SecTor 2009 - Early bird registration ends tomorrow

Hurry up and register before May 1 or the price goes up.
SecTor (short for Secure Toronto, I believe) is a conference for Information Security folks in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

It is Oct. 6 & 7 this year, with training courses on the 5th for those who desire a bit of heavy duty security training before the conference. The training on the 5th is in any one of these topics:

Session Title	Presenter	Cost	Link
Securing your Microsoft Infrastructure	Brian Bourne CMS Consutlting Inc.	$999	Register
Understanding Web Application Attacks	Security Compass	$999	Register
Auditing systems and networks with Backtrack 4	The Academy	$999	Register
Data Forensics – Essentials for Survival	Robb Beggs, Digital Defence Larry Gagnon, Forensicom	$999	Register

Currently you can get admission to the 2 day conference for only $499 After May 1st it goes up to $749. ...and for the really tardy, tickets will be available at $999 after Sept. 1st. (if there are still tickets to be had)

(Hint: TASK [Toronto Area Security Klatch] has a 10% off coupon to reduce that price even further, but I 'm not going to tell you what it is, if you really want it you can find out for yourself.)


SecTor 2009 Tickets are Limited!
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW

Big news for fans of Windows.

Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott reveal a new Windows 7 application compatibility feature called Windows XP Mode here.

Basically, any owner of a copy of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate (which covers just about everyone who will be using it in a corporate environment, and a lot of home users). will be entitled to download what is essentially a copy of Windows XP in a virtual machine that will run in parallel with Windows 7, seamlessly integrating it's windows and icons with the host Windows 7 ones, thereby relieving Microsoft of the need to keep old code in Windows 7 and future versions for compatiblity with old software. If it won't run in windows 7 you install it as an XP compatibility install and it runs in XP on top of Windows 7.

Microsoft prepping IE8 auto update

Microsoft is preparing to roll out IE8 to IE6 and IE7 users via autoupdate "on or about the third week of April".

IE8 will be available to WSUS in July 2009.

Visit the Microsoft IE blog for more info.

Twitter hit by a worm on Saturday

A worm infected Twitter on Saturday April 11, 2009.

The worm seems to have originated at the StalkDaily.com site, as it seems that it's main purpose is to direct people there. Twitter warned people against visiting the site or linking to it.

The worm sends spam tweets from the infected person's account that direct others to the StalkDaily site. Simply visiting the profile page of an infected user can lead to one's own profile getting infected.

If you have been locked out of your twitter account due to this worm, you need to do a password reset as Twitter has locked some infected accounts.

Twitter claims to have now fixed the security hole that enabled this worm, and that no passwords, phone numbers, or other sensitive information were compromised as part of this attack.

Ubuntu 9.04 ...just around the corner

Also, Ubuntu 7.10 reaches end-of-life on April 18, 2009

Ubuntu 9.04 Beta ... and cloud computing

The Beta version of Ubuntu Linux 9.04 is out.
I don't recommend the beta release for anything you want to keep working and stable, but if you want to run the liveCD and get a preview of what's coming at the end of April it's here.

9.04 promises faster boot up and support for the new Linux file system ext4. It also provides the really ambitious folks the tools to build a cloud computing server system.

This may be an interesting year for Linux. Cloud computing is hot and with all the little mini laptops on the market (perfect clients for cloud computing clusters) I imagine it'll get hotter. Ubuntu is packaging the tools for the server guys to use into it's system... It's only a matter of time I think before cloud services start popping up in large numbers.

Internet Explorer 8

For those of you who haven't upgraded to IE 7 yet, now you are another version behind. Microsoft officially took IE 8 out of beta.

The most touted feature seems to be InPrivate Browsing, which lets you browse the web without saving your history. A number of other new features are added in IE8 though, so check it out. IE 8 is also supposed to be better at identifying and blocking malware sites. That alone is worth the download.

Need to Budget?

If you find yourself needing to tighten down your spending in this economy Intuit has a free helper for you. Quicken Online.

Improving Your Mac's Firewall

The Mac comes with a firewall built-in, but like the Windows built-in firewall,
it is very limited in it's capabilities.

NoobProof and WaterRoof are both free (open source) firewall front-ends from hanynet.com that improve the flexibility of the Mac's built-in IPFW firewall.

WaterRoof is a very complex and powerful tool, which allows you to configure almost every aspect and option of "ipfw". And more, you can list/manage active connections or network files, do graphics log analisys, configure your mac as a router with bandwidth management with stateful rules and tons of other options. You need a good knowledge of "what a firewall is", and you should also have at least a basic ipfw knowledge.

NoobProof is a very easy tool. When you start it the first time you have a service list and you can choose to "allow" or "deny" connections to those services. So you have only to decide which service to allow, and then check "Activate NoobProof". You can also add selective "allow" and "deny", and you can delete or add new custom services in service list.

