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Wednesday, December 31, 2003 |
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Tuesday, December 30, 2003 |
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We've got Bush... we HAVE BUSH" - Booger |
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For those of you who can legally do it, I highly recommend giving $100 USD to Dean for America. He looks to have the most potential for ousting El Tornado from the Oficina de Oval.... even if you're an Independant (like moi! :)) this is something we've got to do - anything to get rid of Crazyhorse, even if it means putting a democrat in office. :)
On another note... check this [pdf] crazy shit out. Notice how the fatality ratio increases as you approach the dirty south - Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, George, Kentucky, Louisianna, New Mexico, and both Carolinas have fatality rates nearly twice the rate of what it is in CA. Somehow I'm not surprised.
BTW, I'm watching BBC1 today and they have this commercial come on where Don King is going off on some football club owners, and how they need to have matches called the "Rumblin' in Dublin" and how they've gotta instate rematches and such... he's just goin off how only Don King can... when allasudden they pause Don mid-sentence and simply print, "We don't need no Don". I wish you guys could see this commercial, I was fuqin rollin'.
See ya laterz alligatorz.
<--spliff
Posted by
Travis @
6:37:00 PM --
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Sunday, December 28, 2003 |
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Saturday, December 27, 2003 |
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Friday, December 26, 2003 |
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Happy Chanaka!! |
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Since I'm a bit of a crackhead myself, I tend to forget things that I've done just moments ago... where was I going with this... oh yeah - so this can present a major problem since I'm often involved in rather complex system software and architecture builds. To help myself out when I'm starting with a new project that involves software, systems, or network architecture/design I fire up a text editor and take notes as I go through a build or design. So, in the spirit of the holidays, I thought I'd give away two ALPHA-quality documents (basically my unformatted notes) I've made in my free time that utilize FLOSS tools (free/libre/open source software).
The first is a very-much-in-the-works document that I created this evening while testing out the latest Linux kernel with LIDS patches in an attempt to create an enterprise-level security-enhanced operating environment w/o shelling out the big bucks to Argus Systems (PitBull is still awfully cool though, huh) or Sun (Trusted Solaris is dead I hear from my Sun PS homies), and *without* using the NSA-provided SELinux libs (not that I don't trust them, it's just the principle) that slimed their way into the kernel. It's not a final document by any means, but I hope it will provide a great deal of help to those who are new to the trusted (I use the term "trusted" *very* loosely here) computing world.
My second document goes over how to build a monolithic (the HA version I cannot publish, sorry) real-time IDS alerting platform using only FLOSS software (w/o ACID, thank you very much). For those foolish enough to have bought services from CounterPane, or to actually have paid for one of those shiny new InfoSec-NMS-in-a-box pieces of crap, then I'm sorry - it's too late; but for those who have been trying to get a decent security infrastructure in place w/o buying the farm, I hope my doc will provide a little help.
You can find both docs here [lansdell.org].
Oh! Here is my infosec library on amazon.com for those looking for books on the subject.
Enjoy!
Posted by
Travis @
5:02:00 PM --
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This Day Of Boxing |
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Welcome to Boxing Day.
I know... if you grew up in 'Los Estados Unidos' or pretty much any non-commonwealth country, you have no feckin' idea wot the hell I'll be shortly going on about.
You see from Bridgetown to Birmingham and from Calgary to Canberra... today, December 26th is a public holiday in many places around the world.
It is Boxing Day.
No need to be a pugilist to enjoy the day off, it turns out the tradition was more about domestic servants getting the day after Christmas off than men beating each other to a pulp.
In England today, there are big soccer matches being played. Back on the island, today is a big beach day, and there'll be horse races to bet on for sure.
Most importantly, it's a day off... and I feel a much needed one... to recover from all the pre-Christmas angst. I know a lot of people aren't going to work anyway today in the 'States. I actually have the day off. But for those of you who have to go back to the grind so soon, know that you are in my thoughts as I watch footie, drink shandy, and finish of that Christmas ham in an assortment of cheesey, triple-decker sandwiches.
Happy Boxing Day!
