The revelations made by Edward Snowden did not show us anything that we never thought possible. It did reveal, however, that many of the things that were possible in theory found their way to reality. Those revelations also gave opportunity for many of the chronic paranoids and conspiracy-theorists to say “I told you". Fact is, digital life causes us to rely on more and more service providers, in the shape of government agencies and private organizations, and those providers were now caught violating our trust. When we buy products and services, we trust their provider to follow the norms we believe it follows. When such trust breaks, we need to think what next. In my opinion, this situation forms an opportunity for Europe to catch up.

Continue reading "A gift from Snowden to the European economy"

This video demonstrates how an IR camera, of the type that can be bought for a reasonable price and attached to a smart-phone, can be used to capture a PIN that was previously entered on a PIN pad, by analyzing a thermal image of the pad after the fact. When the human finger presses a non-metallic button, it leaves a thermal residue that can be detected on a thermal image, even if taken many seconds later.

The video refers to the article: Heat of the Moment: Characterizing the Efficacy of Thermal Camera-Based Attacks, written in UC San-Diego.