Noel's Muses

The Prism program allows the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the world's largest surveillance organisation, to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders.

With this program, the NSA (a military defined organisation) is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications as well as perform real-time collection on users.

We have recently been hearing reports from American politicians, Embassy staff (Yes, looking at you Jeff Bleich), and U.S. cloud service providers, and security experts all claiming the worlds fear of U.S. Laws, like the Patriot Act when it comes to hosting data in the U.S., is just FUD, even as recent as two days ago I read a report from a U.S. cloud expert in Europe trying to show the world it is safe to host data in the U.S., claiming there is oversight, court orders are in fact needed (something that we have known for along time is utter rubbish), and this expose about PRISM proves it.

Prominent world renowned media organisation, The Guardian, has blown the lid after obtaining highly classified documents

The United States National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants (like Microsoft), according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says Continue reading "PRISM - The US Govt Caught Out, Yet Again" »

Here we are in the year 2013, and Microsoft's incompetence (or is it arrogance?) still continues to astound me. We are now (and have been for nearly twelve months) at a stage where the normal age-old Internet Address ranges are depleted, yes, they have now pretty much run out of IP addresses all around the world, most regions will no longer issue any more IPv4 addresses to existing organisations, and new organisations are severely restricted in how many they can obtain - because there are little to none to give out. The problem of IPv4 address depletion has been solved for some time by the new IP address scheme, called IPv6, however, at present less than 1% of the world is using IPv6, many service providers, businesses and governments are moving that way, albeit very slowly, and there is going to be serious problems in the near future.

I'm not going to go off on a tangent like many of the IPv6 fanboi's do, and lets face it, they have been crying wolf since late nineties about running out of addresses within two years, when that was never the case and time has proved that, so they have no-one else to blame but themselves for the slow take-up of IPv6 today but now it is essential that all service providers, businesses, and governments stop delaying, and start configuring their entire networks for IPv6 - especially the service providers with end users, where here in Australia,
Continue reading "Why Windows XP users need to dump Internet..." »

So, the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Australia is supposed to be the next generation super communications method, but what most people forget is the NBN is not just about high speed data, it is also going to be your new telecommunications method as well, that's right, no more copper network, means the NBN will be the only form of landline telephone communications you'll ever have.

What's wrong with that you ask? Well, at present when the power goes out we all take for granted the battery powered systems provided by the Telco's in their copper network exchanges, with the NBN, you will not have any power pumped up the line to make or receive calls. Living on the bottom end of the Sunshine Coast, I myself have lost power no less then 5 times since last night alone, at time of this writing, with reports of over 100K homes in Brisbane City alone without power, this tweet just popped up from Energex
Continue reading "The NBN and what they don't advertise" »

I occasionally get asked what are some of the gotta have Android Apps, well, this of course will vary from person to person, it depends on your uses and interests, so this post is probably going to be rather boring for most of you, especially if your one of those poor souls with restricted freedoms using windows phone or an iphone For me, I have an interest in Linux Systems Administration (none of this windows crap), I also have a need to be entertained (what is it they say small things small minds... blah), and being aware of what's going on around me or my town, so that means networky related apps, communications apps, and multimedia apps, Twitter is a must have, and facebook is a privacy invading cesspool so who cares

Lets start with the basics, data protection, about the best app for backing up is Backup Pro, there is a free trial version that I recommend you try, the Pro upgrade is at present less than a once-off AU$5.00, it's well worth it, you can backup photos, apps, music, videos and so on, you can even backup on-line with their remote dropbox, this is however limited with only 100MB space, you might be able to purchase more storage, though you can also (my preferred method) backup to SDcard, the only negative is you can not backup to a choice driven remote location which would be better than needing a separate program for that action, which brings me to my next most essential app, yep, you guessed it - Rsync for android, you do need to satisfy some pre requisites for ssh, initial setup should handle this for you, a word of caution, rsync does not work with passwords, it uses keys, but is one of those life saver apps, since rsync servers are easy to setup on any Slackware, OpenSuse, or Red Hat box.

Next, there's the physical protection of your phone, if some bugger nicks it, you want to Continue reading "Essential Android Apps" »

In a few short weeks, from December 3 to 14, the ITU will meet to decide the Internet's as we know it today, future. They want to take over full control, deciding on regulating it, what we can see or can't see, how companies must stop supplying access in some cases (PIPA, SOPA etc anyone?) and more importantly, introducing government access fees for carriers, which will drive up the cost of Internet access for everyone, those are just some of the ideas, with censorship being the huge one of course, and dictated by communist countries, so how do people in say for example Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany like being told the type of content they can or can not access by the likes of Iran and China... The words I have for that are legally unprintable!

ITU participants (representatives of each of our own countries governments) need to hear from as many Internet users as possible to voice their opinion in stopping more madness Internet control madness.

Sign the petition here

You can watch this short video to understand more about why this is a bad thing...

Continue reading "Open Letter to the Governments of the world and..." »