All things related to IT security, privacy and compliance.
Don’t forget to check out #InfoSecAndCompliance on Jaiku.
I take a look at one of the more interesting security tools to hit Apple desktops in quite a while in TrueCrypt 5.0 Brings Plausible Deniability To OS X Users over on The Apple Blog:
If you need/desire cross-platform compatibility, then TrueCrypt is a perfect choice. You can encrypt a virtual disk image onto a USB drive and take it from Windows to Linux to OS X and gain access to your all your secret data, something that is not possible with OS X secure disk images.
UPDATE: Now up on TAB (Josh is teh cool) with good discussion in the comments on the efficacy of the executable.
[NOTE: Once/if Josh posts this to TAB, I’ll be modifying the entry to just link over there…only posting it now in the interest of time (since it’s after 1AM on the right coast). It needs to be on TAB so the widest audience gets the security fix info.]
For those that have installed Office 2008, you may have seen some news floating on the internets about improper permissions — that were created by the installer — potentially allowing another local user to access your documents. It’s not a remote exploit issue and most folks are probably not vulnerable (you only need to be concerned if you’ve created another user on the system).
Erik Schwiebert posted instructions for a temporary fix over at Mac Mojo and Microsoft will be issuing an official patch/update to address the issue as well. Erik’s instuctions require some Terminal-fu, so I wrapped them into an executable – Fix Office 2008 Permissions.
Just download/extract the archive and run the executable. You will be prompted for your password since the fix requires elevated privileges.
If you have any issues with the executable or following Erik’s instructions, post them in the comments and I’ll see if your particular install requires any tweaking.
New post over @ TAB on the KDE 4 port to OS X…
This week Slashdot (and many, many others) reported that KDE 4.0 has been released for Windows and OS X. KDE (K Desktop Environment) has been a popular GUI for *nix systems and there have been ways of getting it to run (mostly) on OS X prior to this native port if you were willing to use X11 on OS X). RangerRick (of OpenNMS “fame” did much of the heavy lifting for the Mac side of this project, including the package distributions.
Another post by me over @ TAB looking at opensnoop, a cool dtrace utility that lets you monitor file opens.
Lots of good stuff came with Apple incorporating DTrace into Leopard. Load the Developer tools to get access to Instruments.app for some GUI-DTrace goodness and poke around man -k dtrace for some command-line DTrace fun.
DTrace is great for developers, but it has some security benefits as well, which I’ll hopefully get some time to explain in the coming weeks.
If you’re interested in what makes it to my MBPro post-Leopard, you can head over to The Apple Blog and read my latest post.
Quite the rabid followers of iStat Menus amongst the reader over there :-)
NOTE: Josh is much better at these serious article headlines than I am.
My review of the Shure MPA-3C headset adapter is up on TAB.
A teaser for you:
One of the issues I’ve had with with Apple’s iPods is the inclusion of those annoying ear-bud headphones. From sound quality to comfort, they are without a doubt the worst part of the package. When Apple released the iPhone they did manage to enhance the wretched, white audible tether with a decent microphone and control mechanism that wound up being useless to folks like me who cannot use the earbuds. It drove some to hardware hacks (YouTube link warning) and others, like Shure to the design room and manufacturing line.
New post over @ The Apple Blog on Java 6 & OS X.
Need some inspiration/leads for some new posts.
My post on the Kindle over @ TAB.
Gruber agrees (and is a bit more emphatic about it in his Twitter posts).
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