I'll keep publishing

Have a happy Christmas and safe New Year everyone.

Xmas Message to Banes family via Virgin Radio UK

Best Wishes from Louise & I.

Well, first Steve Irwin get’s killed by a stingray then Peter Brock hit’s a tree in a tarmac rally (something I often worried about). I met Peter at Targa Tasmania, seemed like a nice guy and could obviously steer a car very well. At least they both appear to have died quickly and doing what they loved.

Everyone has bad days, yesterday was a shocker so let’s hope the week gets better. Oh, the rain appears to have gone for a couple of days now, so walking to the train station is once again a joy. It’s difficult not to stop and gaze at Sydney harbour in the mornings, but walking past it and travelling over the Harbour Bridge is a nice way to start the day.

I never thought I’d get caught up in the ‘end of month’ sales thing, but alas I have. Now it’s the 1st June I feel the need to slack off for a day or so. I wish!

I think I need a holiday. Nothing on TV, can’t be arsed to do work type stuff and can’t find anything on the net to interest me…

Holidays are strange things, when you’re working for someone else you can’t wait for the next holiday. When you’re working for yourself a public holiday means a shorter working week and less time to get ‘stuff done’… I’ve negotiated with myself to take 3 of the 4 days over Easter off.

Well, for some reason I was wide awake at 5:30am this morning, so that means I’ve got lot’s of time to write a blog entry, this is it.

The site has been shut down now… thanks to the guys at;
Everyones Internet, Inc

http://www.ev1.net/

I decided to be pro-active today and try and close down a phishing web site, I think I managed it in less than 15 minutes…

The email came in looking like a PayPal ‘security’ message, so a quick look at the email html source revealed the ‘PayPal’ link of

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

actually went here;

http://www.paypal-unlocking.net/

So, checking the source of this page revealed that it was pulling content in from here;

http://69.57.130.51/~stevenbw/web/

Stepping back one directory to here;

http://69.57.130.51/~stevenbw/

Revealed this listing… with another phishing site in the sky/ directory

Confirm.htm
_private/
cgi-bin/ –
class.phpmailer.php
class.smtp.php
images/
off.php
postinfo.html
sky/
web/

… and a quick lookup of the ipaddress using this resource;

http://www.whois.sc/69.57.130.51

revealed that it was hosted at Everyones Internet, Inc.

So I just popped onto their web site clicked the ‘Support Chat’ link and asked the nice person if he was aware of the phishing using their web site. They didn’t know and said they promptly shut it down.

Job done, maybe, if I’m awake and didn’t make any mistakes…

Well, looks like we’ve run out of space, an interesting article on news.com.au.

The days have started getting longer so we must be heading out of winter. Dad’s decided to visit later in the year so we’ll be brushing up on our tour guide skills soon

I used to watch the X-Files, then Stargate. There’s been a shortage of good sci-fi here in Australia for a while. But now we have 4400 and Taken running on the same day, I’ve also got hooked on the new 24, Spooks and Threat Matrix.

So I’ve gone from no TV (excluding motorsport) to 5 regular ‘must see’ events every week. I just wish they’d schedule them a bit earlier in the evening.

Just been watching the BBC new on Australian TV, bad news, bomb blasts in London. Hope everyone we know is OK.

Having been as far as the second to top perch I can vouch or this. Actually, I’d redraw this and start the crap from the third run down. I don’t believe the owners of a business deliberatly shit on their employees, but I do regularly see their direct reports passing it on down, isn’t that how you stay at the top

This running your own IT security business is tough. After three months of almost seven days a week I’m starting to think I need a weekend off!

Well it’s 7 days after leaving MessageLabs and we’ve accomplished a lot;

Registered a new business name.
Signed up two people, we are now three.:)
Become a MessageLabs partner.
Agreed a comms plan with MessageLabs.
Become a NetRegistry partner.
Setup a web site, web mail & portal.
Implemented a web based CRM (with portal integration).
Done a deal to resell an anti-phishing product.
50% deal done to sell client side email security.
Handshake deal done on a Policy Managent solution.
Outlined a business plan (target market etc).

We just have to sell stuff now…

I’ve been busy the last week sorting out the new job after leaving MessageLabs. We’ve re-launched Cleartext and will be reselling a range of email security solutions, MessageLabs is one of them.

I paid a flying visit to Canberra today. I’d been invited to speak at an Australian Federal Police (High Tech Crime Centre) event. I left the office in North Sydney at 10:50am and was back home by 6:30pm. Isn’t air travel wonderful, for short trips. Long trips would be fine if you could stow your arms in the overhead lockers.

Blimey, I’d never have thought that speed limit’s in Sydney would go UP, but according to the nice people at Sentinel Geo Systems (of Road Angel fame) they are going to by 10kph on 10 major roads.

Also reported in SMH, (March 17)

Went to a friends 40th birthday last night. It’s a wake up call for life when you start going to 40th birthdays! Happy birthday Anj

The ’.. Firefox..’ comment at http://www.start.com/1/ has gone… maybe someone at MS decided it wasn’t good to be seen to support a competitors offering. Fair enough, I wouldn’t expect Ford to mention Fiat on their web site!

Oh well, we are in Autumn now. The weather deteriorated today, here’s a snap from my Nokia 6260 from my office window.

We came across a lighthouse on the coast (surprisingly) at Wollongong, south of Sydney.

Driving thru’ some national Parks and stopping at some lookouts. this one is Bald Hill, a well known spot for hang gliders.

Blue sky, a few fluffy white clouds, not scorching hot.