Amit Singh has written an article touching on many key aspects of what is needed to get a good understanding of the world of computer security. It's not a forensics manual or an exhaustive book on the subject, but it does a very good job of hitting all the bases and educating at a level deeper than you'll get from the new sources that write quick one-off stories, and in this day and age, that's a worthwhile thing.

His paper, which is entitled "A Taste of Computer Security," is divided into these chapters:

• Popular Notions About Security \
• Defining Computer Security
• Traditional Unix Security
• Security Uprooting Vehicles
• The Net Growth In Insecurity
• Digital Life: Viruses
• Digital Life: Worms
• Viruses on Unix
• Platform-Independent Malware
• Defeating Memory
• Securing Memory
• Access Control
• Detecting Intrusion
• Sandboxing
• An Example: Solaris Security
• Miscellaneous
• Unix vs. Windows
• Epilogue

I found it worth the read, and recommend it to people who may not be security professionals full-time, but need a certain level of understanding to really know what they need to know in their daily jobs.

I'm showing my friend Brent how I can email from my blackberry and it posts to my blog. Cool stuff.
--------------------
Greg Hughes
Corporate IT Director

"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

Rory Blyth, whom I have met briefly once and read many many times, writes a hillarious, informative, and (in its own special way) very thoughtful blog. He's also deserving of his audience's congratulations, because he's just taken a job at Microsoft doing what he does best.

And I bet he gets to attend MVP events now without becoming the victim of petty whining. It'll be nice to have someone official to blame now. :)

<AirHandShake> Congrats Rory! Well deserved. </AirHandShake>

Yesterday Microsoft kicked OneNote SP1 out the door, and today we already have the first two new PowerToys for OneNote 2003 SP1. Note that the SP1 release provides a sort of plugin-in interface to OneNote that allows people to build interfaces that let OneNote interoperate with other programs - and you'll need to install the service pack before you can use these new apps.

And, apparently there will be more to come!

From Chris Pratley's weblog:

You can check out the PowerToys page (may not be up just yet if you're reading this post July 27-28):

http://www.microsoft.com/office/onenote/powertoys

Or go directly to these download pages to get the first two PowerToys:

IE to OneNote. This PowerToy adds a button to IE that lets you send any page or a selection on a page to OneNote. You get the same results as a copy/paste would give you, but you can do it all in one click. It also nicely puts the clippings in a single section so you can browse and clip, browse and clip. Then review your research later, complete with links back to the source pages. Link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=a9872a17-2d0c-47f0-9b4d-026e94a8ef1c&displaylang=en

Outlook to OneNote. This PowerToy adds a button to Outlook so that you can send any email message (or group of email messages if you multi-select) to OneNote to keep them together with notes and other docs. Very handy if you like to have a “project folder” section in OneNote that keeps all your stuff together in an easy to flip through and modify/reuse format.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=87c661e3-178d-46f0-979e-0fdd96327928&displaylang=en

The Firefox web browser has received a lot of attention recently, with a rash of issues and related publicity in the Internet Explorer area causing people to look for alternatives.

Someone has put together a friendly jab at the Firefox browser, in this parody that I thought was pretty darn funny - Firedfox.

For those too lazy to look and wanting to see the real thing, you can go here. It's a nice browser.

In a new video on Channel 9, Microsoft's top security man, Michael Howard, discusses how hackers do their thing, discovering and exploiting security holes and whatnot. Additional links to other security-related video interviews with Howard are also provided.

Hopefully no one gets any bright ideas. :)