Former Morgan Stanley Coder Gets 2 Years in Prison for TJX Hack: Via Threat Level.

The two great friends talked every day and shared information about all of their exploits — sexual, narcotic and hacking — according to prosecutors. Now another thing they’ll have to share information about is their experience in federal prison.

While accused TJX hacker kingpin Albert Gonzalez awaits a possible sentence of 17 years or more in prison, one of his best friends and accomplices was sentenced on Tuesday in Boston to two years for his role in what the feds are calling “the largest identity theft in our nation’s history.”

Stephen Watt, a 25-year-old former Morgan Stanley software engineer, pleaded guilty last December to creating a custom sniffing program dubbed “blabla” that Gonzalez and other hackers used to siphon millions of credit and debit card numbers from TJX’s network. The breach cost TJX $200 million, according to its 2009 SEC filing. [ Read more ... ]

Breaking Vanish: A Story of Security Research in Action: Via Freedom to Tinker.

Today, seven colleagues and I released a new paper, "Defeating Vanish with Low-Cost Sybil Attacks Against Large DHTs". The paper's authors are Scott Wolchok (Michigan), Owen Hofmann (Texas), Nadia Heninger (Princeton), me, Alex Halderman (Michigan), Christopher Rossbach (Texas), Brent Waters (Texas), and Emmett Witchel (Texas).

Our paper is the next chapter in an interesting story about the making, breaking, and possible fixing of security systems. [ Read more ... ]

Notes Detail Pressure on Ashcroft Over Spying: WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — Notes taken by Director Robert S. Mueller III of the F.B.I. say that Attorney General John Ashcroft was “barely articulate,” “feeble” and “clearly stressed” shortly after a hospital-room meeting in March 2004 in which two top White House aides tried to persuade him to sign an extension for eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.

Mr. Mueller’s notes, based on a visit to Mr. Ashcroft’s room and released Thursday by the House Judiciary Committee, provide a fuller picture of the events surrounding a March 10, 2004, confrontation over the surveillance program. They go beyond the account that Mr. Mueller gave the committee in July and reinforce an account by James B. Comey, the former deputy attorney general who testified in May.

In providing corroboration for Mr. Comey’s version of events, Mr. Mueller’s typewritten entries served to rebut the suggestion of some Bush administration officials who have privately dismissed Mr. Comey’s account of the hospital standoff as an overwrought and one-sided description. [ Read more ... ]

I Married a Fed at DefCon:

No, I didn't, but someone else did.

This year's Spot-the-Fed game at DefCon got an unusual twist when two Feds, one of them a long-time DefCon attendee, decided to get hitched at the hacker conference.

Andrew Fried, a special agent with the Department of Treasury, and Laura Askey, also with Treasury, got married in a short ceremony before more than 4,000 hackers and Feds at the close of the awards ceremony on the last day of the conference. The marriage ceremony was performed by Rev. William Petersen. [ Read more ... ]

Schneier on Security: Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 1): Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 1)

This is Part 1 of a five-part series.

In April, Kip Hawley, the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), invited me to Washington for a meeting. Despite some serious trepidation, I accepted. And it was a good meeting. Most of it was off the record, but he asked me how the TSA could overcome its negative image. I told him to be more transparent, and stop ducking the hard questions. He said that he wanted to do that. He did enjoy writing a guest blog post for Aviation Daily, but having a blog himself didn't work within the bureaucracy. What else could he do?

This interview, conducted in May and June via e-mail, was one of my suggestions. [ Read more ... ]

Cheney Blocked Promotion of Lawyer Who Questioned Wiretapping Program: "

Vice President Dick Cheney blocked the promotion of a Justice Department lawyer in retaliation for his role in a review of a government surveillance program that led to the Intensive Care Unit Showdown, where then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card attempted to persuade a post-op John Ashcroft to give legal cover to the government's secret domestic spying program, according to written answers provided to Congress by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey. [ Read more ... ]