Author: Dave Farquhar

No, it doesn’t take a “serious hacker” to crack wi-fi through WPS

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , ,

John C Dvorak is raving in PC Magazine about Netgear wireless routers and range extenders and how easy WPS makes it to set them up–and providing some very seriously flawed security advice along the way.

“Note that WPS is crackable by serious hackers using brute-force attack, but any SOHO user not dealing with government secrets should be fine.”
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An inside peek at a newsroom

Dave Farquhar Journalism, St. Louis ,

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Joe Holleman and his editors had to dodge some strange accusations this past week. These ranged from Holleman catching his editors sleeping, to amazement that his editors “allowed” him to write something they agreed with.

My longtime readers will know that prior to becoming Security Dude, I graduated from journalism school with the intention of eventually becoming a magazine editor. In the meantime, I spent a lot of time paying my dues writing for a daily newspaper. I’ve dealt with a number of editors. And they’ve dealt with me. Although I’m considered a moderate now, in the 1990s my now-moderate views qualified me as a conservative. My editors were always more liberal than me, so we had some disagreements.

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Mark Hurd doesn’t sound like he’s just what Dell needed

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , ,

Word on the street is that Blackstone Group has a plan for turning around Dell: Buy the company, take it private, and install Mark Hurd as CEO. The thinking is that he’s available, has experience, and would have baggage keeping him from being the CEO of a public company.

I just see one glitch. Available != good fit.

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Welcome, Tony’s Kansas City readers

Dave Farquhar Copyright , , , , ,

Thanks to Tony’s Kansas City for the link this morning. Tony noted that “Security dude reminds us that Google Fiber could kill the software industry.”

That’s an interesting spin. I do think it will affect the software industry–but so long as Kansas City stays at the forefront and the rest of the country is content with being a technological backwater, the effect will be minimal. But “kill” is an awfully strong word, even if every major city in the country were to get affordable Gigabit Internet in the very near future.

I say that because of what I saw in college. Read more

Another take on working from home

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

Lifehacker posted an interesting take on working from home: The assumption that productivity is all that matters. The point being that if productivity were all that matters, there’s a drug we can take to be more productive, just like athletes can take steroids. It’s illegal, but the drug exists. It doesn’t make taking that drug right.

It’s an interesting discussion. Part of it is also moot. Read more

Kansas City and Google Fiber

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , ,

I get a few questions about Google Fiber, because I have Kansas City connections, and I work in computers. People who’ve known me long enough know that I upgraded to first-generation DSL about 30 minutes after it became available at the apartment complex I lived in at the time. The question then was the same as the question in Kansas City now: What do you do with an Internet connection that fast?

Well, for starters, there’s this novel idea involving the public library… Read more

Does your spouse know who your collecting buddies are?

Dave Farquhar model railroading, Retro Computing, Toy trains , , , ,

The story of the 1967 train layout and stash brought up a couple of good questions, even as more facts failed to emerge. If something were to happen to you, would your spouse know how to deal with the collection you’ve left behind?

I think it’s a valid question, and not just for trains.
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How to check to see if a FedEx or UPS e-mail message is real

Dave Farquhar security

“Did you order anything lately?” my wife asked me.

“Not that I can think of,” I said.

“We got this e-mail about a FedEx package that they couldn’t deliver on the 17th,” she said. “It has a ‘print receipt’ button.”

Don’t click on that button.

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New media in Cuba

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , , ,

I read an ingenious article this week on Slashdot, talking about how Cubans evade Internet censorship (not to mention lack of access) by passing contraband material around on flash drives. It’s so old school, but brilliant.

Sure, it’s less efficient and less elegant than using the Internet, but unlike the Internet, it’s nearly impossible to detect and even harder to stop. Read more

And the most security-riddled program of 2012 was….

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , , ,
Secunia released its annual vulnerability review, a study of the 50 most vulnerable pieces of software in 2012. It was a fairly tight-three way race at the top, and the distance between #3 and #4 was huge.

I was actually surprised at who the top three were. They weren’t the three usual suspects. But in the case of the top two, they did, to their credit, roll out fixes within 30 days of disclosure.

So now that I’m killing you with suspense….
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