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The trouble with bringing your own software

Dave Farquhar security, Software May 3, 2013November 22, 20181990s, adobe creative suite, apple, hp, macintosh, micron, Microsoft Office, Missouri, office 2007, pc magazine, university of missouri, windows 2000, windows 7

PC Magazine is advocating a bring your own laptop, with your own software approach to business. It likens it to mechanics who bring their own tools.

The trouble is that while mechanical tools in a toolbox operate autonomously and don’t interfere with one another, software residing on a computer does. Read more

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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The ACLU has a point about smartphone security

Dave Farquhar Android, security April 19, 2013April 17, 2013android, antimalware, antivirus, apple, AT&T, cyanogenmod, cybersecurity, malware, samsung, sprint, verizon

The ACLU complained to the FTC that carriers aren’t patching vulnerable Android phones. They have a point.

Phones are profitable, and the carriers are trying to have it both ways. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Windows April 17, 2013November 3, 20251980s, 1990s, amd, amiga, apple, asus, IBM, kingston, lenovo, vista, windows 2000, windows 7, windows 8, windows 98, windows me, windows nt, Windows Vista, Windows XP

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

Dave Farquhar

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The ethics of writing nefarious security instructions

Dave Farquhar security March 28, 2013November 3, 2025apple, Ars Technica, malware, oracle, password database, password list, passwords, unix

This week I posted a link to a video showing how to crack a WPS-enabled wifi network, and this week, Ars Technica wrote a firsthand account of cracking a password list. I’m sure this raises questions of ethics in some people’s minds. To be honest, spreading this kind of information makes me a little uncomfortable too, but I also think it’s necessary.

Dave Farquhar

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

Dave Farquhar Hardware March 25, 2013March 24, 2013apple, asus, compaq, dell, hp, IBM, macintosh, mark hurd, Michael Dell, oracle

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.

Dave Farquhar

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Welcome, Tony’s Kansas City readers

Dave Farquhar Copyright March 24, 2013February 10, 20251980s, 1990s, apple, journalism, Kansas City, treadmill

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

Dave Farquhar

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

Dave Farquhar security March 20, 2013March 18, 2013apple, chrome, firefox, itunes, JRE, oracle, vulnerability, windows 7, Windows Server

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….
Read more

Dave Farquhar

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And this is why I’ve been saying to uninstall Java, rather than disable it

Dave Farquhar Software March 17, 2013March 16, 2013apple, macintosh, vulnerability

Apple just uncovered and fixed a vulnerability that allowed an exploit to re-enable Java in a browser when it’s been disabled, which then of course allows a litany of exploits.

There are two lessons here. Macintoshes are hackable just like any other device, and latent software can be re-enabled. If you don’t think someone’s trying to do the same thing in Windows and Linux, you’re not paying attention.

Dave Farquhar

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Commodore was more than a stock scam

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 15, 2013May 1, 20251980s, 1990s, amiga, apple, atari, Chuck Peddle, commodore, debts, dell, hp, IBM, intel, irving gould, jack tramiel, stock scam, Texas Instruments, TI

From time to time, I see the phrase “Commodore stock scam” or something similar come up in discussion or in books. Commodore, in case you don’t know, was a high-flying computer company in the 1980s that was literally making computers as quickly as they could sell them while Apple struggled for its survival, and was in the enviable position of being the main supplier of chips for its competitors. Imagine if Intel sold computers at retail next to HP and Dell, while still selling chips to Dell. That was Commodore in 1984. I don’t have 1984 figures, but in 1985, Commodore had 38% of the computer market all to itself. IBM and its clones, combined, had 49%. Apple had 13%.

But a decade later, Commodore had squandered all of that away and was out of business. That’s why Robert X. Cringely sums up Commodore as Irving Gould‘s stock scam, then goes back to writing about Apple.

The real story is more complicated than that. More interesting, too.

Dave Farquhar

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