Fix for Flash plugin crashing on Ubuntu karmic & lucid

I've had a few problems over recent weeks on both Ubuntu karmic (9.10) and lucid (10.04) whereby web pages built on Flash player (such as ABC iView) would display a large error screen proclaiming that Flash player had crashed. I first saw it on...

Initial thoughts on the ProCurve 1810G-8

I've just been asked to deploy some HP ProCurve 1810G-8 switches (J9449A) into a network environment containing a large number of managed and unmanaged ProCurve switches. This network has an existing ProCurve Manager installation which controls...

Spam insights from Project Honeypot

Project Honeypot just published a report of their experience in processing 1 billion spam messages.  Highlights for the impatient: For the past 5 years, spam "bots have grown at a compound annual growth rate of more than 378%. In other words, the...

What the world needs now is a better SMT

Novell's SMT (Subscription Management Tool) is a software update tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE.  I've had the dubious honour of working with it over the last few months on a client site.  These notes were compiled as a result of...

More grist for the "long passwords" mill

For a long time, i've told my clients and friends that the best way to make a password is to write a short sentence or phrase. A recent study linked from Slashdot IT reinforces this. The executive summary: if you make your password 13 or more...

"Just say no!" to e-cards

Richard Bliss recently blogged at Novell and on his personal blog with some great advice: don't click on e-cards from your friends, and think about asking them not to send them at all, since the risks of clicking on e-cards vastly outweigh the...

Clever banking trojan

cnet has a really interesting article about a clever trojan horse application which steals money from online banking accounts while the user is logged into them, and displays false balance details to the user so they don't know what's going on....

It's time to turn off WPA/TKIP

Network world and SANS are reporting a new attack on wireless encryption, specifically, WPA with TKIP. The attack takes 60 seconds, and renders this combination almost as useless as WEP has been for some time. It's time to check your security...

Why you should care about your computer's security

ABC's Four Corners has an interesting episode about cybercrime and how it can affect ordinary people. Check it out on iView: http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/419222. (The program's victims were a little unsympathetic in my opinion, but they...

Whirlpool broadband survey results

Whirlpool has just released the results of its 2008 broadband survey. Essential reading for anyone who uses broadband, especially for those considering renewing their contracts.