Tsunami Warning

Australia is on tsunami watch after a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off Chile’s coast, toppling buildings and killing at least six people.

Don’t forget ‘Vindaloo Vs Violence’ tonight

Vindaloo Vs Violence

• @VagainstV
• http://vindalooagainstviolence.wordpress.com/

Adobe Download Manager critical vulnerability (APSB10-08)

Details
A critical vulnerability has been identified in the Adobe Download Manager. This vulnerability (CVE-2010-0189) could potentially allow an attacker to download and install unauthorized software onto a user’s system.

The Adobe Download Manager is intended for one-time use. The Adobe Download Manager is designed to remove itself from the computer after use at the next computer restart. However, Adobe recommends users verify that a potentially vulnerable version of the Adobe Download Manager is no longer installed on their machine using the instructions in the Solution section above.

Ensure that the C:\Program Files\NOS\ folder and its contents (“NOS files”) are not present on your system.

Vulnerability ratings: Critical
Affects: Windows
Evaluation: Check for the C:\Program Files\NOS\ folder now, mitigate if found

LINKS:
[1] Security update available for Adobe Download Manager (2010-Feb-23) APSB10-08 [Adobe]

CRP10-016

[Trailwalker] 7 weeks of training to go :)

We decided to skip the trail this week and walk a little closer to home. Eltham to Warrandyte and back is 20 km and so seemed like a good walk to choose. As it is mainly along a track beside the river, we thought it would be nice if we took our kids on their bikes so we could actually spend some time with our families.

Mainly and thought are the operative words here … the section where it isn’t along the river is along the road and steep enough to make riding difficult. So the various parents were pushing various bikes up hills to a background chorus of kids with tired legs. By the time we got to Warrandyte, our timing was shot to pieces and so, as we had to get home in time to take the kids to a birthday party, we headed home by car. So our 20 km walk along the river ended up being about 10 km but we did get coffee and pasties at the Warrandyte bakery.

The two boys walked about 1/2 way back bush-bashing as they unsuccessfully tried to find an alternative route to the road section, whereas us two girls did a much more leisurely additional 5 km around Westerfold Park later on (after the birthday party).

Love Tracy

You shall not Pass! - Yes it is shown as parkland, it is also a cliff face!

_____________________________________________________________

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to www.oxfam.org.au/trailwalker/melbourne/team/520

Devotion to Duty

Today’s xkcd;

Shit, we’re dealing with a sysadmin.

Music Monday #011 – Cold Chisel

This week we look at Cold Chisel, who are definitely classified as Australian Rock Legends. Amongst their many it hits it seems fitting that “Khe Sanh”, which was originally too offensive for radio airplay, has since gone on to become one of Australia’s unofficial national anthems.

Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel is a rock band that originated in Adelaide, Australia. It is one of the most acclaimed and revered Australian acts of all time, with a string of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s and huge sales that continue to this day. While its success and acclaim was almost completely restricted to Australia and New Zealand, the legend and stature of the band and its songs has only continued to grow in those territories.
– wikipedia

Time for some music …

Cold Chisel – Flame Trees (1984)

Cold Chisel – Bow River

Cold Chisel – Khe Sanh

This weeks links (2010-02-22)

Hopefully NSW Transport don’t do e-commerce
… And yet, in his first day in Parliament since announcing on the weekend details of the government’s transport blueprint, the only question from the Labor benches to Transport Minister Dave Campbell concerned a fanciful claim the Herald had somehow hacked a top secret website to reveal the plan early.
Campbell said that by accessing a website where the plan was available, the Herald had done the equivalent of “pick the lock off a secure office and take highly confidential documents”.
…
The information on the NSW public transport blueprint was freely and publicly available on Friday afternoon, February 19.
Accessing it did not require a password. You just had to put in the web address.
The real issue here is that the government’s spin machine did not control the release of the information. …
– Minister, a monkey could have ‘hacked’ secret transport site (2010-Feb-23) [SMH]

Government sites to be more mobile compatible
The Federal Government has announced it will update its decade-old online accessibility guidelines later this year to make agency websites more compatible with mobile phones. …
– Government sites to be more mobile compatible (2010-Feb-23) [Computer World]
Unfortunately, the Government Announcement Fails Accessibility Test

ACTA “internet enforcement” chapter leaks
Article 2.17: Enforcement procedures in the digital environment (PDF)
via Boing Boing

Adobe Reader 9.3.1 & Acrobat 9.3.1

Summary
A critical vulnerability has been identified in Adobe Reader 9.3 for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, Adobe Acrobat 9.3 for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 8.2 and Acrobat 8.2 for Windows and Macintosh. As described in Security Bulletin APSB10-06, this vulnerability (CVE-2010-0186) could subvert the domain sandbox and make unauthorized cross-domain requests. In addition, a critical vulnerability (CVE-2010-0188) has been identified that could cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

Adobe recommends users of Adobe Reader 9.3 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX update to Adobe Reader 9.3.1. (For Adobe Reader users on Windows and Macintosh who cannot update to Adobe Reader 9.3.1, Adobe has provided the Adobe Reader 8.2.1 update.) Adobe recommends users of Adobe Acrobat 9.3 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh update to Adobe Acrobat 9.3.1. Adobe recommends users of Acrobat 8.2 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh update to Acrobat 8.2.1.

Vulnerability ratings: Critical
Affects: Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X
Evaluation: Update now

LINKS:
[1] Security updates available for Adobe Reader and Acrobat (2010-Feb-16) APSB10-07 [Adobe]

CRP10-014, CRP10-015

Firefox 3.5.8

Firefox v.3.5.8 was released February 17th, 2010 fixing several security and stability issues. (NOTE: The Firefox 3.5.7 update did not address security issues. )

Fixed in Firefox 3.5.8 [3]
MFSA 2010-05 XSS hazard using SVG document and binary Content-Type
MFSA 2010-04 XSS due to window.dialogArguments being readable cross-domain
MFSA 2010-03 Use-after-free crash in HTML parser
MFSA 2010-02 Web Worker Array Handling Heap Corruption Vulnerability
MFSA 2010-01 Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.9.1.8/ 1.9.0.18)

Vulnerability ratings: 3 Critical, 2 moderate
Affects: Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X
Evaluation: Update now

LINKS:
[1] Firefox Updated: Firefox 3.5.8 (2010-Feb-17) [Mozilla]
[2] Mozilla Firefox 3.5.8 Release Notes (2010-Feb-17) [Mozilla]
[3] Security Advisories for Firefox 3.5 [Mozilla]

CRP10-13

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@wordpressdotcom: WordPress.com is down, we’re working on restoring service now.

And back at c.10:20am GMT+11

Today WordPress.com was down for approximately 110 minutes, our worst downtime in four years. The outage affected 10.2 million blogs, including our VIPs, and appears to have deprived those blogs of about 5.5 million pageviews.
– WP.com Downtime Summary [Wordpress]