Moss, also known as Dark Tangent, founded both the DefCon and Black Hat hacker conferences in addition to legit security work—most notably at Ernst and Young, one of those giant corporations that provides auditors, attorneys, brokers, designers, and lots more to other companies. He's a sort of godfather of hackers, a pioneer who uses his underground skills in mostly above-ground ways.

As the Obama administration has been placing a heavier focus on cybersecurity, it's an extremely smart move to ask one of the world's foremost professional hackers to assist on the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. He's got enough expertise to really be able to offer some help, but he's also not a dangerous hacker—one analyst called him "as corporate as hiring someone out of Microsoft," meaning that for the hacking world, Moss is hardly a loose cannon. But that's exactly why it's also a smart political choice. Picking a hacker seems like an edgy choice, but Moss is a guy who's worked for Fortune 500 companies, not someone who's working in his basement to bring down the power grid.

We're looking forward to seeing cybersecurity finally advance, and this kind of guy is just what we need to get ourselves back on track. [CNET]

In the event you're stopped by overzealous law enforcement or security officials attempting to enforce fictitious laws, I've designed these fictitious and official-looking Photographer's Licenses. If you have Adobe Illustrator, you can download the EPS vector art file and print your own. You'll need a photo of yourself, and OCR (or a similar font) to fill in your personal information.

Ever since September 11th, rent-a-cops and actual cops alike have been enforcing non-existent laws with regard to taking photographs of subjects that some might consider a security threat. Granted, displaying a falsified Department of Homeland Security ID in an attempt to dodge these "rules" is most certainly going to get you in a world of trouble that far exceeds taking an innocent photograph. Two stupids don't make a right my friends. [Matthew Williams Design via JWZ via Boing Boing]

Update: Matthew Williams asked us to take down the image for now while he figures out some legal stuff. Will update as we hear more.

DHS is currently collecting human odor samples and beginning preliminary work to uncover indicators that could be used against potential criminals. Essentially, they believe that an odor may not only be unique to a particular individual, but can also a "useful indicator of certain human behaviors." This research has a foundation in recent studies that have used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze organic compounds in human sweat. These studies have indicated that there may very well be marker compounds in human sweat that can be used to identify individuals, and that these "odor fingerprints" can change over time for as yet unknown reasons.

Naturally, civil liberties advocates (especially the smelly ones) are taking issue with this research, claiming that the department had "misplaced priorities."

"The history of DHS' deployment of these technologies has been one colossal failure after another," he said. "There is no lie detector. This research has been a long, meandering journey, which has taken us down one blind alley after another."

Personally, I would have to agree with the ACLU on this one. I'm no scientist, but I would imagine that there are too many variables like diet and scented perfumes/creams that could result in inconsistencies. It seems like less of an exact science than other biometric technologies. [UPI]

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Product Page [SecurityEdition.com]