The New Tech Order (NTO)

I love reading some of the public service type publications from 1950’s America….they just stand the test of time so well! A good example is the following little gem from archive.org entitled Atomic Bombing. How to protect yourself.

This is a book covering in excruciating and graphic detail (I really can’t think of anything else that you might want to know) what to do in the event of an A-bomb attack. It even comes with lots of illustrations to make it an easy read for the kiddies (I guess? Must have been some really traumatised kids in the 50’s).

It is a fairly large file (about 25 MB PDF) and it isn’t on the greatest of servers, but worth it for historical-humour value alone.

There are many choice amusing segments which I will let you discover on your own, however this is one of my favourites so far. Important information to help make your home safer!

HOW TO MAKE YOUR HOME SAFER
There are a number of things you can do to make your own home safer. Few will go to the extreme of building a two-foot-thick, reinforced-concrete wall around the house, although this would provide almost complete protection. But you can remove overhanging cornices, heavy indoor light fixtures which might fall, false ceilings and the like. Light, combustile curtains and draperies are a serious fire hazard at your windows. Such ornamental fabrics should be fireproof — or removed completely.

If you home is within three miles of a possible A-bomb target and you have a picture window in the living room, you  might substitute plastic for plate glass. Wired glass would also make your windows safer…

EDIT: 13/2/2011, It would seem the server this document was hosted on finally gave up the ghost. The link is dead, but the original document can be found here for your reading pleasure.

First up let me say; I own an iPhone, I like the iPhone and will probably use one until a smart phone alternative appears that has the application eco-system developed to a level I am comfortable. I generally fall into the category of smart phone users who use their device as a phone and portable ultra-mini computer.

Now that said, I do have concerns about the security of the device and the way it is slowly creeping into the corporate arena. The the following link from www.h-online as an example; Vulnerability in iPhone data encryption.

I will let you read the page for yourself, but in brief bypassing iPhone encryption can be as easy as turning it on! Add this to the amount of personal information that can be stored in 8 GB or more, and I would really recommend changing every password you have if your phone gets stolen, lost or even out of your possession for a matter of minutes.

Coming soon: iPhone in-Security Part #2: adventures with iPhone data theft

Nikon D4x Concept

Nikon D4x Concept

Hitting the rumour mill today is the possible design for next years Nikon release.

These images are put together by Mark Levinson (an industrial designer not actually affiliated directly with Nikon).

Will this be the shape of Nikon to come? Watch this space.

Reviewing patents is really seeing the ideas before they even become ideas. More of a pre-idea really. A good case in point is the following:

Odd LCD Screen Patent from Nikon

This is the subject of a patent recently filed by Nikon for products yet unknown. The full details are available from the patent itself or at least a shortened version from Nikon Rumours.

Watch this space I guess?

While most web-savy people can name Tim Berners-Lee as the inventor of the World Wide Web, few could possibly identify its co-creator, Robert Cailiau. This interview was picked up off TechCrunch and shows an interesting insight into what we know of the Internet today from one of its pioneers.

First up, credit to the Blogger who first raised this little absurdity, go and check out Tongodeon who originated this story. I cover it here for two reasons:

1. The thought of the amusing situations that this could bring to the boring task of banking
2. The fact that a BANK would be so stupid as to implement this in the name of security

This bank has set up a new authentication measure for identifying customers who phone the customer service line. In addition to other identification data they need to provide, they are also required to provide a secret question and answer of their chosing. Basically the operator will ask the question and the customer will provide the pre-determined response. Now this is fairly similar to the common Australian practice of providing a password in addition to personal information to verify your identity; a practice similar in its level of security deficit but not as much fun I guess.

Both of these practice put a lot of trust and faith in the operator you are speaking to. Whoever takes you call will gain all this information and potentially have the ability to use it for nefarious purposes. Combine this with the fact that call centre operators are generally not very well paid or on rather poor work contracts, I think this reveals an accident waiting to happen. Particularly when cheap inexpensive technology such as an RSA key is readily available.

But enough doom and gloom. Let’s look at the fun you could have with such a system.Tongodeon has provide a few choice examples to paint the picture of the type of secret question and answers you could use:

Q: Do you know why I think you’re so sexy?
A: Probably because you’re totally in love with me.

Q: Need any weed? Grass? Kind bud? Shrooms?
A: No thanks hippie, I’d just like to do some banking.

Q: The Penis shoots Seeds, and makes new Life to poison the Earth with a plague of men.
A: Go forth, and kill. Zardoz has spoken.

Q: What the hell is your fucking problem, sir?
A: This is completely inappropriate and I’d like to speak to your supervisor.

Q: I’ve been embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from my employer, and I don’t care who knows it.
A: It’s a good thing they’re recording this call, because I’m going to have to report you.

Q: Are you really who you say you are?
A: No, I am a Russian identity thief.

Q: For the remainder of this conversation, “How can I help you today?” actually means “Would you like to buy some mescaline?” Do you understand?
A: I understand completely.

