“They were bored and wished they had a job.”

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , ,

I was catching up on security podcasts this week, and a brief statement in one of them really grabbed me. The panel was talking about people who steal online gaming accounts, I think. The exact content isn’t terribly important–what’s very important is what this person found in the forums where the people who perform this nefarious activity hang out. What she found was that there was one common sentiment that almost everyone there expressed, frequently.

They were bored, and they wished they had a job.

There was about a 30-second exchange after that, but I don’t think it’s enough. Read more

Value Village and Affton could be very good for one another

Dave Farquhar St. Louis , , , , , ,

There’s a Value Village thrift store in Shrewsbury that’s being displaced because the plaza it’s in–the same place I used to go to buy Commodore gear–is going to be demolished to make way for a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Whether Shrewsbury needs a Wal-Mart Supercenter when there’s one six miles away is another question for another day.

Value Village needs someplace to go, and Affton has an available retail space that’s been empty since the hardware store previously occupying it went out of business more than a year ago. County councilman Steve Stenger (D-Affton) wants to block the move, essentially saying that Affton is too good for a place like Value Village. Read more

Don’t read too much into the PC sales drop just yet

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Windows , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you probably know that new PC sales are in the toilet–out of the five biggest vendors, the only one whose sales managed to hold steady in Q1 2013 was Lenovo, while the other four saw a sales decline. So now Slashdot linked to a ZDNet piece stating that Windows is over, and said it must be true because ZDNet always sides with Microsoft.

Let’s not read too much into that. The author of the piece is a longtime open-source advocate. The points he raises are completely valid, but if there’s one person who’s going to take Microsoft to task, it’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols.

Microsoft has a long road ahead, but there is precedent for salvaging the boondoggle known as Windows 8. And I don’t think Windows 8 is the only factor here. Read more

A treasure trove of training material

Dave Farquhar security , , ,

Need to improve your security skills? Need a refresher course to brush up on some skills you haven’t used in a while? Or are you just looking for some CPEs or CEUs to keep your certification valid?

The United States Department of Defense offers a great deal of security training, much of which is freely available to all comers. Your tax dollars paid for it, so don’t feel bad about using it. Besides, if you use it to improve your networks, then your networks are less likely to become a source of attack on government networks, so they’re happy for you to use most of it.

Here’s a hint: Anything that isn’t viewable by the general public is marked ” *(DoD PKI Cert req’d).” If you don’t see that marking, then it’s free for you to view. Just click the link marked “Launch Training.” Read more