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Why were early computers beige?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing November 12, 2015September 5, 20191980s, 1990s, apple, apple ii, atari, atari st, Benjamin Moore, Bennington Gray, commodore, commodore 64, IBM

It’s a common question: Why were early computers beige? In some ways it seems a curious color choice today.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Another reason to block fonts at the proxy

Dave Farquhar security October 29, 2015December 5, 2015apple, CIO, macintosh, os x, vulnerability

Last week Apple released a bunch of patches up and down its product line. One of the vulnerabilities it fixed in OS X was a vulnerability in its font parser.

In the past you could mitigate vulnerabilities like this by only installing fonts from trusted sources, but since it’s now possible for web pages to transmit fonts along with other content, there’s a limitless number of untrusted fonts out there in the world.

Since it may take a while for all of the major operating systems to shake out all of the problems in their font subsystems, that’s the reason I’ve recommended filtering fonts at the proxy.

Dave Farquhar

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The problem with ditching Flash and Java

Dave Farquhar security October 28, 2015October 27, 2015apple, Brian Krebs, JRE, Whitelist

Last week Adobe issued an out-of-band Flash patch, and once again Brian Krebs urged people to ditch Flash, noting that he’s done so and hasn’t missed it.

We decided to try ditching Flash at work a few months ago, but it didn’t go quite so smoothly for us. I thought I’d share my experience.

Dave Farquhar

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‘PC Does What?’ seems doomed to fail

Dave Farquhar Hardware October 19, 2015October 16, 2015apple, dell, hp, intel, lenovo, malware

A coalition of Dell, HP, Intel, Lenovo, and Microsoft are trying to figure out how to reverse the downward trend of PC sales, and what they came up with was a marketing campaign called “PC Does What?”

The problem is it’s not 1995 anymore, and it’s going to take more than a marketing campaign to change that.

Dave Farquhar

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The downside of streaming music

Dave Farquhar Music, security August 27, 2015August 23, 2015apple

There’s a new rule when it comes to security and privacy: If a service is free, then you’re the product.

Actually, come to think about it, the rule isn’t so new. I’m the product when I listen to the radio. Radio stations exist to deliver a product–namely, an audience–to advertisers, and the audience is different when you’re talking top 40 versus urban contemporary versus country versus classic rock versus alternative versus adult contemporary.

But when it comes to streaming music, the game changes a bit.

Dave Farquhar

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Will ARM overtake x86?

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 14, 2015June 9, 2024amd, android, apple, intel, mac os x, os x, x86

Here’s an interesting question I got recently: Will ARM overtake x86?

I think the answer depends on how you define “overtake.”

Dave Farquhar

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Droidpocalypse? Josh Drake says no.

Dave Farquhar Android, security August 1, 2015July 31, 2015android, apple, demonstration, IOS, os x, podcast, samsung, vulnerability, Windows XP

Josh Drake, the researcher who discovered the Stagefright vulnerability in Android that lets an attacker hack into an Android device by sending a specially crafted picture or video in a text message, was on the Risky Business security podcast this week to talk about it. What he had to say was interesting.

Patrick Gray, the host, tends to be a pretty outspoken critic of Android and isn’t shy about talking up Apple. He tried to get Drake to say Android is a trainwreck, security-wise, but Drake wouldn’t say it. Drake actually went as far as to say he thinks Android and IOS are fairly close, security wise.

So why do we see so many more Android bugs? Drake had an answer.

Dave Farquhar

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How the Amiga could have lived to age 30 and beyond

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 25, 2015February 18, 20171980s, 1990s, amiga, amiga os, apple, atari, Bill Gates, commodore, commodore 128, commodore 64, IBM, intel, irving gould, jack tramiel, macintosh, Mehdi Ali, Microsoft Basic, MOS, motorola, nbc, os x

It was 30 years ago this week that Commodore released its landmark, long-time-coming Amiga 1000 computer–the first 1990s computer in a field full of 1970s retreads.

Yes, it was a 1990s computer in 1985. It had color and sound built in, not as expensive, clunky, hard-to-configure add-ons. It could address up to 8 megabytes of memory, though it ran admirably on a mere 512 kilobytes. Most importantly, it had fully pre-emptive multitasking, something that previously only existed in commercial workstations that cost five figures.

It was so revolutionary that even NBC is acknowledging the anniversary.

Being a decade or so ahead of its time was only the beginning of its problems, unfortunately.

Dave Farquhar

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Looking for a career change? Consider web app pentesting

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, security July 24, 2015July 11, 20181980s, 1990s, apple, atari, commodore, Proxy server, radio shack

IT jobs aren’t as easy to come by as they were 20 years ago, but web app pentesting is one subset of the field that I don’t see slowing down any time soon. Unfortunately it’s a poorly understood one.

But if you spent any significant time in the 1980s or early 1990s abusing commercial software, especially Commodore and Apple and Atari and Radio Shack software, I’m looking at you. Even if you don’t know it, you’re uniquely qualified to be a web app pentester.

Dave Farquhar

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Why this latest attempt to resurrect the Commodore brand will probably flop

Dave Farquhar Android, Retro Computing July 16, 2015August 3, 20171980s, 1990s, amiga, android, apple, commodore, dell, lenovo, motorola, Packard Bell

The Commodore brand is back again, this time on an Android smartphone. For a premium price, you get an Android 5.0 phone with the Commodore logo on it, preloaded with VICE and an Amiga emulator, which, between the two of them, emulate just about everything Commodore ever made, except, perhaps, the products that can be emulated with the Android calculator app.

But I don’t expect this attempt to be any more successful than earlier efforts to resurrect the brand.

Dave Farquhar

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