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May 16, 2016

Shame! Shame! John McAfee Tricks Illiterates

Filed under: Cybersecurity,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 3:10 pm

My day started with reading WhatsApp Message Hacked By John McAfee And Crew by Steve Morgan.

I thought it made the important point that while the WhatsApp message is secured by bank vault quality encryption:

Luxembourg_Bankmuseum_Tuer-w-note

By LoKiLeCh (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0, GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

When you enlarge the little yellow note on the front (think Android) you find:

combination

While your message encryption may be Shannon secure end-to-end, the security of your OS, to say nothing of your personal, organizational, etc., security counts whether the message is indeed “secure.”

A better illustration would be to show McAfee and crew taking the vault out of the wall (think OS) but my graphic skills aren’t up to that task. 😉

That’s a useful lesson and to be honest, McAfee says as much, in the fifth paragraph of the story.

So I almost fell off my perch when later in the morning I read:

John McAfee Apparently Tried to Trick Reporters Into Thinking He Hacked WhatsApp by William Turton.

Here’s the lead paragraph:

John McAfee, noted liar and one-time creator of anti-virus software, apparently tried to convince reporters that he hacked the encryption used on WhatsApp. To do this, he attempted to send them phones with preinstalled malware and then convince them he was reading their encrypted conversations.

Just in case you don’t follow the “noted liar” link, that’s another post written by William Turton.

The “admitted lie” was one of simplification, compressing an iPhone hack into sound bite length.

Ever explain (attempt) computer technology to the c-suite? You are guilty of the same type of lies.

If someone divested themselves of their interest in WhatsApp because they didn’t read to the fifth paragraph of the original story, I’m sorry.

Read before you re-tweet/re-post and/or change your investments. Whether it’s a John McAfee story or not.

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