For Everyone

Script for backing up to Google Nearline storage

Recently I’ve been working on a mechanism to mirror a dataset from a local filesystem to Google Nearline cloud storage in an encrypted format. The costs are really the compelling factor. While I could buy some hard drives and put them at another location (called the colo-buddy system!) it just made sense to not have to deal with the logistics, maintenance, power, network, etc… Of course being me, it’s a PHP cli script, because well – me. If you’re looking…

Read More

Government Wire-Taps

There’s so much huff and puff lately about “government wire-taps”. So many people are freaking out about the erosion of civil liberties or discussing how it’s simply “illegal”. Well the facts remain: Any evidence found in a tapped call where there was no warrant is not admissible as evidence in a court of law. This means if someone does admit to committing a crime, they can’t be charged with that being used as evidence. People are losing their minds worrying…

Read More

Lock the doors and throw away the ethernet ports

When a computer is connected to a network to download the latest security patches for the first time, it is truly a sheep among the wolves. Recently I wrote about this and now CERT has taken the time to publish guidelines for new computer owners. After all as they point out, the time for an unprotected computer to be compromised is measured in minutes on many networks. Many probably do not make the correlation between home computers and UCE/SPAM, DDOS…

Read More

Security Agenda Gaps – Veils for Society

As illustrated in Bruce Schneier’s blog, the TSA is reconsidering their stance on security measures they’ve deployed against – what Mr. Schneier terms – “small pointy things”. (Clearly not in reference to some people’s minds.) In no surprising turn, this has a few ‘interested parties’ concerned, but truly that goes without saying and will go without saying more; for now. However in a follow-up comment, he points out how this relates to his concept of “agenda”. Now pardon me if…

Read More