Diary of a Network Geek

Is free e-mail a threat to the free world?

According to this article on the Austrailian News Interactive site, the Austrailian Federal Police seem to think it is. If I understand who they are, the AFP is like the US FBI, so they're national security heavy-weights. Anyway, they are working with free e-mail providers to make it easier to track anonymous threats, fraud and other crimes that are carried out via e-mail. That's all well and good, but at least one "former NCA member", whatever that is, by the name of Greg Melick said "Do away with free internet (email) accounts..." Which seems a little too harsh. On the other hand, he also said "Microsoft and others who provide these services have to be brought to heel." And, I'm all for putting the screws to the Evil Empire.

Anyway, all you YahooMail and HotMail users might think about all that. Enjoy it while you can.

In celebration of my business travel being postponed, we saw a movie yesterday.

Earlier this week, as I was about to buy airline tickets, which I can't really afford, I was told to "WAIT!" So, this project, or at least my end of it, having been put on indefinate hold, we decided to see a movie to celebrate.
First, I think it's important that I say Pirates of the Caribbean was NOT my first choice. I was out-voted two-to-one by my wife and daughter.
But, I have to admit, I was very, very pleasantly suprised. This was a GREAT movie! Obviously, it's about pirates, but it's more than that. It's about a curse on pirate gold, stolen from the ancient Aztecs. The story follows Jack Sparrow, er "Captian" Jack Sparrow, in his quest to regain the Black Pearl, his pirate ship lost to a mutiny.
The story also follow Will Turner in his quest to find out who he is and marry the fair Elizabeth who is the daughter of the local British Governer. Will, it turns out, is the son of a very important pirate who has the secret to lifting the curse. Only, he doesn't know it, of course.

But, before I spoil any more plot, let me say that this movie had something for everyone. There was adventure, of course. After all, how could a movie about pirates not have adventure? There was romance. After all, how could a movie about pirates not have romance? And, there were wonderfully animated corpses. (Really, the special effects were so good they were almost an additional character.) Johnny Depp, who plays "Captain" Jack Sparrow, does a wonderful job of combining comedy, action and drama. And, I have to admit, he's not too bad with a cutlass.
This movie is really a great one and good for just about the whole family. Anyone who could survive the Disney ride should enjoy this film. Go see it!

Why, oh why, would someone send me their resume?

This morning, I got an e-mail from someone over in India that read:
Hello,
My name is G. and I am working in Coimbatore, India as a Systems Engineer. I have 2 years and 6 months experience in Systems Administration, Networking and Systems Hardware. I am currently doing my CCNA. Iam looking for a change in my career from my current workplace and I do not have any location preference.
So iam forwarding me resume to your desk. I you find my Resume upto your expectaions please feel free to mail me. I will be waiting for your reply.
Thanking you,
G.

What makes this idiot think I have a job to give him? Did he not look at MY resume? Has he not read my blog?
Granted, he was, at least, asking to move, I assume to this country, but c'mon! I mean, I think I make my feelings pretty clear about importing workers when there are plenty qualified workers here that need jobs. I'm also not real hot on spammers, of any kind. See, it's pretty obvious to me that this guy spammed my Inbox with his resume. Like I mentioned right off, if he'd read my website, he'd have known my position and my status as an employer.

Okay, I'm done ranting now.

Hey, it's Friday!

So, relax and have a little geeky fun!! Do you like Star Wars? Did you ever play with Legos? (Do you still play with Legos?) Then you'll love The Star Wars Alphabet Project!
No, really, it's kind of cute and funny. And, for me at least, it brings back memories of a kinder, gentler age when I had time to play with Legos. You know, college.

Linux is certified to be a civil servant!

No, really, according to this article on Wired News, at least one vendor has gotten a US Federal Government certification. Sure, it's only one, and only on a particular hardware set, but still, it's a start!
Yep, feelin' good about that Linux+ cert now!

Novell buys Ximian!

There were two press releases yesterday about this. One on Yahoo!News and one on Novell's Website. Now, you may ask, why is this cool? Because, along with Novell's other products, this could produce a Microsoft free environment. Okay, just savor that thought for a moment. "Microsoft free". Aaah...
It'll be interesting to see how that effects Novell's stock price.

