Category: Uncategorized

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Math is fun, yes indeed.

I love to listen to these guys chat, Leo and Steve.  Recently I needed to get a friend up to speed on a secure key exchange. Not the simplest topic on the roster.  Just how do we share a secret over the Internet?  While we know others are watching and intercepting our communications.  We do it with math.  Math, when used like this, forces you to want to learn even more math.  Really, math is fun and you will be smart if you learn math.

The first 15 minutes of this podcast prove to me that the more math you can take in the better off you will be in life.

http://media.grc.com/sn/SN-034.mp3 100% relevant regardless of when it was recorded.

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Who did not see thing one comming? Verified by…

Visa and others.  The first time the page came up “verified by Visa” you said “cool this is a very good thing Visa is making the web safer”.  If you thought that you can now go to the back of the class.  You should have been thinking what sort of phishing scam is this?  Where is the URL bar for this popup and why would I sign up for this service from this little dialog on some site?  Does Visa even have a website?  Does my bank know about this?

Now for those of you at the back of the class, the zbot botnet has been augmented to shoot phish in a barrel.  You are the phish, unfortunately.  Thank you, Visa for the swimming lessons (NOT).

Click to read more news on the zbot botnet and how it is mimicking the Verified by screens.

http://www.sans.org/newsletters/newsbites/newsbites.php?vol=12&issue=56#sID301

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One reason some will like the new iPad

I am a big fan of Cisco coming down to earth where we can all interact with the technology they produce.  One very powerful tool they have bought and extended is WebEx.  There are not too many in the remote desktop space with the breadth of WebEx.

I see that one of the new iPad applications is a WebEx client.  That’s a perfect personal format to watch a presentation.  On the iPhone the technology was only cool – as the screen was honestly too small.

iPad will rock this application.

McYork is inspired every time we come across one of these “fit to form” applications.

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Questions your new phone should be smart enough to to answer

These are practical questions, right?

  • Where was I @ 3:00 PM yesterday?
    • And on Tuesday?
    • How far apart are those?

My calendar is not the source of this information, augmenting it perhaps but the answer really should be an historical GPS location log converted to an address – looked up in contacts and calendar for additional context at the minimum.  Additional follow on questions should be default behaviour, does your phone follow along with the context and answers of your prior questions. That’d be nice.

  • How many miles did I drive last week?
    • And the week before?

C’mon you know when I am in a car (accelerometer data), you gotta!  Was I the driver – perhaps a difficult question to answer.

  • Did I take the Bus in February?
    • What Bus?

Right.  Maybe I take the bus infrequently and only once I recall in February. It went 6 stops and only 2 busses take that route.  I had googled bus routes and found the #314.  Perhaps the #314 was the bus I took as it is one of the 2 busses that have those stops.

  • When I last rode my bike how far did I go?
    • How many stops did I make?
    • Did I stop for lunch?