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Monday 20 May, 2002
If it's Monday, it must mean Internet access is
down. And so it goes. This will be posted when it get's
posted.
- Who Could Have Known?
-
Up to now I've made no comment on what the
President may or may not have known ahead of the
September 11th attacks. And actually, I don't plan
to now either. Not because, as one administration
mouthpiece incorrectly alleged, that this is time
of war (things would be different if the President
had sought and received a declaration of war from
Congress), but rather because it would serve no
good purpose to do so.
What I will comment on is another administrator
saying, "Who could have known?" If you are ever in
a position of leadership, never, ever, say those
words. For as soon as you say them, the hunt begins
to find someone who did in fact connect the dots
and put the picture together. And don't think no
one did because I'm sure there's an analyst
somewhere who was able to see the connections and
come to the correct conclusion.
The analogy being used by some commentators is
Pearl Harbor. This, perhaps unwittingly, is an apt
example because the attack was in fact foretold, in
chilling detail. Everything was laid out, down to
the day of the attack (Sunday) and the direction of
the attack (from the North). So what happened to
the person who raised the alarm? He was court
martialed, of course. His main problem being he
said things as they were, not as the power brokers
thought (or wanted) them to be.
So, if the time ever comes, remember that just
because you couldn't come to the correct
conclusion, doesn't mean someone else couldn't.
- Red Hat 7.3
- I was finally able to download the three ISOs for
Red Hat 7.3 (Valhalla) over the weekend. It took
something like three hours to get the approximately
1.8GB of data so I hope it's worth the time and
effort. Of course, if you only have a dial-up, I
would just buy a copy since it would probably take
longer to download that much than to drive down to
your local computer store and get it.
"A truly brilliant man would find a way not
to go to war." - Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto,
after being congratulated on his brilliant attack on
Pearl Harbor. - Aloha!
Tuesday - 21 May, 2002
- Red Hat 7.3 Install
-
So I was able to install Red Hat 7.3 yesterday (and
again this morning, more below). The GUI install is
fairly straight forward as long as you know what
the refresh frequencies of your monitor are, what
brand of video card (and how much memory is on it),
what brand of keyboard, and what brand of mouse
(including whether it is a PS/2, serial, or USB).
The first time through, I made a mistake in
choosing the MS Intellimouse with a PS/2
connection. What I should have chosen was the USB
connection since that is what I am now using. This
mistake meant I had no mouse recognized in KDE. Not
a Good Thing.
I tried changing the mouse via
/usr/bin/mouseconfig and also
/usr/X11R6/bin/xf86config but had no luck. I guess
I did something wrong (like not knowing if it's
/dev/input/mice or /dev/usbmouse or something
completely different). In either case, KDE refused
to start. In fact, I could not even get the login
screen. So, this morning I reformatted the drive
and started over.
Note that the default workstation install, not
including the boot and swap partitions takes a
little over 2GB of storage (a full on kitchen sink
install could take almost double that). I also
chose the KDE and Gnome environments. Note also
that some of the packages, like WINE for instances,
are on the third of three install CDs so remember
to download all three ISOs, even if you will only
need about 5MB of the third 550MB ISO (unless you
won't be using the DOS/Windows emulation program
WINE).
Otherwise, things are now running and I will let
you know how well at a later date.
For everyday work, my Linux client is 99%
promise and 1% delivery. - Doc Searls, Senior Editor,
Linux
Journal - Aloha!
Wednesday - 22 May, 2002
- Home Improvement
- There is the age old problem of what kind of
changes to your home can you expect to pay for
themselves at the point of sale (especially if the
sale is within a year or two)? While the answer is
dependent on where you live and what price range you
are in, you can follow this link
here to some general recommendations based on
data from across the US. The top two changes are to
add a new heating system or do minor kitchen
renovations. The bottom two are to install new
landscaping or to finish a basement. So before you
start swinging that hammer, think about what your
return on investment will be.
- Netscape 7.0 PR1
- If, for whatever reason, you want to download
preview 1 of Netscape 7, feel free to follow this
link here.
I'm not sure why you would want to do that since I
think you could get a newer version by downloading
Mozilla 1.0 RC2 here.
But hey, whatever turns your crank.
If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it
is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France -
Aloha!
Thursday - 23 May, 2002
- Seventh Seal
- Well, not really. But almost. It seems Toyota may
be getting into NASCAR truck racing (see the story
here). NASCAR and Toyota? While I don't watch
truck racing (it's kind of like watching hippos
having sex. There's a lot of sloshing around but it's
not much fun watching it and probably even less fun
for the hippos), I guess some people like this
stuff.
- Speaking of Heavenly Bodies
-
No, not that kind. Over on the Big Island of
Hawai'i, the International Astronomical Union's
Symposium on Brown Dwarf Stars is discussing
the discovery of an object (SOri70) which may be a
brown dwarf or a planet (see the story
here). Astronomers using the Keck I telescope
atop the volcano Mauna Kea discovered the object in
December of 1998. Further observations by the
Herschel telescope in the Canary Islands confirmed
it was either a brown dwarf or planet by the
presence of methane gas.
The best way to predict the future is to
invent it. - Alan Kay - Aloha!
Aloha Friday - 24 May, 2002
It's Friday!
- Judgment Day
- Sort of. I have a presentation to give today on
courtroom security. The audience is about 20 judges
and court administrators. What? Me worry? I'm not an
expert in the area since the Planner who left for the
private sector a few months ago was assigned to that
subject. But since he left, I by default got the job
of doing the research and giving the presentation.
I'm sooo lucky. Not.
- Lets Be Careful Out There
-
Thanks to JHR
for the InfoWorld link
here on the average time to compromise of
systems put on the net. Or at least, default
systems without firewalls. The article says a
default install of Red Hat 6.2 will be compromised
within 72 hours. Going on further, columnist
Andress indicates a default install of Red Hat 7.1
was compromised within six hours. My own experience
is that if you put up a default NT based server,
you'll be rooted within minutes because of all the
scanning being done. You may also want to check the
information over at http://project.honeynet.org/
which was the basis for the article.
The morale of the story is to use a well
configured and installed firewall regardless of the
operating system you may use for your server(s) or
client(s). And then layer your defense with a well
secured operating system and detection/logging
systems to sound the alarm should they get past
your other defenses.
By the way, when you are setting up a new
installation, whether on a server or client,
do not be connected to the Internet unless
you are behind a firewall. Otherwise, you
will be rooted so fast the kiddiez will have their
kits installed before you have a chance to finish
your own installation.
If you must be out there without a firewall, at
least have all the security updates for your OS
burned on a CDROM before hand and install them
before connecting to the Internet. Even then, you
should be vigilant. And even then you should have a
firewall. YMMV.
Have a Great Weekend Everyone -
Aloha!
© 2002 Daniel K. Seto. All rights
reserved. Disclaimer
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