Tag Archives: security

Security – a conversation on disclosure with Dave Piscitello

As an information technology professional, information security is of huge practical importance to me, influencing pretty much every project I am involved in. While security is not my key focus I thankfully have some colleagues in the industry who I … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

Do Canadians Value Privacy?

That Canada ranked #2 in defending the privacy of its citizens is perhaps more of a sad comment on international complacence on privacy issues than a major achievement of which we can be particularly proud. From The Globe and Mail: … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Gone phishing: new browsers, new privacy decisions

One phish, two phish, red phishing-shield, green phishing-shield Microsoft and Mozilla have released their new browsers Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2 which include anti-phishing features that warn end users about web sites which suspected or known to pose as … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Getting real about security

Adam (crypto nerd extraordinaire, former evil-genius at Zero Knowledge) from the Emergent Chaos “jazz combo” throws us a reference and ties it in with an amusing story about misguided security concepts. The Emporer’s New Computer Affixing a Mac logo to … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The “best effort” internet is the only internet

Yoda said “Do, or do not. There is no ‘try.’” He didn’t run a site on the internet, which is and always will be a “best effort network” with no guarantees of availability and performance. It is up to the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Protect your Windows PC for free

First in a series of articles about useful things: how to protect your personal computer running Windows when it hooked up to the internet, and do it for free! A combination of Anti-Virus, Firewall and Anti-Spyware is essential for any … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A "new" breed of Web Spam

Whereas in the old days squatters would hold domains hostage to sell them to the highest bidder, the new strategy is to attract as much traffic as possible and serve up ads that generate a revenue stream thanks to targeted, … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Drowning New Orleans – A Modern Tragedy

While I don’t want to distract the reality and immediacy of the disaster in the New Orleans area, a friend pointed out this October 2001 article to me and it is hard not to reflect on our prescience of this … Continue reading

Posted in news | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Code Vulnerabilities – a physics, semantics, or engineering problem?

Anyone who uses a personal computer (or who reads the paper) is aware that PCs are highly susceptible to a raft of problems that fall into the domain of “computer security”. Even my parents know that computers need to be … Continue reading

Posted in news | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Computer Security and The Human Factor

I recently read The Human Factor by engineering professor Kim Vincente. This is an eye-opening book about the importance of “adapting technology to people” instead of “forcing people to adapt to technology.” The field of Human Factor Engineering has apparently … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment