Podcast appearances and mentions of Jon Callas

The landscape of digital privacy is changing. While cloud adoption and ethical hacking create new opportunities for all, data leaks and proposed legislation introduce new levels of threat to everyone from CTOs to laypeople. But what are these threats and what danger do they pose? Fully understanding the factors that influence digital privacy is about to be vital in protecting yourself, while continuing to benefit from living in a digital age. Join More than a Refresh host, Joshua “JD” Drake, for a roundtable with Jon Callas, Director of Public Interest Technology @ Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Dan Frechtling, CEO @ Boltive, to discuss the state of digital privacy in the US and beyond.

Welcome to episode 20 of More Than a Refresh, where JD sits down with Jon Callas, Director of Public Interest Technology at Electronic Frontier Foundation. Listen in as they discuss why paper is magical, international threats to privacy and security, and the problem with never-ending emergencies. Click here to donate to EFF, and if you're looking for other ways to get involved, the EFF has this helpful page of suggestions.

Jon Callas is a computer security expert, software engineer, user experience designer, and technologist who is the co-founder and former CTO of the global encrypted communications service Silent Circle. He has held major positions at Digital Equipment Corporation, Apple, PGP, and Entrust, and is considered "one of the most respected and well-known names in the mobile security industry. His views stem from big tech's mass pooling of personal data for advertising and the polarization within Silicon Valley. While some companies are committed to privacy, many more earn their revenues from selling user data. Callas has stated that if the advertising market takes a downturn, companies that protect their users' data are the most insulated from harm. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/out-of-the-blank-podcast/support

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher's weekly news podcast with input from our sources. This week, the White House has outlined a number of cybersecurity measures that federal agencies must adopt. Also this week, an easily exploitable vulnerability in a Linux component has been patched. Finally, Jon Callas, director of technology projects with EFF, joined the Decipher podcast this week to talk about invasive data tracking and surveillance during the pandemic.

Jon Callas, director of technology projects with EFF, talks about invasive data tracking and surveillance during the pandemic.

Younger Kids Next In Line For COVID-19 Vaccines This week, an FDA advisory panel voted unanimously to recommend that the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer vaccine be approved for children as young as 5. If the FDA concurs and the CDC agrees, lower-dose Pfizer vaccinations could soon be available for children ages 5 to 11, via local pediatricians. Just who will be immediately eligible for the doses, and how vaccinating young children might affect school mask policies and other restrictions, remains to be seen. Umair Irfan, staff writer at Vox, joins Sophie Bushwick to talk about the news and other stories from the week in science, including potential COVID-related criminal charges against Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, an experimental bionic vision implant, and the possible discovery of an exoplanet in the galaxy Messier 51.   Could Ordinary Household Objects Be Used To Spy On You? In the movies, if a room is bugged, the microphone might be hidden in a potted plant. But in recent years, researchers have come up with ways to use the trembling leaves of a potted plant, light glancing off a potato chip bag, and even tiny jiggles in the head of a spinning hard drive caused by a nearby conversation to be able to listen to what's happening in a room, or to gain information about what's going on nearby. On a larger scale, other researchers have been able to use the vibrations of an entire building to paint a picture of movements within it—and even the health status of the people inside. The approach is known as a side-channel attack: Rather than observing something directly, you're extracting information from something else that has a relationship with the target. Many of the approaches are not straightforward—they require an understanding of the physics involved, and sometimes heavy data-processing or machine learning to interpret the hazy information yielded by these techniques. Jon Callas of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Hae Young Noh of Stanford, and Kevin Fu of the University of Michigan join host Sophie Bushwick to talk about the risks and opportunities afforded by these sneaky methods of surveillance, and how concerned you should be.   A Maggot Revolution In Modern Medicine In a bloody battle during World War I, two wounded soldiers were stranded on the battlefield in France, hidden and overlooked under some brush. Suffering femur fractures and flesh wounds around their scrotum and abdomen, they lay abandoned without water, food, or shelter for a whole week. At the time, outcomes for these kinds of wounds were poor: Patients with compound femur fractures had a 75 to 80% mortality rate. By the time the soldiers were rescued and brought to a hospital base, orthopedic surgeon William Baer expected their wounds to be festering, and their conditions fatal. But much to his surprise, neither showed any signs of fever, septicaemia, or blood poisoning. When his team removed the soldiers' clothing, they discovered that their flesh wounds were filled with thousands of maggots, or baby flies—little larvae with a massive appetite for decaying matter. Baer was repulsed by the sight, and the team quickly washed off the wriggling maggots. Underneath, instead of the expected pus and bacteria-infected flesh, Baer marveled over “the most remarkable picture.” “These wounds were filled with the most beautiful pink granulation tissue that one could imagine,” Baer later wrote in a 1931 report in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Maggots have long been associated with death, but in this case, they were helping the soldiers stay alive. As these insects were simply tucking in for their typical meal of dead, decaying flesh, they were inadvertently aiding the soldiers by cleaning their wounds, keeping infection at bay. The soldiers recovered—saved by their tiny, wriggling “friends which had been doing such noble work,” Baer wrote. Baer's paper is one of the first reports of maggots used in medicine, but these insects have been found healing wounds for thousands of years, with references in the Old Testament and in ancient cultures of New South Wales and Northern Myanmar. Read the rest on sciencefriday.com.