To this I can only add:

Q: As I said one morning walking down the street
A: Singing do-wah-didy didy-dum-didy-do

Q: I see dead people
A: Really? You must be nuts

Q: I think I just wet my pants
A: Oh, would you like me to give you a minute?

Q: Don’t bank here, use the [enter name of different bank] they won’t screw you with fees like we do
A: Gee, thanks for the tip

Q: Would you like a copy of some hot [chick/guy – delete as appropriate] we caught on the ATM camera?
A: Sure would, where can I download it?

Q: Everyone in this office is gay?
A: Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Choice is a wonderful thing. I wonder how long it will take the bank to change its policy?

Opera Mini's Dirty Little Security Secret

The recent release of Opera Mini for the iPhone has seen it shot straight to the top of the Free Apps charts. This in general is good. The Safari iPhone browser is a little lacking in feature and competition is always generally good in such a regimented environment.

Now here comes the but. One thing that isn’t widely known by the majority of the consumer market (I am excluding those with some technical knowledge here) is how Opera Mini works and the ramifications on visit any secure site such as online banking (which should be noted a few banks are now offering mobile device friendly websites and I am sure more to follow).

One of the big selling points is the speed that Opera Mini achieves. Unfortunately it achieves this via proxying all content, compressing it for mobile platform delivery and then passing it on. On the average website this isn’t such a huge problem, however on a secure site such as a banking website, this will expose your details to the servers that are acting as the proxy.

On the whole this itself may not even be a problem, I am certain that Opera have security around this infrastructure to prevent disclosure of information. However I think this does raise a few general questions:

• How about full disclosure to your customer’s Opera? Yes, this information is available, but to the general punter downloading Apps via the App Store
• I trust the people employed by services that offer secure connections such as banks. Granted this isn’t iron clad but on the whole any business (such as a bank) that relies on a secure connection for its business will makes efforts to ensure that security is maintained. Opera isn’t in this business and as such don’t really have a stake in protecting your information

Am I saying not to use Opera? No, it is a viable option as a web browser. All I want to point out here is that you need to be aware exactly what is happening to your information and the fact that Opera should be making this fact a little more accessible to the average user

An interesting new tool currently in beta is Tom’s Planner. This tool allows you to create gantt chart online completely within the site. Your charts are saved locally to a text file (no online storage on offer with the server) and you also have options to export your chart to an image or into a format that can be imported into Microsoft Project.

The site is clearly labelled beta however from what I experienced that is more from a functionality point of view than stability. The site operated flawlessly and very quick. In terms of functionality, it is perhaps a little lacking. I created a gantt chart relating to a project I am working on, but found that needed to export the data to Microsoft Project to really finish it off. Given the current beta label this may be addressed in future releases.

Currently there is no published pricing plan. Accounts are free with an indication that anyone using during the beta period will receive a free one year subscription when they go live.

How useful is this? Realistically if you are looking for a tool to create gantt charts this doesn’t compete with commercial offerings just yet. However, this fully-web based application would bring some advantages for the ad-hoc gantt chart creation where other software was not available.

The export process is one of its main strengths at this point given the limited functionality. The process of getting the data into Microsoft Project was fairly easy although it defaulted my project start date to 2049! Nothing that couldn’t be fixed easily however.

I would recommend checking these guys out (particularly during their beta period) and see if it fits your gantt chart creation needs.

URL: http://www.tomsplanner.com

Twitter: @tomsplanner

If you are a Windows users (Vista or Windows 7 from all accounts) you may have found that after the recent iTunes upgrade to version 9.1.0.79 that the Bonjour service suddenly stopped working.

For a good number of iTunes users this may mean little. However, if you are using an iPhone/iTouch with applications relying on the Bonjour service to communicate data then you are suddenly without a significant capability on your device.

I would assume that Apple will eventually realise the erro and send out a fix, however it has been about 2 weeks so far with very little chatter from any quarter as to what is going on. So if you are keen to get back the functionality you lost with the upgrade, here are some steps that may work for you.

Step 1: Remove the new Bonjour service
This needs to be done carefully so that you have minimal remnants left on your machine for the next step. I found the following blog post, How to Uninstall or Remove Bonjour Mdnsresponer.exe fairly helpful. The key thing to note here is that you are best to undertake a reboot after each uninstall process

Step 2: Downgrading the Bonjour service
The problem with the iTunes upgrade was that it upgraded the Bonjour service to version 2.0 which as it turned out seems to not like the Windows platform that much. Luckily you can still find the old version of Bonjour (version 1.0.6) from CNET Downloads. Download this version and install it onto your computer. Once the install is complete, give the machine another reboot to be safe

Step 3: Bonjour is now working
At this point, if you check the Services control panel applet you should see that the Bonjour service is now working. If you start your iTunes and look at the Sharing tab under the Preferences option in the Edit menu you should also see some options displayed instead of the helpful warning that the Bonjour service is not running and you should enable it.

I have tested this with all my applications using the Bonjour service and find that they work correctly using the old Bonjour installation. iTunes also functions without issue.

Good luck and hope this helps you out until Apple get their act together.

For the fans of Modern Warfare 2, a fan tribute. Great production values!