The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In our increasingly digital lives, security depends on cryptography. Send a private message or pay a bill online, and you’re relying on algorithms designed to keep your data secret. Naturally, some people want to uncover those secrets—so researchers work to …
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Just over a decade ago, Bitcoin appeared to many of its adherents to be the crypto-anarchist holy grail: truly private digital cash for the internet. Satoshi Nakamoto, the cryptocurrency’s mysterious and unidentifiable inventor, had stated in an email introducing Bitcoin that “participants can be anonymous.” And the Silk Road dark-web …
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Apple's AirTags are meant to help you effortlessly find your keys or track your luggage. But the same features that make them easy to deploy and inconspicuous in your daily life have also allowed them to be abused as a sinister tracking tool that domestic abusers and criminals can use …
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Microsoft said in June that a China-backed hacking group had stolen a cryptographic key from the company's systems. This key allowed the attackers to access cloud-based Outlook email systems for 25 organizations, including multiple US government agencies. At the time of the disclosure, however, Microsoft did not explain how the …
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On a balmy Saturday in July, at approximately 15:30 hours, the first signals come in over the radio receiver. Its faint dip dip dip is barely detectable as a small team of engineers and scientists scramble to their stations and listen, trying to decipher the message, delivered through Morse code. …
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