WAR!…uh…what is it good for?
All right, here’s today’s challenge.
Find a site online, reasonably high up in the search rankings, that actually deal with security. Physical security, home security, things that you can do to improve your day to day life, give you tips on how to make sure you get to your job on time and in one piece, and then back again in the same way. Or how to just get through airport security without setting off a million bells and whistles just because you’re a little nervous and sweaty about flying.
I’ve tried you know, for a full ten minutes of Googleing this morning, I tried my best. (Remember, ten minutes is like a year when it comes to Googling. That’s my opinion anyway, your results may differ.)
So what do we have? There’s Globalsecurity.org which is pretty much good for nothing when it comes to the regular Joe (or Jolene). All WMD’s and war and NSA and complicated mumbo-jumbo that means diddly do-da-ding dong to most people. Then there’s Bruce, of course, and to be fair, there are a few good tips in that blog, but unless you search for “cryptology” at the same time, his site doesn’t come up too easily either. Let me say, Bruce is a good guy, but much of what he writes isn’t very applicable in everyday life either.
Then there’s the HomeSecurityBlog.com where you will get some good, but at times horribly outdated tips, and some fascinating information about colonic cancer. Our sympathies to the owner of the site, of course, and good luck, but that kind of info really isn’t necessary.
So what’s the deal? Well, the point was really to find some partners for this site, maybe link exchange, maybe mutual ads, maybe just info exchange and quality control, but when every “security” site just clutter themselves up with page up and page down of WAR! and WMD! and TERROR! and nothing about how a broadband outage might jeopardize your home security system, or what car can withstand a carjacking, then what to do?
We would greatly appreciate tips on good security sites, even if they do have a page or two about terrorism and war, and if you happen to own a security site, send us an email! Or just comment here.
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One of the best physical security blogs I have seen is this one:
http://www.providentsecurity.ca/blog/
It’s a commercial site — spends a certain amount of time advertising the services of the blog owner, Provident Security — but there’s a lot of high quality information. Their business model seems to basically be, provide an excellent security service, and then advertise ourselves by helping the public identify excellent security service.
Another good one is:
http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/
This is the Security Research Group at Cambridge, associated with Markus Kuhn, Saar Drimer and Ross Anderson. The main focus is infosec but they do some physical security stuff too.
Then there’s Matt Blaze’s site:
http://www.crypto.com/
Prof. Blaze is an infosec researcher who has done some interesting work on the relationship between infosec and phys sec, and also on applying infosec techniques to analyse physical sec problems, and vice versa.
More phys sec info, mainly but not exclusively locks, discussed at TOOOL, here:
http://toool.nl/
and here:
http://toool.us/
Roger wins!
That was great. I’m going to be an active reader of all those now.