Capzul Raises The Bar and Dares Online Hackers to Breach Their Server

For the first time ever at InfoSecurity Europe, an exhibitor - Capzul - is daring every attendee and fellow exhibitor to locate and breach its server live at the show. Offering a cash prize, starting with £1,000, increasing every hour, up to £25,000 at the end of InfoSec 2025 in London. "Nobody came close," was the response from Capzul, a firm offering server security, with three locations in Toronto, London and Belo Horizonte.

Jean Chretien - Canada's Prime Minister - and me

I met a Canadian Prime Minister the other day: Jean Chretien. I should say I bumped into him ...and managed to ask whether he remembered my graduation day (in 1981); he said he did, and enjoyed it, as he was given an honorary degree. I don't think many Canadian celebrities get asked for their picture or autograph, but he was most obliging and in fact kind. I once had a theory about rich and popular musicians, based on interviewing throughout the 80s, that only the nicest rise to the top - and it is a team that therefore happily gets them there. Here's a picture.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=644475836

Watching The Sky

The Masonic Lodge is aligned in the ancient tradition of Enoch and the stone henges. The winter soltice is aligned with the northeastern piller of Jachin and the summer soltice is aligned with the southeastern Boaz piller.

The ancient Asherah is used and held by the Senior Deacon who escorts the candidate through his 1st degree, for example, which begins on the summer soltice.

The asherah is a measuring 'wand' which is used to determine the angles of the sunrise and sunset indicated by the shadows it casts from the vertically held staf. The WM sits on the Vernal equinox or the Autumn equinox and the Venus alignment which is directly in the East. The word east means 'rise' in Latin.

In the Lodge room, the five-pointed star is Venus which moves around the blazing sun at the center of the room at noon. In the heavens Venus moves around the sun, which is the center of our universe as seen from earth. At Noon there is no shadow cast on earth at the proper latitude and longitude. On the equinox the shadow aligned perfectly at sun rise and sun set to form a straight line. God is represented in the center of the sun, as everything revolves around him.

Most candidates do not know the symbolism or understand the signifiance of this ancient rite and it takes years of study to understand the full meaning. Each point in the room has a meaning associated with the equinoxes and rising light of Venus at that point in the cycle.

It's been over a year - time flies

It’s been a busy year. I’ve recently had another birthday. A year older and a year wiser. My hunt for Atlantis has taken an interesting turn. It seems academics are in agreement that something is puzzling about man’s evolution over the past 5,000 years, well, his sudden evolution. On one hand children have been sitting around campfires for many thousands of years asking their parents not only how we got here, but why are we here and where do we go when finished here. On the other, some people don’t care.

Those who do care intrigue me. They in fact are constantly searching for the truth. Among us today there are many, as there were yesterday, and the day before. Whence we came? Whither we are travelling? Not exactly common questions, though answers not reserved for common people. On a commercial level, I have seen heightening interest in my television show Before The Egyptians, and in fact its mother, Civilized Productions. In a weird twist of fate, very recently I met an author who writes books about the Knights Templar and their exploits in the New World.

In terms of business development, luck and timing (in the immortal words of Sting) led me to consider a board game called Templar Gold, which I did and now have secured the involvement of both my sister and her husband to create it. This game will be the first of many branded products that eventually will form a brand of entertainment, based in the values of these revered Knights – and the esoteric knowledge they acquired and protected.

We are producing a website to provide additional information on the author and his knowledge, as well as the venture and its offering, as we grow it. During the ‘dot com’, we wanted our sites (of promise and honour) to be fun, fast and friendly. Some things never change and, frankly, more sites should have that attitude no matter what they are selling. I digress slightly. Our game, in fact or games, will also be fun, fast and friendly… though Templar Gold will also be somewhat graphic, specifically when a player dies a horrid death or is killed by an opponent in a joust.

A few weeks ago a good friend had his pony-tail cut off to raise money for Windreach Farms. In addition, he donated his locks, grown over the past 19 years, to the Cancer Society’s program for children. The other day he and I were sitting down, relaxing, and enjoying our age. He said, while discussing tv shows, “remember the 80s?” – and those were (a) my days in Bermuda and (b) my days at the magazine – and then he followed with “imagine being in the army in the 80s” and the closed with “and not just any army, but the Canadian army…”. He left, after ten years service, just prior to our Canadian army teaching the Somalis a thing or thing about torture and violence.

