The summer security school in paradise
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in Greece, cybercrime, malware, crime on
I’m in Crete at the moment. An island in Greece surrounding by sea holed up in a beautiful hotel with a double bed.
You may think I’m on holiday at the moment, but no - I’m actually at the security conference held by the EU group ENISA, and I’ve already written several stories on it.
It is a weird place to get a bunch of security experts along. The conference is actually set in a resort, so while I’m here stuck inside writing security for you lucky people, tourists are passing by in around 28 degree sun flip flops and all.
Apart from the whole not actually being able to holiday thing though, I’m enjoying it. There are some very interesting people talking here, much more than the same event last year, and because there are no tech sponsors I’m not having to follow any particular security business agenda that can sometimes be a problem in IT.
There are people talking about threats as well as the public sector and business reaction to them. So far I’ve heard about the problems of e-government and web 2.0, the banking sector and cybercrime as well as the police response to it.
It is called a ’summer school’ because it’s supposed to be educational as well, as there are quite a lot of security experts, policy makers and business people as well as journalists.
ENISA seems to be making a big European-wide effort on security, and it has opened by eyes to some of the issues around the EU which we often don’t hear about in the UK as well - we don’t think it matters to us.
But as security and cybercrime has no national boundaries we should really understand what are neighbours are doing, because thanks to the international nature of e-crime, incidents in Britain can simply be triggered by the press of a button in another country.
It’s new - we need to make efforts to make sure we understand the problem.
Rated: 20% (1 votes)
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Farming and becoming a Godfather with Facebook
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in Farmville, Mafia Wars, crime, Facebook, Social Networking on
Ever felt the urge to grow some vegetables? Plant some seeds? Milk some cows? - apparently millions of you Facebook users do.
According to statistics, we are all are a nation of virtual farmers - Farmville is the most popular application on Facebook with a massive 35 million users.
If you haven’t played it before, it’s where you control a computerised farmer whose job it is to tend and grow their own farm. As you plant more crops, get more money and more experience, you can buy different stuff like tractors, fences and buildings.
I don’t know whether it was just boredom or an example of how dead my life has become, but I started playing it recently. I thought it was cute - I don’t have a games system so maybe I was trying to replace it with something. (I was in a past-life a World of Warcrafter).
It is a strange experience playing this game. I don’t actually know how much ‘enjoyment’ I’m getting out of planting crops and watching them grow, but I keep clicking back on it. Maybe I’m just on Facebook so can’t resist clicking on a link and checking out how my little spiky-haired asian farmer is doing. Alas.
Personally I find Mafia Wars more exciting. It’s written by the same company Zynga, and its a bit like one of those role-playing games you played as a kid where you build up your stats and experience and level up. Here you rob pimps, mug old people, buy big tommy guns and build up Mafia-owned shopping centres.
Anyway, that’s the game I’m mostly on. I’ve got around 21 mafia friends made up from Facebook buddies. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I would say its addictive and as Farmville, its easy to play when you are one click away on Facebook.
There’s similar games to get on the iPhone - but I don’t think that’ll work. Not enough iPhone buddies to be in my gang you see. I like the community aspect- especially when I get presents like shivs and revolvers.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
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The UK crime map - How paranoid are we at IT PRO?
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in paranoia, map, crime, Google on
We’ve been looking at the UK crime map -
Rated: 80% (1 votes)
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