Read the full story here. DHS denying request under FOIA.
PS: If you read the scanned document closely, you notice the two times 8-digit “file number” which could be a date. If this was state of the art three years ago, what’s the state now? Let me guess, there are a bit more than DELL computers affected? … 
Update: There are claims this was a hoax (from 2005). Let’s hope it was. Read here and here.
The sad part, it is actually not incredible enough to find out it is a hoax immediately. One comment on the first of the links reads:
I can not describe my desire to ridicule people who actually buy into this stupid bullshit. I’m even more outraged at people actually trying to prove other people that this is not said bullshit.
Seriously, what are the chances of someone actually getting away with this?
Well, who would get away with becoming US president without actually getting elected the first time, but getting a second term without being thrown out of office and this time even getting elected (although it also smelled fishy)?
I just ordered a five-pack of SSL certificates at GoDaddy.com a few days ago because they have the best offer in that the price is nice and the browsers they cover are virtually 100% of all browsers. The remaining close-to-zero doesn’t need to visit my websites anyway 
When paying the thing, I registered with my German postal address, simply because the domains (for which the SSL certs are intended) are registered on it as well. However, I paid the thing with my Icelandic credit card as it is more convenient for me that way, despite the unfortunate difference in the dollar rate (yes, also the ISK has plummeted) or the fact that a registration with my Icelandic (matching) address would have saved me the VAT. That brought the anti-fraud department onto the plan and I got a friendly mail in which I was asked to confirm the purchase and my identity. Due to the fact that I paid with a credit card whose billing address is in a different country than the address of my registration, they thought it was a fraud. I cannot actually think of any fraud where a domain in the hands of the payer (coincidentally the name on my Icelandic credit card is my name 
) could be abused in any way. I used the same email address to register at GoDaddy which you can also see on my contact forms 
Anyway, now it is kind of stalled. When requested, I sent immediately the front side of my national ID card as a scanned image, although I would have preferred a secure transmission in their customer area or so (which runs over https). After all, privacy was the reason to get SSL certificates in the first place. And now I can only wait. Everyone says they offer a swift service and the emails so far were pretty quickly exchanged. Also I have to take into account the time zone difference. Now that’s the hardship you get from being a world citizen … let’s see how this turns out.
Greetings to the GoDaddy.com anti-fraud department,
// Oliver
PS: And yes, I understand the skepticism and appreciate the concern. If someone would have used my credit card data to make a fraudulent purchase somewhere, this would hurt all parties except the fraudster. It’s just so damn inconvenient
Update: Issue is resolved. A mail from support got lost on its way, that’s why it seemed to take so long.
Programs of a new type have been created by different companies recently. The first I am aware of was developed in 2006 and violated the GPL back then. More of them seem to be offered all the time.
These programs claim to save you from malware, just like AVs, only better and also for unknown threats. And indeed the idea is intriguing and I have heard of the first implementation - although more complete than the half-hearted solutions offered now - in 2005. That particular solution would move the Windows kernel into ring 1 and could then supervise it. In fact every process would literally see its own copy of the system. Process separation to the max.
Continue reading ‘Saving the world?’