I read just read this article Best Western and the worst kind of security mix-up. Over the past couple of days it has emerged that customer details, including name, address, phone and credit card numbers were stolen when Best Western were hacked by an Indian hacker with ties to the Russian Mafia.

What needs to be further highlighted is that as we commit more information to electronic storage and retrieval, it is more vulnerable. As we have see in the past year of data loses, vast amounts of information can be lost or exposed through very simple human error or negligence.

Tougher encryption and security is also a joke. In the programming world it is well know that if you can code it, you can hack it. Examples of so called unbreakable security are the DVD format and the security researchers cloning the new passport chips.

We are truly heading towards an information age where there are no secrets, regardless of the noise government makes. Big Brother is its own worst enemy. The traditional idea of security has to be radically rethought.

We are seeing this theme being played out currently in the world of software development, especially with web browsers and Operating Systems. We see the realm of Open Source where vulnerabilities are publicly acknowledged and addressed verses proprietary commercial software where the mantra is security through obscurity (Apple) and denial (Macintosh).

Last year on Google Maps you could go and look at satellite images of a top secret US Navy submarine in dry dock. The US military screamed to take down the images. D'uh hello? If a commercial satellite snapped pictures of this submarine with out looking for it, what about all of the spy satellites that are?

It all goes to show that our concept of security is no more than just that, a concept, or at worse a dangerous expensive joke.

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I have always learnt how to code by example. I find some one else's code open it up have a look around, and start hacking. But every once in a while I'll come across some code that has been obfuscated. It has never stopped me in the past, and usually I've taken a long and laborious way to make it readable again.

Well today, I was feeling particularly impatient with the JavaScript I wanted to open up. I looked through my Firefox plugins and found nothing, so I then googled for a solution. To my surprise I found something extremely simple and elegant.

alert(function showMeTheCode() { yourJSgoesHere });

The "yourJSgoesHere" is of course replaced with the code you want to unobfuscate. Firefox will then print you an alert with neatly formatted JavaScript. Enjoy!

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