Hats Off
With increasing general interest in “Cyber Security” I feel compelled to write about this Black/Grey/White Hat “thing”. This is not an ego trip about how important my opinion is, it’s about curiosity, experimentation and facts, 3 concepts essentials to Science...Bingo!
Automating Os X Server Backups Without 3rd Party Software
There are plenty of different options to backup Os X Server, including free tools like the excellent Mike Bombich’s Carbon Copy Cloner and Open Source ones like lbackup or amanda. Michael Dhaliwal has a pretty good paper that he updates and publishes on his company (i.e. district13 computing) website.
For various reasons not worth listing here I decided to come with my own design while relying exclusively on built in tools (e.g. launchd). I thought this might help other OS X Server Admins so here it is.
Maximizing Os X Server Uptime
This is the first of 3 posts about the design I have implemented in my current position. Please note if you plan to use this as a reference that this setup was strictly meant for this particular environment so you *will* have to adapt it.
When it comes to uptime one of the way to go is to look at your design from Murphy’s perspective and come with the appropriate counter measure (e.g N+1 redundancy) for each different issue your can think of.
Here is my approach for an X Serve running Open Directory and AFP with a Vtrak Promise for User Data.
DNS Cracks on Twitter and Baidu
I wonder if the 2 successful and spectacular DNS attacks against 2 major websites (Twitter and Baidu) have anything to do with the DNS Cache Poisining that Dan Kaminsky revealed in 2008. Meh, probably not...
I never went too deep into Dan Kaminsky's rabbit hole (Alice are you there?), after all the main DNS NS I deal with are taken care of by some guy that -hopefully- totally understands this.
Is Metadata The Guide To Exploring The New World?
I have to admit I have been quite reluctant to leave the -virtual- security of having everything in its right place. First there was Unix and directories then came 2 alchemists and their magic algorithm aka Google Search...Make no mistake young reader less than a decade ago we were *all* fighting to keep *all* our digital files organized in a very studied folders structure.
Strong Passwords For All
Whether or not one is familiar with Information Systems Security, the concept of the “weakest link” is –I believe– quite easy to understand.
Let’s imagine a lion is chasing us, and while you might be trying to outrun the lion, I’ll just be trying to outrun you. Yes, a very simple concept indeed...
I hope you understand now–if you didn’t before–why some systems keep refusing your “abc123” password. The topics of password strength as well as social engineering are well covered, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have one more post even if I am echoing others, on the contrary.
Apple Software Updates In A Business Environment
There are many ways to deal with Apple Software Updates, here’s the one I’m currently using with the Mac pool (300+) I am in charge of.
1)Automate the download from the mother ships aka Apple servers back to my home planet aka my LAN and make the updates available.
Modify Default Printing Presets in Os X (10.5 & 10.6)
There you are with some customized printing presets for your fancy new printer and yet for some reason every time you open a new printing box the one showing up by default is not the want you wanted : 
fail
So you looked all over the OS, read some forums, used your Google-Fu and finally got to this post. Search no more the answer is here as seen on TV!
*Encrypted* Sharing Of Personal Media Libraries with Simplify Media
About a year ago while I was looking for a simple way to share my personal media libraries (stored on a Mac) over the Internet I discovered 
Simplify Media. The other zero conf tool was Hamachi-Log Me In VPN. Although Simplify Media doesn't say it in plain english, it's quite evident that as Log-Me In behind the curtain a custom VPN is running...
Last week the Head of the Music Department at the school I work asked me about a way to share music with his students when they are at home (understand over the Internet).
Highlight Code WordPress Plug In
I realized that I was often going to have code within a post (I have some bash scripts and my iptables rules ready to publish), thus I looked for a wordpress plugin to make it a little easier to read and/or download without interfering with worpdress posts code.
After reading this post I decided to go with the Easy Google Syntax Highlighter by Nick Burlock a fork of Alex Gorbachev original Google Syntax Highlighter. Still reading the documentation here and here but it looks like it's exactly what I was looking for, WordPress FTW!
edit: Since I use the Lightword Theme by Andrei Luca I modified my style.css according to the plug in FAQ and it works perfectly as you can see in this post
Categories
Tags
Tagnetic Poetry by Roy Tanck and Merel Zwart requires Flash Player 9 or better.
My Delicious
Blogs I Read
- Danger Room @ Wired
- IT @ Slash Dot
- Linux @ SlashDot
- Mac Os X Hints
- MacResearch
- Nik Cubrilovic @ Tech Crunch
- Open Source @ Ars Technica
- Presentation Zen
- Robots.net
- Stay Safe Online
- Threat Level @ Wired
- Transnets (in French)
Books
Planned books:
None
Current books:
-
DNS and BIND, Fourth Edition by Paul Albitz, Cricket Liu
-
The Mathematical Theory of Communication by Claude E Shannon, Warren Weaver
Recent books:
- Apple Training Series: Xsan 2 Administration: A Guide to Designing, Deploying, and Maintaining Xsan by Robert Kite
- Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book) by Neal Stephenson
- The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh
- Apple Pro Training Series: Getting Started with Final Cut Server by Matthew Geller
- Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos Papadimitriou