Quick review: Columbus Day – Craig Alanson (Expeditionary Force)

Columbus Day doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Joe Bishop is hiding from technologically-advanced aliens, then he's a Starship Trooper, a several page description of military technologies follows, and then not much happens while Joe does farming and slice-of-lifey things with a side… »

Questionable crypto - Neal Asher's ‘Depature’

Last time, we investigated some questionable design choices in the TLS-like AF protocol from Autonomous. Today's unfortunate victim is a TOTP-like monstrosity from Neal Asher's The Departure. Near the end of the novel, the main character, Saul, commandeers a network of robots… »

Questionable crypto in Annalee Newitz's ‘Autonomous’

Autonomous is a 2017 novel from former io9 editor Annalee Newitz. One of the viewpoint characters is a bot, Paladin, and during his first few pages, we are treated to the following exchange between him and another bot, Fang:

The mantis [Fang] beamed Paladin a