Quick update, OpenOffice now ships with macro security set for 'High' so that "Only signed macros from trusted sources are allowed to run. Unsigned macros are disabled". By going to Tools -> Options -> OpenOffice.org -> Security -> Macro Security You can also set the security level to 'Very High' so that "Only Macros from trusted file locations are allowed to run. All other macros, regardless whether signed or not, are disabled." So if you are concerned with these articles, use OpenOffice.

Listening to CBC's Search Engine Podcast (which was removed by CBC sadly) I was reminded again of how much our perceptions of security have changed and how much organizations and activists need to do to be mindful of the people they are working to support. For those folks who missed the news on this item, the office of the Dalai Lama brought in the Munk Centre for International Studies' Citizen Lab to investigate some issues they were having with their computers. Turns out that an Microsoft Word document containing a Trojan horse that allowed the attacker to list and access any documents available to their computer (including on their networks), any keystrokes made on that computer and even allowed the attacker to turn on the victim's webcam and see/hear their conversations. This large-scale cyber spying operation was given the name GhostNet.

Now this has been possible for a long time, in fact the code for the Trojan horse that was used can be downloaded from the Internet and manipulated by hackers for all kinds of purposes. What's new is that the folks from the Citizen Lab were able to backtrack and access the control server that was directing these hacks. They were also able to identify that the attackers seemed to have a political target as this Trojan horse was distributed through crafted email and attachment concerning Tibet. Now given that the control server was hosted in China, that the interface was written in Chinese and that China has a strong interest in monitoring activists concerned about their occupation of Tibet, it is most likely that Chinese intelligence is behind this. This is a concern, but not my main one.

I went to the Ottawa Folk Festival last weekend and had a great time watching some amazing performances and meeting lots of wonderful people. Like many successful festivals it is filled with people who make this a regular event and where one can see people in your community that you don't always run into.

One of the first people that I ran into was Jake Morison who was one of the volunteer photographers for the event.  Jake's a good photographer, but it was amazing to see how much photography gear many people at the festival had.  Over the course of the three days there must have been hundreds of thousands of photos taken by the official photographers, media, artists, but mostly by the thousands of people who attended this festival.  

With all of the digital cameras around it is a real lost opportunity not to be encouraging folks to share them by tagging their photos, videos & blog posts with ottawafolkfestival or ottawafolk.  It's a nice way to build community online, and festivals are all about community & great memories.  Like with the Facebook groups that was set up, it is free to set this up and encourage people to participate.  Unlike Facebook though the Flickr interface allows users much more control over the rights to their pictures (especially allowing people to select a Creative Commons license). 

OpenConcept is approach it's eighth year servicing the needs of nonprofits, unions & other progressive organizations. Before that I worked in Oxfam Canada and spent some time supporting their website as staff. It is interesting to see over that time what things have changed and what have stayed the same.