A good weekend.

I spent most this weekend reading about and coding in HTML, DHTML, CGI and PERL. I looked at alot of javascript and am amazed at it's simplicity compared to Java. Im going to strat coding in both. Im looking for a second job to make more cash. Technology is an expensive hobby, but I love it. Next on my list IPOD and XBOX.

Open Source Solutions

Companies could save up to 90% on their database TCO by using MySQL, instead of Microsoft products. It is the fastest growing database in the industry. Its reliable and fast to deploy and fully customizable. Check it out here http://www.mysql.com.

Links

Here are some good scanning references:

http://www.freqofnature.com/
http://www.radioreference.com/
http://www.cityfreq.com/ca/orange/

Computer:
http://undeadly.org/
http://sagewire.sage.org/
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/#00000553
http://www.procata.com/blog/archives/2005/05/10/expert-programmers/
http://technet.microsoft.com/default.aspx
http://www.sun.com/
http://slashdot.org/
http://www.newsforge.com/
http://www.unixreview.com/
http://www.43folders.com/

News

Risk Digest is now over 20 years old, a online zine about computer risks to us:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/

Cisco in the news again password protection for their website compromised!

From Cisco:*IMPORTANT NOTICE:*
* Cisco has determined that Cisco.com password protection has been compromised.* As a precautionary measure, Cisco has reset your password. To receive your new password, send a blank e-mail, from the account which you entered upon registration, to cco-locksmith@cisco.com. Account details with a new random password will be e-mailed to you.* If you do not receive your new password within five minutes, please contact the Technical Support Center.* This incident does not appear to be due to a weakness in Cisco products or technologies.

Rumour that astronauts travelling to Mars would be bombarded with radiation and about 10% would end up with cancer and die http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7753

Thats it for right now :)

Book I want to read about Nanotechnology

Here is a company I feel will do good in the future with nano: http://www.nantero.com

Current research areas

These are subjects I'm currently studying or have been studying: Algorithms,artificial intelligence,computer architecture computer graphics, data mining,design, file system design genetic algorithms,geographical information systems,grid computing, information retrieval,languagues,machine learning,natural language processing,operating systems,pattern matching, profiling,regular expressions, robotics,security, signal analysis,text processing,user interface design,unix programming,web information retrieval.

Scanner Frequencies

FRS Frequencies
FRS (Family Radio Service)
Channel 1 (462.5625)
Channel 2 (462.5875)
Channel 3 (462.6125)
Channel 4 (462.6375)
Channel 5 (462.6625)
Channel 6 (462.6875)
Channel 7 (462.7125)
Channel 8 (467.5625)
Channel 9 (467.5875)
Channel 10 (467.6125)
Channel 11 (467.6375)
Channel 12 (467.6625)
Channel 13 (467.6875)
Channel 14 (467.7125)

Finished Reading

I finished this book a while ago, its about Quantum Computing, Qunatum Cryptography and time travel. It is pretty heady when it comes to the physics and math but a good read.

Currently Reading

This book is also about the NSA. AI, and the goverment trying to control a corporation.


This book is awesome, NSA, algorithims, intelligence, and cryptography.

Cisco Update

Is Cisco killing their own reputation? by ZDNet's George Ou -- Last Wednesday in Las Vegas Nevada, Michael Lynn delivered a message to the IT world that they are not safe. On that same day, Mr. Lynn became unemployed and the target of a massive lawsuit from Cisco Systems. His only "crime" was that he exercised his first amendment right of free speech to talk about [...]

Buffer Overflows

Buffer Overflows tend to happen in C or C++ when a program writes data beyond the allocated space of a buffer in memory. The system can then be used to execute malicious code. To prevent this use software that utilizes bounds checking.
Java manages memory automatically it is nearly impossible to code a overflow for Java.There are a couple of security patches for Linux distributions such as exec-shield and PaX. OpenBSD comes with kernel and memory security enabled. There are also practically no remote exploits for OpenBSD.
I love Open Source for the fact that you can read the source code, therefore find these exploits and bugs and communicate with a community of developers that can create a solution instead of ignoring the problem. I dont feel I should have to get Service Packs every time a hole is found in Windows, let alone pay for such security-prone software.

