Monday, July 15, 2013

Why We Lie by Judge Kozinski

Saints may always tell the truth, but for mortals living means lying. We lie to protect our privacy ("No, I don't live around here"); to avoid hurt feelings ("Friday is my study night"); to make others feel better ("Gee you've gotten skinny"); to avoid recriminations ("I only lost $10 at poker"); to prevent grief ("The doc says you're getting better"); to maintain domestic tranquility ("She’s just a friend"); to avoid social stigma ("I just haven't met the right woman"); for career advancement ("I'm sooo lucky to have a smart boss like you"); to avoid being lonely ("I love opera"); to eliminate a rival ("He has a boyfriend"); to achieve an objective ("But I love you so much"); to defeat an objective ("I'm allergic to latex")

Read More at Why We Lie


Tuesday, June 18, 2013

What Is The Value of a Hacked Email Account ?

One of the most-viewed stories on this site is a blog post and graphic that I put together last year to illustrate the ways that bad guys can monetize hacked computers. But just as folks who don’t bank online or store sensitive data on their PCs often have trouble understanding why someone would want to hack into their systems, many people do not fully realize how much they have invested in their email accounts until those accounts are in the hands of cyber thieves.

This post aims to raise awareness about the street value of a hacked email account, as well as all of the people, personal data, and resources that are put at risk when users neglect to properly safeguard their inbox's.

Read more here @ http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/06/the-value-of-a-hacked-email-account/

  


Sunday, June 9, 2013

DEFCON 19: The Dark Side of Crime-fighting, Security, and Professional Intelligence, Richard Thieme



Nothing is harder to see than things we believe so deeply we don't even see them. This is certainly true in the "security space," in which our narratives are self-referential, bounded by mutual self-interest, and characterized by a heavy dose of group-think. That narrative serves as insulation to filter out the most critical truths we know about our work.

An analysis of deeper political and economic structures reveals the usual statements made in the "security space" in a new context, one which illuminates our mixed motivations and the interpenetration of over worlds and underworlds in our global society. Crime and legitimacy, that is, are the yin/yang of society, security, and our lives. You can't have one without the other. And nobody should know this better than hackers.

What's your take on it ?

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Sony HDR CX230 Review

It's been a while since I last updated my blogs due to my starting a new job and I've not had much time as of late.

So I'll be getting and reviewing the Sony HDR CX230 Handycam Camcorder (Soon) and I'll be using it as a in car dash cam while driving to and from work so should anything of interest happens I might record it for later viewing on YouTube.





One such video sold me on the CX230 below.

 
It's mainly what I'll be doing with mine once I get everything set up and ready to go.

also some action shots of some guys 40 gallon aquarium.



Will update as soon as I get more time.


OK. I got the camcorder about a week ago and shot a quick video. (unsecured to my dash in the car)

So it was a mess up on my part and not the camcorder.

My video below.

it's best to change playback quality to 720p or 1080p on YouTube.




Thank You for viewing.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Kingston SSDNow V300 Series SV300S3D7/60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive Review




Here is my opinion and performance review below.


Form Factor: 2.5''

Capacity: 60 GB

Interface: Sata 3

Width: 69.85mm
 
Depth: 100mm
 
Height: 7mm

Weight: 86g


Max Sequential Read: Up to 450 MB/s
 
Max Sequential Write: Up to 450 MB/s
 
4KB Random Read: Up to 85,000 IOPS
 
4KB Random Write: Up to 60,000 IOPS
 
MTBF: 1,000,000 Hours

Features

Fast - 10x faster than a 7200RPM hard drive.

High Quality - features an LSI SandForce controller customized for Kingston.

Reliable - with no moving parts, solid-state drives are less likely to fail than standard hard drives.

Economical design optimized to make migrating to an SSD more affordable.

Convenient - all-in-one kits with all the components for easy installation.

Multiple capacities - to fit your workload.

With Installation Kit for desktops.
 
Power
 
Power Consumption (Idle): 0.640W
 
Power Consumption (Active): 1.423 W Read / 2.052 W Write
 
 
 
My results after testing.
My system is a Dell inspiron 530 manufactured in November 2007 (5 years old at the time of this posting)
 
Before SSD install using a 5 year old 250GB Seagate HDD
 
5 year old 250 GB Seagate HDD
 



 






Pretty decent for a 5 year old drive.

After SDD install

This is a Sata III SSD running on a Sata II Motherboard, So I know I would not see the marked 450 MB/s Read / Write on my system.


Very nice speed compared to the HDD.



















December 26 2012 Update: 

The SSD is still working just fine, I've very satisfied with it's performance. I would most certainly  recommend this drive for improved OS speeds.





 



Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Lenovo B570 15.6 inch Laptop Frozen Issue.

It never cease's to amaze me how PC manufactures apply thermal compound too their CPU's.

My nearly 1 year old laptop was running around 50 degrees Celsius at idle and 70 degrees Celsius while watching 1080P video's and last night it froze up on me. I take the laptop apart and look at the heat sink and fan everything looks fine no dust, I take the heat sink off and what do I see ???


Enough blue thermal paste for 3 CPU's all over the place and dried out, I think they were applying it like cake icing. 

I clean up the mess with 91% rubbing alcohol and apply a little Arctic silver 5 thermal grease, put it all back together and turn the laptop back on. 
 
luckily the laptop still works. 
 
Now my max temps never get's beyond 60 degrees Celsius while watching 1080P video's and my idle temp is around 40 degrees Celsius.

I know I should have taken photo's but I was kinda upset I had to disassemble a new barely used laptop and replace the thermal compound so soon.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Netgear N300 (WNR2000) Wireless Router Review


This is a really nice indepth review on one of the wireless N routers I'm deciding on getting.

YouTube video uploaded by:


Thank You

Update 1

After a few weeks of using this router I'm thinking to myself "why didn't I buy the sooner" my old wired router would just barely do 13 mbps download. The Netgear N300 (WNR2000) Wireless Router go's up to my max download speed of 25 mbps so over all I'm very much satisfied by it's performance and it doesn't get very warm at all.

My home is around 2080 square feet and made of brick and mortar, I get pretty good coverage in every room. I've yet to do an outdoor test and see just how far I can really go before I lose signal.

Update 1.5

It's been a few weeks since my last update but due to the remains of Sandy I've not had a chance to do the outdoor range test (a laptop isn't waterproof). But so far the router is going strong and there has been no problems (knocks on wood).

Update 2

It's been a while since I last updated (October 2012) and the wireless and wired is still performing great (Knocks on wood).




I'll update more later if I have any issues that come up and how I fixed them.

Thank You

(^_^)