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Technology Industry News & Career Management information, brought to you by BrainWave Consulting Company.
June 2008 - Posts
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This seems like a good idea: Eager to embrace eggheads and ideas, the Pentagon has started an ambitious and unusual program to recruit social scientists and direct the nation’s brainpower to combating security threats like the Chinese military, Iraq, terrorism and religious fundamentalism. The article talks a lot about potential conflicts of interest and such, and less on what sorts... Share Post: Read More...
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I'm writing from the First Interdisciplinary Workshop on Security and Human Behavior (SHB 08). Security is both a feeling and a reality, and they're different. There are several different research communities: technologists who study security systems, and psychologists who study people, not to mention economists, anthropologists and others. Increasingly these worlds are colliding. Security design is Read More...
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This is not a joke. The Airplane Trap Door is my favorite. Perhaps this would make a good Movie-Plot Threat Contest for next year.... Share Post: Read More...
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Dear Bob ...Here's a little something from the competition. I think you'll like it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNKKJTPSMYKZKM8. [Note: It's a blog post from Gerald Weinberg in which he explains his policy of offering a no-questions-asked refund for any client that doesn't feel his work is worth Read More...
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Dear Bob ...Overall, I think you wrote a good article ("No excuse," Keep the Joint Running, 6/16/2008). However, I have to wonder about your statement, "It's worse than immoral. It's inefficient."It seems to me that, in the grand scheme of things, morality is a higher value than efficiency, Some pretty Read More...
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In Brazil. I think this is the first security vulnerability found in RFC 1149: "Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers." Deep packet inspection seems to be the only way to prevent this attack, although adequate fencing will prevent the protocol from running in the first place.... Share Post: Read More...
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Pervasive security cameras don't substantially reduce crime. There are exceptions, of course, and that's what gets the press. Most famously, CCTV cameras helped catch James Bulger's murderers in 1993. And earlier this year, they helped convict Steve Wright of murdering five women in the Ipswich area. But these are the well-publicised exceptions. Overall, CCTV cameras aren't very effective. This fact... Read More...
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I've seen the IR screening guns at several airports, primarily in Asia. The idea is to keep out people with Bird Flu, or whatever the current fever scare is. This essayexplains why it won't work: The bottom line is that this kind of remote fever sensing had poor positive predictive value, meaning that the proportion of people correctly identified as... Share Post: Read More...
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Dear Bob ...A few higher-ups in my department frequently go on outings to social events. They are all part of the "inner-circle" of team members who have similar interests and get along well. They also like to call these outings "business meetings."I know what goes on at these "business meetings." It Read More...
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UK teens are using Google Earth to find swimming pools they can crash. How long before someone finds a more serious crime that can be aided by Google Earth.... Share Post: Read More...
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From Toronto Mayor David Miller: "In a day when you can't bring a large tube of toothpaste on a plane how can you allow guns to wander through Union Station, the biggest transit hub in Canada?" he asked his colleagues on city council. By that logic, I think we can ban anything from anywhere.... Share Post: Read More...
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Dear Bob ...I have seen two types of IT professionals. The first type is expert at something, e.g. business intelligence systems, or database administration. The second type is a "Jack of all trades but master of none"; an arguable example is an IT architect who is business domain/technical platform Read More...
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A new study claims that insiders aren't the main threat to network security: Verizon's 2008 Data Breach Investigations Report, which looked at 500 breach incidents over the last four years, contradicts the growing orthodoxy that insiders, rather than external agents, represent the most serious threat to network security at most organizations. Seventy-three percent of the breaches involved outsiders, Read More...
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Dear Bob ...I recently started working as a mid-level manager at a small company. My boss initially ran my department and another department, however she was in over her head and making a lot of mistakes. I was asked to run my department and she was moved to only run the other department. At the time Read More...
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Swimming pools around Shanghai are checking liquids: "Pool guests who bring these items must allow them to be opened and inspected. Security personnel will smell them to see whether they are safe or not," a separate report posted on the city's sport bureau's website said (www.shsports.gov.cn). The stupidity is beyond words.... Share Post: Read More...
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Interesting: "We have found we can potentially detect an incredibly small quantity of material, as small as one dust-speck-sized particle weighing one trillionth of a gram, on an individual's clothing or baggage," Farquar said. "This is important because if a person handles explosives they are likely to have some remaining residue." Using a system they call Single-Particle Aerosol Mass Spectrometry,... Read More...
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We're contaminating the squid: The toxic chemicals that Vecchione and colleagues from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science found are a rogues gallery of scary initials: PCBs, TBTs, BDEs, and DDT among them. Scientists classify all of them as POPs, or persistent... Share Post: Read More...
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Dear Bob ...I recently started a new position as a contractor. I've only been here for a month and so am still learning the environment, the people, and so on. I'm not in a position where it would be wise to rock the boat.However, another tech on the team has been engaging in a particular behavior that Read More...