Also in the news, this time on Australia IT, is a story about how RedHat is sueing SCO. It looks like a preemptive strike, but who knows what it really all means. SCO has really muddied the waters around Linux and, it seems to me, is cutting of their nose to spite their face. Well, only time will tell how this one will play out!

A great news week for Novell and Linux. (Man, I got to get my CNE updated!) Keep those peepers peeled for more info!

Not even shredding is safe enough anymore.

A long, long time ago, I argued that people with enough time could reassmble shredded documents. That was, unfortunately, proven true by the Iranians in the US Embassy. But, now, you don't even need that much time or individual human resources. According to this story on The New York Times, there are a growing number of high-tech ways to reassmble shredded documents. To those of use who live in Houston, home of the Enron Scandal, that takes on a special significance. It seems they now have a program that does, essentially, "edge matching" and connects scanned pieces of shredded documents together via software. Basically, it's a program to do jigsaw puzzles at a very high-speed. Keep that in mind if you think your documents are safe after they've been shredded.
And, one of the biggest firms offering this service is ChurchStreet Technology, who are based out of Houston. I bet they're booked working on the Enron stuff for years.

Honeytokens are the latest "sweet security" tool to nab hackers, according to this article on SecurityFocus.

Okay, so here's how it works. Say a hacker gets into your system. How are you to know? Well, let's say you setup data of some kind that no one would have a real reason to access. So, if someone does access it, that read attempt serves as a red-flag.
Here's an example. Say on a Human Resources directory you setup a file labeled "ProposedSalaryChanges.XLS". Now, you know that no one in HR made the file. HR knows not to use the file. So, if you see a user accessing the file, you know they're snooping for data.
Another example. Say you set up a false record in a payee database for "George Bush". Obviously, unless your company does business with the Whitehouse or the Bush family, there's no reason anyone would need to access this record. But, to a hacker, it might stand out and arouse some curiosity. So, if someon accesses the fake record again, you've got a red-flag.

Pretty clever, isn't it? I hope a lot of hackers hear about it and get scared enough to not violate security. Not that I think it'll really slow too many of them down, but still...

Plumbing, that is.

Yeah, I was doing more plumbing this weekend. I had a shower upstairs, in my daughter's bathroom, that had been running hot water for days, or weeks, before I noticed. I really don't have any idea how long it had not been turning all the way off, but it's been a while, anyway. I'd tried to get at it earlier in the week, but I couldn't get stuff apart right and had to let it go until Saturday.
The kicker to working on this, though, is that I have to shut off the hot water to the whole house, because I can't find the shutoff for just that shower. So, I waited until my wife got her shower then, I set to work. That was around noon. Several hours later, I managed to get the valve apart, but at the expense of obviously needing to replace the whole thing. *sigh* Well, that meant a trip to Home Depot. I got all my parts and got it together, only to find that the water was still running! So, I shut the whole thing down, again and open it up, again. This time, I shined a flashlight into the opening and found that there was an actual hole worn through the interior connection! Well, I guess I'm getting the hang of this stuff, because it occured to me that an O-ring would take care of that. And, I was right! It did!!
But, somewhere along the line, I managed to snap off the handle on the hot water shutoff at the water heater. That meant I had to buy a whole valve just to get the handle. And, the process of turning the hot water off and on seemed to knock loose some iron/calcium deposits, because my downstairs bathroom sink got clogged up. Grr! Of course, I took the whole stem valve apart before I figured out that it was the difuser that had gotten clogged. By this time, it was around 5:00pm and I was tired. So I quit for the day.
This morning, I discovered that I had missed a washer in that downstairs sink, which had kept the water running until I turned it off under the sink. So, I got that together and, lo and behold, it all worked! So, it might take me twice as long as a real plumber, but I do manage to get the job done!! Now, I have some fall-back skills if this whole computer thing doesn't work out.
Of course, there's always the lottery!

I love paper art.

I have ever since I was a kid. My Dad brought home a couple of origami books from work one day and I was hooked. They were just some samples from a printer, who turned out to be a gangster, but they opened up a whole new world for me.
I've played with origami, or Japanese paper-folding, ever since. I can do some things from memory, like the ubiquitous "flying crane", but most of the time, I need someone else's directions. So, of course, I found someone on the web... The site is called Paper Folding. It's well worth the look.

Enjoy!