Drone Wars

The use of private drones has skyrocketed, yet their owners don't seem to have grasped the serious nature of airspace intrusion over places like airports, nuclear power plants and prisons.
So the gloves are now OFF!

Defence giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin have developed technology ranging from detection systems to more disruptive solutions such as software that forces unauthorised drones to go home or land safely, and laser cannons that shoot unwanted drones out of the sky.
At a demonstration in California, Boeing's compact 2kw laser system took only about 15 seconds to set a drone alight.
Another company has developed software that establishes invisible barriers - "geofences" - around sensitive airspace. When drones hit the virtual boundary, the software overrides the drone's flight controller and forces it to hover. Any drone deployed inside the barrier won't be able to lift off.
It's anticipated the counter-drone industry (both civil and military) could be worth at least several hundred million dollars at this stage, let alone in the future.
Much will depend on how well the technology works. The first step is identifying whether drones are 'friendly' or not. Systems also need to be able to distinguish between slow-moving drones and birds, and the signals from drones compared to cellphones.

It's envisaged that eventually airports, government locations, public swimming pools, defence facilities and the like will all erect "geofences" to inhibit airspace intrusions. Once enough "geofences" intersect, the 'free range' areas for drones will be severely restricted, certainly in cities at least.
So it seems the days of airborne voyeurs roaming wherever they wish via their drones may be coming to an end...

Shark-bait Selfie!

We see ourselves here...we see ourselves there...we take our selfies EVERYwhere!
Self-obsession has risen to new heights over the past few years, with folk like the Kardashians posting virtually every part of their lives (and anatomies!).
Your average Joe (and Josephine) Bloggs have followed suit, trying to gain a higher profile and larger ego, by posting more and more 'extreme' selfies! And when THAT doesn't work...well, they fake it 'til they can make it! Check THIS out!

Logic tells us that, if this was a REAL selfie, the guy could never have posted it, as he was about to become a shark sandwich!
But the Believers believed! Even the guy himself claimed (for a while) that he'd escaped by the skin of his boardshorts to tell the tale...
But sooner or later on the 'net, the truth will come out! A cute bit of Photoshopping, that's all!

Old Friends DO Die...

Don't it always seem to go, that we don't know what we've got...
'til it's gone. Ahhh, how true.
Many people have reconnected with friends, acquaintances and schoolmates over the years, on the kiwi website oldfriends.co.nz. But soon they'll have to find a new platform.

Old Friends, a subsidiary of Trade Me, is going to be shut down in Jan.2016 and all its data deleted (as required under the Privacy Act).
Spokesman for Trade Me, Logan Mudge, says it's not a decision made lightly: "We have to focus on what we can and cannot do. We haven't been able to give it the attention it needed so it was time to close." He said it wasn't a financial decision as the site was making a modest income, but rather so that Trade Me could focus on bigger business opportunities in its core areas.
Over the last few months, 600-1,200 users accessed the website daily. In comparison, Trade Me had 848,000 daily users. But saying that, Old Friends had other impressive numbers. These included 1,621,577 members - nearly half the NZ population - plus 2300 schools, 36,000 workplaces, 7100 clubs, 164 marae etc etc. But even those numbers weren't able to be converted into any sort of income. So it's goodbye, Old Friends, coz dollars talk.
Many Old Friends users have tales of reuniting with friends they haven't seen in decades - some have even caught up with childhood sweethearts.
Nothing will be launched to replace Old Friends. Users have been emailed to tell them the website is closing down in mid-late January. They've been urged to download and save any information, photos and data they want kept.
It seems to me such a shame that the service could not have been outsourced to save it. Surely, with the existing infrastructure in place, a couple of part-timers could have maintained Old Friends from a home base...?

Note: Sam Morgan, who founded TradeMe, NZ's largest online auction site, sold it in 2006 to Australian media company Fairfax for over NZ$750 million.

Honesty Not The Best Policy?

For a New Plymouth woman, honesty doesn't always pay!
Louise Jackson noticed a mystery $429 deposit in her ANZ account recently. She rang the bank to sort it out. How hard can that be? VERY, it seems!

