Rat's blog

Infosec 2011 report

2011-04-27T22:06:56Z

Infosec 2011 report

[click here for a larger version of this image in new window]

Loot list.

I only went for the stuff I liked as there were quite a few crap T- shirts and like how many stress toys and biros do you really need?

USB sticks 11

Blockmaster Safestick 1 and 2Gb
Vizi safe 2Gb
Safenet 2Gb
Gdata 2Gb
Safend 2Gb
Anue 1Gb x 2
Idappcom 128Mb x 3

Clothing

Codenomicon T-shirt
Firebrand T-shirt
Trustwave T-shirt
Eskenzi 5 pairs of boxer shorts

Sweets

Sonicwall Jelly bears x 3
Ironkey Mints
Smallwall Chuppa Chuppa Lolly from the guys with airblasters
Eset Smarties

Bits

6 assorted pens
Landesk, Highlighter pen
Seagate, flashing badge
Flashing lanyard no name as it rubbed off
Seagate, a mini mouse
After party, 1000 point roulette token, beer and wine
Qualsys, 9 half pint glass tankards full
Everywhere, Beer Vodka more beer and champagne in a few places
Application Security inc, Postit notes and three bound notepads
Data Maker, 3 tins of plastic putty and Cocktails
ioactive, Various stickers
Pressroom, coffee and sandwiches
Gdata, 3 boxes of tissues
Sipera, 2 silicon covers for my Htc
Websense, Multitool
ironkey, bag
Webroot, bag
4 after party armbands

Titus, a well made flexible torch / Laser pointer in my view the best freebee of the show.

Wares

Sophos, Antivirus and Security toolkit plus luggage tag
Webroot, Android full version, protection system
Astec d.o.o. Risk management tool called ARAT 4.0

The Show

Well, I booked online and got there at the tailend of a power outage upstairs, went to get my ticket to be told I am not on the computer. After a few calls I had to fill in a form, and as they started to enter the details the Apple mac crashed so they went to
a second and it crashed as well. Hmmm and I hadn't even touched
anything!

Eventually I got my pass and it ripped a hour later as due to cutbacks oops sorry, being green they stopped putting the passes in plastic sleeves.

Other cutbacks sorry I meant Ecologically sound reasons, we got no paper plates in the press room instead having to use expensive serviettes to balance the sandwiches on also even the bog paper was really narrow compared to the norm. at this rate next year we will get rubber stamped at the entrance instead of passes and Izal paper for the toilet and plates :-)

To get into the after party you need to register for an armband and got told that the press are not invited this year only exhibitors, so after a run around trying to find out how to get in I went to the issue place and they rang someone who said is it for the
Reverend Rat ? The woman looked at my pass and said yes, then she got told "Oh he needs a pass as he is a long term fixture at the party" :-))

The lady on the end of the phone was the top organizer of the show and came down and gave me some more bands for my guests, Thanks Claire.

Hi to the security guys and Peter their Boss, good as usual

Hi to Neil and the ladies at the Press office thanks for the warm welcome.

Well at least this year it wasn't all about fluffy internet and a good selection of vendors turned up also overall most of the stands were happy as it seemed that Junkets have been wiped out and that the majority of people visiting were there on a mission instead of
a skiving off work etc.

All in all I had a good time and met up with a few friends I look forward to next year's show.

That's it for now, thanks for looking in.

Regards

The Reverend Rat

London street life / vehicle photos - send me your captions please

2010-05-26T16:43:27Z

Hi Everyone, here's a few photos for your perusal.

Foxtons Estate Agents - cool decals.

---
Semi comatose stinkie, feel free to send captions.

---
How not to park a brand new car after going around a roundabout to
fast and hitting a divider, as before captions welcome.

---
Thats it for now, more to come soon.
Regards
The Reverend Rat +:-)

Infosecurity Europe 2010

2010-05-12T22:43:57Z

Hello everyone I hope all is well with you.

I decided to go to Infosec the computer security show's 15th anniversary at Earls court London.

The last time I went was a couple of years ago and it was at Olympia.

I don't know how many more shows will be here as it is rumoured that Earls Court Exhibition Centre will be demolished in the next couple of years, maybe it will move to Expo.

