Sunday, April 24, 2011

Some Catholic Priests Can's See Molesting Boys As Wrong

Geoffrey Robinson, a retired Catholic Auxiliary Bishop from Sydney, says that some priests don't see the molestation of small boys as breaching their celibacy vows.  I say that regardless of the vows that they made to a religion based on a mythical sky fairy, anyone fiddling with a child is a filthy low-life scumbag that deserves to rot in jail for their offences.
Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Happy Judgement Day

Today is Judgement Day.  All the best and I hope you, your family and friends survive.
Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Do journalists not spell check these days?

FFS, this is early childhood spelling, it's not even difficult!  (Sure, the death is tragic, but the spelling under the photograph is worse!)


(http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8239491/british-woman-dies-in-thailand-waterfall-tragedy)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Passwords v Passphrases v 2FA

Passwords suck.

Passphrases, on the other hand, suck less.

Two Factor Authentication (2FA) sucks the least.

Now, to give a bit more detail on this, passwords - a simple, usually less than 8-10 character word that someone uses to log into somewhere - are way, way too easily crackable and there are many "Top 100" or similar lists that have been published listing people's top password choices.  See this, this, and this to see just a few - possibly containg some of your passwords!  To see how the length and character set choice affect password "hackability", have a look at this page and also look at the calculator they offer - and 100,000 attempts/second isn't anything spectacular using modern computers.

So, if simple passwords suck, how do we address this properly?  Well, the best way is to forget you've ever heard the term "password" and automatically substitute "passphrase" where you read/see/hear this.  A passphrase is much more secure than a password because 1. It is longer, 2. It contains more character types than your average password (UPPER, lower, numbers, special characters (such as punctuation)), and 3. It is easier to remember (and often easier to type) than cryptic passwords that people think are secure.

A passphrase such as "On Thursday at 3:00 I put the cat out," or "After school finishes, I needa holiday!" are really easy to remember, will be typed faster than anything else you type after a short time, are very difficult to work out when shoulder surfing and have decryption times that make them unfeasible to crack before the information they protect becomes irrelevant.  They are even better for people who don't have cats or who aren't at school - yes, use a passphrase that's memorable, but not able to be directly associated with you.

Now, if you want even better security, combine the passphrase with some form of Two Factor Authentication.  This is where you need something to remember (the passphrase - the first factor) and something you have (a token, smartphone that receives a one-time code, or some software that talks back to a server and generates this one-time code - the second factor).  So, when you go to log in, you're prompted for your username and passphrase (as normal) and in addition to this, you're prompted for a one-time code that is generated, used, then discarded - the code is normally delivered on a key fob token or smartphone (app or SMS/text message).  This increases the security of your passphrase rather significantly - if someone manages to get your username and works out your passphrase, they also need to steal your key fob and/or smartphone to be able to log in.  That's what makes this a much more secure authentication method.

(Your "hole in the wall" card from your bank is a form of 2FA - you need your PIN (something you know) as well as the physical card to swipe (something you have) - one without the other isn't all that useful.

In the SMB world, functional 2FA basically means the RWW Guard and AuthAnvil products from http://www.scorpionsoft.com/ - and no this isn't a paid advert.  For that matter, Dana doesn't know I'm writing this blog entry and I don't think he even reads my blog.  I mention it here simply because it works and works well.

Also, as you should use a different passphrase for each different login, you may want to look at something like http://www.RoboForm.com/ to store these all in.  I've been using it for years now and find it a lot better than http://www.LastPass.com/, http://keepass.info/ or others, but whichever you choose, make sure it has a secure passphrase to protect it.

So, basically, forget passwords as they suck.  Use passphrases of decent length and complexity and you'll be orders of magnitude more secure.  If that's still not enough, combine this secure passphrase with some form of 2FA.  And remember - social engineering is still going to work in *way* too many cases.  Password crackers may have gotten a lot more sophisticated, but these massive password leaks prove that people's password choice sure hasn't!  :(


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Blue LEDs in Baby Bredli Viv

I found some submersible aquarium LED lighting on eBay and thought that they'd work well not only for my aquariums, but also my snake vivs, so yesterday evening I made some mods to the smaller viv and this is how it turned out (using the blue LEDs for "moonlight" - the white ones are turned off for now):



It's an iPhone 3GS photo so it's not that great, but you can see the result!  I'm pretty happy with this.  I have these blue LEDs turned around so that they are a lot dimmer than they would be is facing into the main part of the viv, but I have the white ones (you can just see the top one up in the left of the viv) facing right into the viv - I'll use these when cleaning it out.

$10 each or so for these LED lights - and they do a damn fine job!  :)


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Monday, April 18, 2011

Microsoft 1:0 Telstra

In what can only be an awesome move on Microsoft's part as far as increasing the sales of Office 365, can I just say *THANK FUCK*:

Office 365 Hits Public Beta, Small Businesses Get the Next Generation Cloud Productivity Service - but the *REALLY* awesome part of this is this:

Office 365 in Australia

In Australia, Microsoft Office 365 will be available via Microsoft Volume Licensing or through Telstra’s T-Suite service. (http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/office365/online-software.aspx)

That means that we, as resellers, should be able to source Office 365 through our normal disty channels and bypass Telstra totally.  WOO-FUCKING-HOO - this is a great day for all Microsoft partners who want to sell Office 365 but don't want to have to deal with the clusterfuck that is Telstra's T-Suite provisioning.  See this blog post for a bit more information on this issue and why I think this is such an excellent move on Microsoft's part.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Friday, April 08, 2011

More Baby Bredli Pics

OK, here's a couple of pics of my new baby Bredli just to give you a look at the cute little snakes.

