Mary Queen of Scots Letters Decrypted

This is a neat piece of historical research.

The team of computer scientist George Lasry, pianist Norbert Biermann and astrophysicist Satoshi Tomokiyo—all keen cryptographers—initially thought the batch of encoded documents related to Italy, because that was how they were filed at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

However, they quickly realised the letters were in French. Many verb and adjectival forms being feminine, regular mention of captivity, and recurring names—such as Walsingham—all put them on the trail of Mary. Sir Francis Walsingham was Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster…

February 9, 2023
Read More >>

[SANS ISC] A Backdoor with Smart Screenshot Capability

I published the following diary on isc.sans.edu: “A Backdoor with Smart Screenshot Capability“: Today, everything is “smart” or “intelligent”. We have smartphones, smart cars, smart doorbells, etc. Being “smart” means performing actions depending on the context, the environment, or user actions. For a while, backdoors and trojans have implemented screenshot

The post [SANS ISC] A Backdoor with Smart Screenshot Capability appeared first on /dev/random.

February 9, 2023
Read More >>