Tag Archive for: hard

Once-starving GnuPG crypto project gets a windfall. Now comes the hard part

For almost two decades, the open source GnuPG encryption project has teetered on the brink of insolvency. Now, following word of that plight, the lone developer keeping the project alive has received more than $ 135,000—in a single day, no less.

Short for Gnu Privacy Guard, GnuPG or simply GPG was first conceived in 1997. It makes up the guts that run GpG4Win, GPG Tools, and Enigmail, encryption programs that run on Windows, Macs, and as a plugin for the Thunderbird e-mail program respectively. An open source version of Phil Zimmermann’s PGP, GnuPG quickly surged in popularity. Because it was written by a German citizen outside the US, it wasn’t subject to then-draconian US laws restricting the export of strong cryptography technologies. Former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden relied on the program to evade monitoring as he carried out his massive leak of top-secret documents. Many journalists and security professionals also swear by it.

Despite the popularity of the program, Werner Koch has struggled to make ends meet. According to a profile published Thursday by ProPublica, the 53-year-old resident of Erkrath, Germany, grew so impatient with the lack of funding that he considered abandoning the project and taking a better paying programming job. When documents leaked in 2013 by Snowden showed the extent of NSA surveillance, he decided the time wasn’t right to drop the project. He has been stuck in limbo ever since.

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Ars Technica » Technology Lab

Why is it so hard to make a Java program appear native?

Stack Exchange

This Q&A is part of a weekly series of posts highlighting common questions encountered by technophiles and answered by users at Stack Exchange, a free, community-powered network of 100+ Q&A sites.

user3150201 asks:

Most Java applications don’t look the same as C/C++ applications. Swing might have been designed on purpose to have a distinctive look. SWT for example tried to look native and doesn’t completely succeed.

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Ars Technica » Technology Lab

Microsoft’s No-IP seizure hit Syrian Electronic Army hard – ZDNet


Economic Times

Microsoft's No-IP seizure hit Syrian Electronic Army hard
ZDNet
Among them are the SEA, the controversial Italian lawful intercept vendor the Hacking Team, and Flame, a well-known piece of malware discovered in 2012. SEA is likely to face the most significant difficulties going forward, while others will simply
Microsoft legal action cramping other hacking campaigns, Kaspersky saysPC Advisor
MS No-IP takedown hits 25% of APT attackersSC Magazine UK

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flame malware – read more

UK govt leak police destroyed Guardian hard drives to stop secret surveillance stories

The Guardian’s newspaper editor came forward with a shocking story of how British intelligence agents destroyed hard drives to stop the newspaper from spilling any more UK or US spy agency secrets that are spelled out in NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
Ms. Smith’s blog