Posted by
Marley @
8:33:00 AM --
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Thursday, December 25, 2003 |
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The CraqMas Conspiracy And How I Am No Longer (Totally) Down |
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I am officially done with it now. Yes. Perhaps my 7 months of (mostly) unemployment finally hardened me, like a samurai sword and its 32,768 forge-welded layers. Yes... now I am dangerous, because like one mythical "Neo", once trapped in some sensory "matrix", I have seen beyond the "veil".
Lucifer is fallen...
I have no problem with the baby Jesus, or peepz who want to celebrate his arrival as the man-God. I have no problems with Jewish people who have elevated a so-non-high-holy celebration to counter the Christian strangle-hold on this time of year. I have no problem with black Americans who felt the need to counter-counter the Judeo-Christian festivities with the purely ethnic Kwanzaa celebration. My problem is how lame it is that all of it just feeds into the year end rush to consumerism, and wanton disregard for anything remotely like peace, love, joy, hope or even the spirit of giving.
I guess I should blame the Romans.
I was thinking about it, and I think that the early Christians could have been very much like the Jews and African Americans - every year, they'd see the Romans celebrating the day of the unconquered sun (solstice). How left out they must've felt - ' ... damn Romans. Drinking eggnog, kissing under the mistletoe, exchanging gifts... once we get in power (or any power, really... besides the power to be lion-lunch), we'll show them." And they did! When Christianity became the official state religion of the empire, out went D.N.S.I. (Dies Natalis Solis Inviticis), and in came 'Christmas'.
Yes, just like that...
So I was preparing to buy, wrap, ship and all that shit... and I had a cold that wasn't going away, and I developed a mild addiction to Armagnac Brandy... and I just said "Wait one diggety-damned minute..."
What the fuck am I doing? WHAT... THE... FUCK?
This is insane. I am trying to do all this shit just to prove to a few people that I really like them by getting them a little stuff before the 'magic' date of December 25th, but what I'm really doing is annoying myself by participating in the mindless herd activity, and giving myself agita by pushing myself to meet this spurious deadline.
I stopped dead in my tracks. No more. It was as if Christ said "peace, be still" (one of my favourite biblical Jesus moments).
As I downed some warm, buttery brantwijn, I had thoughts of the Iberian peninsula dancing in my head, and suddenly the answer came to me.
You see there are many traditions about the Christmas, and as a friend of mine who is a Melkite deacon once told me - "The Roman tradition is just one, albeit the most prevalent one, and it is actually the most morbid."
Aye... it is mate.
It was then that I remembered there was the "Feast of The Three Kings". Yes! This would save me. You see in some places like Spain, there is no gift giving on the 25th. Kinda makes more sense in terms of interpreting the story of the Christ-child doesn't it? Jesus was born one day, but that wasn't the day he received his gold, frankincense and myrrh, was it? I think not. And even better, this feast - also known as The Epiphany - does not take place till January 6th the following year!
Aha!
You feelin' what I am feelin'? YES! That's the smell of a C-O-N... SPIRACY! Yeah, see from a business point of view, Dec 25th is way better (fiscal year and all that jazz) than January 6th. I am thinking that Epiphany celebrators in most Western countries (God Bless Spain) were hush-hushed or beaten with stale loaves of bread to ensure that they would keep their little Three-Kings thing on the down-low while everybody else did the crazy-ants-gotta-get-shit-before-the-25th dance to the stores. Yeah... or somethin' like that.
So what have I decided? Well, I can't give up on giving for Christmas. I am no Grinch or Scrooge. But from this year onward, there will be a two-pronged approach:
Greetings (cards, e-cards, e-mails etc) will be sent to honor December 25th.
Gifts will be sent to honor January 6th.
Problem solved. I'm thinking that week between Christmas and New Years will do just nicely for me. Most of the shit is like 50% off, and the biggest crowds are people returning stuff on their lunch breaks and after work. Ha... easily avoidable. I'll get my Christmas on... but on my own terms.
Damn skippy...
And so after my lengthy diatribe, my official Christmas greetings to my blogmates Trav' and 'Tine (and anyone else who views these pages):
Have a Happy, STRESS-FREE Christmas, and all the best to you and yours for the New Year!
