The peculiar star of the Sony hack: Email

The massive hack has raised questions about First Amendment rights, privacy and cyberwarfare. But there's a subtler issue at play when we look at all the news stories that have come from hacked inboxes: Why do we put this stuff in email?

Most of the news stories that came out of the Sony hack were based on info from the email inboxes of Sony executives. Sony Pictures

Every summer, Coye Cheshire teaches a workshop to incoming grad students on how to be smart and careful on social media.

The class, held in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, involves letting students know the repercussions of posting things on networks like Facebook and Twitter. But Cheshire doesn't mention an online medium even more basic than social media: email.

"We sort of treat email as a given," said Cheshire. But after the high-profile hack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, which resulted in a leak of tens of thousands of internal emails, financial documents and other items, will he be sure to mention email specifically when he teaches the workshop again next summer?

"Absolutely," he said.

That's just one of the many impacts of the devastating hack, which has already spurred questions about everything from First Amendment rights to cyberwarfare to journalistic ethics. Looking past the marquee headlines, there's a subtler effect: As self-preservation kicks in, people may try to ensure their digital paper trails don't make them vulnerable targets.

The hack, revealed in late November, was carried out by a group that US authorities say is linked to North Korea. That country was upset by the "The Interview," a movie from Sony Pictures starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, about an assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Sony on Wednesday announced it was canceling the release of the movie amid threats of terrorism, though on Friday it said a release may still happen.

Inside the company, the hack has been devastating: Amy Pascal, head of Sony's film division and one of the most prominent women in Hollywood, watched as her email inbox was opened to the world and her emails made available for anyone to read. Among the trove of missives: an offensive joke shared with producer Scott Rudin about President Obama's taste in movies. Both of them quickly apologized.

Messages ranging from discussion about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to new movie ideas to even a script for the latest James Bond film were dumped onto the Internet. And they were revealed by media outlets pouring over thousands of emails from the inboxes of Sony executives.

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The peculiar star of the Sony hack: Email

The Best Privacy And Security-Focused Web Browsers

Your web browser knows a lot about you, and tells the sites you visit a lot about you as well if you let it. Weve talked about which browsers are best for privacy before, and the best tools to lock your browser down, but there are also entire browsers designed to keep your data as secure and private as possible. Lets take a look at some of them.

Whether your preferred browser is Chrome or Firefox, you have a few options to help you browse more securely assuming youre ready to give up on the version everyone else uses and try something new. Here are some options worth trying out.

Tor is going through a rough period right now, but overall, the service is still excellent if youre looking to preserve your anonymity and privacy, and if you want to keep away from malicious tracking cookies and ads. Tor routes your traffic across a series of relays designed to keep your real identity and computer as anonymous as possible. Its not perfect and it certainly has its drawbacks, but if anonymity is your end goal, the Tor Browser (more specifically, the Tor Browser Bundle) is a great way to go.

The Tor Browser is based on Firefox, open source, and comes preconfigured to access the Tor network. The vast majority of built-in plugins and services have been disabled or stripped out, and its important that you leave them that way, or else data you mean to keep private can leak to the sites youre visiting. Available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and in portable forms for all of those, its a great way to surf when youre using an untrusted system, want to keep your identity concealed, need to get around content filtering or site-specific blocks, or want to keep your physical location a secret from sites downstream/

Remember Tor is designed for physical and digital anonymity, not security and encryption. What you do while youre using it may give away that anonymity (such as sending emails or logging on to web services), and while communications inside the Tor network are encrypted, as soon as you leave the network, your data is in the clear (if its not encrypted another way.)

Epic Privacy Browser is based on Chromium, is open-source, and is available for Windows and Mac. Weve highlighted Epic before, and while theres genuine scepticism about the browser and its roots in Chromium (the open-source platform upon which Chrome is also based), overall Epic does what it promises. The browser blocks ads, tracking cookies, social boxes and widgets (until you interact with them), blocks tracking scripts and modules from loading (which results in faster-loading web pages), and sandboxes third-party processes and plugins. Epic Browser even encrypts your connection whenever possible (largely by shunting to HTTPS/SSL whenever its available), routes your browsing through a proxy, and protects you from widgetjacking or sidejacking when youre browsing over Wi-Fi.

