KEY POINTS:
After first highlighting a potential security exploit in the Windows operating system a couple of years ago, Kiwi software consultant Adam Boileau has posted the hacking tool on his website, frustrated it seems by the lack of interest Microsoft has taken in the matter.
Traffic to Boileau's website has subsequently gone through the roof as geeks around the world flock to it to check out what he has come up with. Incidentally, I love Boileau's interestingly worded description of the limitations of New Zealand's internet access.
"On the offchance you manage to read this; apologies for the appalling speed - my colo box cost about four-hundy-bux, which doesnt buy you a lot of 1u goodness. That, and I'm on the end of a very long pipe to .nz, where the internets are not even yet a series of tubes, more like a bunch of hobbits with scrabble letters," he wrote earlier today on the website.
The Windows exploit seems to be fairly obscure - if involves you linking a Linux-based computer to a Windows PC via a Firewire cable and gaining access to the Firewire memory where some come code can be placed to modify Windows' password protection code - the first-line of defence in security for Windows users.
I never use Firewire, though there's a port on my laptop, which I'll seriously consider disabling on the off chance that someone armed with a Linux-based laptop tries to sneak a cable into my machine next time I'm in an airport lounge.
Seriously though, physical security exploits have taken a backseat to web-borne exploits as people try their luck gaining remote access to computers using Trojan viruses and the likes.
But a good number of password protected, Firewire-enabled PCs sit around all day in offices in environments where it wouldn't look that strange for someone mistaken as a geek from the IT support to be wandering around with a laptop and a Firewire cable. I'm sure its something IT managers in some companies will be taking notice of.
Jimmy's public break-up
Meanwhile, another lesson to encourage us all to pay thought to what we do and say on the web, this time courtesy of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who has had a nasty and very public break-up with a lover, the details of which have been splashed across the web in the form of emails and IM messages between the pair.
More on that here and the bizarre signing-off email from Wales's ex girlfriend on Walleywag, which has been all over the embarrassing if largely harmless story.
Just last week a reader sent me links to some potentially embarrassing YouTube clips featuring the head of a respected local internet company.
There wasn't any public interest to be served in me exposing the clips via the Herald so I didn't, but the clips, which had been viewed hundreds of times, were promptly pulled off YouTube when I pointed out their existence.
With all those mobile phone cameras out there you never know exactly who might be filming you or recording your conversation and many instant messaging programs let you keep a transcript of everything that's been said in an electronic conversation.
All of that is hugely convenient as long as it doesn't add up to a case-book of embarrassing evidence against you down the track. Be careful out there, some things needs to stay well and truly off-line.
