Wikipedia explains a brief history of red flags:

Red flags can signify a warning, martial law, defiance, or left-wing politics. The earliest citation for “red flag” in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1602 and shows that at that time the flag was used by military forces to indicate that they were preparing for battle. It has been associated with left-wing politics since the French Revolution. The red flag became a symbol of communism as a result of its use by the Paris Commune of 1871. The flags of several communist states, including China, Vietnam, and the former Soviet Union, have red backgrounds. The Labour Party in Britain used it until the 1980s and the French Socialist Party uses it. The earliest citation of “red flag” in the sense of a warning is dated 1777 and refers to a flag warning of flood.

On November 1, 2008 US financial entities and creditors will be working under a completely new interpretation by the FTC:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the federal bank regulatory agencies, and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) have issued regulations (the Red Flags Rules) requiring financial institutions and creditors to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs, as part of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act of 2003. The programs must be in place by November 1, 2008, and must provide for the identification, detection, and response to patterns, practices, or specific activities – known as “red flags” – that could indicate identity theft.

I’ll be presenting a webinar on this subject on October 30th. I promise to resist the urge to discuss the long-standing meaning of red flags and how the US government is increasingly appropriating it in areas of security and regulation. For example, the US Bureau of Industry and Security also has “things to look for in export transactions”, which are called Red Flag Indicators. Better dead than red?

Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini have announced study called Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired Keyboard that continues to prove that computers use electricity and things like the keyboard current can be deciphered:

Wired keyboards emit electromagnetic waves, because they contain eletronic components. These eletromagnetic radiation could reveal sensitive information such as keystrokes. Although Kuhn already tagged keyboards as risky, we did not find any experiment or evidence proving or refuting the practical feasibility to remotely eavesdrop keystrokes, especially on modern keyboards.

To determine if wired keyboards generate compromising emanations, we measured the electromagnetic radiations emitted when keys are pressed. To analyze compromising radiations, we generally use a receiver tuned on a specific frequency. However, this method may not be optimal: the signal does not contain the maximal entropy since a significant amount of information is lost.

Our approach was to acquire the signal directly from the antenna and to work on the whole captured electromagnetic spectrum.

This all reminds me of a guy in the Swedish army I once knew whose job it was to sit in a van and test the emanations from “secure” rooms. He said even a missing screw on a room surrounded by impregnable sheets of metal was all he needed to monitor keystrokes.

Senator Stevens is a strange guy. Wonder what his testimony will do to the jury:

“And the chair is still at your house?” prosecutor Brenda Morris asked.

“Yes,” Stevens said.

“How is that not a gift?”

“He bought that chair as a gift, but I refused it as a gift,” Stevens said. “He put it there and said it was my chair. I told him I would not accept it as a gift. We have lots of things in our house that don’t belong to us.”

Playing to the jury, Morris appeared confused.

“So, if you say it’s not a gift, it’s not a gift?” she said.

“I refused it as a gift,” Stevens replied. “I let him put it in our basement at his request.”

I suppose in an ideal world we would look to a Senator to be someone careful with words, able to craft legislation in our best interests and ferret out nuance and meaning to make laws more exact. This indicates he does not even have a reasonable description for the time he “let” a $2,700 massage chair be delivered to his basement. The chair arrived and no compensation was returned. If not a gift, what then? A seat to nowhere?

Secunia has posted a rave review of Symantec, saying that the big yellow marketing machine “beats the competition” at detecting exploits. How good is Symantec?

Symantec detected a mere 64 out of 300 exploits, or less than one-fourth, leaving 236 exploits undetected!

Wow, that’s great. Let’s beat the drum for the leader in a space that’s quickly becoming an example of what not to become. Here are the contestants in Secunia’s review:

• McAfee Internet Security Suite 2009
• Norton Internet Security 2009
• Windows Live OneCare
• ZoneAlarm Security Suite 8
• AVG Internet Security 8.0
• CA Internet Security Suite 2008
• F-secure Internet Security 2009
• TrendMicro Internet Security 2008
• BitDefender Internet Security Suite 2009
• Panda Internet Security 2009
• Kaspersky Internet Security 2009
• Norman Security Suite 7.10

Open-source and related solutions were conspicuously ignored.

The complete results are available in a PDF, and show that ten of the eleven products were below a 4% (yes, four percent) detection rate for “important test cases”. In other words, they did not find exploits lurking in html, xls, ppt, and other “productivity” files.

Careful when you click that PDF link. ;)

The bottom line here is don’t believe the hype of AntiVirus marketing. You will not be safe after you install the software. Many more controls and settings are required, and large organizations still need professional staff to measure and reduce risk to a reasonable level. Thanks Microsoft.

In the meantime, if you want to do an AntiVirus software comparison, I recommend using VirusTotal. They have a more comprehensive list of participants:

# AhnLab (V3)
# Aladdin (eSafe)
# ALWIL (Avast! Antivirus)
# Authentium (Command Antivirus)
# AVG Technologies (AVG)
# Avira (AntiVir)
# Bit9 (FileAdvisor)
# Cat Computer Services (Quick Heal)
# ClamAV (ClamAV)
# CA Inc. (Vet)
# Doctor Web, Ltd. (DrWeb)
# Eset Software (ESET NOD32)
# ewido networks (ewido anti-malware)
# Fortinet (Fortinet)
# FRISK Software (F-Prot)
# F-Secure (F-Secure)
# G DATA Software (GData)
# Hacksoft (The Hacker)
# Hauri (ViRobot)
# Ikarus Software (Ikarus)
# K7 Computing (K7AntiVirus)
# Kaspersky Lab (AVP)
# McAfee (VirusScan)
# Microsoft (Malware Protection)
# Norman (Norman Antivirus)
# Panda Security (Panda Platinum)
# PC Tools (PCTools)
# Prevx (Prevx1)
# Rising Antivirus (Rising)
# Secure Computing (SecureWeb)
# BitDefender GmbH. (BitDefender)
# Sophos (SAV)
# Sunbelt Software (Antivirus)
# Symantec (Norton Antivirus)
# VirusBlokAda (VBA32)
# Trend Micro (TrendMicro)
# VirusBuster (VirusBuster)