In this article series, I will start with the absolute basics, and work toward building a functional network. In this article I will begin by discussing some of the various...
In the first part of this article series, I talked about some basic networking hardware such as hubs and switches. In this article, I want to continue the discussion of networking...
Perhaps you are asked to configure a switch port or see what MAC address is on what port. Maybe this isn’t something you do every day and need a refresher...
In Basics of Cisco Switch Administration - Part 1, we covered some of the basics of Cisco switch administration – how to log in, how to show configuration, how to...
Many of us use switches every day but never really think about how they work. Whether you are studying to become a CCNA or just want to learn more about...
This is the first of a series of articles on TCP/IP troubleshooting, and future articles will focus on key issues highlighted in this article. What do you think of when you...
This article gives a high level overview of the routing protocols, and how they fit into our online lives. Tthe TCP/IP protocol suite. All of those protocols are routed ones,...
Microsoft Windows Network Load Balancing (“NLB”) is the “free” out-of-the-box software load balancing solution available for Windows 2003-based Terminal Servers. NLB is available with all editions of Windows Server 2003,...
When a single Web Server machine isn’t enough to handle the traffic on your Web site it’s time to look into building a Web Farm that uses multiple machines on...
The syntax used with the Netsh interface to configure Server 2008 and Vista static IP information has changed due to IPv6 inclusion. Here's how I used the command line to...
You don’t have to have the ten-gallon hat and spurs to be a Cowboy (or Cowgirl) Systems Administrator. You just have to have the appropriate attitude. Here are some indicators on how you can determine if your attitude towards network management is a wee bit cavalier:
You have a post-hoc approach to pre-emptive maintenance.
Your server’s change logs consist of post it notes. To shake things up a bit, you use blue post-its on Wednesdays!
You’ve set the password expiration policy to never because users kept forgetting their new passwords. You’ve set the password retry policy to the highest number possible because you are tired of telling people to switch off the CAPSLOCK.
You’ve set your own password to never expire because you can’t be bothered changing it every two weeks.
Your patch testing routine involves deploying updates to users immediately and hoping that nothing important will break.
If something important breaks, it is your organization’s developers that are at fault. They should have tested those patches before you deployed them!
The only time you actually test whether a backup was properly taken is when you have to perform a restore.
If a problem arises, you reboot the server before you check the Event log.
If an item in the event log is serious it will be marked with the red icon. Yellow items in the event log are optional.
Your disaster Recovery plan hasn’t got past the first two words on the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Outcome of a security meeting
Written by David Noel-Davies
Wednesday, 02 April 2008
I was having our weekly cigar meeting with the a local security guy when we stumbled across a pretty funny thought. There’s a pretty good paper put out by Cybersource about trends for 2008 in which it had a graph showing that as a percentage of online transactions fraud was dropping. Whoah! That’s not what I expected to hear. But then in closer examination that’s a red herring, because total fraud is still increasing at the same rate it always has. Not so good after-all, it just means consumer spending is out pacing the bad guys. That makes it worth being in the business of online retailing, but spending will eventually taper off with population growth.
The funny part of the story is what if all the consumers finally hit a tipping point where they just decided to go home and stop using the Internet completely? What if we just had bad guys trying to phish bad guys, and spammers just trying to spam other spammers? What would the Internet be when every page was a scam and every person on it was desperate for money because all the people who they wanted to scam went outside to go play in the grass? A funny thought! Hey, we were having cigars, so what if we were getting a little off topic!
GSM phone calls cracked for $1,000 a time
Written by David Noel-Davies
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Two enterprising researchers claim to have figured out a way to eavesdrop on calls made using GSM mobile phones, cracking open its much-vaunted encryption.