ANZ staff told her they could not simply reverse the transaction - they can do a trace, but that would cost Louise $15.
When she said she didn't want to pay the fee (and fair enough: why should she? SHE didn't make the mistake!), the ANZ staff member suggested she call the bank that the dosh came from, to see if it could do anything. Crazy, huh?
Now, at this point, some folk would say
"To hell with it! Finders keepers!" but Louise persevered and contacted TSB Bank, where the transaction originated...only to be told that without an account number or name to reference against, it could do nothing either. (No company name or account number showed up on Louise's online statement, just a three-letter reference code.)
Surely all that was needed was a teeny bit of effort, to compare dates and amounts, and narrow down the possible source that way...? A half-decent computer programme could do it in the blink of a bank charge hike.
But it appears banks don't like to work FOR their customers any more. However, under the spotlight of public scrutiny, they do start to squirm!
ANZ Bank spokesman Stefan Herrick acknowledges the bank does charge a small fee to trace transactions, but staff can waive it under certain circumstances: "In this case the customer shouldn't have been asked to pay a fee for doing the right thing. We applaud her honesty, and thank her for doing what she could to ensure the money went back to its rightful owner."
And surprise-surprise, the ANZ is now tracing the source of the mystery money "as a matter of priority." Quite frankly, too little too late - a weak response from both ANZ and TSB...

Is Your Brain In Your DICK???

If you thought watching porn could make you go blind, think again.
A new German study says that porn may have adverse effects on your brain!
Researchers say men who watch a lot of porn usually have smaller striatum (that's the area of the brain linked to motivation and rewards). The connection between the striatum and the prefrontal cortex (responsible for behaviour and decision-making) also decreases when watching increased amounts of porn.

As well as possible brain shrinkage, a lot of porn also makes it difficult for people to become aroused by their own sexual partners, there are potency problems, and some become bored by mainstream porn and seek more extremes.
A survey by the University of East London said 97% of boys aged 16-20 have viewed porn, and girls of the same age: 80%. One in three women regularly watches porn, and 70% of men 18-24 visit porn sites at least once a month.
There's a significant number of students, boys in particular, for whom it is quite a frequent behaviour. At that age, they're still developing their sexuality, their ideas of what's normal in sex, and ideas of what's appropriate in relationships. Heavy exposure to pornography can be problematic in all of these areas.
So the nuns were right - pornography DOES sink the brain! Mind you, perhaps those with smaller brains are more attracted to porn. And, if their brains are in their dicks, they may be very very small brains indeed...

ET, The Unearthed-ling

Wanna go hunting...for aliens?
This weekend, searchers hope to unearth a legendary dump of millions of unwanted "ET the Extra-Terrestrial" video game cartridges, rumoured to have been buried in a New Mexico landfill in

the early 1980s.
The product spin-off from the classic 1982 movie "ET the Extra-Terrestrial" was a mammoth flop, contributing to a sudden collapse of the video game industry in its early years.
The pending excavation, on the weekend of 26 April, will be filmed for a documentary. Filmmakers (and the rest of Geek World!) want to know if the story of the video game cartridge burial is true.
The game hit shelves in late 1982 as part of a $25m deal with director Steven Spielberg to license his movie idea with Warner Bros, then-owner of game manufacturer Atari. To get the product out by Christmas, the game was developed in a fraction of the time typically needed for design, manufacturing and packaging, and it failed as a result. Atari ended up sitting on the bulk of the 5 million ET game cartridges produced, that either didn't sell or were returned.
According to NYTimes reports at the time, Atari buried the games in the New Mexico desert in the middle of the night. A game enthusiast later tracked down the suspected burial site and spread the word about the location.
The story of the "worst game ever made and what happened to it" became a legend among gamers, one that may soon have its final chapter written...

Facebook: Decapitations OK To Share

On Facebook, it's ok to post decapitation videos!
Now you can post, say, a video of some poor bastard having his head sliced off by a rabid Taliban fundamentalist...as long as you write platitudes like "OMG! How terrible!"

WWII war crime.
If this happened today,
you could post it...as
long as you said "tut-tut!"

