CMSC 150 - Fall 2017 - **the lifetime of a variable**

Terminology TOR- "the onion router" or the idea of wrapping a communication in several layers of encryption Mixnet - series of servers that changes the order in which messages are sent and received before being delivered Staying under the radar Privacy comes in many different forms when we think of the internet. Most people are probably familiar with the idea of private accounts on social media, being able to restrict who sees what you post, and private browsing options on things like Google Chrome and Safari. The word privacy in these cases is a matter of personal comfort and a sense of security, but what if your actual safety depended on this privacy ? Would you trust Facebook, or your favorite web browser to safeguard your anonymity? Probably not. Countries around the world practicing internet censorship obviously don't support internet privacy and so anyone interested in skirting these censors has to find another, safer way to achieve privacy, or r...

The Anonymity of Location Services The advent of the cell phone and subsequently the smartphone has put a world of knowledge at our fingertips. Recipes, maps, music and much more are just a few clicks away, whenever we want them, wherever we want them. This is great for productivity and connectivity, but herein lies the danger to our privacy. Location services drive much of the functionality and enhance the user's experience on many of today's most popular apps, specifically social media applications. Apps encourage "checking in" and "tagging" people and locations attached to posts, and users often accept the risk of sharing their information because of " hyperbolic discounting" , where people focus on the immediate benefit and discount future risk. (3) Some users chose to disable location services, an option that should t heoretically make a user's location private, but recent studies show that this might be a false sense of security....

WannaCry Ransomware Terms ASLR- address space layout randomization: diversifying memory locations for an application TASR- timely address space randomization: randomization occurring alongside input-output pairs The Threat Modern IT specialists are constantly on the defense against hackers and are often at a disadvantage due to the arsenal of tools at the disposal of their rivals. Hackers just need to find a single solution to crack into a network or a device, while the good guys have to anticipate and protect against a plethora of vulnerabilities. (1) It has been estimated that malware attacks cost companies an average of $2.5 million and that in the United States the average cyber crime costs companies $21.22 million. (2) With the prevalence and severity of such crimes on the rise, the job of defending against such attacks has also become a top priority for both public and private industry alike. IT specialists have traditionally fallen back on a technique called...