networks

The immeasurable SpyBlog has been doing fine work reducing the bamboozlement certain bloggers have been propagating regarding government e-mail addresses and the cash-for-peerages inquiry. (Shorter: “x.gsi.gov.uk” domains denote the top level of network security, not TEH SEKRIT EMAILS!!) But the Spy has found something, though – as well as the netblocks assigned to Energis and…

Read More Wardriving Tony

OK, so Thomas P.M. Barnett is purring like a kitten at the discovery that his Blueprint for Action has been translated into Turkish. Barnett’s famed prescription, the so-called SysAdmin Force, seems to be vanishing under the far horizon. Check out this NYT report from western Afghanistan. It seems the Iranians are dramatically out-competing NATO &…

Read More Bandwidth! Low latency! Sexy!

James Glanz of the NYT reports at great length on the electrical siege of Baghdad, with detail, network maps, and more. Great. Obviously, this being a blog, the primary meaning of this is an excuse to moan about the press. Why didn’t Glanz (or anyone else at the NYT) report on this back in 2004,…

Read More Electricity – let it wash all over me! Or not

You want disturbing search requests? We got’em. Two days ago, someone searched Indian Google for “security systems for British crown jewels” and landed here. Now, I think there’s a movie in that. They are to be found somewhere on VSNL’s network in India: traceroute.

Read More Classic DSR!

This is very bad news from Baghdad, via perfect.co.uk, but note some details. For a start, a neat primer on modern urban warfare: On Saturday, the Web site displayed a recipe for civil war. It recommended protecting Sunni neighborhoods by “spreading snipers on the roof of buildings,” planting roadside bombs at neighborhood entrances and distributing…

Read More 1239. 7018. 4766. Now start a war

“How would a Galileo-based road pricing scheme fit into the code of practice requirement of a direct relationship with the user?” Good fucking question. We’ve got David Smith, the deputy information commissioner, and among others Richard Clayton of the Cambridge Computer Lab’s security engineering group – that’s right, the guy from Light Blue Touchpaper –…

Read More Confoblogging: Trust, consent, and standards

This pissed me off all week. Yesterday, the world’s biggest container ship, M/V Emma Maersk arrived in Felixstowe on her first trip from China to Europe. There has been a degree of pre-Christmas hype about this sailing, revolving around the notion that she is packed with nothing but Christmas presents-to-be. This may be a little…

Read More Saving the planet in the slowest possible way