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TrueCrypt is really astonishingly wonderful piece of crytographic software and unfortunately and ironically for me it is too good at what it does.

TrueCrypt is a free and open source utility that performs on on-the-fly encryption allowing the user to create a virtual encrypted disk (TrueCrypt volume). TrueCrypt can either create an encrypted file that acts as a real disk or encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a storage device/medium, such as floppy disk or USB memory stick.

One of the best features of the TrueCrypt software is that allows you to use passwords based upon the content of files. So you designate one or more files as keyfiles and it combines that with the password you type in to create an ultra-secure unbreakable password. So say you choose the password Gazza after your favourite footballer of the 90s this would be a trivial password for a brute force attack to crack but if you were to combine it with a keyfile of an MP3 of Fog On The Tyne then it would become immeasurably more difficult.

However should you ever lose the keyfiles that you chose to use or like me forget which ones that you used the TrueCrypt volume that you have created becomes impossible to open and you lose all the data you have so carefully secured.

Luckily for me the drive that I had encrypted was merely used to back up important data for my publishing business and so I didn't lose anything but the time it took to reformat the disk and back up all my business data yet again.

I do wonder what would have happened should I have been compelled to decrypt the volume under Part III of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 as clearly I really could not have done so.

Labels: Computer security

It became time to update the look of my site and move the archive links off each and every page of the site to an area of their very own as there was a damn lot of them as I've now been maintaining the blog for over 3 years.

I've adopted a slightly altered version of the Cutline template created by Chris Pearson and used by Matt Haughey. It is ostensibly a Wordpress theme but I've adapted it for use in Blogger.

Just watched the third and final episode of Adam Curtis's new documentary series The Trap on BBC 2.

Not all attempts to make the world a better place lead to tyranny.

I will come back to this later with a fuller review when I've watched all three episodes again, but I think Curtis has done yet again a fantastic job of solidify thoughts about modern society and politics that have been washing around in my head.

Labels: TV

Labels: TV, YouTube

The Earth has come about the Sun yet again and my age is no longer Prime it is a Power of two.

On this day in history.

1884 - The siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins

1925 - Scopes Trial: A law in Tennessee prohibits the teaching of evolution.

1993 - The Great Blizzard of 1993 strikes the eastern U.S., bringing record snowfall and other severe weather all the way from Cuba to Québec.

2007 - The Bank of England launched a new £20 note, featuring the Scottish economist Adam Smith.

Barfield

Starts off very one note then gets boring then becomes NSFW and ends sublimely.

Labels: humour

This is usually the part when people start screaming.

Whiny little emo Peter Petrelli from the first few episodes would probably start screaming at this point but the new powerful Peter not so much I think.

Labels: heroes, TV

FREAKIN' DAMMIT!!!!! APRIL 23RD IS THE NEXT DAMN EPISODE!!!!

I can't wait that long.

Start spoiler.

I just knew Ando would be back. Perfect piece of sidekicking, get the hero's back without even telling him he's doing it.

The scene of Claire meeting Mama Petrelli was awesome. Is she part of the group that includes Linderman and Hiro's dad? Or was her husband? She seems to be acting against their interests in any case and has brought the Haitian over to her side.

I'm betting that Simone's dad was part of this group also and that we'll get to see Richard Roundtree again in some flashbacks, I thought it odd that he would appear so briefly in the two episodes he was in.

Again April 23rd!!! I have to wait until then to see the fight between Sylar and Peter. I really do hope it lives up to my expectations.

End of spoiler

Labels: heroes, TV

Well that last episode surprised me in a number of ways.

It played out very differently to how I imagined it might. I assumed that Michael's plan would go awry when Kellerman assassinated the President and I never thought we would actually get to hear the tape.

Secrets that could bring down the President in movies are like monsters in movies they are always much better before they get brought out into the light of day. But this time the secret was worth waiting for and one that I would never have guessed.

Spoilers follow (select with your mouse to reveal)

Fucking incest! Man, now that's something I'm sure she wanted to keep quiet.

Very glad C-Note survived his suicide attempt as he's my favourite character and I really want he and his family to get the happy ending. In comparison I don't much give a shit about the fate of Michael and Lincoln.

Sucre and Bellick teaming up against T-Bag could be fun.

Spoilers end.

Labels: Prison Break, TV

Sprout is a cute fun game to waste a quarter of hour at work with. [via]

Labels: Games

Wellington Grey knows the answer and presents it in a handy little flowchart.

Labels: humour

What was already a strange new story about a woman crashing her car into a DMV office that she'd been summoned to in order to take her driving test is pushed over the edge into the truly wonderfully bizarre by the following line.

Inexplicably, a man in a Superman costume could be seen walking around the car, but he did not stop to help the driver or any of the victims.

I guess there was a more critical emergency he had to attend to at that moment like a collapsing dam or something.

Labels: humour