Well things are a bit different, for a start it didn't have so much of the usual razzmatazz and a few of the big names were absent i.e. IBM, Microsoft and AVG to name but a few, but heh there is / was a recession.

The show seemed mainly orientated towards "Cloud" security.

The place was half full with exhibitors the other empty half curtained off, and quite a few people said it was a lot smaller than last year.

But...the staff were really helpful and friendly (Hello to the big Boss security guy that was keeping things in check :-) and hello to the Press room people (Hi Neal) and the helpful lady behind the desk.

And last but not least a big hello to the lovely young lady dishing out the coffee and food in the press room, thanks for the cake :-)
well it was my 50th birthday...

Everywhere I went there were people coming up to say hello and asking were I had been for the last couple of shows, it's nice to be missed :-)

Hi to all the guys and girl from London 2600 that turned up, and special thanks to Zap for the drinks on the way home on my birthday, I hope the sofa wasn't to uncomfortable :-) and Hi to Stan, long time no see, SA is rather a long way away.

I had one weird moment where a person came up and was convinced I tried to nick a Citroen badge off him last year and he was adamant it was me ??? I tried to explain first of all I wasn't there and that as I call these vehicles Shitrons for good reasons why would I want his badge? Then he just wandered of with his mates, chuntering to whoever wanted to listen.

The after party was a bit toned down compared to previous events but there was a guy doing green screen backdrop photos with a choice of backgrounds the most popular was the one below, apart from the booze he was the best thing there, there was also a band but it couldn't be heard from where I was so can't comment on their performance.

The unofficial place found for smoking was outside the emergency exits but when we went back a second time they were padlocked from outside so we decided to smoke where we were being we were surrounded by concrete when this big voice boomed out that we were breaking the law by smoking where we were, immediately followed by me shouting back "not as much as you lot locking the emergency doors with people still on site" a short silence later the voice came back with, ok follow me you can smoke out here and took us to a different fire exit :-)

Now the bit you've all been waiting for...The freebies...

Tshirts
www.Qualys.com
www.Splunk.com
www.Netflowninjas.lancope.com
www.eccouncil.org X 2
www.toplayer.com
Codenomicon defensics (a very sought after "T" as they were not
giving them out unless you signed on the dotted line)
www.codenomicon.com

2 nice Glass beer tankards and lots of Grolsch from www.Qualys.com
5 glasses of Champagne from Cisco's garden party. www.cisco.com

2 x 8Gb stainless key shaped storage drives from The Press Office
2Gb Encrypted Safestick from www.blockmastersecurity.com
Various small usb storage keys from different vendors.

Laptop bag from www.messagelabs.com

Baseball cap and notepad from Application security,inc.
www.appsecinc.com

And from www.gdatasoftware.co.uk two packages one called Internet
security for netbooks 2010 and the other Notebook security special protection with a kensington style lock with it.

A £15.00 I tunes voucher from Veritysystems.co.uk

A pair of water pistols in NAMCO colours.

And finally a magnetic red tin of sticky plasters which I needed after opening the tin thanks www.secunia.com

The last day saw me in the pub with Peter Wood and crew from www.firstbase.co.uk
Peter has known me for a fair while and introduced me to loads of people whilst telling them they could learn a lot from me :-)
Cheers Dude.

All and all a good time was had and I am looking forward to next year.

And on a last note following me blagging bits and pieces and then saying can I have one too ? after I did all the persuading worked this time, but next time ????? :-)))

Bye for now
Thanks for dropping in
Yours
The Reverend Rat +:-)

Sony Ericsson Xperia X 10i problems running Android 1.6 on Orange network

2010-05-03T19:07:38Z

Hello to you all,

I got myself a Sony Ericsson Xperia 10i with Android on Orange, not a good move :-(

The phone looks good and at first glance even seems to work great.
But...I am having a few problems with it.

The Bluetooth usually works but does drop connection with the phone (in my jacket pocket) on the odd few occasions.

You can not make it auto connect to the headset and I've tried a few different ones, so if a call comes in you have to answer it manually.

Battery ???? if Bluetooth is on you get around ten hours usage or if using GPS, a lot less.

There are three buttons at the bottom of the screen, the middle one wakes the screen up from standby which is a pain in the ass if the phone is in your pocket, the button is very sensitive and the screen doing this gives you six and a half hours battery life this I found out the first day at
Infosec.

