Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

10/18/2005

Security Play-Doh

Filed under: Fun,Fun Work,Geek Work,News and Current Events,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Monkey which is in the late afternoon or 5:55 pm for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Gibbous

Yes, Play-Doh as a security penetration tool.

Don’t you just love it when I write things like “security penetration tool”? It sounds so, big and scary, doesn’t it?
Anyway, this researcher at Clarkson University has figured out a way to defeat biometric readers with simple Play-Doh.  I love this for two reasons.  First, it’s a very low-tech way of defeating a very high-tech security system.  People rely way, way too much on technology that might fail, instead of good, old, human-based common-sense.  Though, I have to admit, there are days that I’d rather rely on technology, too.  Second, it’s Play-Doh.  What’s not to love about Play-Doh?

And, yes, this is one of those old posts I was talking about.  It’s not quite cool enough for a Friday Fun Link, but it doesn’t quite fit anywhere else these days.  So, you may be seeing a fair number of these “red-herrings” drop out of no where.  Just crazy stuff that intrigues me and has no other home.
Enjoy!

Open Source Standards?

Filed under: Deep Thoughts,Fun Work,Geek Work,Linux,News and Current Events,Novell — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Tiger which is terribly early in the morning or 5:57 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Gibbous

Well, why not!
Now, I don’t mean a “de facto” standard, but a real, organized, unified standard. In this case, according to News.com, it’s a Linux standardization push. In fact, to get really specific, it the Linux Standard Base Project. These folks are advocating a standard “base” on which all Linux distros build themselves. Not a bad idea, really, to help get things standardized and more interoperative. I mean, when I was working on that Novell Linux-based stuff, a little standardization would have gone a long way.

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