Every once in a while, being in the computer industry (and now more specifically in the “Security” business) you finally come across something that your family and friends can relate to.

I mean, how many people outside of IT really care much about IT, so long as their TV and toaster works (because the Internet might work, but for some reason there’s always problems with the home connection.) And, from here we know that even fewer people have any clue what IT Security people are about, or even care?

You really want to read the full story by Jennifer Jabbusch, a teaser is below but you want to read it from the beginning. Security is a real-life issue.

Grande Theft Auto …

He now has no car and no phone. So, ironically enough, he then had to approach a stranger and politely ask for the use of their cell to phone home and let the group know he was bamboozled. A few tears were shed, but his wife assured him it would be fine and he shouldn’t be scared. (No, I’m not making that up).

If you read the full article,

The moral of the story…  There are two. 1) Involve someone with a ‘security mindset’ and 2) Your security is only as strong as your people. A sweet damsel in distress… social engineering at it’s finest…

A wonderful (though said) example of real life ‘scams’ that can impact any of us (and how often do your parents, or kids open the door without a worry these days?)

But more importantly, be careful out there that something like this story doesn’t happen to you or your friends (not the hairdresser part of the story, the parking part, hoiiiii)

When you ride the trains for a living(?) people seem to begin a pattern of selecting a set range of carriages they prefer to get on. For me, I choose the carriages depending on which ones are not going to be too crowded, which usually means I get to have a nice walk to the “other-end” of the train station because people seem to congregate around the entrance/exit to the station, as well as congregating underneath the “covered” space of the station platform.

Now, one of the problems with being “at the end” of the station is that it is also a magnet for the smokers. I think there’s  a local law that prevents smokers from puffing under the covered area.

Even with the wonderful open space “at the end” of the platform, there’s more smog with the puff-mamas and puff-daddys around.

Of course, when it’s raining you’ll find me under covers and I can just run when the train arrives. Unfortunately, the dedicated puffers are still out there “at the end” of the platform.

Of course, when catching a train from one of the under-ground stations here in Sydney (for me that’s at Town Hall Station and Wynyard Station) we’re all under-cover so the smokers get a real hard time until they can get home.

O4 calls Yesterday afternoon (Monday) to tell me to call home on the landline because she things she’s lost her mobile. Somewhere in all the running around doing the Mum thing she can’t recall where she’s put the phone, or whether the phone fell out of her pocket or … A little stressed she offers that I can go ahead and get a new phone and I give her my old phone.

Woo hooo, YES!!

Just in time for the new iPhone (July 11) not!

Hmm, thinking to myself that I’m spending some time tonight on eBay looking for that great deal of a phone.

You know how it is living with little munchkins (kids.) Things just go disappearing for days, weeks and even months (years?) O4 picks me up from work and we’re still stressed about losing the phone (the implied waste of money.) Wohoo, new phone here i come.

We get home, and I take my back to the home-office and put it down. Smiling up from the desk is my new phone, not! O4’s phone had between the time she came to pick-me up and we got home, had walked into the office and sat on the desk.

Of course the kids are oblivious to the stress in looking for the phone.

We can but hope.

My train ride was on schedule this morning, but the ‘features’ offered by City Rail is beginning to scare me (since I may just not get to work at all one of these days.)

The ride I usually take when working in the city was delayed by 20 ~ 30 minutes, which basically means that the next ride would mean a big adrenaline rush through the system to get from the downtown train station to the workplace in time. Let alone having to go through the “tunnels” and the crush to get on the escalator (note single escalator service.)

Poor work warriors from further North of the city seem to be struggling with this scheduling ‘feature’ for quite some time. At least, they’re always on the news for not making it to work or being stuck somewhere in the Public Transport System for up to 4 hours.

Wow!!! I get to see my first MacBook Pro on the train today (or maybe it’s my 2nd but didn’t really notice the other one?)

Seems to be the latest thing to equip your staff with a notebook, and stick them with a “dongle” USB modem for keeping connected with work.

This we know, this MacBook gal doesn’t do too much of this stuff on this train ride. She’s sitting with the sun glaring at her and has to put her hand up to shade her eyes while she’s trying to do something on her laptop. True warriors already have the seating on the train that doesn’t have glaring sunlight.

Oh, and you have to move around. There’s no perfect spot as this ride winds around and thus the sun comes in differently depending on the part of the track your on.

POSH – Port Out Stubborn Home.

Reminds me of having learned sometime in the past the beginnings of the phrase / word POSH. Posh is often (at least where I was) used to refer to someone or a group of people with some real money.

When I get online, I’ll look it up again. (I’m not crazy enough to pay the rates to get 24/7 access from my laptop, but I know the Bro’ does.)

Another day, another Monday, another work-week.

Hope your’s is a good one.

We’re going to get kicked out of church one of these days.

Apparently, the children were not understanding one iota of what was going on, and they decided to pull out their pens and papers out and were off into their own world of adventure.

Some colourful art work although I don’t think there’s a conference somewhere that can decide whether what we’re doing is within the bounds of church doctrine ? Whatever that may be.

The world outside today is on the scale of FREEZING so when Sisitoutai had enough of being inside we moved out and went “INSIDE” the car to keep warm while he had his cheese-snacks.

Soana Sesilia is definitely growing up faster than anyone notices and her current enjoyment is to grab the textures from the older kids and colour herself. Fortunately the textures are water based(?) and come out in the washing, but this means that the few “permanent” markers we have in the house are “locked-away” and secured like gold (or mud, depending on the effect you’re guarding.)

Wow, I guess it was worth it after all paying for the anti-virus software running on my machines (AVG http://free.grisoft.com/)

So we didn’t get my new uber mobile phone, but we did get the compact digital camera (Olympus FE-340, made in Vietnam.) Unfortunately, the camera also came with an unexpected gift.

[AutoRun]
open=fun.xls.exe
shellexecute=fun.xls.exe
shellAutocommand=fun.xls.exe
shell=Auto
[VVflagRun]
aabb=kdkfjdkfk1

The camera’s internal storage memory can take about 30 photos (at least that’s the experience we got filling it up so we can tell how many it can handle.) We charged up the lithium re-chargeable battery and started taking photos.

Plug the camera into the computer to download the pictures and we get this nice little invitation.

What!!