* Posts by Christopher Ahrens

96 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jan 2009

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Hackers demand $10m ransom for Virginia medical data

Christopher Ahrens
Alert

You broke my sarcasm detector....

"It stretches the imagination to believe outsiders could break into a state-run website and destroy both the original data and its backup, which presumably would be stored off-site."

Apparently you haven't worked Public Sector before....

SSL encryption and the Ghost of Windows Past

Christopher Ahrens

More of the same

-Update your OS / Browser

-Make code simple, no XSS, no extra crap

-Medium businesses are vulnerable too

-And businesses want to sell you crap

Oompa-Loompa and Tinky Winky cuffed for drunken brawl

Christopher Ahrens

@ A.Coatsworth

I thought that too....

Also Booooooo!

Sri Lankan Army site 'assasinated' by rebels

Christopher Ahrens
Boffin

A simple solution I have seen...

-Build the Web Server with the the Home page, sub-pages, and a few other bits on top of NetBSD (smallest footprint / attack surface)

-have all the "Breaking News" / new content stuff on a flash drive and referenced by the page

-write a script that will copy the entire thing to a RAMdrive and search for updated data on the Flash drive every 5 minutes or so

-Remove all users except root / Service account for webserver, set the both passwords to some incomprehensibly long series of digits and numbers (256 character should do it)

-Wrap this up on a Live DVD using a different set of password for each

-Website will run very quickly (being from RAM and all)

-if it gets hacked:

1) swap the DVD with one of a different Password

2)reboot server

3)???

4)Profit!

-Flash drives are cheap, so if a machine gets hacked, just throw out the old drive. Or even use CD-Rs

-Since the machine has no need for a hard disk, there is less chance of hardware going bad

-Possibly have the machine get the RAMdisk image from a server on a private network, possibly scripting it so the Web cluster will refresh every 12 or so hours

-Can be run a system with very low specs (some old SunSparcs will do nicely, can usually get these pretty cheap, fairly small and use very little power, esp. without HDs)

Too many people try to add too much crap to their website which is how it gets hacked, you can run a decent website with this, use a basic SQL DB application if you need to and have the DB files copied to the CD / Flash drive. This solution should allow for almost all Website (This will support most content: JPEG, AniGIFs, CSS, PHP, Some flash)

Love on the buses: The S-100 and me

Christopher Ahrens
Happy

Anyone know where to get the parts?

I am working on my degree in electronic engineering, I was wondering if anyone could point my to a place where I can get all the schematics for this thing and possilby some good sources on where to get the components (although the lab at scholl has a huge assortment, i would guess that they don't have the parts...)

Windows 7 brings Microsoft to its knees

Christopher Ahrens
Gates Halo

It was slow on the corporate network as well

Killed the multi-Gig connection off of the Build server too...

US Congress wants hack teams for self-penetration

Christopher Ahrens

Good in theory but...

Never works in practice, like democracy.

Yes! It's the invisible¹ shed²!

Christopher Ahrens

I think you just summed up all the users of Web 2.0

"unless you're the pathetically easily-pleased kind who's impressed by the ability to update your web page while having a dump. "

Google sued for 'stealing' Android name

Christopher Ahrens
Stop

Hopefully they'll learn

The big companies have been taking this stance for too long, especially Google of "Take first, ask questions later", particularly with the containerized Data-center thing.

(the act that the patented the idea after seeing a presentation from Sun on the exact same Idea..)

And then there is Apple patenting everything under the sun (colored materials, vague shapes, and connectors)

The guy may be a bit of a patent troll, but we need someone to show how cocked-up the Patent system is, or at least get the companies to re-think their patent policies

Security researchers fret over Adobe PDF flaw

Christopher Ahrens
Joke

Surprise surprise....

Flaws in Adobe software, say it ain't so!

Kindle users get burnt

Christopher Ahrens
Stop

Why Amazon, why?

I do electronics engineering, I was looking a getting an ebook reader to dump the tens of gigabytes worth of Datasheets and diagrams (all in PDF format) which will apparently cost me about $1500 to do.. as well have to clear space on my HD for twice as many documents (the original PDF + the kindle format). Its not like PDFs are that hard to process... I had an old PDA that read PDFs just fine.