Facebook slapped on the ban last May, stopping graphic content such as beheadings and other nasties from being published. But now it's returning to its status quo, ie: not policing violent content that members share in condemnation of the depicted acts.
A spokesman says: "Facebook is where people turn to share experiences, particularly when they're connected to controversial events such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism and other violent events. People share these videos here to condemn them. If they were being celebrated, or the actions encouraged, our approach would be different." But wait: back in May, Facebook DID take a different approach, saying it would delete violent videos reported by users (this, after a backlash when two execution videos did the rounds).
Meanwhile, Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities continues to state: "You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence." Yea. Right.
Facebook reckons graphic stuff like beheadings are only a violation of its policy...if the content is being celebrated by users!! But it's trying to figure out the best way to give people control over types of content. In the meantime...
*psst!*...wanna see a snuff movie? Um...er...it's... oh...really bad. TERRIBLE!! Check it out, dude! :-)

[This follows so soon after Facebook earlier this month effectively opened the privacy door to STALKERS!]

Who's No.1 For Hacking?

If you enjoyed the late Tom Clancy's techo-thriller Threat Vector, you may be thinking that China is the world's worst nation for internet hacking. Think again.
China has a reputation as the hacker capital of the world, but a new report shows the bulk of global cyber-attack activity has recently come from its smaller neighbour, Indonesia.
38% of the world's cyber attacks originated in Indonesia during the second quarter of 2013, up from 21% in the first quarter. This spike knocked China off the hacking pedestal, with Big Red accounting for 33% of attacks, down from 34%. The amount of hacking originating in US (although at No.3), is a piddly 6.9% of cyber-attack traffic, a decrease from 8.3%. Indonesia and China alone accounted for more than half of all global cyber-attack activity during the quarter!
While it may seem like Indonesia came out of nowhere to take the lead (last year it accounted for less than 1% of cyber crimes), hackers may be taking advantage of its increase in connection and weakening IT structure. The country's average internet connection speed increased 125% from the same time last year. That, coupled with the fact the country isn't spending lots on its infrastructure, may make the country a haven for cybercriminals.
Last Jan., hacker group Anonymous Indonesia claimed responsibility for defacing 12 government websites. In April, the country's defence minister announced it was building a Cyber Defence Centre to combat hackers. Microsoft also felt the supposed wrath of Indonesian criminals (among others) when it put the lid on a cyber-crime operation in June.
One thing to keep in mind: the IP address assigned to a particular country may not be the nation where the attacker resides. So someone from China with an IP address associated with them, may actually be committing cyber attacks in, say, France, while sitting anonymously in Turkey...!

Facebook: More Friends, Less Love

We may feel more connected online, but Facebook might not be our friend.
TVNZ reports that a new study shows the more people use Facebook, the less we 'feel the love'. Social scientists at the University of Michigan found, although using the social media site helped people to feel more connected, it did not make them happier.

Social psychologist Ethan Kross: "On the surface, Facebook provides a valuable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. But rather than enhance well-being, we found that Facebook use predicts the opposite result - it undermines it."
The study of 82 young adults found the more time people spent on Facebook during the day, the worse they reported feeling. Participants were texted randomly five times a day for a fortnight, with a link to an online survey. Questions included how worried and lonely they felt, how much they used Facebook, and how much direct contact with people they'd had since the previous text.
Life satisfaction was tested at the beginning and end of the study. Those who'd spent more time on Facebook had declining happiness levels. Conversely, more direct interactions (either face-to-face, or over the phone) led people to feel better.

Gee, what a revelation! Mum was right all along!!!
Background:
The latest Nielsen research shows 80% of New Zealanders use Facebook, higher than Australia (74%), the US (69%) and UK (68%).

Kiwi Komputer Kracker Killed?

Conspiracy theories abound, over the death of New Zealand-born computer hacker Barnaby Jack.
The 35yr.old ex-Aucklander was one of the 'good guys', making a career revealing the dangers posed by unscrupulous hackers combined with computer manufacturers' failures to install proper safety devices on equipment.
Jack thought it highly plausible that a terrorist could hack someone's pacemaker and speed up their heartbeat until it killed them! And he knew what he was talking about, having shown how to make cash machines dispense money by hacking into a bank's computers. He could also hack a diabetic's insulin pump from 10m away, so it would dispense a fatal dose...
Hmmm. You doubt it? He was due to demonstrate his work at a major computer-hacking convention in Las Vegas, showing how, with a wireless transmitter, he could trigger a power surge in someone's heart pacemaker and kill them from up to 20m away. However, a week beforehand, Jack was found dead in his flat in San Francisco. To say his sudden death is mysterious is putting it mildly.
Predictably, for someone working in the shadows, there've been many theories about how he died, fuelled by the coroner's refusal to discuss the case (other than to say that the autopsy results may not be available for possibly months). A local police source admitted this silence was puzzling. Jack's former work colleagues know of no medical condition that could have killed him.