COMPARISON TABLE	WaterRoof	NoobProof
Static rules list	x	x
Customizable dynamic service list		x
Customizable rules builder	x
Startup Script and Startup configuration	x	x
Import and export firewall configuration	x
Bandwidth Management (Dummynet)	x
NAT setup (Network Address Translation)	x
Dynamic rules (stateful firewall)	x
Ready rule sets	x
Logs listing	x	x
Logs parsing and graphic statistics	x
Network connections and applications list	x
Network connections selective block or limit	x
Appfirewall debug and logs listing	x
Interface list and DNS/WHOIS queries	x
Configuration Wizard	x

Windows 7...It's better than Vista. Promise.

Tech Republic posted a PDF today, "10 Reasons Vista Haters Will Love Windows 7"
Trust me, from what I've seen it is better than Vista.

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tr/downloads/home/dl_10_vista_haters.pdf

SouthPark style Mac vs. PC vs. Linux

I have all 3 (and then some)

IE8 RC1 released today

Internet Explorer 8, Release Candidate 1 (the first beta actually being considered for release) was released today.

You can get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/

This follow up to previous versions of IE that I'm sure everyone is familiar with adds private browsing (with no history recorded for private sessions) and improved security features.
It also allows you to simulate earlier versions for websites that insist on a specific version.





And while you are at it, if you have a spare machine just laying around, or if you are geeky enough to use a virtual machine (like me) download Windows 7 beta too.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx
It's like an improved, faster Vista. But make sure you have the minimum system requirements and that you have no problem with the computer just stopping when the Windows beta expires on Aug 1.

Mac trojan - Beware of pirate iLife 09

A MacOS trojan infects over 20,000 systems who's users downloaded iLife 09 from pirate bittorrent sites. http://bit.ly/L4EP

NOT the end of Nortel

There's a lot of talk about Nortel right now, but to give you all a little cozier feeling about it, just let me say "this is not the end of Nortel".

They have only applied for creditor protection. They are not closing shop, just re-organizing.
The new Nortel may be a slimmer Nortel after this, but I strongly believe that we will still have Nortel around for many years to come.

They say they will still be doing R&D. As much as they have been? Who knows? Time will tell.

They will still sell products. Will they eliminate some products? Will they sell off some lines of products to other companies just as they bought up product lines like Bay Networks switches? Maybe.


The CEO released a statement and video here: http://www.nortel.com/corporate/restructuring.html
...and they have an investor's FAQ here: http://www.nortel.com/corporate/collateral/investor_faq.pdf

Countdown to 8.10

Firefox 3 and colours (colors for the americans)

FF3 supports color profiles so that your photos will look the same in FF3 as they did in photoshop, but you have to manually turn it on.

Go to http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter to see the ICC profile test.
If the sky in the photo is half green your profiles aren't enabled.

Go to about:config and set gfx.color_management.enabled to True.
Restart Firefox.

Then go back to http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter and see if it changes.

E-bike blog

I have started a new blog on my own server for any further e-bike reltated posts.
If you are interested in following my e-bike adventures this is the place to look: http://www.macphersonclan.com/rod/ebike/wordpress

I won't post any more e-bike stuff here unless it is interesting from a tech point of view.

E-bike Fall Ride

The Durham E-bike association is running a fall ride in Oshawa on Sept. 27th to promote the use of e-bikes as an alternate form of transportation. Mayor Gray will be riding along with the club from City Hall down to the lake.

Poster for Durham E-bike Association's Fall Ride

E-bike

After a bit of deliberation, I've decided to get myself an e-bike.

In particular, I have placed an order for a Veloteq Commuter RSV-GT in blue and black.
Which looks something like this:



I also paid my $25 to join the Durham E-bike Association. I believe that e-bikes are a fun, safe, and environmentally responsible form of transportation that should be encouraged, especially in the smoggier cities.

For anyone who's wondering what an e-bike is, Ontario is running a pilot (since Oct. 2006) allowing electric motor assisted bicycles on the road to be treated as bicycles (rather than motorcycles, like a moped) ...most other provinces and stattes already treat e-bikes as bicycles. That means no license, no plates, and no insurance needed... just a helmet. The catch is they are speed limited to 32km/h. ....which is faster than an average person bikes, but not faster than the road racers. The Ontario pilot program runs out in Oct 2009, after which they will still be road legal, but they may decide a license is needed, or that a few new rules are needed.

They come in both bicycle shape and motor scooter shape (like above).

I think it is a viable second vehicle that can be fun, is really cost efficient (pennies per charge), and easy to park.

They come with anti-theft alarms and locks, so that's not too big an issue.

For info on the e-bike pilot, visit the MTO E-bike FAQ.

System info for Windows

I've played around with a number of utilities for windows that tell you more about what's inside your machine and this is the one I like best.

System Information for Windows. By Gabriel Topala




For those who use macintosh computers it will look exactly like what you would expect from something with the name System Information... just like the MacOS control panel of the same name.

The best part is it doesn't need to install, so you can put it on a USB key, CD-ROM, or floppy disk (does anyone still use those?) and carry it with you from one PC to another.

An example of the kind of useful info you can get with it is just click on Memory on the left and it tells you how many slots you have in total, and what's in each one (memory type, speed, even brand!)