A Couple of Schneier Entries Everyone Should Read

P>Security guru Bruce Schneier has a couple of recent news items on his blog that everyone should read. First off is the tale of backup tapes containing millions of banking records that were "lost." It turns out they weren't lost at all. The package control system was hacked to make the tape delivery a low-security item not requiring multiple signatures. After the package was stolen, hackers replaced the original security settings on the package. For companies that use paid off-site storage contractors, this is very scary.

Dr. Scheier's second entry is about a story in Nature, a scholarly scientific journal to which I subscribe and have used for writing reviews for my classes. Apparently, not everything in Nature is peer-reviewed, and a paper on a new type of encryption turned out to be almost complete bunk. Of course, you can't read the original piece in Nature without subscribing, (I got the student rate), but Schneier has an excellent critique.