Whenever the Kitty is at a conference in Vegas, he always gets a hoot out of watching the geekarazzi sweating like lawn sprinklers at the sight of the scantily clad dancers and booth babes that adorn the floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
At last weeks NetWorld+Interop, Panda Software found a novel way to pander to the “wires and pliers” set. The Korean AV company had two rather attractive young women dressed in rubber dresses, one red, one purple. The lady in red was portraying the Code Red virus, and the damsel in purple represented the MyParty virus. Both ladies were available to have their picture taken with attendees.
And, if women labeled as viruses werent your cup of tea, then e-communications provider Avaya had soccer player Brandi Chastain available to play footsie with the crowd. Although a member of the Gold Medal-winning U.S. Womens National Team at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, Chastain is also known for stripping to her sports bra on the field and for appearing nude on a Gear magazine cover.
“I felt like I was scrolling, rather than strolling, down the aisles,” laughed the Lynx.
Bouncing from one event to another, the Furry One found Suns positioning of two faux codernauts outside last weeks IBM DeveloperWorks Live conference in San Francisco very amusing. Two lively characters, supposedly representing IBMs ad-stronauts, were lurking outside the Big Blue event at the Moscone Center distributing what they called Open Source Cheer in the form of Sun ONE starter kits and water bottles for thirsty conference attendees. “I was in search of stronger refreshments myself,” mused the frequently flying Furball.
Back home, the Katt and his cronies heard from a tipster who claimed the wireless system at the health care provider he works for appears to be totally wide open. Realizing the system had no WEP, no encryption of any kind and finding the SSID easily located, the tattler claims that by using a Sniffer Wireless monitor, he found all the hubs, could watch network traffic and see all the packets. “The part that bothers me,” claimed the tipster, “is suppose I wanted to discredit another physician. I could intercept and alter the packets—for instance, changing a medication from 40 mg to 400 mg. The threat is from within in our case, not from without. Next, I plan on taking a high-gain antenna and see if I can sit in the parking lot and retrieve confidential information.”
“Mmm, be careful, the cyber-road to prison is paved with good intentions,” warned the Kitty.