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Our brains are wired such that we automatically cancel out things that are not changing around us, in a process called adaptation. I really like this article because it not only gives a lot of interesting information about the brain, but it also hooks the reader effectively by providing physical, relatable examples of how our brains tune stuff out. I quickly found myself drawn into the article and interested to learn more.

Continuation of a story I posted a while ago. Britain's top code-breakers say they are stumped by a secret code found on the leg of a dead pigeon. .

A summary of why encryption wouldn't have prevented General Petraeus from getting caught. Like the quote: "If you think cryptography is the solution to your problem, you either don't understand cryptography or you don't understand your problem."

South Carolina gets hacked due to "outdated" technology

This site has some really neat pictures and a video detailing Babbage's Difference Engine. The pictures are gigapixel, so they are incredibly detailed.

Wow. That's a lot of zoom.

The US Copyright Office has issued a statement saying that it would only issue copyrights to humans. PETA objects to this, having just filed a suit to grant that macaque monkey the copyright for the selfies it took back in 2011. The struggle is real.

Interesting introduction and does a good job of explaining what has been discovered.

A description of the U.S. military's first cryptographic system.

A basic overview of the Siemens T-43 cipher machine used by the Germans, the first mixer machine of its kind.

"With end-to-end encryption in place, not even WhatsApp's employees can read the data that's sent across its network. In other words, WhatsApp has no way of complying with a court order demanding access to the content of any message, phone call, photo, or video traveling through its service. Like Apple, WhatsApp is, in practice, stonewalling the federal government, but it's doing so on a larger front-one that spans roughly a billion devices."

A brief look at the science of cryptology and the simple encryptions found in the Old Testament. Has a couple of examples and explains the three main transformations used.

A brief history on Mary, Queen of Scots, and her secret plotting against Queen Elizabeth.

An in-depth description of Julius Caesar's shift cipher and how it works. Also shows how to use frequency analysis and chi-square values to quickly break the cipher.

A breach in supposedly secure keys given to employees by private companies vindicates previous warnings by cryptographers that companies should use more difficult keys, and that companies have not been cautious enough using such keys because of their assumed security.

Summary: Cryptography specialists have developed tools to crack PPTP encryption (based on an algorithm from Microsoft), gaining access to Wi-Fi, passwords, corporate networks and data.

Instead of hiring "upper-class twits from Oxford and Cambridge," A government communications agency tried a new angle on recruiting hackers. They decided to combat hackers with other experienced hackers by posting an online puzzle and offering a job interview to those who solved it.

The thing I found very interesting about this article is the discussion about ex-NBA owner Donald Sterling. Yes, his comments were horrifying, but he said things in the privacy of his home. I guess what I, and this article, are trying to say is that privacy is dead and all information is vulnerable.

This reminds me just a bit of the Mary, Queen of Scots, story. Helpful messages that are actually covers for malicious intent.