Belkin's Pre-N Delivers Promised Speed. The industry rightly has qualms about pre-802.11n labeled devices, but speed sells: If we've learned anything from the 108 Mbps and 125 Mbps branding on a variety of Wi-Fi gateways, it's that speed apparently does sell even if standards built the foundation on which Wi-Fi thrives. Belkin's pre-802.11n (high-throughput standard) [...]

Lying Makes Brain Work Harder. Researchers expose differences in brain activity between people who fib and those who don't. Brain scans reveal that it really is easier to tell the truth. [Wired News]

Searching Smarter, Not Harder. When it comes to searching, more is not always better. Data experts are honing topic maps to better classify the information that's out there. By John Gartner. [Wired News]

Service Pack 2 Post Mortem. Today officially is Computer Security Day, something HP is commemorating with new protective services and products for consumers and small and medium businesses. I expect other vendors to respond, too. I see this as an appropriate day to do a post mortem on Microsoft's security efforts around Windows XP Service [...]

Falwell on Meet The Press. Jerry Falwell quotes from Sunday's Meet The Press: “Well, the fact that he's a gay Republican means he should join the Democratic Party.” [when asked about the creator of "Desperate Housewives," a self-described conservative, gay Republican] “I wouldn't vote for my mother if she were pro-choice.” “I'm just trying — [...]

Universal Surveillance Doesn't Make Us Safer. Mitch Wagner interviewed me for eWeek. [Schneier on Security]

U.N. Calls for an Updated Council. Membership of the Security Council should reflect the world of today rather than post- World War II, a U.N. panel urged. By WARREN HOGE. [NYT > Home Page]

Canadian Inventor Lets Everyone Be an Armchair Spy (washingtonpost.com). TORONTO– New Internet-based technology could soon turn regular computer users into armchair spies, a Canadian inventor said on Monday. Vincent Tao, an engineer at Toronto's York University said he has invented a mapping and surveillance tool called SAME (see anywhere, map anywhere), that produces images so [...]

Clean System to Zombie Bot in Four Minutes. Amadaeus writes “According to the latest study by USA Today and Avantgarde, it takes less than 4 minutes for an unpatched Windows XP SP1 system to become part of a botnet. Avantgarde has the statistics in their abstract. Stats of note: Although Macs and PC's got hit [...]

Flaw opens crack in Windows servers. Microsoft suggests work-around to fix hole in popular server software, as it blasts the company that disclosed it. [CNET News.com] [Privacy Digest: Privacy News (Civil Rights, Encryption, Free Speech, Cryptography)]