*Peace*
-marley
Posted by
Marley @
8:51:00 AM --
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Friday, December 12, 2003 |
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Craq and My Growing Paranoia |
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Craq: While in the Jordaan a few hours ago some random guy asked me if I'd like to buy some hash, to which I politely replied, "No thanks, I don't like drugs"... so naturally, he had to ask if I wanted some X... I told him, "No, I don't take drugs"... so, of course, he had to make sure I wasn't just playing hard to get so he asked me if I'd like some acid... I tell him, "rot op, ik wil het niet"... so then the sucka asks if perhaps I'd like some crack. Yeah, crack. Fuqin crackhead.
Paranoia: My job is infosec, so I tend to be on the paranoid end of the internet security spectrum - here is how sad I am:
1. I use non-English misspelled alphanumeric text in the 30-40 character range for passwords wherever possible
2. I don't trust my windows or unix machines' abilities to keep my local data safe and encrypted so I use multiple 256-bit AES encrypted PGP disks to store all but the most impersonal data
3. I don't trust my colleagues at the office to properly secure our network, so I have a Gentoo Linux device providing stateful packet inspection services via Linux 2.4's built-in NetFilter - this gives me a separate and private LAN of my own
4. Since I don't trust my colleagues to provide proper protection I also run an IDS on said Gentoo device where I listen to both my external an internal interfaces
5. My IDS alarms on the external interface around 10-15 times per day thereby feeding my paranoia - I use squil for real-time analysis, btw (over an stunell connection, of course)
6. I run HIDS (snort and Tiny), tcp/ip firewalls (Tiny, shorewall/iptables/NetFilter/ipf/ipfw, Semantec), integrity software (Tripwire, numerous shell scripts, Tiny), and anti-virus software on *all* possible machines even though I'm already on a mostly trusted network of my own
7. I'm on about 20 infosec mailing lists... most of which just link to each other each time a vulnerability is announced
8. I have more books than I care to admit on the subject (not that I've read them all)
9. I run an internal apache2 proxy (bound to loopback only, and null logging) on my server in the datacenter so that I can tunnel all of my web and IM traffic to it (over a 256-bit AES encrypted SSH session (2048-bit DSS for key negotiation))... and of course all of my IM logs are done to a crypt disk - the server only presents ssh to the world, and it is built with tcpd so only certain of addresses may establish a connection with it... and I'm running SunScreen to boot
10. The ssh mentioned above is built with gcc with propolice in the hopes of further buffer containment... i use standard privilege seperation... I don't allow PAM use, I only allow AES-256 for the line cipher, DSS for the asymmetric cipher, SHA-1 for the MAC... the privsep user's shell is the simple SUNW /sbin/noshell script... password auth is not allowed, only pubkey auth (via, you guessed it, 2048-bit or greater DSS keypairs), and only users of a specific group are allowed access
11. When I delete data, I can't just delete it - I feel I must wipe it, regardless of how much of my CPU gets eaten in the process... and no, the default number of passes is never good enough so I usually add 30-40% more passes
12. I shred anything and everything that is in paper format, regardless of how insignificant the data on the paper is
13. blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc...
So, to what end do I do this? It's simple - I don't want to be the one that gets owned by some little shitface armed to the teeth with scripts from PacketStorm just because I decided to be a little more trusting. The funny thing is, I still feel vulnerable - every now and then I come across information that shows me that a certain thing I've done is not the right, or best, way to do it... this just feeds my paranoia.
So... am I a crackhead, or are there others out there who are under similar duress? :)
BTW... for those of you worried about email harvesting from websites, I give you the Unicoder free of charge - you can look at the source code, we don't harvest your address, unlike some of the other unicode tools out there.
Tot ziens.
Posted by
Travis @
6:20:00 PM --
(0) comments
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Thursday, December 04, 2003 |
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A huge muscular man walks into a bar and orders a beer.
The bartender can't help but stare at the guy because in contrast to his large muscles, the man has a head that is the size of an orange. The bartender hands the guy his beer and says, "You know, I'm not gay but I want to compliment you on your physique, it really is phenomenal! But I have a question, why is your head so small?" The big guy nods slowly. He's obviously fielded this question many times. "One day," he begins, "I was hunting and got lost in the woods. I heard someone crying for help. I followed the cries and they led me to a frog that was sitting next to a stream."
