Day: 27 December 2007

Tiger Team a review

Tiger Team hopes people turn there security around

Ok I take it all back, I was wrong. Tiger team is great. I thought it would be all style and no substance or really boring. But actually its very short (less that 20mins a episode) cut together into a reasonable paced documentatry. Its split into 5 pieces including part 4 the heist (yes 2 members of the camera crew do follow them into the heist) and part 5 the debrief. Its actually all good stuff and you get a good balance of social enginnering and computer exploits. For example they use a USB trojan and some social engineering on a receptionist to gain access to the internal network. Theres some technical material details but not enough to bore most people and maybe not enough to really be used for copycats. For example they don't say which software there using or how they pick locks. There's alot more analysis on the show in the Schneier blog post about the series. I wonder what some of these people would say about the real hustle?

The first episode was good but the second one really good because you could really see that it was a real challenge and they almost got caught too, which adds to the suspense. I really don't hope they don't cancel this series before it plays out. More photos here and because its not available in the UK, links to the torrents.

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Anywhere is possible…

So I saw this trailer while browsing around my rss reader. Looks like a decent action film but what struck me was the concept seemed to remind me of a excellent William Sleator book titled Strange Attractors. From memory the book has a character who can teleport anywhere and ends up meeting a couple other people who can do the same. Those other people don't quite have the same ethics about teleportation and hence the start of a plot. Anyway it looks we will have to wait till the day after Valentines day to watch this in UK cinemas. Luckily thats only a day after most of the world.

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Is having a Routine good, bad or indifferent?

My mum said the other day, she felt she was a little out of touch with what me and my sister like and do. It was sad to hear this and I've promised to be more proactive about feeding back some of my work and personal stuff. But what was really interesting was when my mum asked if I was stressed at work. This came after I tried to explain what I do at work. I think what suprised my mum more that anything was the lack of a routine.

This got me thinking, is a routine a good or bad thing? Some would say, not having a routine means everyday brings new challenges and opputinities but at the same token, it also means you don't get to research, master, reflect, etc for long because who knows what will happen tomorrow? Having a routine can be as interesting and challenging but also means you can plan a little better and give things the time they need.

Don't get me wrong, I do have a slight routine to my life but its certainly not as tuned as others. My typical day includes getting up about 9am, going to work soon afterwards having lunch some time between 1-3pm, leaving work about 7pm-ish and going to bed about 1am. Recently I've been going out a lot after work, so typically in December I was eating out which meant eating at different times everyday. Work has very little routine, one moment I can be replying to emails next minute running around the city looking for a venue for our christmas party. I tend to have quite a few meetings off-site over coffee or even lunch-dinner. Events including Geekdinners and BarCamps are usually dependant on other peoples time, so there never regular. I do try and go to other regular events but due to the lack of routine in my calendar – I do miss some regular events like Minibar, Pubstandards, etc. I also tend to do things like food shopping, clothes shopping, computer bits when I can be bothered rather that on a schedule. I don't know if this is good or bad yet.

I have a lot of tools which help me manage the lack of routine in my life but they could be improved now I sit and think about it. However maybe its time to have a little more routine in my life, even if its just so my parents know which city I'm in that week… (*smile*)

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