Misc News (14 Posts)

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MOVA, ONLIVE, DIDO and a bit of magic (and maybe Aliens! ;)

#49 - Posted on 23 August 2011 - Author: SM - Category: Misc

This is a bit of an unusual post for this site because it is not directly related to IT Security, but I have recently watched a video of a lecture by Rearden CEO Steve Perlman that I found truly inspiring!

Steve Perlman is the Steve Job of Engineering.

He has participated/invented/funded many different cutting edge technologies and gave an overview of 3 of them in his lecture. What strikes me is how all those technologies are linked together even if isn’t necessarily obvious. It would be tempting to say it is all driven by his apparent interest in gaming but that would be too simplistic, it is driven by a desire to invent new technologies and not being afraid of rewriting the rules!

1. The first technology he spoke about is MOVA, which apparently rewrote the rules on how computer generated 3D characters were done (and more if you look...
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“Freemium” user procurement Strategy

#17 - Posted on 13 November 2010 - Author: SM - Category: Misc

Although this post is not directly related to IT Security, some of its implications are.

Looking at the recent craze around iOS devices which is pushing many companies to react to its users bringing such devices in the corporate environment, I wonder if some kind of new and ever so slightly twisted corporate “Freemium” user procurement strategy could be extracted from this…

– Wait for a new “sexy” gadget to come along that everyone wants
– Offer a free and equivalent “boring”/cheaper gadget, which does the job and just that.
– Resist your users to provide that new gadget…
– …but do not resist that much so it does not work in your corporate environment
– Accept and work to mitigate the risks associated with those uncontrolled devices
– Wait for the number of those users to grow and pass a tipping point
– Officially accept the use of those new gadg...
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Email working again

#2 - Posted on 4 June 2010 - Author: SM - Category: Misc

This morning I checked my spam folder related to this website/domain name and noticed there had been no new spam for about a week… not that I am missing it but this did not sound quite right!

Indeed, it looks like my service provider recently had some issues with one of their site being compromised and used to host some malicious software and as a result their back-end domain was blacklisted by Google. Something they did not like too much…

They took the drastic decision to change their back-end domain, it seems to have worked. But in the process they have messed up some accounts. They have now fixed the issue with my domain but if you have sent me an email recently then, I am afraid, that email is lost and you probably did not receive any error message either!

I never thought spamming could be useful to the receiver of it, but in this case the lack of noise highlighted another issue :)

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It was only yesterday…

#1 - Posted on 21 March 2010 - Author: SM - Category: Misc

For over 3 years this website has not been updated and it was time to give it a face lift!

It is actually quite astonishing to think this website has existed since 1998, 12 years! I guess I am getting older, my hair are getting greyer and there is less of it! One thing that hasn’t change though is my interest in Cryptography.

Because of a busy professional life in the IT Security world I haven’t been able to work on the BUGS algorithm for many years. However, I have recently completed a Master in Information Security at the London Royal Holloway University. I logically chose to work on a cryptography subject for my Master Thesis. This allowed me to spend some time back on the BUGS algorithm and, for the first time, learn some cryptanalysis techniques!

The main subject of my thesis was to give an “Overview of Modern Symmetric-Key Cipher Cryptanalysis Techniques”, as such after a general introduction on cryptography and cryptanalysis I focuse...
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