Well, it’s time to update the Linux. The latest update is Hardy Heron.
Computer people like cute names, and each Linux/ubuntu update has an animal name to identify it. Hardy Heron, gutsy Gibbon, etc.
The last time  I updated my Ubuntu operating sytem, I downloaded a torrent file of the iso (in English, I downloaded a new […]

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Once in awhile, I speculate that stolen information is a lot more valuable to the criminal element before it becomes apparent that it’s been stolen. I’ve also speculated aloud that there is probably a lot more stolen information out there than we are aware of. The good folks at Finjan are well on their way […]

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It appears that Tom Fragala and the MyTruston team have raked in (yet) another award. This time from the Pacific Coast Business Times as one of the hot start-up companies coming from California’s Central Coast.
Tom Fragala, Truston’s CEO wrote on his blog, “This recognition comes on the heels of being named a 2008 Hot Company […]

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I happened to notice, I was getting a lot of hits on some posts about the Certegy data breach and discovered that there is a proposed settlement in the class action law suit against them.
Tim Wilson at Dark Reading pointed out that this settlement amounts to Certegy paying less than $1 per victim and wrote:
Certegy Check […]

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A Calgary family is mourning the loss of their baby that may be the fault of using an internet telephone service.
Sandra Luck says it was due to a VOIP 911 call that went unanswered. She watched her 18 month old nephew, Elija fight for his life while they waited for emergency help to arrive. She […]

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Crimeware salesmen, like most e-commerce types, take a dim view when their creations are knocked-off (pirated). To protect themselves, they warn their customers (Internet criminal types) that if their products are counterfeited, they can and will be reported to the anti-virus companies.
Specifically, the verbiage used as reported on the Symantec blog is, “the binary code […]

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That heparin contamination that killed a few dozen folks might have been a deliberate act, not an accident…well, duh…
I noted that two weeks ago…
And this is on the heels of the fake protein in cat/dog food, and the lead in the kids’s toys.
But in Africa and Asia, things are worse. The tainted cough medicine that […]

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Part Two of this on going series will focus on the reasons why the Ebay Feedback system is treating sellers and buyers unfairly. However, most recent Ebay policy changes with regard to eliminating the capability for a seller to defend his or her own terms and conditions makes it more unfair for the seller. In […]

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Welcome to the meat of the future: lab grown meat.
No, it’ not science fiction, and it’s not tofu burger. It is growing meat from a cell similar to how scientists grow tissue cultures, but in this case, it would be taking stem cells, manipulating them to produce muscle in tissue culture, resulting in sheets of […]

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There are so many scams doing the rounds online that it is hard to keep abreast of them all. Based on my email traffic the one of the most prolific involves online pharmacies. For the longest time they contented themselves with selling knock off Viagra pills at hugely inflated prices, however there is a new […]

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I am by no means an activist, merely a regular guy who doesn’t think much of the way we have treated the planet. Much of the blame can be heaped on the shoulders of the Baby Boomer generation, of which I am a card carrying member!
It is great to see individuals and companies thinking green. […]

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I like the Nintendo Wii, I really do.  It’s a fun system that doesn’t take a whole ton of gamer strategy, thumb agility and appeals to a wider audience than the typical Play Station or X-box gamer.   That being said, my mind can’t always get out of the box and understand how you can play […]

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I’ve often written about borderless crime being committed with a click of a mouse, as well as, the lines that law enforcement jurisdictions impose, which can make investigative and prosecution efforts, frustrating.
The Attorney General and the Justice Department are announcing a new strategy to go after the problem.
From the press release on fbi.gov:
Today, Attorney General […]

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I recently had the opportunity to take the new IOGEAR Portable Media Player out for a test drive. To say the least, I was impressed. Here is a device little bigger than a cigarette pack that can hold 50 hours of DVD quality video, or 30,000 MP3 music files.
Keith Renty is the strategic business and […]

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With spam e-mails offering too good to be true come-ons filling up our mailboxes, we often forget that there are some very real people who get victimized after falling for one of them.
Of course with the availability of botnets — which command legions of spam spewing zombies (compromised computers)– even if only a few people […]

