Rants and ramblings of a lecturer
Aslate has an interesting account of how they managed to locate and recover their stolen tech within 6 hours of it being swiped.
http://www.thefryhole.co.uk/wordpress/2010/04/dont-steal-from-a-compsci/
Oh, and their server appears to be suffering under the load, so be gentle and go back later to read it – it’s worth it.
The Telegraph has an artice on how a band called The Get Out Clause used CCTV cameras to create their own video.
They then used the Freedom of Information Act to then get hold of the footage. What I find worrying is that only a quarter of the organisations who were asked for the footage deigned to provide it…
A Guardian article about how chip and pin is not really any more secure than the old system, and the only change is that banks are now not paying claims, instead blaming the card owner for giving their cards and pins out. Their argument – you can’t copy these chips!
The article raises some important security concerns. Also, do you believe that reported card crime is down, now that you don’t report it to the police, the bank does that for you after they decide if it’s worth reporting?
And rather than make another post, I just have to link to this article about airport and airline security, and how completely absurd the whole thing is.
Personally, I fell that they’ve already won, by getting us to allow our government to take away civil liberties, whilst most of the voting public either encourage it, or just lay down and take it.
One of the comments near the top of the page, made by a pilot who is also subject to these security checks puts it quite succinctly:
Let’s think about something. I am in my pilot uniform and going through security and about to fly an aircraft and passengers from point A to B. I and my co-pilot will be sealed in the cockpit in front of a security door that cannot be opened from the outside. I will have in my hands the only “lethal” weapon used on 9/11, – the control yoke. So just what is it the TSA is checking me for? A gun? A knife? What? If I had been recuited by ‘the bad guys’ do I need to carry ANYTHING lethal? Of course not! Therefore, I should not have to go through security at all!
50 days in the slammer if you’re unlucky!
Lakshmana Kailash K. who is described as a 26 year old techie was arrested and held for 50 days. Apparently he was fingered by google and his ISP for posting unflattering pictures of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, who is apperently a revered figure in India on orkut (google’s social networking site). Google coughed up the IP address, and the ISP traced it back to his account. Unfortunately they got it wrong somewhere, and he was released 50 days later when the caught the real culprits.
The UK apparently still has a way to go to erode freedom of speech to level in India – but I think the politicians are taking leads from various places. 😉
I’d not come across xkcd until someone showed me the comic today!
It’s just too good not to look at:
Please people, stop telling me that bum_tnoo7@hotmail.com (or bu_tnoo7) is a hacker and I shouldn’t add him to my facebook account.
It’s already wasted far too much bandwidth, the message itself that is forwarded is technically rubbish, and you yourself are being used by the “virus” as the propagation mechanism.
Oh, and before I get a load of comments on “how do you know”, “what makes you an expert” – I teach a course on hacking to the Masters courses, and if you don’t believe me, then do some research yourself – http://www.sophos.com/security/hoaxes/facebook_hacker.html
Important
If you receive this or a similar message, please do not forward it to your friends and colleagues. Forwarding unsolicited chain letters wastes time and bandwidth.
It’s a fairly hot number – decimalists may prefer 13256278887989457651018865901401704640
Actually it’s really old news, but I’ve not had a takedown notice for a while… Of course, if I do get a takedown notice similar to the ones that have been issued, then it’ll contain the URL of this page, which incidentally is http://pcbo.dcs.aber.ac.uk/blog/2007/05/22/09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0/
and that of course, has the number in it, so I can reasonably post about it as it’s the title of a web page that was taken down.
The genie has been out of the bottle for a while now. When will these people realise that we want to be able to use things that we pay for in ways that they haven’t thought of yet. We don’t like DRM, because it stops us from using Macs and Linux boxes, not to mention my old Amigas. Their bully boy tactics just irritate the savvy punters, and are they not usually the early adopters – the ones that pay the premiums to prove the new tech before the prices come down to consumer level?
There’s some rather nice designs for shirts with it on at Cafe Press
And don’t forget to get your very own number at Freedom to tinker