"No shit?" says the bartender, thoroughly intrigued.
"Yeah, so I picked up the frog and it said, Kiss me. Kiss me and I will turn into a genie and grant you three wishes.'"
"Keep going!"
"I looked around to make sure I was alone and gave the frog a kiss. POOF! The frog turned into a beautiful, voluptuous, naked woman. She said, You now have three wishes.' I looked down at my scrawny 115 pound body and said, I want a body like Arnold Schwarzenneger.' She nodded, snapped her fingers, and POOF there I was, so huge that I ripped out of my clothes and was standing there naked! She then asked, What will be your second wish?'"
"What next?" begged the bartender.
"I looked hungrily at her beautiful body and replied, I want to make sensuous love with you here by this stream.' She nodded, laid down, and beckoned to me. We made love right there by that stream for hours!
Afterwards, as we lay there next to each other, sweating from our glorious lovemaking, she whispered into my ear, You know, you do have one more wish. What will it be?'
I looked at her and replied, How 'bout a little head?
Posted by
Christine @
5:05:00 PM --
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Cock Transport |
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As I'm rollin' into the office this morning one of those fantastic things occurs to me that often happens to people who are travelling abroad - I come across a photo-worthy false conjugate. Now, normally false conjugates aren't all that exciting - in my native language I find gazillions of false conjugates whenever looking at Dansk or Svenska and sometimes even in English. For example, the sound "yay" translates to the pronoun "I" in English, and not the word "yay" (if that's even a word haha), hence it is a false conjugate - not too exciting though.
However, every now and then you get a foreign sound or spelling that just really jumps out at you. Take my liesurely drive to work this morning - I'm rollin' down the A9 just past Beverwijk when much to my surprise there is a big-rig pulling a giant trailer that apparently belongs to a company called "Transport de Cock" - yes, Transport de COCK. Of course, coming across such a gem as this I naturally had to snap a photo... so I bust out my trusty camera from my rucksack and pull up next to the truck to get a nice phat shot to show my amigos back home what a COCK Transportation device looks like in Nederland. So... I'm cruisin up next to the truck and I'm right near the cab when I click the shutter - I have a digicam though, so by the time the shutter (or digital variant of the shutter) actually does its thang, the driver has noticed me and decides to give me the bird while he slows down to pull his truck over. So now all I have is a photo of some random Dutch dood givin me the international sign of 'you're #1' while driving this big rig that has "Transport de " on the side... when he slowed down it made me miss the gawddamn COCK - god verdomme! I risked life and limb, and all I have is a damn no-COCK photo to share with the world. What a waste of an excellent opportunity.
I have learned my lesson though - from hear on out I'm gonna travel with the camera at the ready; I've been practicing all day so as to get my gun-slingin paparazzi technique down and everything. The next time I find a COCK transportation device I will be damn sure to snap a photo to share with the world. :)
L8.
Posted by
Travis @
1:57:00 PM --
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Wednesday, December 03, 2003 |
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Zwaarte Piet, the growing cultural rift in affluent Europa, and the crackspiracy theories therein |
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I’m just gonna give y’all a stream of thought on this one, so bear with me here… there’s no real organization in the text that follows. There is a problem in Holland, and I think that it extends to greater Europa as well. The problem, I think, is one of either a superb general misunderstanding (from my buitenlander perspective, mind you), or perhaps it is plain old ignorance (not a lack of knowledge, but a predisposition to simply ignore) of modern societal niceties, but I think it's really just a problem of regular ol' cracksmokin'. I submit to you the example of the beloved and retched Zwaarte Piet.
Go read this article then come back, and we’ll continue our little conversation.
Ok, so you’ve read the article… maybe the article didn’t make it clear enough if you’ve not been privy to de Heer Peit in-the-flesh – you know the old “blackface” characters from 1920s American films? – THAT’s what Zwaarte Piet is, no shit. Remember a few years ago when Ted Danson dressed up as ‘blackface’, and was very nearly lynched for it? That’s the difference here – whereas Ted Danson, a famous and beloved actor in his time, basically committed professional suicide with his little Halloween prank (he was dragged through the mud pretty heavily by the press if I remember correctly), Zwaarte Piet has his own cartoon character, dolls, cardboard buddy cut-outs, candy, parades, and fucking pajama feets.