The Internet is not very fast and the gps can take ages to connect up and thats if the service is available.

The phone comes with a lot of built in apps but with no description of them in the manual and you can't get rid of them either.

The volume output is also not very good in fact it's crap.

The Android OS is version 1.6 baseband version 1.0.14.

Android 2 has been out a while and Android 2.1 is now out but when I go to updates it says I have the latest software....

If I could debrand the phone then I could update via Sony Ericsson instead of Orange but so far have not found a safe way of doing this without great risk of bricking the phone even using some of my old contacts for advice.

Orange prefers you to use their free apps (surprise there then) and the first stage you have to do on their site is to choose the phone from a list and the X10 is not listed and with no way of typing it in.

I got a voicemail from my sister and listened to it but can't seem to dump it and the orange shop guys don't know how to either.

There are other niggles that have come to light but can't remember them at the moment.

So being a little peeved with the above I decided to ring Orange Customer Care on 150 to then find another BIG PROBLEM, I went to dialler and rang the number but when the phone connects to the other end (this and any other call) the screen switches into standby mode, something that I set in the settings not to do ever except if I do it manually. In turn any key press will bring it to the unlock screen and the moment you unlock it it kills the call which is no good if your on an automated call system and you need to press the appropriate selection as your call is terminated already.

I spent an hour in the Orange shop using their phone to get nowhere apart from I will be called back later when the have spoken to Technical.....3 days on and I'm still waiting.

From what I can find out it so far it seems that Orange are the ones causing the hold up because they need to rewrite their warez to fit the new Os's as they come out and they
are not keeping up.

Orange did offer to replace the phone with the same model but it will still have the same Os 1.6 and problems as I have now, which is pointless.

I am sending a copy of this to Sony Ericsson, Orange and a few gadget review mags.
I will keep you all in touch with my progress as and when things happen.

Yours

Thanks for looking,

The Reverend Rat +:-(

Macbeth Street (gas ?) explosion

2009-08-13T22:08:35Z

The Reverend Rat has been acting as a hyper-local "citizen journalist" photographer again.

Here are a couple of images of today's as yet unconfirmed (gas ?) explosion in Macbeth Street in Hammersmith.

Apparently there are bricks and other debris which were blown out at the back of this block of flats - numbers 172 -179, next door to the Hope & Anchor public house (a "gay pub").

The explosion blew out several windows at the front and even damaged some windows and brought down ceiling plaster etc. in the school building across the road.

Amazingly, nobody appears to have been hurt.

Macbeth Street (gas ?) explosion - flats 172 - 179

School windows damaged across the street

(click the images above for larger versions in a new window)

N.B. for those of you looking for another possible explanation, not connected with a suspected, but so far as yet unconfirmed, gas leak, this part of Macbeth Street was used in the past (1998) as an filming location for Dr. Who - Remembrance of the Daleks when the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) see the Dr Who Locations Guide - Macbeth Street

Maplin's Restaurant ?

2009-05-22T22:55:13Z

The Reverend Rat is getting ready to resume blogging about London street life and technology etc.

Has he discovered a secret plan by Maplin the high street electronics store, to move into the Restaurant business ?

(click the image above for a larger version in a new window)

All of these items, such as

Corned Beef
Milk Shake
Tuna Melt
Grilled Cheese
Hash Brown
Fish n Chips
Surf n Turf
French Toast
Bacon n Eggs
Lunch Box

are genuinely available from the Maplin's product catalog and high street stores.!

They are mostly electric guitar accessories.

Banksy, 2600 meeting, Nigella Lawson, new camera

2007-10-06T14:32:41Z

Hello to all of you and thanks for dropping in.
I have been quite busy lately but due to persistent nagging about when am I going to post again? here it is :-)

"Banksy" on Hammersmith flyover

How not to liven up a Bar-B-Q

McDonald's unregistered software

September London 2600 meeting

Nigella Lawson celebrity TV chef filming at the fish stall

Trashing Karma

Cloud photo

]]> Click on the thumbnails for larger versions of the images (send an email if you want to use the original higher quality versions of these Copyright protected photos)

Hammersmith flyover has it's own "Banksy"

For those who want to see it in real life, you go to Hammersmith and go down King St. till you get to Bridge Avenue, go to the end of it and cross over the crossings under the flyover and then look back to the flyover and you will see at the bottom of the pillar on the right the "Banksy".