Naturally, some social media suspect the US govt and the CIA: some suggest they wanted to silence Jack before he could reveal how the US's enemies could hack into devices such as pacemakers. Or perhaps the US wanted to harness the skills themselves and use them on their enemies. There've been suggestions that Jack is not really dead, but is working on secret research projects. Another theory: could the multi-billion-dollar healthcare industry have silenced him? After all, he was about to expose a huge flaw in one of its most lucrative devices that could cost it untold millions, and cause major public embarrassment. Manufacturers of items such as cash machines and insulin pumps have had to alter their designs following Jack's revelations.
"Sometimes you have to demonstrate the darker side," Barnaby Jack liked to say, as he justified his hacking skills. Has he become the victim of that 'darker side'?

Facebook Crashed - Did The World End?

Facebook, the world's most popular social network, temporarily crashed globally yesterday afternoon.
OMG! Who was to blame?
No, it wasn't Chinese chopping into the Pentagon, nor Iranians intent on injuring Israel. *shock*horror*probe* Anarchist digital group Anonymous patted itself on the back and claimed credit.
But why would it wangle such a wicked thang?! No explanation was given...evil, huh?
Here in New Zealand, the site appeared to stop loading and, for a while after it returned, a number of its search and news group functions didn't work. Sinistre...oui?
Over on rival social media Twitter, this caused major multi-lingual melt-down. One Portuguese Twitter user said: "TANGO DOWN by ANONYMOUS LEADER Blame it for global warming and everything else."
Diabólico! Others on Twitter were ever so slightly lighthearted:
"Where were you during the Great Facebook Crash of 2013?"
"Productivity rates just skyrocketed after that Facebook crash". [Methinx a truer word was never written in jest!]
Another wondered if they were personally responsible: "I used status update on Facebook, and now seem to have caused the entire site to crash for the last 5 minutes. MyBad. Sorry."
Mega founder and internet millionaire Kim Dotcom jokingly tweeted that the crash was linked to the American NSA's PRISM programme:"NSA is upgrading Prism capacity on Facebook today. Expect service interruptions on Facebook for the next few hours. :-)"
...meanwhile the rest of us - actually functioning happily in the real world - carried on, oblivious to this global catastrophe! *sigh*

Beats Working

Workers have often been told by bad bosses that their jobs could be done at a fraction of the price by any number of diligent folk in China.
One American office worker arrived at an elegant solution. He found a Chinese software company to do his job for him, paid for the work using a fifth of his own six-figure salary, and spent his days surfing the internet, watching cat videos and taking long lunch breaks!

For over six months, he lead a leisurely life while receiving glowing commendations for his tremendous productivity. He also boosted his income with some freelance work for other companies, which he outsourced to the same computer code writers in NE China.
He'd probably have got away with it too, had it not been for a review of the company's private computer network, which showed what looked like someone in China logging into the system. They appeared to have hacked into the computer network using the credentials of an employee who was, at that very moment, sitting quietly at his desk!
The company's IT department called in investigators, thinking hackers had used some kind of malware to log into the worker's computer. Instead they found hundreds of invoices on the computer from China. A review of the worker's activities suggested he arrived each morning at 9am, departed for lunch at 11.30 and spent the long afternoons on eBay and updating his Facebook profile. At 4.30pm he emailed his manager with a progress update. His performance review noted he was the best developer in the building.
It's not clear if the man has committed any crime, but he's been fired for violating internal company policy.

