May 2006 – Page 2 – Cubicgarden.com…

BA site compromised, again?

From Slashdot yesterday, Identity Theft from Tossed Airline Boarding pass?

The Guardian newspaper has a great story about how the gathering of information for anti-terrorist passenger screening databases allowed a reporter and security guru Adam Laurie to lay the groundwork for stealing the identity of a business traveller by using his discarded boarding-pass stub. From the article: We logged on to the BA website, bought a ticket in Broers name and then, using the frequent flyer number on his boarding pass stub, without typing in a password, were given full access to all his personal details – including his passport number, the date it expired, his nationality (he is Dutch, living in the UK) and his date of birth. The system even allowed us to change the information.

So my take on it is, maybe this story is not quite what its cracked up to be. According to many Slashdotters there calling bullshit. But in the past I've also seen how easy it is to exploit BA's online system. I'm actually sure I've emailed BA over 2 years ago and maybe blogged it a while ago. See the problem I had was that my password timed out and I needed to get a eticket for the return journey. So I logged in as Sarah who had a different account then changed a few things in the URL and bingo I was able to see my account details including address, passport number, etc. Now from what I remember I couldn't get the password, but I could change it (which I did). I do remember the membership number, firstname, lastname and email address was all I needed to change the account.

I remember being so shocked at the lack of security and privicy that I tried to delete my account once I got back to the UK. I know for sure I told quite a few people about this flaw but can't quite remember exactly who. Honestly the problem seems to be when your already logged in accessing someone elses account other than your own. Anyway, I guess I should go and see if I can get my old details without a password… Hopefully some mainstream attention like this will force BA to recheck there site and maybe solve the flaw I identified all that time ago.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number 9 – Hate crimes and We Media

Me and Sarah discuss a few things in this 1 hour podcast. I'm hoping to expand on these subjects in further entries but for now here's the basic outline.

So first up me and Sarah recieved some Racist and Homophobic propaganda/mail yesterday (3rd May), you can catch the complete image here and close up's here. Sarahs done a really good job of covering this one in the podcast and her blog entry so I'll simply point there instead.

Then we talk about the We Media and We Media Fringe events. I spend quite a lot of time on the digital assassins section of the event and I'll write up a full account of my experience soon. Oh by the way don't miss Suw's Why We Media sucked talk recored by James Cox. James also filmed a whole load of other really interesting stuff before the Digital Assassins session and afterwards at the Wemedia fringe event.

Then finally we finish with Sarah talking about her painful experience with Plaxo and we touch on Calendaring. I expect Calendaring will pop up again in the next podcast because theres tons to be said about this.

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Stephen Colbert, the court jester in the know

If you've not seen Stephen Colbert at The White House Correspondents’ Association event, stop and go and check it out. Sarah downloaded it on Sunday and it came down really quickly over the torrent network. But you can also check it out on YouTube, part 1, 2 and 3. We watched the whole event from start to finish including the stuff missing from youtube (says it all really, not good enough to get onto youtube maybe?). So generally the whole thing about the old place where the press correspondents currently report from really sucked and went on too long, I wanted to say give it up the joke is so dead now. Then Bush did his thinking Bush and just Bush routine. It was ok, but to be honest it got long in the tooth again really quickly and was it only me or was Bush's timing really bad. Don't get me wrong I know he's not a comedian but the other guy is and should have added more pace to the whole routine. Funny enough the mainstream press loved the whole thing. Well enough said really?

Then Colbert took the stage and like that best man who says all the wrong things at a wedding who makes everyone cringe so much. Colbert plunges into grounds which no one thought even he would do in front of Bush.

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We Media conference coverage

There is live coverage of We Media 2006 Global Forum on the BBC news site all day today. Don't forget the Fringe event today if your in London and interested in We media. Oh and there is a IRC room (#wemedia) on the Freenode IRC network.

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The lost experience slowly leaks out into the open

From the best to get your official lost news. Lost Casts

It's official, the LOST Experience has begun. Already, folks in the UK have reported seeing an advertisement for the Hanso foundation, with a UK phone number. So we should be getting some of the same here in the US when the new LOST episode airs tomorrow night.

And so it starts. Funny enough I was thinking about watching lost night just to see the tie in for the lost experience, which I heard would appear at the start of series 2 in the UK.

I'm wasn't sure how the Lost production would play the huge differences between where the UK, Australia, etc are in the plot line and North America. But it would seem the lost experience will focus in on the greater concept of Lost and leave the plot for series 2 alone. Anyway, I've looked at the hanso foundation website which like most Alternative reality game sites are Flash to make it difficult to deconpile or look behind the scenes. Funny enough i've not seen it appear on the unfiction front page yet, but its still early days I guess.

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The cloud finally becomes a real alternative?

I actually saw this in Tom's blog. Mobile operators face wi-fi challenge. The crux of the article is here

The UK's mobile phone networks will come under attack today as wireless internet provider The Cloud announces a low-cost tariff for unlimited web access, making it easier for people to make free calls through the web from big cities, rather than use their mobile phones.

The Cloud is Europe's biggest operator of wireless technology, commonly called wi-fi, and its network is used by companies including BT, O2 and Nintendo. It is offering an £11.99 a month “all you can eat” internet deal covering 7,000 hotspots in Britain.