And whats up with the small memory on the thing anyway? Are they trying to make an iPod Touch or something?

Apple moves to patent mobile color

Christopher Ahrens
Jobs Horns

Once again...

someone invents something useful, Apple tries to patent it, even though they don't even make most of their parts and will end up killing the textiles industry, or at lest trying to sue it into oblivion

Homer Simpson 'nuclear waste spill' panic at nuke sub base!

Christopher Ahrens

When will they learn...

Its like they are living in a bad 1950's horror film, where a bug gets into some nuclear water and all of a sudden grows to the size a building. Or that Nuke plants blow up like Hiroshima if they melt down. Or that Chernobyl is a good example of a melt down and not of Soviet incompetence.

I wonder if they will ever realize that the sun releases more radiation than a well-run regulated reactor. Or that a bog-standard smoke detector contains a radioactive Isotope (Americium) that is greater than all of the 'waste' that the MoD has ever released. Or that a microwaved burrito contains the equivalent amount of radiation....

Wikipedia's Norwegian press officer cuffed for killing mum

Christopher Ahrens

re: Know your Norwegian language

I believe the word you are looking for is invalid.

HP packing workers seal bosses in conference room

Christopher Ahrens

So the package priners, eh?

So just take a box for one of those huge multifunction behemoths and ship the entire office building....

BSA hijacks Somali pirate hype

Christopher Ahrens
Stop

Stop it already

Its not software piracy, it copyright infringement, and besides, the 'Pirates' in Somalia are Privateers, not pirates (They are 'Government' sponsored to go after their enemies, IE everyone else, pirates are in discriminate)

Student sentenced for F-ucked up grade hack

Christopher Ahrens
Alert

Wow, fail

Just so much...

users with admin access w/ accounts that weren't even locked / logged out

Grades on same database / partition as registration records

Florida A & M

"Act of God"

PeopleSoft

No proxies from a home account

Non-disposable e-mails

keeping passwords on a cell phone

software key loggers, that weren't uninstalled at that

I can't go on, just so much idiocy, on everyone's part. My head hurts.....

MySpace rant was not private, rules US Court of Appeal

Christopher Ahrens

You cannot sue the newspaper

They gave her credit for writing the work, in the US it is legal to reproduce any works so long as it is acknowledged that someone else wrote it. In any case this would be in the context of a quote, such as someone's speech / Press conference / press release.

The principal is in no way responsible, the Myspace post was not a private conversation between her and the principal, which she had no expectation of privacy, the principal should have submitted the post to the paper as an anonymous tip, rather than with his name, but that's beside the point

Sims creator Will Wright leaves EA

Christopher Ahrens
Stop

Nooooooo

Hopefully he still has the rights to make Sim City. Damn that game took all my free time going up, so much fun.....

Super Talent flashes the big whopper

Christopher Ahrens
Gates Halo

@PCIe ssd should be released in

Yep, windows will do that, just copy all the System files to the SSD, change the disk number it points to in boot.ini (or easier BCDEdit) and off you go.

BT does Italian Job on London traffic lights

Christopher Ahrens
Joke

This just proves...

That the ultimate survival tools is 5 meter length of Fiber Cable, no matter where you are, you just have to lay the cable down, and a work crew will be there within the hour to dig it up.

Sun shares sink as IBM deal breaks down

Christopher Ahrens
Coat

I have only one thing to say....

Yahoooo!!!!

HP goes to 11 with ProLiant launch

Christopher Ahrens
Thumb Up

Holy crap

they are bringing back Turbo, wonder if there is going to be button for it...

Wow.. that brings me back

Storage breakthrough could bust density record

Christopher Ahrens

Remember Holographic storage

Because apparently the makers forgot... This will be just another bit of vaporware that will never see the light of day.

But if it does come to light, how many people would be able to afford it?

Remember to never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of these babies

Microsoft plans to issue non-update update for Win 7

Christopher Ahrens
Gates Halo

That man..

He belongs to the Microsoft Update Division, not NT-Dev.

