Robby Pedrica's Tech Blog

Category: General

  • Security Policies in the organisation

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Most organisations of a reasonable size, will today have at least some policies which integrate with HR to govern Internet and computer use within the company. However, the ability of these limited documents ( and sometimes procedures ) to protect the company is often minimal. With the extent to which malicious vectors are able to…

  • Breaking News: Novell Sold!!!

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    Robby Pedrica
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    So Attachmate Corp has purchased Novell for $2.2B. In addition, certain IP assets will be sold off separately for $450M to a consortium of Microsoft and others. These include the  copyrights for Unix System V which was used in defense of SCO’s lawsuit. So one wonders whether the purchase by Microsoft includes these or not…

  • ProPublica and This American Life team up to expose investment bankers and hedge fund managers

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    Robby Pedrica
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    A fascinating look into the financial crash in America and world wide: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/play_music/play_full.php?play=405 For seven months a team of investigative journalists from ProPublica looked into a story for us, the inside story of one company that made hundreds of millions of dollars for itself while worsening the financial crisis for the rest of us. A…

  • Novell wins copyright case against SCO

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    Robby Pedrica
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    It seems that SCO’s litigation engine has been running for ever ( 7 years now ) and they exist only to litigate. But it appears that a jury-led decision agreeing with Novell being the rightful copyright holders of Unix, has finally put paid to any serious action by SCO. Perhaps we can all get on…

  • Privacy and freedom: World Gone Mad Part 2

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    Robby Pedrica
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    The US Copyright Lobby has indicated that using FOSS equates to the undermining of intellectual property rights. Yes you read that correctly. They want the US Trade Representative to place countries like Brazil, India, and Indonesia on the Special 301 list, which is a list of countries that do not, according to mostly the Pharmaceutical…

  • Privacy and freedom: World Gone Mad Part 1

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Last week, a story broke in the US concerning invasion of privacy and has become a huge talking point globally. The Lower Merion School District provided Apple Mac laptops to students ( no private machines were allowed ) and installed remote control software on these, allowing the school to remotely activate web-cams in an apparent…

  • Google, China and security

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    Robby Pedrica
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    A drama of world-wide proportions ( that wouldn’t out of place in a Hollywood blockbuster ) has been playing out over the last week concerning Google’s operations in China. It all started with denial of service attacks against Google’s Gmail service in late December last year ( and attacks against about about 30 other US…

  • 2010 Date Programming snafus

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Y2K was an interesting time with the prophets of doom out in full force. And yes while there were some issues, it wasn’t quite the end of the world as we knew it. 2010 however came up on us very quietly from a date problem p.o.v. but there have been some fairly major issues worldwide…

  • Autism Western Cape and Kilimanjaro

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Completely unrelated to computers however more importantly, Gerhard from AWC and a team of volunteers are attempting to summit Kilimanjaro, all on their 1st attempt. Not only is this a very worthwhile cause but a friend of mine, Neil Stewart, is on the team and I wish him all the luck on the world –…

  • Local insurance company loses client data

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    Robby Pedrica
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    So it’s not just the Americans who are poor at client data security – the South Africans have got into the act as well. Local insurance firm Zurich SA said it had lost a tape containing client information. Apparently the backup tape was lost during a routing tape transfer to a data storage centre in…

  • Trance cats

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Yes I know this has got nothing to do with nothing but I couldn’t resist:

  • Data loss for Sidekick users

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    Robby Pedrica
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    It appears that Sidekick users in the USA, who stored their data/backups on-line though the Microsoft/Danger on-line cloud service, have lost access to all their data after a server failure: “Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device—such as contacts, calendar…

  • Windows and critical systems

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    Robby Pedrica
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    I’ve blogged previously about using Windows in critical systems ( Win2k in French air-force fighters and British attack submarines ) and my disregard for this platform in these kinds of applications. Honestly, would you really want a Windows machine running your life-support system when in hospital? or the device that decides whether or not a…

  • Groklaw, Sys-Con Media and journalism

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    Robby Pedrica
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    I’ve been a keen follower of Pamela Jones’ editorial on the SCO-IBM case for a number of years now, mainly because of the importance of the topic but also because of Pamela’s straightforward and factual journalism style. Whether or not this is her real persona has never been an issue with me because her facts…

  • The IT supply ( value? ) chain in South Africa

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Being at the end of the world, and with past issues like Apartheid, South Africa has had a different and sometimes less than optimal method for providing sales, services and support of IT equipment. The aforementioned issues have resulted in a vendor -> distributor -> reseller -> client arrangement which sometimes works well and other…