It turns out that American Express honors recurring payments even if the vendor is unable to supply an accurate card number and expiration date. An Amex phone representative said this is a feature, not a bug, which makes sure my bills are paid. Barton Gellman accurateamericanamex share on social
In the urgent aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, with more attacks thought to be imminent, analysts wanted to use 'contact chaining' techniques to build what the NSA describes as network graphs of people who represented potential threats. Barton Gellman aftermathanalystattack share on social
Even complex passwords are getting easy to break if they're too short. That's because today's inexpensive computer chips have the power of supercomputers from the year 2000. Barton Gellman breakchipcomplex Change image and share on social
True net-heads sometimes resort to punctuation cartoons to get around the absence of inflection. Barton Gellman absencecartoonhead Change image and share on social
NSA surveillance is a complex subject - legally, technically and operationally. Barton Gellman complexlegallynsa Change image and share on social
There's a long history of private-company cooperation with the NSA that dates back to at least the 1970s. Barton Gellman 1970sbackcompany Change image and share on social
Clinton saw himself much more as the steward of alliances and of consensus that moved in the right direction. He didn't see himself as someone who could change the overall thrust, I think, of global policy. Barton Gellman alliancechangeclinton share on social
Cloud services cut both ways in terms of security: you get off-site backup and disaster recovery, but you entrust your secrets to somebody else's hands. Doing the latter increases your exposure to government surveillance and the potential for deliberate or inadvertent breaches of your confidential files. Barton Gellman backupbreachcloud share on social
Most computers today have built in backup software. Barton Gellman backupbuildcomputer Change image and share on social
In general, states do not count on pledges of 'no more war' from their neighbors. Israel's army never counted on it from Egypt, for example. Barton Gellman armycountegypt Change image and share on social