The files will just be bumped up one version number, something like +0.0.1, but the code inside will be the same (with a different compile date) Its really just a test of how Windows Update will work with the new OS, this has been done with every OS since Win 98, so really nothing to here folks, move along...

Cisco to bundle Trend security suite with wireless routers

Christopher Ahrens

That will totally work..

If people weren't stupid enough to not change the password on the router..... Then again the people that have enough intelligence to do that are also not stupid enough to run executables because the website tells them to, and judging from the number of unsecured Wireless networks in my area (about 98% of the total networks) I don't think this will help at all...

@Pounds and Dollars: Companies usually charge more to foreign customers...

Apple iPhone police censor South Park

Christopher Ahrens
Flame

What about iFart?

What about the like of the "fart apps", aren't they offensive enough? Why is Apple so inconsistant in their Iron-fist style of running the app store?

Sky network downed in London

Christopher Ahrens
Go

@corin

>effective sales team

Bwa hahahaha hahaha... OK I'll stop, good one though

Terabit Ethernet possibilities

Christopher Ahrens
Boffin

He might be onto something...

Couldn't we just use Prisms at either end? That way we have separate signals still traveling over the fiber. Just use the prism to split / combine the wavelengths at either end..

I'm not some kinda crazy Optics boffin, but I do remember High-school Physics class with the whole splitting light into wavelengths / combining different colored LEDs to create different colors.

Wanna see how to use Win 7 UAC to pwn a PC?

Christopher Ahrens

The easy way to fix this:

NEVER give users Administrative rights on a machine. Problem solved, of course the home lusers will complain that their programs won't install, etc. etc.

MS puts up $250K bounty for Conficker author

Christopher Ahrens

The machines that are infected...

Nearly all of the machines (Close to %97) are pirated copies that have had code checking hacked out of them to circumvent the activation process, which means that any update code will be useless on those systems, so its not that the code is written badly, its the code used to exploit.

@Joe - If MS was to include an Anti-virus into the OS then the EC will be up their Ass in no time complaining that they are destroying competition, at which point all the Rabid Fanboys will be saying how evil Microsoft is, etc. BTW there is an anti-malware application in the OS already the MSRT, which has had the code to protect against [Conflicker, downadup] since Nov of last year, people just didn't appl it in time to prevent infection.

Gmail adds location-aware signatures

Christopher Ahrens

IP GeoLocation = Fail

The company I work for uses the same IP range Globally, so this will show that a user at the Johannesburg, South Africa campus is in Redmond, Washington, USA which is almost on the complete opposite side of the World... Talk about being a little off, similar story with my ISP, I am connected almost directly to their trans-continental backbone, so my traffic usually shows as being from the East coast...

Gears of War grind to halt

Christopher Ahrens

Don't these Certs usually last a lot longer?

I've seen code-signing certificates that have an expiration date of at least 10 years from now, most are even 30+ years, so why didn't they just pony up the cash to have a 50+ year cert created for this game, especially when it raked in several million...

Exploiting laptop connectivity

Christopher Ahrens
Coat

Won't anyine think of the Security?

I still can't believe our boss was convinced to allow us to connect a high bandwidth pipe directly up to the R and D computers, allowing remote, unmanageable machines with questionable protection on them. On top of the fact that the communications are all 'encrypted' and can't be analyzed and could hold pretty much anything and security audits would show that so-and-so accessed file at his time(which they should have access anyway. BRILLIANT And to think, now our boss can now SEE us in the meeting from his laptop while sitting on the beach in some much better (and warmer) location and getting paid, since its a "working vacation", the one he needed after making the hard decision of which of us to lay off..

If you need me, I'll be on the roof with the boss. Mines the one with the forged suicide letter in it.

Windows 7 UAC shutoff 'bug' leaves Microsoft unmoved

Christopher Ahrens

I think Microsoft means:

That they'll make the fix in the final, but not produce a patch / fix for the Beta. Producing patches for beta software becomes a real bitch, especially out of sequence....)

Gordo's mobe interrupts economic summit

Christopher Ahrens

I would've assumed...

that he would either have someone to take phone calls for him, or at least have his phone play something like "God Save the Queen" or some other political drivel like that.

