See Me TV

Posted on May 26, 2008 by Christopher

07-Th-Product-Seeme1I feel like I should start with a notice: This is not a product placement blog post.

The image that you see at the head of this post is for a CCTV-like mirror. I was linked to these recently and the very first thing that I thought was “Wow, my partner would never let me buy these and install them as replacements for mirrors in the house”. The second was “I wonder what the consequences of having them secretly delivered and installed while she was out would be”.

I’ve decided the consequences would far outstrip my (sure to be incredibly!) momentary amusement. That said, I would love to have something like this outside of a well-trafficed bathroom in a place that I lived in, just so that people thought a little bit about how often cameras watch them do private actions, but without a necessarily clear reason for why the cameras need to be there.

(Really, I think that I’d like them because it would be something to talk about that is a bit more interesting than the paintings that we have on the walls, because I’m really not all that competent at discussing the intricacies of fine art. Plus, I just think that the CCTV-like mirrors are kind of cool.)

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Counterfeit and Security

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Christopher

1436274468 1B2417B388One of those batteries is fake. Can you tell which?

Over the past few weeks more and more attention has been drawn to fake computer hardware that was sold to varying interests around the world. While fakes aren’t new (AMD, Intel, and a variety of other hardware companies have processes in place to avoid repeats of past counterfeiting), what seems to be new is the kind of hardware being ‘faked’.

Networking Hardware

The FBI investigated claims that the government had purchased counterfeit Cisco hardware that may have potentially held, well, God knows what. As is noted by Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher;

Counterfeit network hardware entering the marketplace raises significant public safety concerns and must be stopped . . . It is critically important that network administrators in the private sector and government perform due diligence in order to prevent counterfeit hardware from being installed on their networks.

While it’s of concern that government data may be being directed/inspected by unknown groups, I don’t really want to talk about that. Instead, what I think this shows is that when deploying new networking tools that it is essential that some kind of authentication process occurs – rather than just purchase from trusted vendors and call it a day, those purchases must be tested. Moreover, while the FBI was able to conduct an operation that resulted in convictions and fines, it raises the specter that other groups with less capital to invest in internal investigations may similarly be threatened, and their data and customers as well.

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It Just Works (Sometimes)!

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Christopher

2402302519 0933Ae18B2Time Capsule is incredibly helpful – it’s saved me from several moderately catastrophic data loses. What is less than terrific, however, is the instructions for connecting an external hard disk drive (HDD) to it. To save myself the hassles of figuring out how to set it up again in the future, and for those who are searching for the solution, I’ve thrown this together.

Problem:

Many drives are shipped partitioned to FAT. That’s great…for PCs. Heck, my Macbook could read it too, but doing so crashed my Time Capsule. I figured that it was probably FAT, and so just opened up the Disk Utility to erase the drive and partition it to HFS+ (Journal). Then I found out that this element of OS X has been broken for a long, long time.

Crap. Continue reading →

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Common-law = Snooplaw

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Christopher

422895344 D8C925Ccc0Rather than talk about the FBI’s desire to patrol the Internet backbone, have your laptop searched without warrant or any particular reason when facing US Customs officers, or Microsoft’s Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE), I want to quickly talk about the Australian government’s desire to give law enforcement and corporate IT the power to monitor and inspect any and all electronic employee communications. What is most concerning is that it continues an Australian trend to insert American attitudes into common-law.

Terrorism Down Under

I don’t want to come off seeming as though I think terrorism is a small or unimportant issue. It’s not – terrorism is a very real issue, and it has incredible financial and human costs. That said, whenever someone mentions either children or terrorism as a justification for a new piece of legislation that would dramatically extend the surveillance powers of public and private actors, I immediately want to know just how invasive those new powers might be. Whereas Australian law presently only allows security companies and those dealing with the government to survey communications without permission, after a four year fight to revise the Telecommunications Interceptions Act the government may be successful in extending those surveillance powers. If the amendments are passed, all corporate IT groups will be able to survey employees’ digital communciations. The government’s reason for extending the surveillance powers is that, by monitoring workers’ emails, it will be possible to stop/deploy coercion towards those who would;

attack to disable computer networks that sustained the financial system, stock exchange, electricity grid and transport system “[and would consequently] reap far greater economic damage than would be the case of a physical [terrorist] attack”. (Source) Continue reading →

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