The Secret To Happiness

Your local newspaper may carry a wee story about - say - Mrs Cecilia Snagglebothom, who lives in the local rest home and has just turned 100.
"What's your secret to happiness, Cecilia?" asks an eager young journalist. And Cecilia may cite a litre of sherry every evening, loving grand-children...anything relevant that she feels may have prolonged her life.
You will never hear a centenarian say: "Well, deary, my century of happiness is all due to Facebook!"
Real people do NOT spend every waking moment on Facebook. And those who DO live vicariously are now suffering from the latest modern malady: social media envy.
Yeup, it's a real thing! German researchers report that Facebook can create negative feelings in envious users - especially over holiday pix!
Researchers from two German universities found that looking at Facebook may cause you to see green. "Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users' Life Satisfaction?" is based on a survey of 600 people in Germany. The study says one in three people feel less satisfied with their lives after browsing Facebook. People who don't post at all, but still read about their friends' lives, fare the worst.
The No.1 culprit of Facebook envy? Friends sharing vacation and travel photos. The second most common cause of upset is social interaction, which includes birthday greetings, and likes and comments on photos and posts. Other things that bring out the green-eyed monster: family happiness (which is most resented by people in their mid-30s) and physical attractiveness (which tends to bug women).

Will the real people please stand up?

The study also found people react to these feelings of jealousy by posting about achievements. Wow. People trying to make themselves look better on Facebook? No shit, Sherlock!
When blowing their own horns, men are more likely to brag about their accomplishments while women raved about their looks and social lives.
The good news: there IS a solution. If you wish to avoid social media envy in your life, simply switch off Facebook. Talk to REAL people. Maybe even read about the life of Mrs Cecilia Snagglebothom? It'd be more REAL than those of the 5,327 'friends' on Facebook...

Wanganui: Too Smart For Its Own Good?

Wanganui is a top contender to be named Intelligent Community of the Year for 2013.
The city is one of 21 towns and cities named as semifinalists in the worldwide 2013 Intelligent Community of the Year award, and is the first community in NZ to reach the semifinals since the awards started in the 1990s.
The selection underlines the city's work to embrace the challenges of broadband and developing strategies to use the new technologies for the benefit of the community.
Wanganui's Mayor, Annette Main says it's fantastic news for the city. She says Wanganui has gone up against much larger centres, many with universities and significant digital networks already in place, and this recognises the progress Wanganui has made in economic and social terms through adopting a pro-active approach to acquiring and using new technologies. The Intelligent Communities Forum says a place among the year's Smart21 is considered a "badge of honour".
Wanganui will be judged against towns and cities from US, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, Portugal, Brazil, Greece, Finland, Estonia, China and Albania. In January the forum will name seven finalists, with the announcement of the winner of the 2013 Intelligent Community in June.
A nice accolade, true...but the city's obviously not smart enough to permanently remove gangs, gang insignia, and NZ's worst convicted paedophile Stewart Wilson from its midst though, eh!

Huawei: The Enemy Within?

The NZ Govt knows best.
It's flicking off renewed concerns about Chinese telco Huawei (which is happily operating here, while being accused of espionage in USA).
New security worries have surfaced, following a US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee report which advises telecommunications operators not to do business with Huawei, because of potential Chinese state influence on the companies. The committee cited long-term security risks linked with the companies' equipment and services.
Acting NZ Communications Minister Steven Joyce says the US has long been concerned about Huawei, but our security agencies have already screened it: "Different countries take a different view on the risks to their security at different times. That's an example of where our sovereignty is very different to the US."
US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers says companies using Huawei equipment had reported "numerous allegations" of unexpected behaviour, including routers supposedly sending large data packs to China late at night.
Opposition parties and technology experts says our govt should follow the lead of the UK, US, and Oz and stop Huawei operating here. Labour's even calling for a full inquiry.

But no, the NZ Govt knows best.
It knows far more than the global heavyweights. It's certain, now that we've given Huawei hundreds of millions to roll out our broadband, that they will be our friends. And friends would not ever spy on us. Surely...?
Huawei has an office in Auckland, and over the past two years supplied equipment for the ultra-fast broadband roll out.
Strategic Analyst Paul Buchanan reckons our govt has ignored international security concerns regarding Huawei: "This points again to a cavalier attitude of the government to issues of intelligence and security." Cavalier? Try, naivety. Ignorance. Blind stupidity. Irresponsibility. But hey, the NZ Govt knows best.

[See also my posting from April 2012...]