That will allow low-cost internet telephony in cities including London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. Using the internet to make calls has already disrupted the business models of fixed-line telecoms operators such as France Télécom.

And my feelings are, that this is a good thing. Competition is great for the market and this may shake the hold Orange, O2, Vodafone, 3 and Tmobile currently have on the wireless/mobile space. Yes I'll still be paying some other corp for the access but hey I don't mind paying for Wifi if its in 75 percent of the places I go in London. And to be honest 11.99 per month isn't bad if your out and about a lot. Compare it to GPRS or even 3G data costs and 11.99 for a months worth of unlimited data is a bargin. Even compared to a broadband connection of say 20 pounds per month its actually not that bad. Some people may beable to even dump there broandband connection if they live close enough to a hotspot and the service is reliable (big question that).

Theres no douht in my mind that central London is pretty much covered with Wifi but funny enough even out in SE18 there is a selection of wifi near myself. One of those pubs is only 2mins away from my house.

Hey there is a reason why I picked a phone which supports Wifi out of the box. Skype may not run well on it yet, but give it time, plus lets not forget theres other VOIP solutions and always online instant messenger sounds great to myself. Once there is a symbian version of Skype the required cpu speed will drop and my phone will run skype like a dream. Till then I still have my wifi ipaq which runs Skype right now.

Don't forget to sign up if your interested in 11.99 pound unlimited wifi.

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Last nights geekdinner with Marc Canter

So how did it go? It was bloody awesome! Marc Canter was a fantastic guest and really went into lots of detail in regards to his next project – The digital life aggregator. There were tons of questions and as usual a bit of a conversation broke out in the cellar bar of the Polar Bear. Marc loves interactivity and started asking questions of the audience which was a little amusing. The turn out of people was close to 35, which is not bad for a Bank Holiday Monday before work the next day. A lot of the regulars were not there due to other commitments with Family over the mayday Bank Holiday. But once again we had a healthy mix of new and regulars at the geekdinner. You know Geekdinners have a good rep when people start attending from another country. No but seriously Eric and Anne were passing through from Chicago and decided to come along to the geekdinner too. Thank you guys for coming and next time someone says I would attend but its too far, I will remind them of you guys who made it from Chicago.

I did do a selection of video recording on the night but not Marc Canter's talk. However Kosso might have the last half of the talk recorded. I expect to have the other videos up online maybe over the weekend once I clear it with the interviewers. One of the weird ones which will go up pretty soon is Me being interviewed by dotBen who is leaving the shores of the UK for the golden shores of America soon. Other videos include Deirdre talking about Content 2.0, Tom and Kosso talking about OPML which has also been captured here. Simon talking about SXSW and how he got there and of course Marc Canter summing up how he felt the night went. There's a whole bunch of Geekdinner pictures from me, Rachel and Lloyd on Flickr using the tag geekdinner and Londongeekdinner.

A big thanks to everyone who attended the event and made it another great geekdinner event. I'm hoping to do one when I get back from the states (June). But look out for the Girl geekdinner on the 16th May maybe at the Polar Bear. There maybe a suprise geekdinner with someone quite big in the web 2.0 world in late May, hosted by someone else. Best thing is to keep an eye on the Geekdinner.co.uk website for future details. And don't forget to send me a email if your would like to be on the Geekdinner mailing list.

Thanks once again to everyone who attended once agin and a big thanks to Marc Canter who was the mashup meetup tonight. See you all at the We Media Fringe event tomorrow.

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Wanna buy a laptop mate, yours for 300 pounds

So I was walking for the train today because my scooter has a flat tyre. Walking down briskly, listening to a podcast as usual when these guys roll up in a slightly beaten up old style Vauxhall Caliver. The passenger rolls down his window and says, You wanna buy a laptop mate? At first I couldn't fully hear him but once he opened the laptop , a Sony Viao. It all quickly clicked into place.

So the first thing which goes through my mind is not to get too close to the car just in case they happen to have some weapon. But I do stop and lift up my sunglasses. The guy with a very strong Irish accent, almost sounded put on. Says just got it from PC World brand new with recepts, yours for 300 pounds. I look at the driver who seems more concerned about driving off quickly that the deal which was happening. So anyway, being the haggler that I am, I said sounds expensive for a knocked off Laptop, hows 100 pounds? And you know what he seriously considers it. By which I'm already reaching for my sunglasses and walking. These guys follow me down the road, showing off all the features of a standard XP install. Till I say 100 pounds or nothing. They disappear shouting its too low for them and they will easily find someone else in this area (woolwich).

To be fair I shouldn't have said anything, but I wanted to see how desperate they were to get rid of the laptop. It was a nice Sony Viao with motion eye camera and looked to be about a 2.4ghz Pentium 4. But I was never going to buy it. I was also thinking about all the angles of there deal. For example I carry a bag which looks like a laptop bag, so I was wondering if they were really after that. I mean it would make sense why they would ask me rather than any of the other people walking down the crowded street. And there were lots of people walking fast to catch the train to London.

Just thought I'd share this, as I have got older my brush with the blackmarket (why do they call it that?) has become less and less which is a good thing. I've not had this kind of a deal since I was living in Thornton Heath (south central London) funny stuff, eh?

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