Nicholas Weaver
Lawfare
Berkeley, CA, United States
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Past articles by Nick:
Flood the Zone With Cheap Drones
Ukraine needs more drones. How can the U.S. best supply them? → Read More
OFAC, the DPRK and the Tornado of Cash
OFAC should consider a creative sanction against the mixing service Tornado Cash, particularly the 100 Ethereum wallet that is known to be hiding a large amount of the DPRK’s stolen cryptocurrency. → Read More
What's the Deal with the Log4Shell Security Nightmare?
The details behind a massive cyber problem. → Read More
Disrupting Cryptocurrencies 2: Lessons From the Poly “Hack”
The $600 million hack of the “decentralized” Poly Nnetwork should alert regulators due not to the size of the theft but, rather, to what the stakeholders did after the incident. → Read More
What Happened in the Kaseya VSA Incident?
Right before the start of the holiday weekend, news broke of yet another massive ransomware attack. What's the deal? → Read More
How to Cut Down on Ransomware Attacks Without Banning Bitcoin
Making cryptocurrency markets harder to use will have the effect of making them less useful as a ransomware payment vehicle. → Read More
How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
Making cryptocurrency mining illegal won’t stop all mining, but it will seriously disrupt it. → Read More
The Ransomware Problem Is a Bitcoin Problem
The May 7 ransomware shutdown of Colonial Pipeline, resulting in the payment of nearly $5 million to the group responsible for hacking the corporation, illustrates how the ransomware epidemic is now out of hand. Beyond just the Colonial Pipeline hack, this single ransomware gang, DarkSide, has successfully earned/amassed/extorted $90 million in revenue in half a year, and the → Read More
The Microsoft Exchange Hack and the Great Email Robbery
The world is probably days away from a mass-exploitation of Microsoft Exchange servers—a hack that could have a far greater impact than the SolarWinds breach. → Read More
The SolarWinds Breach: Why Your Work Computers Are Down Today
A quick guide to the news of a major cyber intrusion by the Russian government. → Read More
How Easy is it to Build a Robot Assassin?
Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh reportedly may have been assassinated using a remote-controlled machine gun. Such devices are unfortunately easy to construct. → Read More
Blocking International Students is an Attack on America’s Future
On a short timeline, student immigration is not a national security issue. On a timeline measured in decades, it is. → Read More
Apple vs FBI: Pensacola Isn’t San Bernardino
Once again, the FBI is seeking Apple’s help in unlocking phones in a counterterrorism case. But this time, Apple is technically incapable of providing assistance. → Read More
Lessons (So Far) From WhatsApp v. NSO
What are the key takeaways from the emerging battle between Facebook and NSO group? → Read More
Encryption and Combating Child Exploitation Imagery
Proposals to weaken encryption often use child exploitation images as an excuse in ways that don’t meaningfully address the problem. Here’s an alternative solution. → Read More
Facebook’s Cryptocurrency: Stop It Before It Starts
Libra will enable cybercriminals if it succeeds. Regulators should stop it “left of launch.” → Read More
Thoughts on the Assange Indictment: Where’s Vault 7?
Now that the U.S. government appears to have decided that no additional charges will be filed against Julian Assange, it’s worth asking why the indictment doesn’t include anything about WikiLeaks’s release of information on CIA hacking tools. → Read More
The GCHQ’s Vulnerabilities Equities Process
The GCHQ’s disclosure of the “BlueKeep” vulnerability offers an opportunity for the U.S. to learn from how the British handle the question of vulnerabilities equities. → Read More
The Technical Consequences of Trump’s Telecom Supply Chain Emergency
The president wanted to let the Commerce Department cut Huawei off from U.S. components. His order may do quite a bit more. → Read More
A Risk Analysis of Huawei 5G
What a country needs to consider before buying Huawei 5G equipment. → Read More