Encryption, Business’s Moral Dilemma, and Diversity Rubric: Jon Callas talks about his long and illustrious career, offers unusual advice on how to address the diversity and the skills gap, discusses the advantages of encryption, and is positive about the protection of privacy, believing the future lies in proper policy, regulation, legislation, and consumer activism. 01:09 […]

Jon Callas is a computer security expert, software engineer, user experience designer, and technologist. This week, Callas and Clarke talk about the early days of encryption, where Callas was a major contributor to the field as a co-founder of Pretty Good Privacy software. They discuss government forays into surveillance, like using the clipper chip to secure voice and data messages, as well as the FBI’s attempt to pressure Apple to create software access to iPhones following the San Bernardino terrorist attack. They also discuss the rise in surveillance through facial recognition technology, including Taylor Swift’s security team tracking down stalkers through mass facial recognition at concerts. Overall, they get into the details about the growing capabilities of surveillance state and need for better policies for maintaining privacy under gaze of government surveillance. And the need for more rules and regulations to keep from losing privacy through “a death of a Thousand Cuts.” Twitter: @joncallashttps://www.aclu.org/report/dawn-robot-surveillanceWebsite: FutureStatePodcast.comTwitter: @richardclarkeInstagram: @futurestate

Jon Callas has been at the forefront of computer security issues for a long time, most recently as the head of Apple's team of internal hackers that try to break into the company's own products. But just a couple of months ago, he made a change, and left Apple to work on tech policy at the ACLU. This week, he joins us on the podcast to discuss the new job, computer security policy, and the latest phase of the crypto-wars.

Paul discusses on this Security News segment, Jeremiah Grossman, Apple hires crypto-wizard Jon Callas to beef up security, Google To Kill Passwords On Android, and a ton more from our other guests! Here on Security News!

This week on Security Weekly, we interview Wade Baker, Vice President of ThreatConnect! Paul, Jack, Jeff, and Larry address listener feedback and questions. Paul discusses, Jeremiah Grossman, Apple hiring crypto-wizard Jon Callas to beef up security, Google killing passwords on Android, and lots more in Security News.

Paul discusses on this Security News segment, Jeremiah Grossman, Apple hires crypto-wizard Jon Callas to beef up security, Google To Kill Passwords On Android, and a ton more from our other guests! Here on Security News.  

In this episode... Jon Callas gives a little of his background and his current role We talk through why cryptography is so hard, and so broken today Jon overviews compatibility, audit and making cryptography useful Jon brings up open source, security, and why "open is more secure" is bunk We talk through "barn builders" vs. "barn kickers" and why security isn't improving We talk through how to do privacy, active vs. passive surveillance We talk through anonymous VPN providers, anonymization services, and how they're legally bound Jon talks about appropriate threat modeling and knowing what we're protecting We talk through patching -- how to do patching for Joe Average User Bonus-- Mobile is as secure (or more) than what we're used to on the desktop Guest Jon Callas ( @JonCallas ) - Jon Callas is an American computer security expert, software engineer, user experience designer, and technologist who is the co-founder and CTO of the global encrypted communications service Silent Circle. He has held major positions at Digital Equipment Corporation, Apple, PGP, and Entrust, and is considered “one of the most respected and well-known names in the mobile security industry.” Callas is credited with creating several Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards, including OpenPGP, DKIM, and ZRTP, which he wrote. Prior to his work at Entrust, he was Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of PGP Corporation and the former Chief Technical Officer of Entrust.

Panel: Ephemeral Communications: Why and How? Ryan Lackey Founder, CryptoSeal, Inc. Jon Callas Silent Circle Elissa Shevinsky Glimpse Possibly more to come..... Ephemeral communications applications are increasingly popular ways, especially among younger users, to communicate online. In contrast to “once it’s on the Internet, it’s forever”, these applications promise to delete information rapidly, or to maintain anonymity indefinitely, lowering inhibitions to share sensitive or personal content. There are several types of these applications, as well as ephemeral or anonymous publication use of mainstream tools, with unique security features and general utility. Key people from the major ephemeral applications will debate where the market is, where it’s going, and how these systems can best balance user desires with technical and legal requirements. Ryan Lackey, Founder of CryptoSeal, founded HavenCo, the world’s first offshore datahaven, and has worked as a defense contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, at various technology startups, and is currently working on a secure hardware-based router for business travelers. Jon Callas, CTO of SilentCircle, is co-founder of PGP Corporation and Silent Circle. Elissa Shevinsky, Founder of Glimpse.

Traffic analysis is gathering information about parties not by analyzing the content of their communications, but through the metadata of those communications. It is not a single technique, but a family of techniques that are powerful and hard to defend against. Traffic analysis is also one of the least studied and least well understood techniques in the hacking repertoire. Listen to experts in information security discuss what we know and what we don't.

Traffic analysis is gathering information about parties not by analyzing the content of their communications, but through the metadata of those communications. It is not a single technique, but a family of techniques that are powerful and hard to defend against. Traffic analysis is also one of the least studied and least well understood techniques in the hacking repertoire. Listen to experts in information security discuss what we know and what we don't.