I've not thought of names for them yet, but the first one's mum is Devine and the thing s/he's curled around is a regular cup hook:



And here's the second pic - this one's mum is Lizzie.  Again, s/he's curled around a cup hook.  The fake vine you can see there is 9mm in diameter...

At this point in time, they are about 6 weeks old.  :)


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

ShadowProtect Restore Issues

Thanks to Tony for bringing to my attention this blog post from Philip Elder regarding issues around restoring Windows F^HFista and WS2K8 images that were previously made using ShadowProtect.  This is also quite possibly an issue also with Win 7 and WS2K8R2 - I'm not 100% sure here, though the BCDEdit results do look similar to those in F^HVista and WS2K8, so I'd be placing money on this also being an issue

I'd suggest placing this script on the ShadowProtect IT USB key and running it on any F^HVista/WS2K8 (and Win 7/WS2K8R2) machine before taking an image.

StorageCraft is most likely working on a fix to this issue right now, especially considering Acronis' True Image has already addressed this.


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Baby Bredli

I bought a paid of Bredli hatchlings today.  Here's a photo of one, to give you an idea of the size...



Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Overseas Data Storage

According to this article by News.com.au that was published in The Sunday Mail today, the Australian Federal Government is looking to crack down on businesses saving data to the 'cloud' because of privacy concerns.  Now, this is a sensible thing, if you ask me - there are many different governments around the world who have significantly different views on the privacy and security of your data that's stored in their country.  What they are looking at doing here is helping to ensure that your business critical, sensitive data is stored in a way that means you are able to gain access to it - and have it secured - under conditions compatible with Australian Law.

One of the countries that is under the spotlight for their poor quality data protection laws is Singapore.  Singapore recognises no right to privacy of your data.  To me, that's unacceptable and I would not store our business sensitive and/or critical data in such a location.

Microsoft's BPOS/Office 365 servers for APAC are located in Singapore and Hong Kong.  The Australian Federal Government is warning us that any data stored in Singapore is protected by non-existent privacy laws.  Now, I know that the BPOS data centers are *extremely* secure facilities, but what happens if the Singaporean Government chooses to breach any agreement they have with these Data Centers and instead insist in gaining access to any data stored in them?

Unlikely to happen?  Sure.  But then, your data has no privacy protection if it is stored in Singapore.

This, to me, is yet another reason Microsoft should look at hosting a data center in Australia for their Australian BPOS/Office 365 clients.  There are already a number of businesses - especially medical and legal businesses - who cannot legally use BPOS/Office 365 as the data is not stored in Australia and is stored in a location with insufficient legal protection (as the Australian Government is saying is the case with Singapore for all Australian businesses).  I expect this list of industry segments to increase if/when the Federal Government starts to look at this, instead of leaving it up to the individual industries.

Now, my thoughts on Australia being forced to go through Telstra for access to BPOS/Office 365 is well known - I feel that Microsoft will make a lot more sales of its product when it starts treating Australia like the rest of the world and removes the sole wholesaler channel that it has given to Telstra.  Of course, if the Federal Government mandates that all business critical data be stored in a location where the privacy of this data is protected by laws equivalent to those in Australia, Microsoft will need to take a serious look at the locations of their BPOS data centers if they want to sell any product to Australian businesses.
Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Friday, March 25, 2011

Internet Explorer Certificate Security

Once upon a time in a world not too unlike this one, there was an Internet Explorer browser known as 6.0.  It was a nice little browser and had one big security advantage over all of its progeny - it not only looked at the Certificate Revocation List published by each Trusted Root Certification Authority, it also took the step of informing the user if this List could not be contacted.  That's a sane, security-conscious move right there.

Now, in a strange reversal of "Survival of the fittest" (which is a term incorrectly attributed to Charles Darwin), a genetic mutation occurred during the coding of Internet Explorer 7 whereby the CRL is still checked, but if the List cannot be contacted the user is no longer informed and continues on their merry way thinking that everything is good.  This mutated genetic code has then been successfully passed down to MSIE 8 and also on to MSIE 9.  This is not a good thing.

To address this issue, you'll need to make a Registry modification.  This isn't something that only those chosen few can do, but it is something you need to be really careful doing unless you like turning functional computers into smouldering piles of partially molten metal(1).  This Registry modification was originally listed in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 946323 which has since been removed from the Microsoft KB.

I'm not going to repeat what's already out there in the Intarwebs, so I'll just link to an existing site showing what this Registry modification entails.  Obviously those people running an AD-based network can push this Registry entry out using GPO - Policies or Preferences depending on the version of AD/Server and your organizations policies on these sorts of things.