My friend Toby's method of livening up a dull Bar-B-Q. using Nitro fuel mix Hmmmm,

We survived, I couldn't even see the flame but certainly could feel it's heat....

McDonald's food? chain still using unregistered software...

On the way to the 2600 meeting we found this lovely group of young ladies promoting a Casino at the "Empire" Leicester Square.

We only to get to our venue and found that it was shut due to a power cut,
We ended up splitting into two groups one went off to be in a nice warm pub but stayed outside most of the time smoking, which is what we were doing except that our beer was cheaper as it came from the Off license and 3 cheers to the guys who donated a bottle of "AsboSlut" Vodka plus other commodities to the cause ;-)
A tip. If you run out of glasses cut the bottom half off coke bottles....plastic, that is.

I help out a couple of great guys on their fish stall twice a week, and they got asked to put their stall in "Partridges" of Sloane Square ( it`s actually Kings Rd ex Chelsea Barracks) but Sloane Square sounds better...bloody Estate agents, all in aid of Nigella Lawson's cooking program.

After a hour and half we thought she wasn't coming and proceeded to start drinking etc. :-) lo and behold nearly two hours late she turned up sans film crew and all..
I was outside and had decided to take a photo of the shop when this arrogant guy starts shouting at me, "who are you what are you doing here ? get out of the way you`ve ruined my shot !!!
I explained A. it`s a public place and there were no indications that there was any one filming, B. that I was part of the team they had come to shoot."
The guy then says ok but get out of the way as they are trying to film Nigella Lawson walking into the shop, Who? says I "she's a famous chef" he says (it turns out she`s the one one walking into the shop in the "Partridges" photo)
After another couple of hours they had filmed her going around various other counters and turns up at ours to buy a couple of bits of Monkfish, Oh, and she doesn't carry cash she has a weasely little guy for this that just follows her around and pays for things.

The film crew got upset with my shirt as it detracted the focus from Nigella in her frumpy outfit complete with trainers,

They filmed, she posed for a couple of photos, and then they all went away.
In light of recent publicity in the media, No, none of us were actors ;-)
But the fish is either going to be replaced at a later date, or she is freezing and then thawing it out, as the filming is not finished till mid November.

"Trashing Karma".
I was out trashing and spotted a big skip full of electronic bits, but there was this other guy there first and he was cutting off all the cables for the scrap copper which is pennies worth...fuming I held up a few things and said if he had sold them with the cables attached a fair bit of money could have been made selling them second hand...Grrr...
I got hold of a couple of bits and pieces and walked back to my house, just as I get there half a dozen Police pull the guy and nick him A. for Having a Knife on him, i.e. the one he was cutting the cables with and B. being an Illegal immigrant/whatever, fair play, they let him take his bag of wire.

And now last but not least, Weird Photo time.

I took this photo of the sunset trying out my new camera and a fair few people have looked at it, and all of them seem to see an angel in flames holding a crucifix ???? what do you think?

That's it for now but there will be more soon.
Again thanks for looking in,
Yours
The Reverend Rat +:-)

William Gibson "Spook Country" signing and "Secure Beneath The Watchful Eyes" poster

2007-08-31T21:00:56Z

Hi to all of you,

I was tipped off (thanks Mark) that William Gibson, author of "Neuromancer", "Count Zero", "Mona Lisa Overdrive", "The Difference Engine" (with Bruce Stirling), "Virtual Light", "Idoru", "All Tomorrow's Parties", and "Pattern Recognition", was going to be signing copies of his latest book "Spook Country".

A couple of years ago armed with my trusty security bit screwdriver I managed to obtain a London transport CCTV poster.

It turns out that William Gibson had put on his blog that he was after the very same poster. So...I went to the book signing with my poster and traded it for a hardback copy of his book which he then wrote a dedication in it to me :-)

The dedication says:

To Reverend Rat with extreme gratitude for his generosity and security tool!
W M. Gibson
29 Aug '07
London

That's it for now, thanks for dropping in, speak to you all soon.
Yours
The Reverend Rat +:-)

More pictures from the Forbidden Planet book signing event on Wednesday 29th August 2007:

]]>

People from the Hacking the Gibson in London! thread on the William Gibson Books discussion board

Bimbo pictures

2007-08-21T19:40:37Z

And finally for those of you that remember the blog a couple of years ago "Bimbo kiss and tell woman" here's the other photo ;-) It seems that the previous photo is one of my most often downloaded pictures.

