Pie Palace

Damn! Why am I writing a thesis, when I could get someone to write it for me? iWritingAThesis.com and MasterPapers promise to do it for the low, low price of $17/page.

I work in a software security lab. We spend a lot of time trying to think of ways to defend against phishing, identity theft, etc. So when a tool like gdMoney comes along, I get a little creeped out.

gdMoney is a Google Desktop Widget, that runs in the Google Desktop app, and periodically sniffs credit card transactions. The gdMoney site doesn’t explain how the plugin works, but it’s probably a screen scraper that hits the credit card’s website and scrapes the list of transactions. Which suggests it can log into your account. If it can log into your account, then it has your username and password. If it has your username and password, then any passing virus or worm can also acquire your username and password.

Right now, gdMoney only supports reading AmEx balances. Which is good, because it looks like the AmEx site is sufficiently limited to prevent money from being moved around. But I doubt that’s true for other online financial institutions.

The idea behind gdMoney is great, but the problem is the implementation. Until financial institutions publish secure “read only” feeds about customers, then tools like gdMoney will be another vector for attack. Why? Because they store the user’s financial credentials on an insecure medium.

According to a study out of Columbia University, in the long run, people regret not having fun, more than doing the right thing (Which means I should really stop working on my thesis and go do something stupid). Link

I’ve started reading G. K. Chesterton’s The Club of Queer Trades. The book itself is enjoyably weird: it’s a series of stories featuring a detective and his lacky repeatedly discovering people engaged in occupations that look just like crimes, but aren’t. In the first story, the duo stumble upon a 1905 version of live action role playing. It’s apparently entered the public domain, so can find plenty of copies of it online.

The CBC may be covering the Green Party national convention. There’s no word as to whether or not they would broadcast it live, or just produce highlights. I’m guessing the latter.

Here’s the current progress for my thesis.

Pages: 84.
Words: 20686 (54% of total)
Deleted words: 17357 (46% of total)
Days until the first revision is due: 15.
Estimated number of pages left: 40.

I have less text deleted, as compared to last time, but my advisor hasn’t given me too much advice recently.

If I ever finish my thesis, I’m going to get me an EVE Online account. The game looks fun. I’ve always been a sucker for big space games…

Overheard, at 8:30 on a Saturday morning:

Bus Driver: Next stop, happy rock.
Passengers: …
BD: Get it? Happy rock?
Pass: …
BD: Gladstone! It’s Gladstone!
Pass: …
BD: I’m doing you a favour. You’ve got all day ahead of you.

Search http://thesaurus.com for error prone. It will ask you if you were looking for error prone (with two spaces); which also doesn’t exist. If you click the other suggestion (error-prone), it asks you if you meant aeroplane. Somewhere a computer is laughing.

The posters shown in Kozyndan are fantastic. All you bunny lovers should check out the first few. Many a bunny there.