Anyway, he told me three stories that had me on the floor howling. It’s been a long time since I had laughed quite that hard. I have to wonder about Hollywood, because it seems to me there are a lot of great stories out there that really need to be told. I know Disney said something amazing about stories, and dreams, and making them happen. I’m not comparing myself to Disney but it amazes me that so few among us really want to get off the treadmill and make things happen. I want to get off. Can you help?

Searching For Atlantis

Scientists know that over 10,000 years ago our oceans rose by several hundred feet, causing millions of hectares of land to disappear suddenly and forever.  Scuba divers can witness the prehistoric march of time, for instance, upon the coral walls of Barbados today while descending deeper past ancient coral that died from lack of light as waters continued to rise.  Lying offshore in many corners of the globe, waiting to be discovered by amateurs and professionals alike, are thus vast amounts of evidence from those kingdoms and cultures wholly buried when the Ice Age melted.

In a time many millennia before the Egyptians built their famous pyramids atop the eastern sands of the Sahara alongside the once fertile banks of the Nile, the case is mounting for a civilization that was crushed under the rising waters of the ocean.  These days marine archaeologists are not only surveying ships underwater but also potential evidence of megalithic builders lost beneath the waves a very long time ago, such as the Bimini Wall in The Bahamas or Yonaguni in Japan.

Not many tourists think about the possibility of finding evidence of lost and forgotten ancient civilizations, but there are a growing number of equatorially-based popular destinations attracting divers keenly aware they may discover Atlantis, not to mention the many businesses that now refer to themselves by that name.  The fabled city has sparked imaginations since the Golden Age of Greece over 2,500 years ago, after Plato detailed the story of its sudden demise in 9600BC.

In fact, two years ago in the deep-water trench between Cancun and Cuba treasure hunters based in Havana reported finding Atlantis.  What the ADC actually found remains to be proved, but their video suggests a city lies over 2,000 feet below the surface.  It might simply have been a Toltec or indeed a Mayan city that literally slid into the sea, similar to the fate of Port Royal, the scurrilous Jamaican pirate city swallowed one day by the Caribbean during an earthquake in the seventeenth century.

Whether diving in lakes, seas or oceans, there is plenty to explore.

In a particularly catastrophic era beginning nearly 20,000 years ago, when the Earth suddenly entered its warming period, signaling the end of our most recent Ice Age, it left in its wake several vast glacial lakes supported by massive ice dams.  They eventually collapsed, flooding all lands in their path while emptying these prehistoric lakes.  

Whether diving the murky waters of Rock Lake in Wisconsin, or the crystalline Caribbean, Black or Mediterranean Seas, the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, intrepid researchers, academics and authors continue to find and examine puzzling artifacts left behind by very ancient people and certainly fueling the debate among archeologists.
Other than the South Pacific region where many wrecks from the Second World War are explored regularly, like Truk, newer dive sites where oe might find evidence of an ancient civilization, like South India or in the Gulf of Cambay, often present an insurmountable challenge to recreational divers.  Nevertheless, Atlantis itself was supposed to be located in the Mediterranean on the island of Thera, and then perhaps it might also be located in the eastern Atlantic near either the Canaries or The Azores.

Assuredly, however, a more pleasurable dive would be to the warm and clear waters of Bimini and Andros.  Ponce de Leon, who thought the legendary Fountain of Youth would be located there, explored the island itself, as well as the mysterious carving of a shark that can only be viewed from the air.  People studying the possible existence of a maritime civilization would have stretched from Mexico to the Mediterranean, whose lands disappeared after the Ice Age melted.

Take a trip around the world to Okinawa and visit the very strange structures located in the South China Sea, said to be remnants of the lost Lemurian empire; the Land of Mu, which itself stretched across the Pacific, in addition to the incredible array of fish and dazzling flora beneath.

Babemba - ancient traditions

"In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and everyone in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, recalling the good things the person has done in his life. Every experience that can be recalled with detail and accuracy is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are recited carefully. This ceremony often lasts for several days. At the end, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe."

-Jack Kornfield, *The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace*

Great quote...

Oliver Wendell Holmes - "The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions."