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Wiki RSS
Recent Comments
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Mon, 19 Nov 2007
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Apologies for the dearth of posts. I'm in the middle of a certification marathon, facing a number of self-imposed deadlines. I've finished re-cert'ing GSEC and have two more to go by the 1st of the month. (Note to self: celebrate having started this blog prior to obtaining the cert in the first place.) Hopefully, I should have everything done this coming weekend. joat: 06:19:22 19 Nov 2007 |
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Sat, 10 Dec 2005
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I'm searching for stuff to listen to for an upcoming trip to DC. If anyone has any sources for non-music content, please forward 'em. Hint: stuff from recent cons and the usual podcasts, I already have. joat: 09:14:37 10 Dec 2005 |
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Mon, 07 Nov 2005
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I'm looking for a technical reference that explains just how the message
ID for an e-mail passing through an Exchange box is created. Is it
entirely random or is at least part of it "readable" in a manner similar
to those generated by Sendmail?
joat: 08:00:00 7 Nov 2005 |
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Sun, 17 Jul 2005
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I managed to make some headway into getting Galleon up and running. My
notes are posted here. I've got it to the point where the software runs but my TiVO still doesn't "see" it. Also, it doesn't use the same ports as my previous install of JavaHMO did. Anyone have any ideas?
joat: 07:00:00 17 Jul 2005 |
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Sat, 16 Jul 2005
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Has anyone successfully installed Galleon (not the browser) under Linux or any other *nix? I have a working version of the older JavaHMO but cannot get the newer Galleon installed properly. Howto needed!
joat: 16:30:00 16 Jul 2005 |
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Fri, 04 Jun 2004
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I was part of a presentation today which was attended by two groups of high school students, along with various CIO's from local schools and gov't. Most of the high school students were bored out of their gourds (how interesting can talking about policy and procedures be?). There were a few that were actually interested and asked questions afterwards.
One of the common questions was about how to get into the field. Here's some of the answer(s) to that type of question (I try not to blather on in person about it but, here, it's a brain dump): - Don't do it unless you're really interested in it. The money's good but unless you really like your job, it can be a real ball-buster (not in those words)
- When you're first starting out, don't try to specialize. Learn as much as you can about the underlying theory. Ex: you want to know as much as possible about TCP/IP before you work on Foundry or Cisco equipment. (Doctors learn general medicine before they specialize.) Learn as much as you can about DNS before you work with just *nix or MS implementations. (Don't be a point-and-click administrator.) Specialization comes naturally as you find favorite topics/areas to learn more about.
- Leave the "which OS is better/more secure" argument behind. It's a religious argument which will never be settled. Your job will be to protect the castle, not just the chapel in the north-east tower. The actual question isn't "which one is better". It's "which one is worse". The answer is "all of them". OS's are only as secure as the people managing them.
- Plan on spending a good portion of the rest of your life in school (something most teenagers find painful). It doesn't have to be formal though. The idea is to keep current in technology or to learn more of what you're interested in. If you're focused enough, this leads to a Masters or a PHD. If not, (like me) it, at least, adds up a lot of college credits in varied curriculums, a decent GPA, and working relationship with a LOT of the people you need to know in your local neighborhood. (Hint: the people "in power" are doing the same thing: continuing/broadening their education to keep ahead.) Or, at least, you make a lot of friends.
- To go along with that, read. The Internet makes it easy. Current developments with RSS make the process even easier. (Heck, borrow/steal from my blog feeds if you're that desparate.) Learn about the advanced features on your favorite search engines (an invaluable skill!!).
- To get ahead of the rest of the pack, keep yourself busy. During the week, find something you're interested in. Spend the weekend learning more about it. Set up a DNS/mail/web server. Learn about all of the switches in tcpdump (or whatever utility strikes your fancy). Barring any projects, read up on the bleeding-edge technologies.
- No matter how painful it is, be polite and honest. Your career in the technology field depends on three inter-related things: your knowledge/experience, your ability to interact, and the amount of trust your employer has in you. The first two may offset lack of the third to some degree but trust and integrity are large parts of the package that your employer is "buying".
- As part of that, "keep your nose clean". Contrary to popular myth, very few organizations hire hackers to to protect their systems. Nowadays, the big-money positions require a LOT of talent and a LOT of integrity (both of which you'll be selling to your employers).
- Pay attention in English Composition (at least). To be recognized "within the community", you're going to have to research and talk about new (or new twists to old) developments. This means "publishing", either in trade journals or magazines. (Or even blathering periodically in a blog.)
Like it or not, your parents expect you to move out in the near future. Many are willing to help pay for your seconday education but the end goal is to let you loose into the world to make your own way. They have their own lives to live and they're looking forward to the post-child-rearing years (really, their lives do not end when you move out). The objective is to do well enough for yourself that you're able to do the things that you really like doing. If you can "get by" by flipping meat at the local burger joint, more power to you. Many computer geeks, nowadays, have a nasty eBay (hardware) or book habit that can't be supported by a minimum wage job. Not that I'm the fount of wisdom here, but the main points are: only "do it" if you really like it, plan on working to staying current, and remember the Boy Scout creed. To be honest, we had aimed at a slightly different audience but, due to layers 8 and 9 of the OSI model, other groups were invited to "fill in" for the missing attendees. joat: 21:49:00 4 Jun 2004 |
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Wed, 02 Jun 2004
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This one from Dana Epp (who got it from someone else) is a keeper. Open a command prompt in the folder's location by right clicking the folder. joat: 22:45:00 2 Jun 2004 |
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Mon, 31 May 2004
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Anyone have any experience with RootKit Hunter? What do you think of it? joat: 09:36:00 31 May 2004 |
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Fri, 23 Apr 2004
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Pat Tillman died today (yesterday in Afghanistan). He was 27.
Your mom's lesson of "If you can't say anything nice, don't speak" applies here.
If you see his family on the street, pay your respects. (Express sympathy, don't stare.) If his coffin passes in front of you in the coming days, show respect. (Remove hat, put hand on heart.) Other than offering assistance or kind words to his wife or parents, you're not allowed to say anything.
This young man was one of few who volunteered. Some do this with the blessing of their families, some do it against the wishes of their families. Regardless of that, it is a choice that they make with knowledge of the possible results. No one, not even family, is allowed to take away from that choice.
Pat had the fortune of being famous early in his life. Thus his death has drawn a lot more attention than others in the past three years. All deserve the same respect. Forget the fanfare and hype of Memorial Days of the past decade. Instead, when you're standing on the curb during the next Memorial Day Parade, think about what Pat and others gave up to do something they believed was needed, knowing what might happen. Put your hand over your heart or nod your head. Wish them well, wherever they may be.
If you have strong feelings for/against the war, find another venue to vent in. Pat's death (and the other's) is not a soapbox for you to stand on. You don't get to use it as "proof" for anything. This isn't the Viet Nam war where hundreds of thousands were drafted. Every single member of the military is a volunteer.
Ignore them if you want, most prefer it that way. They don't do it for the money (it doesn't pay well). They don't do it for respect (however pride has a lot to do with it). They, like others that died in responding to 9/11, do it because it needs to be done and no one else is willing to do it. If you can't understand why people do this sort of thing, accept it as something that you don't understand. Don't attach your own motives or politics to their actions (or deaths). Kathleen Parker has been able to explain it somewhat.
( Jerry Bowman, you're a no-class asshole. Show some sympathy for his family. Suppress your politics at least until after they bury the dude.) joat: 20:34:00 23 Apr 2004 |
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Wed, 26 Nov 2003
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I've been reading/considering about VOIP today. Is it me or can the only way to secure VOIP be on-the-fly encryption (session and user)? Saw yet another capture-to-wav tool today. joat: 23:48:00 26 Nov 2003 |
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Sun, 15 Jun 2003
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SlashDot has a pointer to a public draft of a bug disclosure standard. Right off the top, I don't like it as it seems to leave all the chips on the vendor's side of the table. It also makes the "finder" traceable, which is not necessarily a "good thing" if the DCMA goes sour on vulnerability researchers. Example: Say you find a really nasty bug and report it. Sometime during the 30-day waiting periond, someone else discovers the bug and writes a virus exploiting that bug which takes down the Internet (ala Slammer). Mebbe I'm being paranoid but don't you think that yours would be one of the first doors knocked on? Besides, I've reported the same DoS bug to MS twice and it's still not fixed a year and a half later. I guess you can put me on the "troublemaking-full-disclosure (shoot-these-people-first-when-we-take-over)" list of malcontents. joat: 09:29:00 15 Jun 2003 |
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Sat, 12 Apr 2003
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Kenneth Hunt has a piece about one of Cringely's articles, talking about how Google ignores failed nodes in their clusters. Seems it's cheaper to ignore them than to repair them. Cringely's article (at least this one) is entertaining (if you can consider massive waste a form of entertainment). I've seen similar things and can attest that you can make a marginal living collecting/buying, repairing and reselling those throwaway technologies. (You've seen the used bicycle repair shop downtown right?) Google should consider allowing volunteer techs from a local charity to cart them out and Frankenstein them. Heck, it'd probably make a decent tax write-off. Nowadays, my wife looks at me cross-eyed when I object to her suggestion of getting rid of her old computer when we upgrade. During my teenage years, we kept out POS cars running by scavenging off of same model junkers in the local junk yard. I just know that computer will make a good mail/file server. joat: 11:16:00 12 Apr 2003 |
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Fri, 11 Apr 2003
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Could anyone point me in the right direction? I'm looking for a utility to dump modified HTML to paper in a 2 or 3-column format, either via TeX, Postscript, or PDF. I've got about three years worth of news articles (mostly text) in MySQL tables which I've formatted into a single table (mostly HTML) and have inserted into the submissions queue in PHP-Nuke. I still have the original tables if it helps. I've found html2ps but appears to be overkill. Anyone know of something better? joat: 22:18:00 11 Apr 2003 |
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