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A runner-up in last year's Underhanded C Contest was a flawed implementation of RC4 that eventually just passed plaintext through unencrypted. Plausibly deniable, and very clever. The other winners are also clever.... Share Post: Read More...
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A Jura F90 Coffee Machine can be hacked remotely over the Internet.... Share Post: Read More...
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Traffic analysis works even through the encryption: The new compression technique, called variable bitrate compression produces different size packets of data for different sounds. That happens because the sampling rate is kept high for long complex sounds like "ow", but cut down for simple consonants like "c". This variable method saves on bandwidth, while maintaining sound quality. VoIP streams are... Read More...
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Sometimes security through obscurity works: Yes, the New York Police Department provided an escort, but during more than eight hours on Saturday, one of the great hoards of coins and currency on the planet, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was utterly unalarmed as it was bumped through potholes, squeezed by double-parked cars and slowed by tunnel-bound traffic during the... Share Post: Read More...
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Impressive: The 'ring of the devil' is capable of attacking this kind of electronic motor lock on two ways. Scenario 1: An electronic motor is nothing more then a metal part on an axe that turns because of a changing magnetic field. Turning electro magnets on and off will generate a pulling force on the metal part, making it rotate.... Share Post: Read More...
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No questions, no answers, just some griping:1. This shouldn't annoy me but it does: Every time I go to Microsoft's site it invites me to install Silverlight. Can't someone invent a "No" cookie to respond to all offers unless I decide I'm in the mood?Today I was trying to figure out whether to go with Read More...
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LifeLock, one of the companies that offers identity-theft protection in the United States, has been taking quite a beating recently. They're being sued by credit bureaus, competitors and lawyers in several states that are launching class action lawsuits. And the stories in the media ... it's like a piranha feeding frenzy. There are also a lot of errors and misconceptions.... Share Post: Read More...
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I've never figured out the fuss over ransomware: Some day soon, you may go in and turn on your Windows PC and find your most valuable files locked up tighter than Fort Knox. You'll also see this message appear on your screen: "Your files are encrypted with RSA-1024 algorithm. To recovery your files you need to buy our decryptor. To... Share Post: Read More...
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The Storm worm is being used to such as Viagra.... Share Post: Read More...
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Dear Bob ...You've written recently about the desirability of "chunking" business change into small increments, including coining a new name -- "Agile Business Change" (ABC) -- for a methodology you haven't fully developed yet. [See "Fruitful business change," 5/26/2008 and "A business change cornucopicolumn," Read More...
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Weird: Usually, cuttlefish eggs lie in an envelope full of black ink. But this clears as the embryos grow older, leaving them growing within translucent eggs. These unborn cuttlefish also have fully developed eyes. That leads the researchers to conclude that the cuttlefish embryos must peer through their eggs, and learn to recognise their prey, a behaviour which will help... Share Post: Read More...
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Oops. At least they were found and returned. Keith Vaz MP, chairman of the powerful Home Affairs select committee told the BBC: "Such confidential documents should be locked away...they should not be read on trains." You think?... Share Post: Read More...
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I can't figure this story out. Kaspersky Lab is launching an international distributed effort to crack a 1024-bit RSA key used by the Gpcode Virus. From their website: We estimate it would take around 15 million modern computers, running for about a year, to crack such a key. What are they smoking at Kaspersky? We've never factored a 1024-bit number... Share Post: Read More...
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Website. Review. IMDB listing and more reviews.... Share Post: Read More...
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The TSA has a new photo ID requirement: Beginning Saturday, June 21, 2008 passengers that willfully refuse to provide identification at security checkpoint will be denied access to the secure area of airports. This change will apply exclusively to individuals that simply refuse to provide any identification or assist transportation security officers in ascertaining their identity. This new procedure Read More...
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Dear Bob ...Are career minded people necessary at professional level jobs? For instance, if a Security Systems Administrator has no career direction or desire to enhance his or her career, can he or she be effective long term? When a person takes a stance that his or her career is not important and a Read More...
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Interesting burglar prevention device: it simulates a television. But why not just leave a real television on?... Share Post: Read More...
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We're spending money on this? ...a new GPS device enables authorities to remotely control a bus -- slowing it down to 5 mph and preventing it from restarting once it has stopped. The device has been installed on thousands of local commuter and tourist buses. The technology is designed to prevent a terrorist from ramming a bus filled with people... Share Post: Read More...
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That's what the rules say: Sikh passengers are allowed to carry Kirpan with them on board domestic flights. The total length of the 'Kirpan' should not exceed 22.86 CMs (9 inches) and the length of the blade should not exceed 15.24 CMs. (6 inches). It is being reiterated that these instructions should be fully implemented by concerned security personnel so... Share Post: Read More...
