Digital Choke Daynotes

"Daynotes" are popularized by a Internet Web site called the "Daynotes Gang" (www.daynotes.com or www.daynotes.org), a collection of the daily technical and personal observations from the famous and others. That group started on September 29, 1999, and has grown to an interesting collection of individuals. Readers are invited and encouraged to visit those sites for other interesting daily journals. You can send your comments to us by clicking on any mailbox icon.

I am in San Diego, in the company of about 1700 computer geeks of various levels of expertise. This is a big security conference, with attendees from all over the world. One of the handouts they give you is the list of attendees, with their home town and company name. There are some here from Europe, Austrailia, the Far East. Lots of governmen types, business, etc. (Interesting question: if this is a security conference, why would the attendees let their names and companies be publicized? You won't find my name/company on the list.)

I haven't been able to post much since I got here last week. They do have a wireless network here, and it is available in the classrooms, but my laptop gets excitable now and again while connected, and decides to blue screen. I thought it was a problem with my D-Link wireless card/drivers, so I picked up an Orinoco card here (they sell them at the conference for $90). I still get the blue screen with this one, so perhaps it's embedded in my notebook. Although it is an inconvenience, it's not a big deal, since I've got a new one on order. And the conference has a 'terminal room' where they have setup a bunch of Red Hat desktops for our use.

I did make sure that I had my firewall running here. I've installed ZoneAlarm, the free one. Works good, and the ShieldsUp program from Steve Gibson's site shows that I am in 'stealth' mode on all the things he checks. I'd recommend to all my readers (yes, both of you!) that you go to that site and try the program. It's results are worthwhile.

I plan on improving my connectivity tomorrow. I usually like to sit in the back of a classroom, but the wireless network's signal is a bit too weak there. I will try moving to the front to see if the connection will be better. Right now, I am sitting on the porch of the Marriot on the island right next to the SD airport, looking out at the harbor with all the sailboats. A very nice day, a bit of a breeze (which is why there are so many sailboats out there), and fairly warm.

The class itself is interesting. It's a beginning Informaton Security Officer class. Some of the stuff I know about already, but I am learning a few more things. And I got the course materials from most of the other classes, so that will also be helpful. Although a bit heavy; the materials fill up two standard paper boxes. I am going to go through them a bit tonight and tomorrow, and get them shipped back so I don't have to shlep them on the plane.

Still here at the SANS Security Conference. Good discussion today on policies and guidelines.

What was more interesting was a discussion this evening about "Federal Legal Issues and Monitoring Network Use". For instance, is it legal to use a sniffer on your network (as a network administrator) to monitor traffic without violating the fourth amendment of the US Constitution (regarding "illegal search and seizure"). The speaker was was from the US Depart of Justice. (They have a web site called http://www.cybercrime.gov.)

So is sniffing OK? How about your Intrusion Detection System that looks at all the traffic into your network? According to my understanding (and remember, IANAL), you are much safer if you:

With the above things in place on your network, you can legally monitor your network as needed for business purposes. You have to be careful not to intrude on user files without valid reasons. So it is generally not OK to snoop around in Word documents or email without a valid reason.

For instance, I've talked about the installation of email monitoring software on our company mail servers. The system looks at each mail message and determines if it meets our standards for valid business content. If it does, the message gets delivered. If it does not, the message could be delayed or deleted.

As part of that effort, I had to look at all potentially blocked messages to determine if the message should have been blocked. Because of the business need, and the fact that we have good information resource policies and guidelines, I am within my rights to do that. The user, because they have signed the agreement, and the policies and procedures apply to the user, they have given me (the business) consent to monitor their activities.

So, as I have mentioned before, good policies and procedures are important to you as a network administrator, or as a user to help you know about your rights on a network. There are lots of places to get sample policies and procedures, and I suggest that it's important to your company to have these in place. It protects you from hackers also.

On another note, there are about 1800-2000 security dweebs of various expertise in this conference. The conference has provided a wireless network connected to the hotel's ISP. And, dweebs that some people are, there has been a little excessive hacking activities on some attendees. The hotel's ISP has noticed this activity, and has notified the hotel to get people to knock off the hacking, or the ISP will disconnect the hotel's Internet access.

The conference organizer's anticipated this, and warned attendee's at the beginning of the conference. But a reminder was given today to everyone to stop it.

Back home again. Lots of good info at the conference, some of it will appear here from time to time. But not now, I just want to unwind a bit. So, tonight's agenda will include some serious couch potatoing practice. There doesn't seem to be much on broadcast TV, but we've got DirecTV, so there is more choice. Although sometimes there still isn't anything interesting on all those channels, either.

Good news about Elizabeth Smart, the teenager abducted from her home in Salt Lake City UT (USA) last summer. There are lots of interesting questions that I am sure the media will get excited about. But it is a nice change from all the Iraq stuff.

No progress on the house sale front, although we had several people come by in the past two days. One potential buyer stayed for about an hour, and my agent got a call from their agent today. They are quite interested, but no offer yet.

We decided to continue on the remodeling. This project will be replacing all wood siding (4'x8' grooved panels) and trim. New insulation and 'house wrap'. And new windows all around. Our plan is to wait until Monday to order the new windows just in case anyone wants to make an offer this weekend. If we don't get any offers, we'll continue with the project. And we'll increase the price as we buy materials and do the work.

