Kirt Cathey, NH2GX, JG1FXZ

This morning I had the great opportunity to sneak-peak the Samsung Galaxy tablet. Not yet released in Japan, so this was a ‘special’ occasion made available to preview Samsung’s morsel of toy. I have to say, ‘it is nice’. The accelerometer, the touch screen, the screen is all really nice. Okay, okay, you know there is a big BUT coming….

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Everybody in this country wants a window seat on the bullet train, but nobody can hold their bladder long enough for a two hour ride to Osaka. So, people like myself who actually like the ‘edge’ leg room and ease of mobility offered by the aisle position, find themselves levitating toward the window seats. When Japanese try to get out of their window seat, some where in their mind they think they can get get by without waiting for you to stand to get out of their way.

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Hi All! It’s been a while, but since then have been hard at work programming on a couple of projects with a couple of languages. Over the past couple weeks, since mentioning WorkPapers in a blog posting, several users have replied via email calling, requesting, and some demanding a new release. Well, it’ll be out in a few weeks. This next release will enhance the previous version synchronize, file exchange, and export – with a few long-awaited reporting upgrades.

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Over the past couple of days I have concluded that enough (bad) breath has been spent ranting about how system and security auditors really are missing the mark. However, one cannot reasonably just point a finger in one direction – it takes two to tango, so it is now time to point out what CIOs and administrators of secure environments should start to consider in order to prevent incidents. And along the way add a rant or two about how the average CIO is (too) an administrative paper-pushing, policy guru that does not really have real systems administration experience – most come from a consulting background and have not had to own a system for more than a year.

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I spent a couple of hours today researching/working on an APRS setup. Came very close but no cigar… need to make a quick trip into Akihabara tomorrow to pickup some connector components and solder them together. THEN, I will finally have an APRS (packet radio) node going with GPS output. The cool thing about this technology, however, is that it’s not just GPS information, it’s not just weather information,

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This Japanese news article reports the first “internet cafe” arrest in Japan since the anti-piracy download law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2010. However, I am fairly certain that this is the first such arrest altogether – somebody please comment if I am wrong.

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Well, from looking at the news and some of the evaluation discussions coming through here in Japan, it appears that at least Japan and the US will be implementing body scanners for boarding processing in the next year.

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The Nikkei headlines this morning, as I read it on the page facing me in the train, says that Takashimya Department Stores in Japan has announced that they will replace major location lighting with LED. The target is to replace and install some 150,000 units by 2012, reducing electricity costs to one-fifth of current expenditure. [...]

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This posting has nothing to do with security, but everything to do with electronics and building devices. If you’re looking for a fun personal project, read on! Helicopter flying skills required. A couple weeks ago, a friend called and said he was driving into Akihabara, Tokyo, and asked if I wanted to join for the [...]

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Japan IT press is reporting that digital photo frames shipped for Christmas are infected this year too. Does this ring a bell? Dejavu? Well, because it happened last year too; as chronicled at SANS, here, and here. Now, if you click on any one of the three previous links, please pay attention to the date – exactly one year ago. Not many security news items break in Japanese before the English publications, but here is the report paraphrased.

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