So, this link is basically a copy of the original (now removed) Microsoft KB article.  It adds the "FEATURE_WARN_ON_SEC_CERT_REV_FAILED" key to the Registry.  This link is to one of the original blog posts in 2007 about this security issue.

With the recent Comodo SSL breach still fresh in our minds, it should be time to ask, again, why this setting is not the default in Microsoft Internet Explorer and also why Microsoft has removed KB 946323 instead of updating it for MSIE 8 and MSIE 9.

(1) OK, your computer won't *physically* melt down, but you definitely need to be careful when editing the Registry as it can result in an unstable on unbootable Windows installation.  If we're talking about a F^HVista box here, making it unbootable may not be a bad thing - especially if this then means you can upgrade it to Windows 7!  :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Improve iTunes

Obviously, Apple products never crash and never have bugs.  They most definitely never have security vulnerabilities.  Ask Apple fanbois about this and they'll drool on for hours about how *AWESOME* Apple products are.

So, to support this fallacy, Apple products never send bug/crash/error reports back to Apple - they send Apple information from time to time about how they are working and how you use them.

Of course, if you bother looking at what's being sent, it is a huge number of iTunes crash reports.  iTunes is a festering bucket of shit.



Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Migrate From SBS 2008 to SBS 2008 R2 (SBS 2011)

It looks like Microsoft has finally figured out how to migrate from SBS 2008 to SBS 2008 R2 (aka SBS 2011) and has released the migration documentation which can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=cc2c9081-6ffc-4c8b-80e9-c15fc7ad2585.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Friday, February 18, 2011

Selectively Ignoring Bible Verses

I had to laugh.  Pretty hard, actually.  Some religious nutter who takes to heart God's (sic) Word (sic) that homosexuals are evil in some way decided to get Leviticus 18:22 tattooed on his arm ("You shall not be with a male as one does with a woman.  It is an abomination") - yes, poor grammar and all.  Of course, being your average religious nutter who doesn't actually understand nor properly read the book claimed to be the Word of God, he failed to notice Leviticus 19:28 ("Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I [am] the LORD." KJV).

I did manage to spray coffee over my laptop, but I think it was worth it! :)


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Friday, February 04, 2011

What to drink in this heat?

Aside from plain old water (which is quite acceptable as a drink), here's some comparisons for some drinks you may be looking at on a hot day.

(NOTE: Not all drinks are available in the same sized package, so to be fair I've used the standard "Average Quantity per 100mL" figures on the Nutritional Information Panel of each product for this comparison.  Please also note that a number of these drinks also contain other nutritional information that I haven't included here purely for table width constraints.  Finally, the RDI figures I use are probably as accurate (see also here) as those used on various products and are for an "average adult" which many people are not, so your personal RDI may well vary from this figure.)

The reason I did this is because I was amazed at the amount of sugar in Gatorade and Staminade (and likely Powerade) which I usually drink one of and then a water.  I'd likely be better off drinking a Coke Zero and having a handful of apricots and prunes now that bananas are off the store shelves (or there at CRAZY prices)!  :)

Energy
kJ
Protein
g
Tot Fat
g
Sat Fat
g
Carbs
g
Sugar
g
Fibre
g
Sodium
mg
Potassium
mg
Recommended Daily Intake (Avg Adult)8700507024310903023003800
Water (Mount Franklin, Still)000000050
Water (Schweppes Soda)000000050
Mizone (Passionfruit)490002.82.80< 50
Gatorade (Orange Ice)1030006605122.5
Staminade (Lemon Lime)1060006.16.1037.718.4
Nutrient Water Endurance - Ribose & Ginseng8500055-0-
Coca Cola18000010.610.60100
Coke Zero1.4.05000.100110
Diet Coke2.05000.100150
Pepsi17500055550600
Pepsi Max2.50.100000140
Lemonade (Schweppes)19600011.311.3015-
Fanta1940.10.1011.311.305-
Bundaberg Pink Grapefruit192< 1< 1< 111.311.3-9-
Mother (Lemon Bite)19700010.510.5052-
Red Bull960005.75.4040-
Red Bull (Sugar Free)700000040-
V (Green)195< 10010.610.60110-
V (Sugarfeee)6.4000< 0.1< 0.1050.6-
Berri Apricot Nectar 25% Fruit Drink231< 1< 1013.813.408-
Berri Apple Mango Banana Juice189< 1< 1010.510.20.28-
Coles Lite Milk (UHT)1993.11.51.05.05.0049-
Fat Yak (4.7% alc)1690003.4000-
Pure Blonde Naked (3.5% alc)10900.101.100--
Pure Blonde Platinum (4.6% alc)1380001.400--
Pure Blonde Premium (4.6% alc)1250000.900--
Toohey's Extra Dry (5% alc)1610002.500--
Toohey's Old (4.4% alc)156000300--
XXXX Bitter (4.6% alc)1520002.700--
XXXX Bitter Light 2.3% alc)990002.600--
XXXX Gold (3.5% alc)1200001.900--
Jim Beam White & Cola (5% alc)209000660--
Wild Turkey & Dry (8% alc)3320007.900--



Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie