How Much Space To Store Pi…

By Guy Bunker | August 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment 

Guy Bunker

3.141592654… is about my limit when it comes to remembering Pi… and that seems to have worked for me. However… there is a new world record… Pi to 5 trillion places! (It’s a ’2′ if you were wondering…)

However, the real news here is how much storage it took… 6TB. Not too sure what the real point of doing this is, but it does raise an interesting point on how data is expanding – and what was previously thought as adequate and used to take a few bytes now takes MB or even GB… they call it progress.

20 years ago WordPerfect was my word-processor of choice, and I struggled to get files more than a few kilobytes, these days the average presentation is a few megabytes. Time moves on and organizations are increasingly using multi-media for internal as well as external communications programmes (and even as integral parts of presentations) - the move from ‘standard’ video to HD is another area which is driving storage requirements through the roof at 40GB per hour. When planning for future storage needs, these new technologies and ways of working need to be taken into account. It’s not just the storage that is affected, bandwidth can also be crippled with ‘legitimate’ video use which effects overall performance.

Fortunately, backup technology – both from the application and the backup media perspective are keeping up, but you still need to plan for changes.

Guy Bunker

Smudged… But Your Password Isn’t…

By Guy Bunker | August 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment 

Guy Bunker

A really cool bit of research from the University of Pennsylvania has looked at how smudges on your smart phone touch screen can be used to guess your password. So, while this is all research at present, as per usual it will only be a matter of time before it is exploited.

So… along with wiping SatNav marks off the windscreen so the burglars don’t pinch your SatNav, you should also think about wiping the marks off the smart phone as well after you have entered your password… bring back the mini-keyboard, all is forgiven! :-)

Guy Bunker

Spammers Turn to Oil Spill, Paul the Octopus and Phishing Live Chat

By Greg Day, EMEA Security CTO for Symantec | August 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment 

Greg Day, EMEA Security CTO for Symantec

Over nine in ten of all email messages in July were spam. Meanwhile, phishers find a new target with interactive customer support services, according to Symantec’s August State of Spam and Phishing report.

The report found spammers changed focus from the World Cup and shifted back to current events like the oil spill and economy in July. While leveraging news headlines may be an old trick, fraudsters are always looking for new techniques to use in the hunt for users’ information. This month Symantec observed a phishing website spoofing an e-commerce brand’s live support website. The phishing site involved bogus chat sessions to help the page look more authentic, trying to give customers the impression that the phishing website was interactive.

The following trends are also all highlighted in the August 2010 report:

  • The ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup begins on February 17, 2011, and phishing sites promoting the tournament have already been observed.
  • Russia recently has been suffering from heat waves which also caused severe wildfires. Russian spammers took this opportunity to send spam promoting air-conditioners.
  • Paul the octopus has gained international fame as it correctly predicted the winner of Germany’s games at 2010 FIFA World Cup as well as the final. Spammers leveraged this “brand” and sent spam promoting his fortune telling advice.
  • Blank subject lines were the top spam subject line for the second month in a row, suggesting that spammers are finding that users respond to such messages

The full report can be found here:

http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/other_resources/b-state_of_spam_and_phishing_report_08-2010.en-us.pdf

Paul