Zero Day novel is scary and an exciting read

Mark Russinovich probably knows more about rootkits than most people on the planet, since he found some and wrote the first major tool to detect them. Now he has written a novel about viruses, computer security and government incompetence. And it is scary.
I thought my laptop was secure, but it isn't. The BIOS can be reprogrammed, the hard drive can we wiped out and any software running on it can be attacked and disabled, all by some cleverly written code. I called my antivirus company and asked them if they'd read the book. One of the guys had "heard about it".
So, my question is one that computer users hate to hear: when was the last time you checked your computer for security updates of ALL installed programs? When was the last time you made a backup? How about an off-line backup? Or an off-site backup? Will it be enough? Probably not.

My 330 Hour Hard Drive

I'm in the process of adding a 2TB hard drive to my home server, mainly for backups and archives. So before I format the drive I decided to run SpinRite in maintenance mode to check that the drive is OK.
You know you've bought a huge hard drive when you realise that SpinRite is going to take nearly two weeks (13.75 days) to test it thoroughly. I think I'm going to have to do the testing in stages, because I don't want to have the server offline for two weeks during testing. That's a bit extreme ;-)
Update: I ran SpinRite in "Emergency Recovery Mode" and it completed the job in around 5 hours. Now I'm formatting the drive, and I'm curious to see how long that takes. It also took around 5 hours to do a proper format of the drive. I have copied around 1TB of backup files onto the drive, and it took most of the weekend to do. 2TB is a lot of data!

Check Your Browser!

Many tech geeks know about how insecure Internet Explorer 6 is, and how even Microsoft has a web site dedicated to convincing users to upgrade. But is your browser up to date or vulnerable? One service that allows you to find out is the Browser Check from Qualys at http://browsercheck.qualys.com/ which can check most browsers, including IE (requires an add-in), Firefox and Chrome. Here is the result of running it in Firefox 5:
It's interesting that it reports the availability of version 5.0.1 even before the browser itself offers the upgrade. It also shows that (once again) Java is vulnerable, but no fix available yet.
When you run this check on Google Chrome you may need to load the "about:plugins" page to be able to disable plugins like the RealPlayer plugin, which you may not be using. I also found its false warning about a "potential threat" in Adobe Flash a bit annoying: it doesn't check the version number correctly. Hopefully this will be fixed before another flash vulnerability comes along. The bug doesn't happen if the plugin is installed.

Is Genesis Capital using illegal databases?

I had never heard of Genesis Capital before today at 11h49 when someone from their 011-731-5000 call centre phoned me to sell me financial products. I told him I'd never heard of Genesis Capital and where did they get my number from? "From an FNB database" he replied. "Who at FNB?" He didn't know. When I told him he was breaking the law he rang off.
I called Genesis Capital on the same number and they didn't appear to be too interested in helping me. The Marketing Manager wasn't available, and someone else cut me off while trying to put me through to someone else. I have logged a query with FNB about the breach of privacy, but personally I doubt if my bank had anything to do with this database. I have also logged a query with Genesis Capital, but I doubt if these scumbags will respond.
People like this buy databases on the assumption that it is OK to use the information to run a credit check on me and then contact me if the credit check looks promising. What they don't realise is that I have told the credit check companies like TransUnionITC to put my name on their Do Not Call database. So when they call they are already breaking the law. Not that this kind of company has any business ethics to speak of, so that wouldn't bother them much.

Cash for Bugs

I love my job. Part of what makes it interesting is finding and fixing bugs. What alarms me is how long it sometimes takes to find a bug. So recently I took a different approach with my biggest customer: for each new bug found and reported, the person who found the bug gets a R100 cash reward.
On Thursday I paid out R300 for bugs in a new module that I could swear I tested thoroughly. I guess not. But I was glad to be able to pay out the money, because they haven't found any problems since. And there are a few happy call centre operators who reported the problems.
I have now got a backlog of bugs to fix, many of them minor but annoying. I doubt if half of them would have come to my attention so soon without the reward. And certainly it gives me more confidence that next time I make changes to the program that I'll be hearing sooner rather than later about anything I overlooked or missed during testing.

Mainstream Media is Really Bad

This from the Russia Today TV channel. Here is another spin on the same interview, this time focusing on the Facebook angle.

Eyes Over Africa

This is a great video about a fascinating book by Michael Poliza, called "Eyes over Africa". It's a large coffee-table style book with hundreds of double-page photos of incredible beauty in various parts of the continent I was born and live in.

