Michael Gracie 

Past tense: John Thompson has openly mocked Microsoft’s security initiatives. His company is showing no fear, and I am sure there are a lot of folks snickering along with him. Microsoft is acting squirrelly. Then there’s the flying lawsuits and Mac endorsements. I say the battle hasn’t gotten started just yet, but when it does [...]

Companies need a phone tree to deal with stolen laptops full of personally identifiable data, according to this report over at eWeek. How about a simpler “tree”: – Keep important data off of laptops and on in-house secure servers, followed by… – Keep laptops full of data out of the back seats of cars standing [...]

Information Week says you don’t have to wait for Vista to get its enhanced security – you can do it all now with Windows XP. That tells me two things: 1) Vista’s security enhancements can’t be particularly mindblowing if you can replicate most of the behaviour now; and 2) Before you get started, you should [...]

Whitedust Security talks honeypots, and all the fun you can have with them. For those just joining, a honeypot is a system put online to entice hackers – once they break in you get to study what they are up to. You can also set up a honeypot in the form of an email box, [...]

Fact or FUD? According to firewall vender Agnitum, Microsofts Kernel Patch Protection initiative may do more harm than good. The issue at hand? Third-party security vendors’ ability to keep up with patches on Windows PCs, and at a stretch, the idea that hackers would benefit more than commercial software developers. Is this an attempt by [...]

According to recent report by Sophos, phishers are persistently targeting PayPal and eBay users. The reason? Ubiquity of the services. eBay is available in 27 countries, and I doubt there are many people who haven’t bought, sold, or at least browsed for goodies. That’s a big market to go after. Add the fact that there [...]

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill requiring federally funded schools to block MySpace and other interactive sites from students. MySpace is running around fixing problems with their system, some of which are user related anyway, and politics trumps the efforts with an overly broad bill that could turn half the internet into [...]

A law which went into effect in Indiana requires companies to notify citizens when data breaches occur. Public Law 125 excludes companies cover by federal laws, including the Patriot Act, the Federal Driver’s Protection Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Federal Financial Modernization Act, and HIPAA, meaning all companies are exempt. If the breach [...]

The Washington Post says AOL is evolving, with an image makeover at Netscape leading the way. What I see so far is them copying digg, and getting picked on by script kiddies. If that is the first step in the evolution of a former web giant, I’d say they have “issues.” ***UPDATE*** Can’t blame hackers [...]

Everyone is jumping on the social bandwagon, and the latest and purportedly greatest (with dreams of a million members in six months) is Utherverse. Of course, it is touted as a place to “live your fantasy,” but looks a lot like an amatuer pornography site. No surprise there, as its mothership is something called the [...]