Thats it for now
thanks for reading.
Yours
The Reverend Rat +:-)

Floods and FIRESTARTER!

2007-08-21T19:32:26Z

We got a bit flooded in Hammersmith with all the rain, I am going to let the photos show the story.

- note the car with the lights still on under water

This is the headline in all the local Gazettes.newspapers: Ealing & Acton Gazette, Fulham Gazette, Greenford & Northolt Gazette, Southall Gazette, Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette.

FIRESTARTER Arsonist's high street rampage.

I was on my way to the Doctors when, I noticed that the door of Barclays Bank was cracked with smoke damage to the night deposit box. And then I saw Lloyds and Halifax had been attacked with the front of Lloyds burnt out and that was before I noticed a dark stain on the two ramps into the Police station all cordoned off, I could see that the tarmac had dissolved a little and the area ponged of petrol.

I took a few photos and rang a contact I have at the Gazette, no-one there knew anything about it and sent their Head Photographer to see my photos.

(Hammersmith Police Station)

(Barclays Bank)

The guy said he expected to see crap pictures i.e. mobile phone or shaky out of focus ect, pictures that don't meet the standard for printing. Mine he said were the best he had seen and used one on the front page :-)
also he said that my flood pictures would have been used if I had contacted them.
If I get four more published I can get my N.U.J. card.

- click for a larger image of this photo of Lloyds bank which was published on the front page of the Gazette

The 40 year old male Arsonist got nicked trying to light the petrol at the Police Station and was done under the Mental Health Act.

Thats it for now
thanks for reading.
Yours
The Reverend Rat +:-)

Hello again. Remote Fire Alarm switch, Recycling gone mad

2007-08-21T19:29:32Z

Hello again.

Smoke alarms ...most of you have come across the alarm that goes off at the slightest thing, ie you can't even boil a damned kettle with out it going off, just like the alarm I have....so...

I made a Remote fire alarm switch.
I pulled open the alarm and saw that the silence button was a blob of metal and a springy metal strip, the two touch and the alarm goes quiet for ten minutes, I turned over the circuit board and soldered a piece of bell wire to the two points and connected the other ends to a doorbell push switch, this was mounted in the kitchen near the cooker.

I put the alarm back together and back to where it lives in the hall.
I tested it out making a fried egg sarnie and it works :-)
Next thing I want to do is try making it work with a remote control device.

Recycling gone mad...

Thats it for now
thanks for reading.
Yours
The Reverend Rat +:-)

The Reverend Rat Returns to Rat's Blog

2007-01-22T13:16:11Z

Hello to all of you,
It's been a long time, but I now have lots of time :-)

A lot has gone past since I last blogged...Water mains exploding in Hammersmith and flooding the High street, Heh, it even made the telly and the big newspapers.

]]> I did my usual Fireworks display and lo and behold the Fire Brigade turned up again, we got a right rollocking, it didn't help with the Vicar giving them some serious attitude which I found quite funny, they gave us fifteen minutes to get the bonfire a lot smaller or they would put it out...they came back grumbled a bit more and watered the grass around it and left.

I lost data on a large scale due to 7 Harddrives committing suicide in the space of ten days and two of them were back up drives Grrrr...this caused me to go anti computer for a while while I had an extended sulk, It has taken a few weeks to sort out what I have left which adds up to less than half the amount of data I had.

I had to have a wisdom tooth extracted a few days before Christmas, it didn't stop bleeding for three days :-(

The local church ( the big one by Hammersmith roundabout ) is having a makeover and they hid the scaffolding behind a plastic sheet that wrapped all the way around the church with a picture of the church printed on it....it looked expensive,

We then had a hurricane and it got shredded, this caused the roundabout to be closed off for several hours and the Hammersmith flyover was shut for a couple of hours while they cleared up the debris and made what was left safe again.

My little road was closed off all night because of a window blowing out from the eleventh floor of the office block across the road from me and a big chunk of stainless steel was teetering on the edge of Barclays Bank roof which is also just across the road.

