The competition is NIST’s response to recent advances in the cryptanalysis of hash functions. The new hash algorithm will be called “SHA-3” and will augment the hash algorithms currently specified in FIPS 180-2, Secure Hash Standard. Entries for the competition must be received by October 31, 2008.

Cryptographic Hash Algorithm Competition

The principal series of operational ciphers of the Imperial Japanese Navy [IJN] from 1939 to 1945, collectively called JN25, used five-digit code groups which were all multiples of three. This is shown to have been a quite unnecessary major flaw with very considerable consequences.

A detailed discussion of the JN-25 and related ciphers.

FLAW IN THE JN25 SERIES OF CIPHERS, THE Cryptologia - Find Articles

Stevens enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 6, 1941, hours before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He later won a bronze star for his service as a cryptographer, after he helped break the code that informed American officials that Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese Navy and architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, was about to travel to the front.

I haven't read this entire interview, but this data point might be of interest to several folks here. Its not clear from this whether he had a scientific or operational role.

Justice John Paul Stevens broke a Japanese Cipher

Germany basically banned all "hacking tools." "Hacking tools" are not defined. This is having a spectacularly destructive impact on computer security research world wide as German resources become unavailable and people are starting to avoid traveling there. (Image from this story.)

Schneier on Security: New German Hacking Law

Its just Chinese malware, what are you afraid of?!

flaw
demerit
weakness
weak spot
weak point
danger spot
vulnerability

dict.cc dictionary :: Schwachstelle :: English-German translation

If the U.S. Air Force is ever ordered into a cyberwar with a foreign country or computer-savvy terrorist group, the 100-plus citizen cybersoldiers at the Air National Guard's 262nd Information Warfare Aggressor Squadron will boast an advantage other countries can't match: They built the very software and hardware they're attacking.

That's because the 262nd, based at McChord Air Force Base outside Tacoma, Washington, draws weekend warriors from Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Adobe Systems and other tech companies, in a recruitment model that senior military leadership is touting as vital to the Air Force's expanded mission to achieve "dominance in cyberspace."

Wow...

Air Force Draws Weekend Cyberwarriors From Microsoft, Cisco

New Site Up
Fri, 08/03/2007 - 16:04 — mtrump

The new site is up. More content will be up shortly

The first person to own this CMS will get a guaranteed speaking slot.

Announcements | summercon 2007