Better Than A Nuke

Thousands of Iranian govt computers have been hit by a highly sophisticated virus.
Wall Street Journal says Flame was widespread through the Middle East and other parts of the world, but Iran was affected the most. It's at least the third time since 2010 Iran's been hit by hi-tech viruses (such as Stuxnet, Duqu and Wiper), disabling enrichment centrifuges, stealing data from nuke facilities and erasing oil ministry computers.
Experts at computer security firm Kaspersky say the aim of Flame was espionage, not damage or interruption. Flame was still active last Monday, but after Kaspersky went public, it immediately started shutting down to hide its source. By Tuesday, it was inactive.
Kaspersky said at least 20 specialists were needed to create/maintain Flame, suggesting it was sponsored by a nation-state: it wasn't economically feasible for a private corporation to run such a large-scale international cyberattack.
Flame is the biggest and most high-functioning cyberweapon ever discovered, 20X larger than Stuxnet and with 100X more code than a basic virus. Experts believe it fed back info to a central control network that constantly changed location. Analysts found servers around the world, but hadn't located the main server.
Iran said on Tuesday it was a victim of cyberwarfare by Israel and the US. The White House declined to comment. Israel neither confirmed nor denied, but an Iranian news site claims otherwise...
It's like a plot from a techno-spy thriller! Still, disrupting Iran's uranium enrichment programme by cyber-attack has gotta be better than Israel's option of choice, a pre-emptive military strike.

PS: 01 June 2012 - NY Times says US and Israel were responsible for Stuxnet virus in 2010.

Wolf In Sheep's Clothing?

If you're a casual internet user, then the storm rollin' in over Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei may mean little to
you. But...it should!
Y'see, Huawei's involved in a $1.35 billion Ultrafast Broadband Project (UBP) in NZ. As reported by NBR last week, defence analyst Rod Vaughan claims Huawei is almost certainly a front for Chinese intelligence! That's also the collective view of the US, UK and Oz security folk.
Yet naive Noo Zuld is not at all concerned about security, or about Huawei's involvement in our telco sector! Huawei is strong here, having been in NZ since 2005, supplying equipment to Chorus, 2Degrees, Christchurch's Enable Services and the central North Island's Wel Networks as part of the govt's UBP (remember how it talked this up, back in 2010?).
But overseas, Huawei's been blocked from bidding for Oz's $38 billion national broadband network for security reasons, and US stopped it from buying various telcos. NY Times reports US computer security software firm Symantec dissolved a Huawei joint venture, over fears it would prevent it from obtaining US govt classified information about cyberthreats.
NZ-based defence analyst Paul Buchanan once worked for the US Dept of Defence, and believes Huawei is intent on tapping into the top-secret Echelon intelligence network (SO secret, it's on Wiki!) in which NZ exchanges highly classified info with US, UK, Canada and OZ: "China's been lagging behind with signals intel and technical intel...they've got to get a significant capability, and the suspicion is that Huawei is one way of doing this." Buchanan believes US has classified information implicating Huawei in covert activities.
NZ is particularly vulnerable to cyber-espionage, as evident by the hacking of Muddling McCully's private email. This showed how loose our internet security is, when a govt minister can have his private emails hacked into by amateurs. We would be an easy back-door for a malevolent hi-level hack.
NZ does like its sheep...but is Huawei a wolf in sheep's clothing? Is it too late to extricate ourselves from this? Do we need to?
Well, I think so, and here's final proof. Huawei boss Ren Zhengfei (a former People's Liberation Army officer)...looks just like Cheng Zhi, the nasty Chinese spy chief in the tv series "24"...just sayin'!

Hackers Bite Off Less Than They Can Chew

The on-line activist group Anonymous

What??!! Y'mean...

came to New Zealand, and all they got was a t-shirt...
It's been revealed they hacked Foreign Minister Murray McCully's private email account last April. *shock*horror*probe*
So what was happening then, that made Anonymous so interested in The Womble? Well, NZ had passed laws cracking down on illegal file-sharing and threatening to disconnect repeat offenders from the internet. Muddling McCully was also trying to persuade us that a half-billion-dollar projected loss for the *yawn* Rugby World Cup was a good thing...and there was also the Tupperwaka ruckus! So really, the earth wasn't movin' in the world of Foreign Affairs...

....A-B-C-D-1-2-3-4...

