Month: May 2019

Enlarge / The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has improved its information security since 2016, but it still has some weaknesses that could be exploited by attackers, researchers at SecurityScorecard found. The Republican National Committee is still a little ahead but has problems of its own. (credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In a study of US and European political parties' security postures, researchers at the security-monitoring company SecurityScorecard found that while the Democratic National Committee had made "significant investments" in security since being hacked in 2016, the Democrats still lagged behind the Republican National Committee's defenses. And both parties have problems that could still leak personally identifying information about voters.

According to the report, one major US political party was "programmatically leaking" personal information about voters through a voting validation application "which enumerates voter name, date of birth and address via search terms," the researchers noted. The vulnerability was disclosed to the party involved and other "appropriate parties."

SecurityScorecard's team looked at the DNC, RNC, Green Party, and Libertarian Party in the US. The Green Party had the best overall scores for security measures, while the Libertarian Party had a more laissez-faire approach to information security than the others—with a failing grade for its management of its domain name records, specifically for a total absence of Sender Protection Framework (SPF) records. The lack of SPF records means that it's more likely Libertarian Party domains could be spoofed in spear-phishing campaigns like those that were used to target the DNC in 2016. The Libertarians did come out ahead on network security scores, however.

Google I/O 2019 wrapped up on May 9th, but we're still picking through the incredible flood of information that came out of the show. In addition to the slew of announcements on keynote day, there are dozens of hours of sessions and documentation, plus a whole new Android release to pick though. Here are a few highlights from the show.

Android’s gesture navigation is actually good now

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  The new gesture navigation settings. On the right is what each navigation bar looks like. The "Full gesture nav" option actually saves space! [credit: Ron Amadeo ]

Every Google I/O presents a new release of Android, and paired with Google I/O 2019 is Android Q Beta 3. There really aren't a ton of changes in this beta release, but there is a new navigation system. There are three versions of system navigation in Android Q Beta 3, actually. The traditional three-button navigation is an option, even on devices like the Pixel 3, which originally did not ship with it. Apparently, the three-button mode will be returning to all phones for accessibility considerations, since the gesture system requires a significant amount of fine motor control. The existing Android Pie gesture system has been renamed "two-button navigation." The third option, called "Fully gestural navigation, "is new for Android Q Beta 3, and it's the best version of Android gesture navigation yet.

In Android P, the "two-button" gesture navigation was a bit of a mess. Google only replaced the Recent Apps button with a gesture, and Home and Back were still buttons. The bar didn't save any space, so there wasn't a huge benefit to using it. Beta three solves a lot of these problems. Every button is now a gesture. The navigation bar has been minimized to a slim strip about a third of the height of the usual bar. Some apps will even give you a fully transparent gesture navigation area. The new setup is very reminiscent of iOS, and that's what everyone has been asking for since the launch of gesture navigation with Android P.