Wayne Rash

Adobe Flash has long been used as a path for attacking computers through their browsers because it’s capable of executing code on remote Websites without users realizing it. For this reason, Adobe has been in a constant war to find exploits and block them by providing updates to Flash as quickly as possible. But it’s […]

As is usually the case when a news event takes place that relatively few people understand, the Internet fills with prophesies of doom while unbridled fear and unfounded gossip circulates among bloggers and on social media. This is what’s happening now that the European Union’s governing body, the European Commission, announced that it was sending […]

In the nearly two decades since I wrote the first book on how politicians and political groups use the Internet, surprisingly little has changed. For the most part, campaign organizations have been doing the same things they were doing in the 1996 Presidential election, with the major changes mostly reflecting the availability of new technology, […]

Starting at the end of March, two services on the Internet inexplicably found themselves under a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack of such intensity and duration that it was almost certainly state-sponsored. The two services, GreatFire and GitHub, were attacked for about two weeks. According to a report from Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary function of […]

AT&T has agreed to pay a $25 million penalty stemming from the theft of customer data in call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines. The Federal Communications Commission carried out extensive investigations of the data breach in cooperation with the U.S. Secret Service. According to senior FCC officials speaking on background, the data breach […]

The big question about enterprise security isn’t how to keep cyber-criminals out of your network; the big question is how to limit the damage. According to Richard Clarke, former special advisor to the president for cyber-space and national coordinator for security and counter-terrorism, “The bad guys are already in your network.” Meeting over dinner with […]

An Executive Order signed by President Barack Obama on April 1 is the latest in a series of moves by the U.S. government to help impede cyber-criminal activity aimed at the United States. The order gives the Treasury Department, working with the Attorney General and the State Department, the power to block the transfer of […]

Assuming everything goes according to plans announced on March 27, the Federal Communications Commission will create a new wireless data service that’s intended for what Chairman Tom Wheeler calls “innovative uses” by consumers, carriers and data services. The designated wireless spectrum is located in the 3.5 GHz band, basically halfway between the 2.4 and 5 […]

In 1982, I was standing on the deck of a Navy frigate watching the first attempt to launch a missile from the forecastle of our ship. Nearly the instant it came into sight, the missile exploded with a flash of light. A shock wave hit my body like a slap. A few seconds later, I […]

Two organizations filed suit in federal courts on March 23 seeking to block the Federal Communications Commission’s decision placing broadband regulation under Title II of the Communications Act. One of the suits wants the federal courts to stop it immediately. That one, from Texas-based Alamo Broadband, is asking the federal court in New Orleans to […]

Amazon has taken one important step toward realizing its corporate dream of automating same-day delivery of products to customers by air. That dream, as shown in an Amazon video, involves launching airborne drones to deliver small packages to customers within minutes of placing an order. The Federal Aviation Administration has now given permission to Amazon […]

HANNOVER, Germany—Secure, encrypted voice communications aren’t exactly new. Military and other government users have had the capability for years. At CeBIT two years ago, SecuSmart brought the first secure cell phone communications to BlackBerry devices. Since that time, the market for such encrypted communications has grown, but the technology has always been limited to government […]