PM John Key's confident the hackers didn't get any sensitive information because if they had, "it would be on the net by now". No shit, Sherlock!
While the hacked email was a private one, McCully had asked his staff to forward official emails to it. (Duuuuhhh!! Shall I get a school kid to brief you on internet security basics?) That really was silly, Womble: you can access your work email account from anywhere anyway, so why double any risk? Ahhhhhh, I know why - the PM gave us the answer: because there was nothing interesting in Muddling McCully's emails AT ALL!

...is NOT a
good password???

All the hackers did was send on a few piss-take emails from his account, and
go looking for some real targets (they screwed the FBI, US Justice Dept.,CIA and French presidential websites instead).
Muddling McCully wouldn't detail those mocking emails: "I don't want to give people ideas." Oh, we've got the idea, all right, Muzz. It's official. The hackers have proved it...you really ARE the most booooring womble in NZ politics!

When The Cloud Blows Away

Last week's FBI bust of MegaUpload, in an airborne dawn raid on a rented Coatesville mansion (which saw the prime conspirator lock himself in a safe room with a weapon), was all quite exciting.
But now the smoke's cleared, customers have realised they'll probably never again see the personal files they uploaded to his system. Globally, millions of people uploaded files to MegaUpload - personal photos, home videos, software programmes...as well as pirated material (which was the target of the investigation).
With it's accounts frozen, companies that house files for MegaUpload can't be paid. So those storage companies could begin deleting data this week, although they've agreed to hold off for at least two more weeks. But for Joe Public to ever get his material back, MegaUpload would have to be temporarily kick-started again, because it's simply too hard for hosting companies to ascertain which users should be entitled to access what files. I can't imagine the FBI would be thrilled about that idea (although the stored data may yet be required as evidence in Dotcom's court case)...
As more and more people upload files to online storage "clouds" to save space on their computers, it's unlikely many of them make physical back-ups any more: they would perceive the "cloud" as their back-up.
And therein lies the problem. When something as convenient, unlimited (and generally free) as
"cloud" storage comes along, naturally it gains a strong following and it's all too easy to rely upon it as your sole safety net. But the MegaUpload case has highlighted that safety nets (and thus your personal data) can be compromised by data pirates.
RapidShare, another online storage site, estimates about 5% of files stored on its computers may be pirated. While that figure may not sound much, if the FBI decided to shut down RapidShare, then the other 95% of "safe" personal data could be lost!
Caveat emptor.
It remains the responsibility of all computer users to maintain several back-ups. By all means, use a "cloud", but do not neglect a local safety net of discs, USB sticks or an external hard-drive. A little time-consuming and "old school" perhaps, but it could end up being your cloud's silver lining...

Containers: In The 'Too Hard' Basket?

One of the many concerns, surrounding the grounding of the Rena on Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga, is the location of the many shipping containers that have fallen from the vessel. Some have drifted to the coast, others have probably sunk, while the hunt continues for more…
I wonder how hard it would be to attach a GPS to every container? Not only would it assist Customs to locate cargo globally, but it would be a big help in a situation such as Rena.
Imagine how many hands a container passes through on its travels, the many manifests it appears on, the opportunities to change its contents for smuggling... or terrorism. Not only would a GPS locate a container, but suspicions may be raised if it indicated a container was stationery where it was not meant to be. The signals could transmit nano-second bursts via ship transponders, through satellites to a central checking system (just like my 2009 suggestions for flight recorders).
Given enough time, Customs could probably find all contraband…but time is something they don’t have in excess. This idea may help: it would certainly be valuable right now – the Port of Tauranga was closed overnight Thursday, due to the risk of containers floating free just off the coast.
Another concept for overboard containers could be some sort of saltwater-soluble plug: this could dissolve after a few hours of immersion at a specific water pressure, thus safely sinking the container. It could be located high enough up the body of the container so that if it was standing in seawater on a vessel, the plug would not be affected.
Being a layman with zero shipping knowledge, I accept that these systems may already be in place… but the current search indicates otherwise. Containers are lost overboard more often than shipping companies care to admit (up to 10,000 a year!). With over 17 million containers and nearly 5,000 container ships around the world (as at Oct.2010), these safety concepts may seem cost-prohibitive, but surely the benefits would quickly offset the expense.