Time to get rid of Flash and Java

I have always regarded Flash, Acrobat, QuickTime and Java as "necessary evils" on my laptop, since I do a lot of browsing. But they are a pain to keep up to date, especially since they are full of security flaws.
But recently I realised that I only ever use Flash from within Google Chrome, and I'm not using Sun Java for anything now that LogMeIn doesn't require it any more. So I decided to remove both Flash and Java from my "Installed Programs" list, and rely entirely on the version of Flash that comes with Chrome. So far so good, since Chrome updates it automatically.
I wish I could do the same with Quicktime, but I still use iTunes from time to time. I have, however, disabled the RealPlayer add-ins on Chrome, Firefox and IE. That's more legacy software out of the way.
Another thing I noticed was that Google Chrome loads quickly but takes a long time to show all the thumbnails in its "New Tab" screen. So I changed it to show the "about:version" screen on startup instead. It's even quicker than before. And I have installed the NotScript extension to protect me from unwanted scripts, and AdBlock Plus to hide the ads. This had made my browser even better.
Hopefully Google will abandon their "flat" logo they are currently playing with in Chrome 12, because it looks terrible at small sizes, but we'll see. Both logos are shown here.

An historic moment in the Arab world

As a democratic revolution led by tech-empowered young people sweeps the Arab world, Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's director-general, shares a profoundly optimistic view of what's happening in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and beyond. In the first talk posted online from the TED 2011 conference in California, Khanfar describes the powerful moment when people realised they could step out of their homes and ask for change. This article first appeared in The Washington Post. You can watch Al Jazeera English online in the USA, and on satellite in Europe and Africa. In South Africa even the cheapest DStv bouquet at R20 per month includes Aljazeera. Having compared it with Sky, CNN, CNBC, CCTV and BBC World, I prefer Al Jazeera for their non-hysterical tone and in-depth coverage. And despite what Fox Lies News and George Bush tried to tell everyone, they aren't run by Al Qaeda or Hamas. http://english.aljazeera.net/

Why We Get Fat

This book could not have come at a better time for me. Because of my cholesterol levels, I was told in November to cut down my fat intake and eat a more healthy diet. What I wasn't told was that most "low fat" foods replace the fat with sugar or other processed carbohydrates, which are more fattening that the fat itself.
Gary Taubes explains this in his latest book, "Why We Get Fat", which draws from research over the last 100 years, and debunks many popular myths about healthy eating. It's available from Audible. I wish the narrator would not replace the word "causal" with "casual" or "causality" with "casualty" (they mean different things and aren't wrong in the original text) but apart from that the audio book is very readable and accessible, and I have ordered the hardcover book which should arrive next week sometime. I may even lend it to my doctor. Once I have lost or gained weight as a result of changing my eating habits, I'll report back. I have decided not to have any sugar in tea or coffee, and not to eat any bread until my weight goes down to a healthy level.

If you need any motivation to cut down on junk food, sugar, carbohydrates and so on, you could always watch the movie "Supersize Me". Scary.

Awesome "Change"

Four talented young musicians recently recorded this album. I gladly paid the US$15 to buy the album, and enjoyed listening to the songs and reading the lyrics. I think its pretty awesome. Last year they played at the music festival at Clarens and impressed a lot of seasoned musos with their energy and talent. This year they are even better. They even recorded, mixed and produced the album themselves. I'm seriously impressed.
The band is called "When in September"
From left to right in the photo:
Thomas Quinn - Guitar and Backup Vocals;
Levon Lock - Guitar and Lead Vocals;
Timothy Edwards - Drums and Backup Vocals;
Warren Graham - Bass and Backup Vocals;
They have a Facebook Fan Page and there are 4 extra free songs on their MySpace profile.

How to find the real Nemo

Nemo belongs to a group of fish commonly known as Clownfish. The scientists have given Nemo the scientific name, Amphiprion percula. Clownfish have a very interesting relationship with the anemones in which they live and produce their young. Because of this relationship, Clownfish are often also known as Anemone Fish. Although Nemo is now bred in large numbers in tanks, owning a Nemo clownfish impacts on the fish populations of the oceans, because some are still captured from the wild for the aquarium trade. I know this because I have been helping Dennis Polack with Fishwise Pro, an extensive fish database that he is publishing on the web at www.fishwisepro.com.
To quote the instructions on the web site: Go to Common Names, click in the "Used In" column filter and type "Disney". This will show all the Disney cartoon characters that are fish. Look for "Nemo" and click on the record. Click on the "Back: Species" link to find out about Nemo's Species. Click on the species record and choose "Pictures" to find 11 photos of Nemo's real life relatives, Amphiprion percula ("Clownfish").
Sally Polack took the best picture, shown here. Dennis would also appreciate any comments or feedback on the site. There are currently 33,200 pictures on the site, covering most of the known fish species.

After reading the October 2010 edition of National Geographic, I wonder how long it will be before Nemo and most other fishes are extinct. Read "Time for a Sea Change" and buy the magazine to see the maps of how we are over-fishing the oceans. Then check out their 2007 coverage of the oceans, and weep.