December 30, 2005
December 29, 2005
Bill Gates' Linux Attack Money and the Resignation of Peter Quinn
Recently, we witnessed the power of Microsoft's political machine when one of the champions of free and open source software, Peter Quinn resigned as CIO of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In my opinion, Microsoft just blinked and everything went south. Other writers have also commented on the chain of events in Massachusetts. For example, Andy Undegrove writes a farewell piece in his blog to the maligned public servant. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols also writes an article about this issue in Microsoft Wins, Open Standards Lose. Steven writes: "CIO Peter Quinn's story tells us that if you go up against Microsoft, you can expect everything and the kitchen sink to be thrown at you."
Well Steven, as much respect and admiration as I have for you, Microsoft didn't even breathe hard. They looked in the direction of bean town and people started doing their bidding. That's what happens when you own a country.
- Tom Adelstein [04:37:15 PM
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December 28, 2005
Linux System Administration: The Next Step for Power Users
Personal growth occurs in many ways. Pushing yourself into a new endeavor is one of the most constructive ways to achieve such growth. So, why don't we see more of it? It's often easier to stay with what's comfortable. When you step out on the skinny branches, you put yourself at-risk and that's uncomfortable. Those who can handle the discomfort will find the experience rewarding.
- Tom Adelstein [01:09:28 PM
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"Baselining Logs and Audit Trails for Security" presentation
In another minor bit of self-promotion, I wanted to bring to your attention this fun presentation that I will be giving at SANS 2006 in Orlando, FL. The title is "Baselining Logs and Audit Trails for Security."
Many people, when asked about log analysis, say "you've got to create a baseline first", but few clarify what it really means. I try to address that information void by presenting the results of my research.
Here is an outline: "This presentation will focus on creating the methodology for learning the log baselines and then matching the current state of the environment against the baselines. It sounds simple, but an effective methodology for it still hasn't been created. The talk will cover what the good (and bad) possible baselines are, how to create them and how to use them for security."
Note, that some info might overlap with my previous presentation on log mining in 2004 (See "Log Mining: Knowledge Discovery in Logs"
The time is Wednesday, March 1, 7:00pm-9:00pm
- Anton Chuvakin [12:44:53 PM
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Predictions for the New Year 2006
Its the end of the year, and I am doing my end-of-the-year sweep for security predictions. People predict a lot of fun and sometimes outright silly stuff that will supposedly happen in security next year. I will post my full review in January, but this is one fun piece I liked: "Survivor's
Guide to 2006: Priority No. 1: Data Protection" in NWC Magazine
The sheer number of breaches and other events which resulted in data theft or data destruction this year is staggering. However, I suspect that it has also something to do with increased attention and heightened expectations that a loss will be reported.
Other fun predictions I've seen will also be posted soon. In fact, feel free to check my del.icio.us feed for all the prediction items I tagged:
Views on Security in 2006
- Anton Chuvakin [06:39:28 AM
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December 27, 2005
December 26, 2005
I disagree with Paul Graham on Procrastination
Paul Graham has a new article on his website about procrastination. The point of his article is to say that if you spend all your time working on little stuff and errands you'll never fix the big problems. This is correct. However, his advice about how to skip the little problems is to just "let delight pull you" to the difficult problems. That's a beautiful and poetic platitude, but useless the average system administrator or technical grunt that is flooded with zillions of tiny tasks that can't just be "put off" because if we do, our employers will be very, very, unhappy. I make some suggestions...
- Thomas A. Limoncelli [07:48:25 PM
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eXplorations, Episode #1: OASIS Open Document Format Debate
As Kurt Cagle posted last week, the first real eXplorations podcast is now available for download. This is a simple follow-up based on the fact that looking at the logfiles it seems a few people may have added this feed to their feedreader's for notification of each new podcast. We've shortened things up, this time bringing the total length to just over twenty(20) minutes, sixteen(16) of which is the Open Document/Open XML debate with just over four(4) minutes of music and fun.
- M. David Peterson [04:04:48 PM
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December 25, 2005
December 24, 2005
Year-End Mac Upgrade
In a little end-of-the-year present to my Mac and my eyes, I replaced my fridge-size CRT with a wide-screen LCD. It supposedly has the same innards as the Apple Cinema Display for $300 less. So far, so good....
- David Battino [03:58:52 AM
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