Like the article says, the Dutch will tell you that Zwaarte Piet’s appearance has nothing to do with racism at all – Zwaarte Piet is just Sinterklaas’ little buddy – oh, and by the way South African apartheid (the only pure Dutch word in the English language, mind you) had nothing to do with race either. Sure.
So anyhow, I was at this snack shop a few days ago getting some patat oorlog (one word – lekker) and I happened to look at this Zwaarte Pete cardboard cut-out that was by the kassa – Piet had blue eyes! At first I was all WTF, but then I realized that he would only naturally have blue eyes since no self-respecting Afrikan would dare dress up as Zwaarte Piet and go acting like the slovenly fool that is expected of a good Piet. The way it actually works is they (‘they’ being the tv producers, carnival organizers, candy promoters, etc…) get a bunch of native Dutch fools to paint their faces black (black as in shoe polish black), put on a big ol’ wig (w/ extra soul glo’, mind you), and paint huge red lips on their faces. The significance of this is not just the fact that Piet is hugely insulting to a not-insignificant portion of the Dutch population, but also that Zwaarte Piet’s character is so ingrained with the entire Christmas season that you cannot escape it – so you are constantly surrounded by one of the most open forms of socially accepted racism in the modern world. And this comes from the people that like to think of themselves as the greatest multicultural society in the entire world. Bitch please – I have never in my life been surrounded by a greater number of racist bastards than I have during my stay in Holland… these people don’t mind non-Dutch, just so long as the non-Dutch know their place.
Here is my perceived list of intensity of Dutch racism and/or prejudice, in order of greatest contempt:
1. Marokkanen – a Dutch politician actually said “Kut Marokkanen” on live TV once when he thought the cameras were off – that translates directly to “Fuck the Moroccans”
2. Turken – there’s no love for Turks either
3. Afrikanen – no explanation necessary
4. Joden – Holland actually offered their Jews to the Nazis – they didn’t wait to be asked… the French are guilty of this too, as I’m sure the Amerikanen would have been also had they been given the chance early enough.
5. Duitsers – 65 years after Holland very happily gave their Joden up, the Germans are still high on the hit-list – strangely though, the SS had a Dutch over-representation in their ranks.
6. Buitenlanders – anyone who ain’t Dutch
So, while they contend that Zwaarte Piet is just an innocent child’s character, and while you might be inclined to agree with this and assume that what appears to be blatant racism to you is actually just you being overly sensitive, I believe that it’s all a charade – I’ve heard how these guys talk about their non-Dutch compatriots, and it’s not pleasant.
This, I think, goes to Europa as a whole really – look at the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Armenia, and even Ellas – there are some serious racial harmony problems going on in those places. In Germany, Sweden, Holland, and France the new Nazis are gaining numbers and influence rapidly. Of course, this problem is not specific to just Europa – Japan has been, and continues to be, one of the most xenophobic countries in the world; the entire Muslim world is in the middle of an intense ethnic battle ranging from the far tips of Indonesia through to southeast Europa and on to the Americas. The difference here is that while the popular view of Holland as a socially accepting and culturally diverse country is perpetuated by the government, the news agencies and the natives, racism is blatantly practiced and accepted on all levels of society w/o any worries of hypocrisy.
On the crackspiracy side of things, consider how close the US is to Holland both politically and monetarily – the US has a disproportionate amount of investments in Holland when compared to the rest of Europa… perhaps this helps to explain why Ted Danson, when dressing up as ‘blackface’ for Halloween, is crucified in the American press, yet most Americans have never even heard of Zwaarte Piet, the funny little blackface Afro-muslim slave of the Dutch Santa Claus.
I think Europeans have been smoking too much of their own shit.
Hilsen fra ams.
Posted by
Travis @
7:55:00 PM --
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Tuesday, December 02, 2003 |
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Monday, December 01, 2003 |
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