Last night I was talking to a friend about encrypting passwords… and he suggested that the Rijndael algorithm be used. Now, I have a pretty good knowledge of what crypto systems are out there. It is not my field, but I have a working knowledge of the systems in use, and I had never come across this one. Or so it seemed. Once I did a bit more research I found out that Rijndael is actually the algorithm used in the AES, or Advanced Encryption Standard. It was approved by the USA government in 2001 to replaces DES or the Data Encryption Standard. DES used to be used in every ATM in the marketplace, although they commonly now use AES or TrippleDES.

The SMH in their ‘Lost in Transit’ Blog has a story about the best and worst airports to sleep in. Port Moresby is the worst, and Singapore is the best. The Port Moresby airport is often the scene of gun battles and robberies. Remind me to stay away. Singapore often has live music, a hotel inside the passport control area, free movies… The lot!

Some of my friends have been experimenting vehicle tracking using a satellite uplink. This is somethig I would like to try as a once off just to say that I have have done it… After all I have enough equipment in my car to do this… The photo below is from a friend in brisbane. The uplink is actually going via a transponder on the International Space Station [and doing it quite legally… ]…