Saturday Evening

This has been a good weekend so far. I have been getting alot done. First I'm having fun with Knoppix STD, security tools distribution, looking at PERL code, and learning more than ever about TCP, IP, ARP, SNMP, and HTTP Tunneling. Ive been dabling with web services such as XML, SOAP, and UDDI, which are basically protocols to exchange data between, servers, applications and even cell phones (WPA). I will be taking programming logic this semester to further ehance my skills in coding.
The book I have just finished reading called Introduction to Engineering has given me alot of insight into problem solving and design.

Cisco Systems

Cisco has been in the news a lot. A security researcher at ISS quit his job to give a presentation on a vulnerability that exist in Cisco IOS. It is possible to do a buffer overflow or heap overflow, two different types on memory attacks. This was given at the black Hat briefings in Las Vegas. Both ISS and Cisco are suing this researcher. (Freedom of Speech?) Cisco was aware of this flaw.

RFID ?

Radio Frequency Identification in my opinion is a violation of privacy. It uses radio waves to identify merchandise or people. Most vendors do not deactivate it when you purchase a product,so your product is basically ready to transmit the information embedded on the chip. They have antenna's on them to transmit the signals to a reader that converts radio waves into digital information.That can then be processed by a computer. RFID has been around since 1970 RFID has problems around metal and water.

Alphabet Soup

The SEO industry s full of confusing terms and acronyms to people not following it. i.e. PPC, CPC, ROI, SEM, drip systems, Link Popularity, optimization, Page Rank. These are also the tactics needed to succeed online. Most professioanls I speak with are to busy to work on their website let alone learn all the new technologies. We have blogs, Podcasts, MLS systems IDX. Some of the busiest professionals I know are real estate agents. They hire SEO companies to get traffic. Traffic that does not produce sales is useless. They need a website to capture this "traffic" and turn them into leads.This is a growing field, that needs constant training and research. This is what I do on a daily basis.

Search Engine Optimization

My job requires me to understand and keep up with the ever changing world of SEO. I'm a website marketing specialist who can identify keywords,analyze competition, and look at link structures.I can optimize meta tags, body, text, title and internal links to get more traffic.Building links with realated sites will help with ranking as well. Search engine submission. Tweeking of websites to ensure maximum exposure to the search engines. Web statistics have to be monitored and tactics changed based on trends in traffic.

Shuttle Debris

Listening to the radio this morning I heard the shuttle did a 180 so the astronauts could get some pictures of the underside of the shuttle to check for damage, foam fell off during launch.They are supposed to do a spacewalk later this morning. I do not want to see us lose another shuttle. I watched Challenger STS-51 blow up on live TV in grade school, it still haunts me to this day.

Widgets

When I was surfing the web the other day I came across Apple's Widgets, I wanted some for my PC so I searched and didnt find much, yesterday I came across http://widgets.yahoo.com

IT problems

I love IT at my work, our Exchange server is having problems, cant locate my contacts,and my calendar is out of sync and cant be shared,thank god for backups. Next my permissions are changed so that I cannot save to my desktop and I have this standard Orweillian desktop controlled by the man.

Wednesday Morning

Last night I played around with Whoppix, it's a security based Linux (Knoppix).Whoppix is made for penetration testing.I realy like this distribution because of the amount of tools around on the disk. It has tools for enumeration, scanning, wireless, and even a vulnerability DB.Some of the tools are Nessus, Nmap, also Nmap with a GUI. Netcat, Snort, Most open source databases and tons of other software.I was analyzing C code most of the night to learn more about control structures. After that I pretty much relaxed with my lovely lady.