It snowed but it only lasted a few hours.

Last friday night/morning a guy nicked a double-deck bus from the bus station, he managed to get around the roundabout and half way down the high street before crashing into a parked car at which he then jumped out and legged it.

Well that's it for now, I will be back soon.

Yours
The Reverend Rat +:-)

Blog Nag

2006-12-19T14:11:41Z

The Reverend Rat is promising to update his blog soon...

In the meantime his new email address is:

thereverendrat @ hushmail.com

Rev Rats 2.4gHz Wavelength Formula

2006-06-10T00:28:16Z

How To Work Out Wavelengths
---------------------------

Speed of light % by Frequency = Wavelength in Metres

Ie,
0.3 % 2.4gHz = 0.125 metres (12.5cm) % by 4 to get 1/4 wave....0.03125 metres or 31.25mm

Or for 1.2gHz,
0.3 % 1.2 = 0.250 (25cm) % 4 = 0.0625 or 62.5mm

0.3 was used as that is the speed of light in air.
Also try to use the full frequency Ie, 2.43 instead of 2.4 it makes a small difference to look at at quarter wave but it would be more noticable at full wave,

0.3 % 2.43 = 0.123 or 12.3cm....2mm difference

HTH.
The Reverend Rat +:-)

Ps,
% = divide by, and yes,
For the purists if you are running a length of cable you need to add a few more equations, but Heh, lets show people how to walk first :-)

The BBC, Gary McKinnon and myself at Infosec, Infosec report.

2006-05-09T03:41:58Z

Hi Everyone,
Well here I am again back in full swing and have a lot of catching up to do...So I will start with "Infosec" computer security show.
The 1st day.
I got there and ask for Press privilages to be added to my badge as they had not done it yet again, after lots of hot air from various helpdesk people and getting nowhere, I ended up walking through security and going upstairs to the press room and speaking to one of the head honchos (cheers you now who you are) and got my clearance :-)

The rest of the day after making a promise not to use any hardware after my last few shows performances :-P I went around generally casing the place for the next couple of days entertainment...oops sorry interviews and things press orientated.

Day two.
Chatted to a few venders but nothing extraordinary going on so I went on the freebee hunt, I didn't do to bad.
T shirts, USB storage keys, several Anti Virus/firewall etc, software all on full one year licenses instead of 1 month trials...took a bit of persuading but I won on all points....a battery operated fan, bottle openers, free beer, free wine, a magic box, a couple of 4 port USB expansion devices, a few yoyo key retainers, a mini led mouse with retractable tail, and a few more things that a that at the moment I can`t remember, munchies of various kinds including the food in the press room, again thanks guy and gals...
The Booty
One of the best sights were these two young ladys :-)
Casino Girls

The Social Engineering seminar.
presented by Mr. Ian Mann.
ECSC Ltd.
I had pre announced that I would get in ahead of the queue and be at the front of the audience in a chair of my choice....but the talk got brought forward by 15 minutes so that when I got there the room was all ready full :-( and no more people can go in due to the fire regs, after a bit of social engineering I ended up with security walking me through the crowd to the front and a guy carrying a chair for me straight to the front in front of the podium just in time for the lecture to start....the guy giving the talk was impressed.

I had a photo taken with the two previous young ladys,
:-)

After all this hard work it was time for the exhibitors party but this time the press were not invited...
I ended up with a woman that said she is running the whole Infosec show and said no press allowed....off I go to the press room and make a complaint and lo and behold I got clearance and the woman was at the entrance to greet me, I was the only member of press to get in :-))
The party was themed on Elvis with Ice sculptures that were melting fast by the time I got there to take photos, loadsa casino type games for fun and a few pretty young women dishing out free Tequila.
ice guitar
ice Elvis
Tequila girls
The crowd
And a good time was had by all....
Oh, and last but not least a picture of the show.
Show view

Day three.
Met up with my friend Gary McKinnon giving a talk on the Hackers panel but we kept having to duck from the press,
We met up later and had few drinks and a long chat at a pub up the road...
Gary and Me
More info on Gary at :- http://freegary.org.uk/

Well thats about it for now it`s 03:30hrs, thanks for reading.
Yours
The Reverend Rat +:-)