All the windows (there are 15 of them) are custom sizes. I have no idea why, when they built the house, they didn't use standard sized windows. The sizes are only about an inch smaller than standard sizes. The new ones will be double-paned, with low-e glass. When the project is all done, the house should be much less leaky, which will help our heating and A/C bill get reduced.

The mortgage broker sent us a letter today saying that we are approved for a home loan for a new (or new-to-us) house. Now all we need is a buyer. I spent a bit of time updating the information sheet with the new price. We increased the asking price $10K. Even in this economy, the values are increasing around here. There doesn't seem to be a big slacking-off of demand, as evidenced by the six separate visitors this week. And with mortgage interest rates going down again, I expect to see a bit of action this weekend. The only potential problem is that there is some rainy weather expected this weekend. But only rain here, not that white stuff that people have to shovel.

Spent most of the day at work catching up on the mail, doing some minor auditing of the network, and filling out the travel reimbursement forms. And filling out another travel request for a PeopleSoft class in a couple of weeks. This one is only down in Pleasanton, which is in the "Silicon Valley" outside of San Francisco. It's just a couple of hours drive there, but I'll stay in a nearby hotel for the week-long class.

Tommorow is also my "carb-counting" class. Seems that my doctor noticed my cholesterol levels are getting close to bad levels, so he wants to do some intervention to reduce the numbers. I am nearing the point of increased risk for diabetes, and I don't want to go there. I need to lose a few pounds (well, maybe more than a few), so must be more careful of what I eat. And probably do a bit more exercising than pushing the buttons on the TV remote control.

Lots of rain outside. Don't mind it, though. We haven't had a good rain storm since about January, I think. Had a weak first storm last night, then it cleared up this morning. Dark clouds gathered this afternoon, and by the time we left work, the trip home had some "Doppler dark green" with a couple of yellow spots. (Do we now judge the amount of rain by the color of the Doppler screens?)

Got home and took a look at the travel trailer (currently in use as my son's residence; he likes the privacy). Seems that one of the roof vents didn't have a cover, so there was a 6" square opening letting in all the rain. He was quite surprised about it, like he had never noticed that there wasn't a cover on that vent. Got a bit of a puddle in the chair that he uses for his computer setup. He was very lucky that he didn't get any water on/in his computer.

Brian C. wrote me a short note about my comments on DirecTV programming. (You regular readers...yes, both of you...read it in Wednesday's post up there a bit.) He said that he has enjoyed the show "Six Feet Under" on HBO:

Nope, although I do have the HBO channels on my connection, I think that I only watched a bit of it once, then got distracted and never got involved in the program. I may have to take a look at it. Especially since half of my reading audience (that would be Brian) has recommended it. At least, that's the assumption I have of the numbers of my audience. Brian and one other are the only ones that have sent email. (I think it's the quality of the readers, not the quantity.)

So, how about a desparate plea for a quick mail message from all the rest of you? Especially since I think that I fixed the somewhat broken mail form link that Brian mentioned in his message. You see, the mail form here is very similar to the one on the "Digital Choke" short story pages, which are in the parent folder of these pages (http://www.digitalchoke.com). It seems that I set the pointer for the mailbox icon to the short story's pages, not the one for Digital Choke Daynote pages. So I spent some time tonight fixing it on the last three week's worth of Daynotes, and the index page.

That's the reason that all of you need to quickly click on this mailbox icon

and send me a short message. Tell me how wonderful you think these pages are (even if you have to lie). And, if want to be "really taken in" to the Digital Choke story (that's a quote from another reader), wander over there and read my feeble attempt at fiction. I'm quite proud of it. I think it's an interesting story, which has some basis in fact. You can also contribute a bit to the story by sending mail as a participant in the events. (Full details on the story site.)

Be careful of the "Ides of March" tommorrow, especially if your name is Ceasar. Or, just send a message and tell me that I have a much higher opinion of myself than is supported by actual facts....

Got a few things accomplished today. Helped clean up the house (I am the vacumn guy). Took a bit longer, as I had to remove a hairball from the vacumn hose.

I then did a bit of wall patching, re-caulked the shower in the bathroom. Made a run to the weed-eater store for a replacement part, and to Camping World (big chain of RV parts/accessories) for a new vent cover for the trailer.

Got back home, and replaced the vent cover. Then fixed the weed eater and did a bit of weeding. With all the warm weather here, I've got a good crop of weeds and grass to take care of.

Watched "K-19 Widowmaker" tonight. Well, I watched the first part and last part. The middle got a bit fuzzy during a short nap. Fairly good movie. We signed up for NetFlix, which is great for getting movies without running down to the local DVD store. You order them on the web, they come by mail, you keep them as long as you want, and when you are done, you send them back in a pre-paid mailer. You can watch as many movies as you want during a month for the same monthly charge, you just get three at a time. And they turn around the shipping quite fast. We get a replacement movie in 3-4 days. Works real well, and only about $20 (US) a month.

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Digital Choke	an action that is sometimes needed for your computer; also a short techno-story available here.	Send us email