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Is Subivor even real? Whether it is a train fire, a highrise building fire or worse. People should have more protection than a necktie, their shirt or paper towel to cover their mouth, nose and eyes. As you know an emergency can happen at anytime and in anyplace, leaving one vulnerable. Don't be a sitting duck. The Subivor® Subway Emergency... Share Post: Read More...
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Dear Bob ...We are in the process of starting a project to rewrite our legacy applications into .NET. Because of our business situation, we have a requirement to maintain a rich client experience. One of the difficulties in managing technology is the ever-changing toolset that developers use. We want Read More...
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Researchers from the University of Washington have demonstrated how lousy the MPAA/RIAA/etc tactics are by successfuly framing printers on their network. These printers, who can't download anything, received over 400 takedown notices: The researchers rigged the software agents to implicate three laserjet printers, which were then accused in takedown letters by the M.P.A.A. of downloading copies of Read More...
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Dear Bob ...I'd like your opinion about something Management could have the IT department do to bring ideas to the table and start the coordination process: A blind blog.A concept or problem is put on a company message board ... then it is kicked around by management or the team (depending on what level Read More...
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Amusing. I'm tickled by the idea of a motivational poster with my picture on it, but want a more interesting/amusing/clever/inspirational caption. Ideas?... Share Post: Read More...
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"Giant Squid Thrown On Ice To Celebrate Red Wings Hat Trick"... Share Post: Read More...
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"Reporters Expose Airport Security Lapses By Blowing Up Plane" and "Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early".... Share Post: Read More...
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Some expensive and impressive stuff was stolen from the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology: A dozen pieces of gold jewelry designed by prominent Canadian artist Bill Reid were stolen from the museum sometime on May 23, along with three pieces of gold-plated Mexican jewelry. The pieces that were taken are estimated to be worth close to $2 million.... Share Post: Read More...
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This is clever: Michael Largent, 22, of Plumas Lake, California, allegedly exploited a loophole in a common procedure both companies follow when a customer links his brokerage account to a bank account for the first time. To verify that the account number and routing information is correct, the brokerages automatically send small "micro-deposits" of between two cents to one dollar... Share Post: Read More...
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What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are? Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going... Share Read More...
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I already blogged this once: an airplane-seat camera system that tries to detect terrorists before they leap up and do whatever they were planning on doing. Amazingly enough, the EU is "testing" this system: Each camera tracks passengers' facial expressions, with the footage then analysed by software to detect developing terrorist activity or potential air rage. Six wide-angle cameras are... Share Read More...
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A bit of context: The following inquiry asks about the "Agile Business Change" methodology I introduced in Keep the Joint Running, ("Fruitful business change," 5/26/2008). It's an attempt to extend Agile-style software development methodologies to encompass business change in its entirety. It takes the Read More...
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Yesterday the Center for American Progress published its paper on identification and identification technologies: "The ID Divide: Addressing the Challenges of Identification and Authentication in American Society." I was one of the participants in the project that created this paper, and it's worth reading. Among other things, the paper identifies six principles for identification systems: Achieve Read More...
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This video is priceless. A Washington DC news crew goes down to Union Station to interview someone from Amtrak about people who have been stopped from taking pictures even though there's no policy against it. As the Amtrack spokesperson is explaining that there is no policy against photography, a guard comes up and tries to stop them from filming, saying... Share Post: Read More...
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Dear Bob ...I too am trying to get in to the consulting business ... well a type of consulting I guess. I have a side-business aside from my day-to-day job where I repair computers/networks and consult on the addition of technology in to an organization or home/office. It's nothing fancy. Matter of fact, Read More...
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Aren't fax signatures the weirdest thing? It's trivial to cut and paste -- with real scissors and glue -- anyone's signature onto a document so that it'll look real when faxed. There is so little security in fax signatures that it's mind-boggling that anyone accepts them. Yet people do, all the time. I've signed book contracts, credit card authorizations, nondisclosure... Share Post: Read More...
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London Heathrow security stopped someone from boarding a plane for wearing a Transformers T-shirt showing a cartoon gun. It's easy to laugh and move on. How stupid can these people be, we wonder. But there's a more important security lesson here. Security screening is hard, and every false threat the screeners watch out for make it more likely that real... Share Post: Read More...
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It's easy to laugh at the You've Been Left Behind site, which purports to send automatic e-mails to your friends after the Rapture: The unsaved will be 'left behind' on earth to go through the "tribulation period" after the "Rapture".... We have made it possible for you to send them a letter of love and a plea to receive Christ... Share Post: Read More...
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This article claims that the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army was behind, among other things, the August 2003 blackout: Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings Read More...
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Dear Bob ...Nobody has mentioned this (in the discussion about diversity in the workplace):In general --1) Men are more aggressive, and women are more defensive2) Men crave power and women crave attention. This was brought about by evolution.To protect the young and to find a supportive mate, for the Read More...
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