
This is part 5 of a series of blog posts looking at the security of the UK Government's web infrastructure. The primary cause of the vulnerabilities I've exposed over this series is abandonment. In a flurry of excitement a website is commissioned and created. Then, as time wears on, people begin to drift away from […]
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This is part 4 of a series of blog posts looking at the security of the UK Government's web infrastructure. Over the last few days, I've shown that hundreds of websites run by branches of the UK state are in a perilous state of disrepair. There are multiple sites with hugely embarrassing XSS flaws, running […]
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I've started seeing an uptick in Twitter spam - ostensibly from my friends telling me I can make money online. The common denominator is that they all use Pinterest as a vector for spreading the spam. Looking at the accounts of people who have recently tweeted these or similar messages, shows that the majority are […]
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Updated - see end of post! I am not a happy bunny. Last year, while trying to buy a house, Symantec's MessageLabs decided to block my Estate Agent and my bank from receiving any emails from my personal domain. In the middle of a rather stressful house purchase, I had to swap my email addresses […]
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Earlier this year, I received an offer from a sleazy marketing company to place adverts on this blog - on the express understanding that they were not identified as sponsored posts. I reported the company - Media Discovery - to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) who, after a perfunctory investigation, decided not to prosecute. They […]
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I don't like spam. I'm very careful always to tick the "do not pass my details on to 3rd parties" box on forms. So, when I do get SMS spam, I like to know who has been flouting the rules. See my previous investigation. A few weeks ago, I received this rather annoying message: I'm […]
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So, after much delay, and many technical difficulties, BlackBerry have finally launched their BBM app on Android. Whenever I launch an app on Android, I'm immediately inundated with emails from companies promising me thousands of 5* reviews for only a few hundred dollars. I've never taken up their offer - it's unethical, probably illegal, and […]
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I've moaned before about the crap adverts on social networks. Facebook has suddenly been getting a lot worse. Today they decided that it would be great to show me adverts for a steak restaurant. Which, would be fine, if I hadn't been vegetarian for the last 13 years... Facebook have been spamming my wall with […]
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I've been investigating some rather nasty SMS spam. I have finally heard back from Switchfire, the SMS gateway who sent the message. According to them, the originator of the message was PeekabooTV.com. Take a look round that site - it hasn't been updated since 2007, and the Contact page leads to a 404. A quick […]
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As I've mentioned before, I hate SMS Spam. Last night, I received this unsolicited message. Now, I can try to unsubscribe using STOP ALL - and I have forwarded the text to VSPAM. But that's not enough for me. I want to stop them sending any more spam SMS to anyone. Let's do a little […]
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