All of these features are great, and the browser itself is fast and works smoothly. Of course, it doesnt support extensions or plug-ins by design, and its a little heavier than your normal Chrome install, but once its up and running you shouldnt have a problem actually using it. Youll also have to give up some of the conveniences you may be used to in order to protect your privacy, such as autofill, address saving, password saving, history and cache all of those elements are either never stored, or deleted when you close the browser.

Comodo is an internet security company that has been in the business of protecting data for decades. Comodo develops three web browsers, and each of them offers additional protection that you wont find in a standard download of Chrome or Firefox.

Comodo Dragon is a Chromium-based browser that was one of Comodos first browsers. It incorporates a number of Comodo-branded tools into the browsing experience, such as the companys own SSL validation, where every site you visit has its SSL certificate and identity validated by Comodo. Youll receive a notification to let you know everything is OK, or if Comodo thinks the site youre trying to visit is questionable.

If you allow it to, Comodo will route all of your browsing through its secure, encrypted DNS, so you leave fewer traces of your movements around the web. Comodo Dragon also blocks third-party tracking cookies, widgets and other site components from loading. Because its branded by Comodo, it will prompt you to use Comodos other security products as well to complement it, which is a little ironic if youre using a privacy-focused browser in order to not be sold to all the time. Its worth noting that Comodo says that Dragon will only run on Windows 7 and below (although we had no issues with it in Windows 8).

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The Best Privacy And Security-Focused Web Browsers

Reddit (sort of) launches its own nebulous cryptocurrency, Reddit Notes

We've already heard that 2015 is supposed to be the year of cryptocurrency, and Microsoft recently announced that Bitcoin is an acceptable form of payment. Now Reddit is getting in on the virtual currency action. Kind of. Well, perhaps. The details are vague at the moment, but the intriguingly-named Reddit Notes have been announced.

It comes just a few months after Reddit managed to secure $50 million in funding, and at the time "the investors in this round have proposed to give 10% of their shares back to the community". The birth of Reddit Notes is the start of this payback, but it's not yet clear who will receive them or what they will be used for.

The name has the distinct feel of a cryptocurrency, and Reddit explains that there are "approximately 950,000 reddit notes to divide among active user accounts". The notes can be viewed like shares at this stage, and it's obvious that there will have to be some sort of selection process if less than 1 million shares are to be distributed between users: there are just too many users for everyone to be included.

In a blog post, Reddit explains:

There aren't as many reddit notes as there are accounts, so if you get one, lucky you! Eligible recipients of reddit notes will be determined based on activities before 9/30/14, and we plan to give them away in the fall of 2015. We're still working out details on both the technological and legal aspects of the project, especially regarding how reddit notes will work within existing government regulations.

Reddit Notes are surrounded in ambiguity at the moment -- well, you have to get the hype machine going somehow --but a basic infographic shows that Reddit Notes can be donated, given, traded, used as payment, or saved. There's no hint about when we might know more, but Fall 2015 is a way off yet, so there's plenty of time for more details to come out.

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Reddit (sort of) launches its own nebulous cryptocurrency, Reddit Notes

Gavin Andresen – Chief Scientist, Bitcoin Foundation speaks to SF Bitcoin Meetup (Dec 2014) – Video


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Bitcoin Promoter Gets Two Years Prison Over Illicit Money Transmissions – Video


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Bitcoin St Petersburg Bowl Preview – NC State vs Central Florida Bowl Picks w/ Joe Duffy, Loshak – Video


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Bitcoin St Petersburg Bowl Preview - NC State vs Central Florida Bowl Picks w/ Joe Duffy, Loshak - Video

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