So I’ve got 2 HP servers I use at home as VM hosts. An older DL380 G4 and a less old DL360 G5. Neither has much RAM or disk space (8G/~340GB and 6GB/200GB respectively), but the price was right… They were tagged for recycling at my workplace. One person’s trash is another person’s lab gear. After a few days of playing with ESXi, I knew I was ( Read more... )

As the title says, please stop saying “cyber”. It means nothing. More specifically, what it does mean is “blah blah networks and/or security”. In the industry, this is so non-specific that it essentially means nothing anyways.

As a security engineer, I get pretty sick of seeing/hearing the term “cyber” thrown around to describe pretty much ( Read more... )

The other day I was driving around with Emily, and I mentioned to her the origin of the name and logo of Cisco Systems.  I can’t remember how it came up, but it did.  I’m constantly tinkering with stuff in my lab, so she knows what the logo looks like even though it isn’t her field at all.  Her mind was a little blown when she made the connection ( Read more... )

mysql shit the bed on my server today. And took my data with it. I never did fix the “expect” bug that was making my backup scripts fail since march. crap.

UPDATE: I always forget why I keep my stupid LiveJournal around.   Before you judge me for being on LiveJournal, I was there since way before it was a cool place for whiny emo teens.  But it ( Read more... )

There’s something soothing about a visual heartbeat.

So I was chilling at the Starbucks near me this morning. In fact, I still am right now. It’s pretty sweet that they offer free wifi, but it tends to be laggy and unreliable due to having gobs of leeches like me suckiing it up. I’m often in the middle of waiting for a web page to reload or an ssh ( Read more... )

There’s something soothing about a visual heartbeat.

So I was chilling at the Starbucks near me this morning. In fact, I still am right now. It’s pretty sweet that they offer free wifi, but it tends to be laggy and unreliable due to having gobs of leeches like me suckiing it up. I’m often in the middle of waiting for a web page to reload or an ( Read more... )

So I was tinkering with my ASA the other day. I was interested in this neat Botnet Traffic Filter thingy they’d been clamoring about. Cisco frequently pitches how their products are made with magic and rainbows and cruelty-free unicorn meat, and I tend to be a bit skeptical. But a lot of people have been talking about it recently in my circles, and ( Read more... )

So I was tinkering with my ASA the other day. I was interested in this neat Botnet Traffic Filter thingy they’d been clamoring about. Cisco frequently pitches how their products are made with magic and rainbows and cruelty-free unicorn meat, and I tend to be a bit skeptical. But a lot of people have been talking about it recently in my circles, ( Read more... )

We’ve had a more interesting winter than usual here in New England this year. Average snowfall in Boston is around 40 inches per year, and we’ve had nearly 70 this year (as of January) spread across 10 or so snowfalls. So I’ve had some time to watch how people react to snow (whether I like it or not). I’ve noticed something this winter about the ( Read more... )

Men and women have both known for a long time that the two sexes see colors differently. Women often wonder why men just say “blue” when we see things like the sky, the ocean, Facebook, every Ford Focus, and so on. And men wonder why women have silly colors like azure, cobalt, sapphire, iris, teal, midnight, ultramarine, and so on. I thought I ( Read more... )