Mark Curphey, a really smart guy I respect for his work founding OWASP and creating the first edition of the Guide, lost a goodly percentage of my respect today: I did some patent review work in Dallas recently. I traded my security consulting time to a company who in return provided their legal firms time…
Category: Rants
It’s not opinion, Richard
For the second time, I helped SANS compile their Top 20. I don’t know about the other sections, C1 is primarily my section. As always, there will be knockers. However, I was a bit surprised about one contrarian, the normally interesting and challenging Richard Bejtlich. Richard writes: As far as the nature of the list…
Attack vector for Windows Genuine Disadvantage
The other day, WGA decided that my volume licensed copy of Visio was a pirated copy. This is laughable… and annoying. Luckily, the situation sorted itself out; I have Visio 2007 installed and I was able to use that until Microsoft used the rubber hose on WGA’s servers. But it got me to thinking how…
How many inaccuracies can a single song contain?
I don’t know about you, but I find artists who know very little of what they complain about frustrating. I am not talking about irony and the lack of it in Ironic by Alannis Morrisette, but I wish I was a punk rocker (with flowers in my hair) by Sandi Thom. If you’re a fan…
The land of ouchy hamburgers
I’m working on tomorrow’s presentation to a major ISV. I don’t really have time to pop out and eat properly, so I order in. Most of the time, I don’t like doing this as the food often comes a bit cooler than I would like, the salads a bit limp and it’s always overpriced. I…
eBay: do not recommend, waste of time
Well, I’ve just had my first experience with eBay of being kicked in the teeth for being honest. I’ve been a member for six years, and until last week, I maintained a perfect 100% reputation basically by being me in all my dealings. Here’s a hint – it’s simply not worth it as eBay will…
Moronic security is a risk in itself
There must be a special breed of moron common in the physical security world. Much is made of how secure many office buildings are, but this is not my experience as a gifted tailgator. Today, after 14 months of waiting, I managed to get a car park in my building. I am chuffed as it…
Why Apple will never win the desktop dominance battle
For the last few months, I’ve been battling a debilitating issue with my Apple G4 laptop. It has narcolepsy. The trackpad in many G4 laptops contains a faulty temperature sensor. It normally reads -16 to 4 C (which is wrong), but the operating system monitors it. From time to time (and for me all the…
greebo.net blacklisted by various terrorist organizations
I am pissed. My server has been blacklisted by various spam blacklist sites… because my nameserver (something I do not control) and my netblock is owned by someone the RBLs don’t like. I found out today that our hoster, Quantum Tech, is owned by a convicted spammer. But unless you rub shoulders in the dark…
World of Warcraft: bigotry and interventions
On bigotry As (more than) well documented elsewhere, Blizzard have some explaining to do. They selectively stamp out gay, bi, lesbian and transgender friendly activities and options (such as advertising GBLT friendly guilds or in game same gender marriage), but do not stamp out the hetero version of the same activity. Either ban both, or…