Time to axe Microsoft's Zune

Christopher Ahrens

Expand?

@AC, no they aren't sold outside of the US / Canada. They'd probably do better if they'd just export the things...

Although I wish I had never bought mine, the problem with it is that neither the software, nor the device understand Unicode, not too much of a problem, except for the fact that the software "Updates" your music library. I really enjoy seeing all my song titles represented by squares....

Seriously, it'd take, what. ~50 megs MAX to support Unicode(and through in an extra font or so) everything else that Microsoft sells supports Unicode (Hell even the original releases of NT did)

The display on it pretty nice, Much bigger than anything else I've seen and pretty good quality (except for the iPod Touch, but 8 Gigs MAX, WTF guys?)

Google and the Great Wikipedia Feedback Loop

Christopher Ahrens
Stop

I think my calendar is broken...

.. It says its 1984, how strange?

Sprint Nextel chops 8,000 workers

Christopher Ahrens
Flame

Hopefully..

Hopefully they canned that guy that created the stupid beeping noise that the Nextel phones made, If I hear that stupid sound ONE MORE DAMN TIME I'm going to kill someone. I get it, you're talking on your "walkie-talkie", what is the difference between this and regular old speakerphone? Aside from raising my blood pressure though....

</RANT>

Intel chairman Craig Barrett retires

Christopher Ahrens
Thumb Up

Maybe?

Maybe hes cutting his own job to save money? I think his salary would pay for at least a dozen more employees. I ma sure he has plenty of money saved for retirement. I just wish that more suits follow suit.

Opera sings praises of Microsoft-browser statement

Christopher Ahrens
Flame

Shut up already Opera

Because of this idiocy I have personally stopped using Opera on principal.

This is what Opera is sounding like: "Whaaa, MOMMY, but ITS NOT FAIR!"

I realize that Microsoft can be overbearing with some it products, but Users DO have a choice about what browser they use, Firefox will change the file association so that ALL html documents are opened in it (some applications might specify IE when you click on an internal link, but this is a minority).

I wonder why the EU is actually paying attention, since with IE8 MS is making an *attempt* at making a standards compliant browser.

Online campaign urges MPs to block secret expenses

Christopher Ahrens

They should jsut do what we over here do...

Instead of passing a law making them exempt, just make the government so inefficient that by the time they expense reports are actually available, they have already been re-elected and can pull the same crap until next re-election. Or claim that the project they are working on is for "national Security" and have it classified....

Of the people, by the people, for the people. My ass.

AT&T Idolises promotional texting

Christopher Ahrens
Joke

@Anonymous Coward (Eh?)

"T-Mobile continually send me bollocks despite all my attempts to stop them. I'm in the UK and my number is registered with The TPS!"

Did you remember the three cover pages? Didn't you even read the memo?!

SpaceX erects Phallus Falcon 9 rocket

Christopher Ahrens

Funny how its pronounced over here...

..It just seems odd that the company's name is pronounced a lot like "spay-sex" nad that their rockets look the way they do.... I think someone may have a bit of a complex going on....

Intel answers AMD Neo with 'ultrathin' laptop chip

Christopher Ahrens

Everythings good except...

I've been seriously considering buying a netbook, but the are just so expensive for the Features you get, I know they're meant for web / e-mail, but I've had a PDA that can do that for year, and at half the cost when it was new, hopefully Intel and AMD can work to make a CHEAP netbook, that's where the money really is. Although what I'd really like to see would be a bigger-than-a-smart-phone-smaller-than-a-laptop tablet, something about 7-8" that can run XP / Windows 7 respectably, which might be doable with current chips.

Salesforce.com outage exposes cloud's dark linings

Christopher Ahrens

Wow, just wow

How is it possible for Salesforce to fail this much at clustering? Where I work we have a test lab where everything is redundant, half the datcenter could be destroyed in a fire, but everything will go on as business a usual. And this is just a test lab, the production side has redundant data centers on different continents (Strung together by multiple 10Gig connections), which means even nuclear war won't bring us down.

Its great how Mr. Ozzie pretty much signed a blank check for our kit....

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