Geek Bazaar

Confirmed to be working

Not only they refuse to cooperate with Opera (my favorite), but they require you to use IE or FF for (sit down) SECURITY ISSUES!
What a bunch of morons! All the other browsers combined don’t have so many issues as IE or FF on their own. If they don’t know how to write cross-browser compatible code, they should at least not hide behind the SECURITY buzzword.
The site also hijacks your clipboard (ActionScript magic) in a lame attempt to hold you from copying any data from their COPYRIGHTED site.
Hail “YellowPages.com.mt © All Rights Reserved 2007″!

Maltameter covered the topic yesterday. Vodafone Malta finally have an article about this.

Of interest:

Customers can subscribe to this offer until 31 October 2007.

A local political newspaper is reporting on a (possible) physical data theft at the new hospital, and talks about some “RAM” modules being stolen. The article has mentions of hard disks getting missing as well. Unless we’re missing something here, it seems like the author of the article needs to learn his RAM from hard disks.

You might have seen the advert on “The Sunday Times of Malta”. Vodafone are offering free unlimited/unmetered internet access over 3g for lm9.99. They ask you to buy a usb modem which goes for lm129 (I don’t have the details here). You can also get the usb modem for free if you subscribe for 2 years. As part of the contract, they give you a “data sim” which cannot be used for voice.

Limitations include 3g coverage and 1.5mbit limit. I think it sounds nice as a backup connection.

Bringing together the world’s leading security professionals from academics, government, industry, and the underground hacking community.
DeepSec IDSC is an annual European two-day in-depth conference on computer, network, and application security. The first DeepSec Conference will be held from November 22nd to 23rd 2007 in Vienna, and aims to bring together the leading security experts from all over the world in Europe.

So if anyone can make it (get budgeting or will be visiting Vienna) … this sounds ub3r cool. Check out the schedule. And don’t forget that Ryan Air and Airmalta will both be having discounted flight rates if you’re Malta-based

If you’re around Malta / Valletta / 222 ..

Some of the works here and there

When Eden Leisure launched their website revamp, we were delighted. The idea of being able to book your tickets online without the hassle of queuing up is great. But on further inspection we noticed the following issues:

• Payment was sent via an HTTP site (i.e. without any encryption) rather than HTTPS.
• Anyone can reset anyone else’s password given that they know (or can guess) their user name and email address

We didn’t look for these security glitches; they were obvious while we were going to give the online booking a try.

So next thing was to inform Eden Leisure of the security problems so that they can fix them. Someone else had emailed them independently and also described other problems related to service. We published both emails.

The insecure HTTP problem has been solved a few weeks ago by moving the payment site to an https site on apsp.biz (owned by APCO Ltd).

This would probably never have been fixed had no customers complained. That is, until a security incident occurs and the details get published.

However the password reset issue is still there.

More details - published emails:

• Online Booking
• credit card security for Eden Cinemas website

DOH!

MaltaToday has an article about the Maltese govt taking periodic aerial photos of the Maltese islands and using them to keep up to date on the latest construction developments. This might sound intrusive for some, almost big brother like. But keep in mind that this is already being done (google earth is great) and that photos will only include things that are publicly viewable anyway. As usual, this same information might (and probably will be) used for other things other than to keep tabs on construction development.

this is what I have got from my online booking :

Virtu Ferries Internet Booking Service
….
Payment may be effected by e-mailing your credit card details (Card Type - VISA/MasterCard/AMEX; Card Number; Security Code and expiry MM/YY) to creditcards@virtuferries.com together with the booking reference. Kindly note that if payment is not effected within 24 hours, your reservation may be cancelled.

Thank you for choosing Virtu Ferries

KEY EMPLOYEES OF THE COMPANY

JOSEPH PUFTA, age 45, has been employed by the Company for approximately
six years and presently serves as General Superintendent for all new home
construction. Mr. Pufta supervises eight persons relating to the home
construction and development activities of the Company. Prior to joining the
Company, Mr. Pufta served approximately eight years as the Project Manager for
one of the largest commercial construction companies in the United States on
various construction projects in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida. Mr. Pufta
also has approximately five years experience as a custom home builder and as a
framing contractor.

Here

There’s always an exception to the rule. ENN (also covered by The Register) has published an article about how new EU countries are enjoying good times in IT. The part that interested me is ..

The report found that recent economic indicators provide strong evidence that EU membership has been good for the economic development of the 10 states that joined in 2004. According to Eurostat, with the exception of Malta, the new members had GDP growth rates well above the EU15 average of 1.5 percent in 2005 and 2.6 percent last year. Both Estonia and Latvia have seen their GDP growth go beyond 10 percent, putting them among the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Guess there are various reasons behind this

Original article