Frederick's Timelog » security

Crossing the border

Frederick — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:34:49 +0000

It’s ridiculously easy to get back into Canada from the United States, it seems, especially for a Canadian citizen.

“Where do you live?
“What were you doing in the States?
“What are you bringing with you?
“Any alcohol, tobacco, or controlled substances?
“Any weapons or firearms?”

Meanwhile, the guy is processing my passport in a reader. The whole interaction was under 20 seconds. Efficient enough, it seems.

When I entered the US on F-1 status, on the other hand, baggage had to go through an X-ray machine, questions were asked about fresh produce (why does that even matter), officers grilled other people for a long time, and the overall trip time gained about two hours from the border.

I don’t think there’s any difference in effective border safety/security on the two sides of this bridge.

VIPRE – Another Antivirus Product?

Frederick — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:57:41 +0000

I’m usually sceptical of new antivirus products advertised to be both ‘fast’ and ‘effective’. But after receiving an offer from Sunbelt Software to inform readers about their new product — VIPRE® Antivirus + Antispyware — I had to investigate.

VIPRE claims to be “high-performance security software” that performs better than traditional suites like Norton Antivirus. That much is very believable; after all, we all know how clunky and laggy the established ‘leaders’ in antivirus are. But my personal antivirus favourite is ESET NOD32 — and I’ve always gotten the impression that it’s fast — so I was really surprised that internal testing showed VIPRE to be even faster and more resource-efficient than NOD32.

VIPRE: Scan in Progress

At this point I wanted to see what some credible sources had to say. CNET UK had essentially the same reaction that I had when first presented with this product: “never heard of it.” But after their own use, they had this to say: “we’re pretty impressed and will continue to use it — particularly on netbooks, which don’t have much power to spare.”

Credible sources that give software positive reviews always influence me. That’s why I think (and this personal opinion isn’t influenced by the sponsorship of this post) you should try Sunbelt’s new Antivirus Software, especially if you don’t have antivirus software already. Install the 15-day trial and decide for yourself whether it’s worth using. (I would have done the same myself if I had another PC to use for testing.)

Sponsored by Sunbelt Software

Non-secure network

Frederick — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:15:16 +0000

Novell NetWare Administrator has been shared (as in network shares) and can be executed by any user, and it can access the central server for the 1800+ student accounts and the 230+ staff accounts. The following screenshots show things that any logged-on user can access. (Clearly, I’ve taken out a few things for anonymity and to prevent others from abusing this ability. I plan on reporting this to a Site Admin.)

More after the jump.

The one fortunate thing is that NetWare Administrator (the program itself) isn’t that insecure. Non-administrators can’t modify certain details, like password policies. Nor can someone modify another person’s password. However, the main screen (user information) isn’t protected in the same way, and the system essentially serves as a list of the 1750+ students’ first and last names, in addition to the teachers and staff.

I hope this is corrected soon.