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Tired of continually being asked “Where was the wall?” by all of those countless tourists who come to visit the city every year, a Berlin company called Mauerguide has “like had it totally up to here” or something and will start handing out hand-sized minicomputers next week which will show these annoying Quälgeister (nuisances) just […]

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It has been reported that a meeting of the justice ministers of EU has  agreed that using the Internet to publish bomb recipes or call for acts of terrorism to be committed should count as a criminal offence. The members have agreed to introduce the law […]

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On his birthday, Uriel Maimon of RSA reflected about a lot of personal things (as most of us do), as well as, how spam and phishing are becoming more sophisticated and dangerous.
One major player in the spam and phishing game are known as the “Rock Phish.” In his birthday post, Uriel gives us a little historical […]

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“No less than 48 comments prior to me reading this and not a single positive note with regard to this policy move.” This is what I was thinking after less than 24 hours from the time I read the post that appeared at AustraliaIT.com.news regarding Ebay/Paypal’s announcement that would force all Australian Ebay account holders […]

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The mainstream media is reporting that the Phishermen attempted to spear a large number of corporate executive types this week.
This form of phishing is referred to as spear phishing, or whaling. The intent of phishing is to trick an unwary human being into giving up sensitive personal or financial information, which is later used to […]

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In what can only be viewed as bizarre, the RIAA have hit new lows in their fruitless attempt to prevent music piracy. They have gone after children, the computer inept, even the dead, in their relentless quest for justice. Now they have decided that the homeless should be caught in the net. Of course it […]

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Vladuz, the mysterious hacker, who seemed to take great pleasure in hacking eBay has been arrested, according to eBay.
Ina Steiner reports on the AuctionBytes blog:
A cyber-criminal who embarrassed eBay for nearly a year with claims he had hacked the site was arrested on Thursday, according to eBay. “Vladuz” had harassed eBay with his taunting from […]

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I came across some pretty sad news on Tom Fragala’s blog that Attrition.org was throwing in the towel on their well respected DLDOS (Data Loss Database - Open Source).
In their own words, this is the reason why they are shutting down:
Much like Attrition.org’s past defacement mirror, the time has come for us to say “no […]

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After just being named a 2008 Hot Company, Tom Fragala and the Truston team have another award under their belt.
From the Marketwire press release:
Truston®, a provider of award-winning online services for identity theft protection, announced today that Info Security Products Guide, the world’s leading publication on security-related products and technologies, has named myTruston® a winner […]

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Attention Conspiracy theorists.
They caught two of the ships that caused part of that Middle East Cable outage, and it turns out it was not done by the CIA, or Mossad, or Iran, or Alqaeda.
Just some careless sailors.
There were four cable cuts at the time; this story refers to the FLAG cable between Oman and the […]

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There have been rumblings about eBay’s business strategy for quite a while. eBay came out of nowhere, just another start-up, and overnight became the vehicle for an entire industry. The concept was simplicity itself, join buyers to sellers, and do it in such a way that both sides viewed it as a win.
I have a […]

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On April 12, 1961, one of mankind’s greatest achievements occurred.
Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, carried there on a Vostok rocket.
In those days, it was an embarrassment for the United states, and led to Kennedy’s aim for the US to be first on the moon. The ultimate result of […]

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I thought they were already. Here in Germany, I mean. Anyway, thanks to “modern food preparation technology” you can now go out to eat at a place in Nuremburg where you don’t have to deal with those annoying, snooty and pesky waiters at all anymore. The machines do all of that for them now. “Jeez. […]

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The annual NAB Show is happening in Vegas April 11 – 17, this is the big trade show for the entertainment and broadcasting insiders. You won’t find any iPhone knockoffs, but you will find the very latest gear for the broadcasting world. It is estimated that $50 billion will be generated in sales as a […]

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The subject of Net Neutrality seems to be reaching a head here in Canada. And the driving force behind it, is not consumers, or ‘think tanks’ but rather ISP’s themselves. The internet is not a level playing field, but rather a type of grand MLM scheme. Most ISP’s in Canada are small fish serving from […]

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