Tag Archives: security

Had your dose of Office 2003 SP3 yet?

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If not, get over your fear of needles and get this relatively painless shot in the arm.  Now.  If you’re not patched, you’re likely to get p0wned if you happen to open an Excel spreadsheet.

According to Microsoft, there are several mitigating Factors:

• This vulnerability cannot be exploited on Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Service Pack 1, or Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac.
• Customers who are running Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2 and have deployed Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment (MOICE) are not affected by this vulnerability.
• The vulnerability cannot be exploited automatically through e-mail. For an attack to be successful a user must open an attachment that is sent in an e-mail message.
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Oh yeah? Well why don’t you go Google yourself?

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Googling Oneself Is More Popular says Wired…

In a report Sunday, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said 47 percent of U.S. adult Internet users have looked for information about themselves through Google or another search engine.

Also interesting in the article, it mentions

Pew also found that teens were more likely than adults to restrict who can see their profiles at an online hangout like Facebook or News Corp.’s MySpace, contrary to conventional wisdom.

That’s not a bad thing, in my books. However, I think the article misunderstands why,

“Teens are more comfortable with the applications in some ways, (but) I also think they have their parents and teachers telling them to be very careful about what they post and who they share it with,” Madden said.

I wonder if this isn’t less due to the possible risk of strangers identifying them, and more due to teachers, parents, and simply a matter of clique behaviour. Remember, teenagers are immortal, so internet perverts are something that happens to someone else.

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Security Theatre

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I get it. Airport security obviously isn’t about stopping bombs, because they don’t. Sure, they catch some toothpaste, hand lotion, shampoo, but actual liquid explosives? No.

And why would they? The equipment doesn’t work, and the staff isn’t much better

You’re not even allowed to make jokes at the airport, which is odd, since somehow I doubt terrorists have good senses of humour.

And what would happen if they did suspect some real terrorists were on a plane? As it turns out, they leave the passengers on the plane with the terrorists.

So what is the point? I’m all for security, but does the theatre really scare terrorists off? Or is it just an excuse to increase gov’t authority?

UPDATED (2008/05/04): Fixed broken URLs

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