Tim Frayne is a Nerd and proud of it! He joined Nerds On Site in October 2008 and recently took part in a 12 week Dale Carnegie Course® focused on enhancing communication, speaking and relationship building skills. This Dale Carnegie Course® is available to all Nerds On Site Nerds – it’s highly recommended and the cost is covered by Nerds On Site.

In the blog below, Tim describes his experiences.

FreeRice.com can help towards ending that.

I have been a bit swamped since Nerdfest, so the Security Corner has slipped a bit. My apologies.

If you have not yet downloaded the updates to OS-X, Firefox, and Microsoft Office for Mac, you should do so. All of them patch serious security vulnerabilities.

The Defcon and Blackhat conferences always bring out a few interesting stories, and this year is no exception.

If you thought that RFID scanning requires a lot of expensive equipment, think again. According to this article, $30 – $50 USD will set you up to start stealing data from unsuspecting folks carrying RFID chips in passports and other identification cards.

Wrapping these cards in aluminum foil attenuates the RFID signal, but does not eliminate it. You can also purchase a special wallet to block RFID.

In a related story, there are claims that the new identity card in the UK are easily hacked and cloned. We should note that the Home Office disputes this claim.

In a strange bit of irony, a fake atm machine was discovered at Defcon. Some number of people ran their cards through the machine and entered pin information (with no cash returned) before someone shined a flashlight into the place where there should have been a camera and discovered a PC inside.

There were lots of other hacks and vulnerabilities revealed at these conferences – they always leave me a bit discouraged, so I will end on a lighter note: We have all heard the excuse of “my dog ate it” and some of us have actually had the dog eat something important (a $540 check in my case). This Florida man claims that his cat is responsible for downloading some 1000 images of child pornography. Now, there is nothing funny about child pornography, but this man’s claim is at least mildly amusing. I don’t buy it and I doubt the jury will either.

Dennis H in West Virginia, US

August 9

We are happy to announce our partnership with Dasient.

Today at HostingCon 2009, Dasient launched Mod Anti-Malware Lite, an open source version of its Web Anti-Malware (WAM) remediation technology. Mod
Anti-Malware Lite is an Apache server module that will help site owners, web hosts, and developers protect themselves against the effects of web-based attacks that can compromise their sites and spread malware to their users. Mod Anti-Malware Lite will be made available today at www.dasient.com/partners and www.sourceforge.net.

“Every day, thousands of legitimate websites are infected with malicious code, and the speed, scale, and complexity of these attacks makes it difficult for website owners to identify and address the resulting infections,” said Dr. Neil Daswani, one of Dasient’s three co-founders. “Now more than ever it’s important for site owners to deploy defenses that can operate at the scale and speed required to deal with the problem.”

Dasient is also happy to announce new distribution partnerships with five web hosting providers: Consolidated, Vexxhost, Ultrahosting, and Nerds On Site in North America and Diadem Technologies in India. These partners will be integrating Dasient WAM into their product platforms in the coming months, selling the product to their customers and sharing revenue with Dasient.