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Last week literally flew away. Starting with the Dutch for beginners 2, moreover in another institute and with another (couple of) teachers was somehow challenging. On top of that, also new books: this is not a problem, if you don’t mind spending 75€ on something you already have. Sic transit…

Ford Transit Gloria Guida!
I have a small idea, which is all about courses, but first I want to speak about it to the vecchio pirata latitante (i.e. - andrew). Hopefully he’s interested. No big money out of it, but at the very least, there are good chances we can do something funny together. BTW - FTGG is just an embryonic code name it derives from the old Latin saying “sic transit gloria mundi” (the literal translation doesn’t really explain the concept, that may be summarized as “this is the way glory rises, shines and fall on this world”). You know what Ford Transit is, as for Gloria Guida, google is your friend :)

Other ongoing stuff: mathematical modeling of a network, graph theory, Wi-Fi and my secret dreams…

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Another month flies away, I am still short on time, and well - this site is what is suffering more from this circumstance.

In short:

Work: It seems that capacity planning finally started working as I WANTED, meaning that the application I wrote and the methodology I designed are now operative. It will end up in a huge SAN reorg, for starters - I expect a huge storage saving as a side effect. The SOX Compliancy assignment: just boring. UPC is not mature enough for a structural approach to security; so… well, who, as a child, never tried the clothes of his/her father/mother? let the children play.

Projects: Nothing really new - I am following another Dutch language course, I plan to take the IELTS by the beginning of July, as, very likely, I will start with an MSc next September.

Private life: Ehm… it’s private - mind your own business!

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 I have been off a week… …and now I’d need another week off, to rest!

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… other inspire! And Steve Jobs is probably one of the most effective communicators of the IT. Here’s the speech he gave to the students of Stanford University in 2005:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1422863/posts

there’s also a video:

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

Thanks, Marianne

Tags: IT, Internet life, career // Add Comment »

OpenBSD 4.3 song and lyrics are available on the official website at this URL:

http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#43

The background story is quite impressive, it’s definitely worth a read. You can find it on the above page. I just quote an excerpt:

This is the man who presumes that he should preach to us about morality, freedom, and what is best for us. He believes it is his God-given role to tell us what is best for us, when he has shown that he takes actions which are not best for everyone. He prefers actions which he thinks are best for him — and him alone — and then lies to the public. Richard Stallman is no Spock.

These guys have guts -this is not the first time they prove it! In the past, as far as I can remember, Theo (de Raadt, the leader of this project), had sharp words regarding the Irak affair, which led to a not-so-subtle kind of retaliation… more on this here!

Now, it’s R. Stallman turn - unsurprisingly, I’d say… but read the whole story, it’s really interesting!

More resources:

• The interview is here - http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2007/10/bsdtalk132-richard-stallman.html
• Here R. S. pours some benzine on the fire - http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=119730630513821&w=2

and the last source, from the fingers of Stallman himself, is quite funny, if not weird. I mean, no problem, everyone has the right to any opinion, sure - but mamma mia - this one is ‘very prone to objections’, at best - fighting for ‘free software’ should start at a completely different level! Anyway….

Gurus can really be dangerous… 

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Today I read this post:

http://riskman.typepad.com/perilocity/2008/04/ok-leaks-tens-o.html

showing an amazing covert channel - it’s really worth the reading, so I won’t comment it.

I also wanted to keep a link to a relevant article for further quoting.

Tags: IT Security // Add Comment »

I just traded my XBox away - nothing wrong with it, but I realized my social life risked to become comparable tothe mythological glass of water’s and… ehm, not now, please.

Anyway - the Nokia 810. Facts and first impressions:

• first of all - the specs
• not heavy at all
• good keyboard
• good monitor
• very straightforward connection to your WiFi LAN and PAN
• you can bring it with you when going to the restroom at the very least, more easily than a laptop!

Runs a dedicated linux distribution, this makes available - theoretically - a vaste plethora of software (as an action point: try and compile something); it’s very stable; nice graphics. Moreover - no virus, theoretically, which is cool!

Tonight test was kind of a fun - I have been trying the skype client for a while - I must admit that quality is very good, the only problem was not having a multitasking system (meaning that switching skype in the background implies that your contact doesn’t hear you anymore). But the overall quality of the call was really fine - that makes also the system a wireless skype!

Tomorrow I want to try the GPS system - I also received the arm and the chassis to connect it to the car and use as navigator system.

Tags: Internet life, Mobility, Uncategorized, Wardriving // Add Comment »

Darknet is becoming more and more one of my favorite sites. Today there was an interesting post regarding Yahoo and Gmail web services used as spam vectors. The article can be found here; and here’s my comment.

What I am chiefly proposing is fighting spam with a more complex strategy - not only client side, but also server side. This idea looks good - at least at a first glance - I want to dig more both into the side effects and the issues in general it can bring… the idea seems way too easy for not being already analyzed.

Tags: IT Security, Internet life // Add Comment »

Today I wrote a comment at this post - it’s still waiting for moderation, so you’ll may want to try it again in a couple of days. Chiefly, it’s a (negative) comment to this article, explaining MS security strategies.

Just quoting myself: in the third page of the article, you find:

Despite these advancements, critics complained that Microsoft lacked a comprehensive, holistic “security strategy.” This is not entirely fair. In fact, a strategy was created and implemented, and it as evolved over time.

I don’t wanna get in the actual matter - I have several comments to their strategy, but let’s focus on logic. The critics complained about not having in place a complete and holistic strategy - the author (who, by the way, is a lawyer), says that is not entirely fair. Let me notice that the above adjectives are kind of “all-or-nothing” ones - the sequence “partially holistic” is an oxymoron, a contradiction. Funny, isn’t it? Another note: some people shouldn’t write - look at the monstruosity:

…holistic “security strategy.” This…

The usage of points, commas, columns and so on has rules - not necessarily compliant with MS’s…

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I am asking myself quite often: why has nobody ever thought to write a worm stealing CPU cycles? I have quite a nasty architecture in mind, but… well, no point in inventing new menaces! Moreover I am quite convinced that it’s even illegal and unethical thinking these things…

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