mikeg's blog

The SOPA/PIPA Protest

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:00:05 -0500

The following is a list (woefully incomplete) of sites that took action against SOPA/PIPA:

Google (blacked out their logo)
Slashdot (blacked out their logo)
XKCD (Protest Comic)
WBAI Radio (CSS switch: Content blocks in reverse video)
I Can Has Cheezburger? and the Cheezburger Network (Banner)
TV Tropes (Banner)
EFF (Banner & CSS Switch)
The Tor Project (Censor bar across site)
Craigslist (Main page blacked out. Banner on regional pages)
Ars Technica (CSS Switch & Banner)
Not Always Right (CSS Switch & Banner)
Reddit (12-hour outage, 8AM-8PM Eastern -- US Workday)
Questionable Content web comic (Special Comic)
The Mozilla Project (12 hour outage, 8AM-8PM Eastern ; Firefox start page made black)
English Wikipedia (Offline)
2600 (and various local 2600 groups) (Offline)
The Oatmeal (Offline & Funny Picture)
SMBC Comic (Comic blacked out)
Explosm (Site blacked out)
Wasted Talent (Site blacked out)
Wordpress (Main site blacked out)
Nyan Cat (Site blacked out. No Nyan Cat.)

…and of course bsd-box.net, which was offline.

Continue reading "The SOPA/PIPA Protest"

Bye Bye GoDaddy

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:06:51 -0500

As I write this all of my domains are in the process of being transferred from GoDaddy (who I've used since they first hit the scene years ago) to NameCheap (I considered going with Gandi, but wanted to avoid pricing in Euros because my credit card company sucks so hard they blow).

Most of you know that I've been generally dissatisfied with GoDaddy from an image standpoint, but have generally let the inertia of "I don't want to go through the domain transfer process" carry me along. That all changed today -- I can overlook their shitty business practices. I can excuse their slut-tacular commercials as "sex sells (even domain names)", but I draw the line at supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, H.R. 3621) - This is an absolute piece of shit legislation that threatens the most fundamental principles of free speech by stripping away even the minimal end-user and content-provider protections of the DMCA. Further in chosing its technological weaponry SOPA also manages to jeopardize the DNS system, one of the most basic technical underpinnings of the internet as we know it.

That anyone can support this legislative disaster in the making baffles me. That a technology company can do so is unfathomable. Mr. Parsons has literally gone to congress, pointed an elephant gun at his testicles, and said "Go on, pull the trigger. I like the pain."

I am not usually a fan of Reddit, but they have a nice thread about GoDaddy supporting SOPA, and the ensuing mass exodus of even folks like me who were sticking with GD because of inertia. I have also reproduced GoDaddy/Mr. Parsons' statement supporting SOPA in its entirety below the break. They also mention the BYEBYEGD NameCheap coupon that inspired the title of this post.

Continue reading "Bye Bye GoDaddy"

Dear ImageMagick: FUCK YOU.

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:36:58 -0500

Dear ImageMagick,

FUCK YOU.

No Love,

-Me.

Continue reading "Dear ImageMagick: FUCK YOU."

Dear FAA/Aeronav...

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:54:03 -0500

Holy Hairballs - A Blog update! Dayum it's been a while!

So, what the hell do I want to talk about? Well, I want to expound for a bit on the FAA/AeroNav proposal to start charging for digital chart data. And, because this is my blog, I can!

Really everything I want to say can be said by an appropriate LOLCat:

Continue reading "Dear FAA/Aeronav..."

TheSteve is Dead, Long Live TheSteve

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 23:49:24 -0400

So as anyone who has not been living under a rock knows, The man I affectionately refer to as TheSteve (Steven Paul Jobs of Apple, Inc. fame) has died. He leaves behind a legacy that includes one of the most remarkable corporate turnarounds in modern American history, catapulting what was a foundering Apple Computer into what we know today as Apple, Inc. - Maker of the iEverything.

TheSteve was an iconic figure - Famous (infamous) for his perfectionism and capricious nature, and gifted with the ability to know what the masses wanted before they knew themselves. Products like the iPod and iPhone stand as a testament to that vision.

I'm not going to further eulogize the man - Hundreds of people have done so far better than I ever could - Instead I'm going to re-open this blog by commenting on some of the commentary.
This entry may grow, or it may just remain the big two that caused me to write it - as always my blogging is totally mood-dependent.

Continue reading "TheSteve is Dead, Long Live TheSteve"

Apple is killing the XServe?

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 11:30:54 -0400

Apple Inc. announced today that the XServe is being discontinued effective January 31, 2011.
I believe this is a HUGE mistake on Apple's part as they have no other product which effectively fills this market space.

I'm not one of those "email the CEO because you changed the color of my case" shareholders, but this decision has occasioned my first email to The Steve. I have reproduced that email here to share my thoughts with the rest of you.

Continue reading "Apple is killing the XServe?"

Free LOLs courtesy of the media

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:09:59 -0400

Presented without further comment. Thanks to the WBAI Evening News (originally aired on August 20, 2010 - WBAI New York, 99.5FM)

Bring Forth My Amusement!

Dear Senator Schumer...

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:04:54 -0400

One of my dearly beloathed Senators (Charles Schumer) has apparently taken up the plight of the iPhone 4 victims as a righteous cause. While I agree that Apple screwed the pooch on their RF design here, I find it somewhat disconcerting that Sen. Schumer has chosen this to focus on. Please allow me to engage in a brief bit of snark:

Sen. Schumer's letter to Apple:

July 15, 2010

Dear Mr. Jobs,

I write to express concern regarding the reception problem with the Apple iPhone 4. While I commend Apple's innovative approach to mobile technology and appreciate its service to millions of iPhone users nationwide, I believe it is incumbent upon Apple to address this flaw in a transparent manner. According to Consumer Reports' review, released Monday on its website, the iPhone 4's signal-strength problem is a hardwire glitch triggered by gripping the device in a particular manner. This finding, according to Consumer Reports, "call[s] into question” Apple’s recent claim that the problem is “largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software." Consumer Reports declined to recommend the iPhone 4 because of this hardware design flaw.

Given the discrepancy between Consumer Reports' explanation of the reception problem and the explanation provided by Apple in its July 2 letter to customers, I am concerned that the nearly two million purchasers of the iPhone 4 may not have complete information about the quality of the product they have purchased. The burden for consumers caused by this glitch, combined with the confusion over its cause and how it will be fixed, has the potential to undermine the many benefits of this innovative device. To address this concern, I ask that Apple provide iPhone 4 customers with a clearly written explanation of the cause of the reception problem and make a public commitment to remedy it free-of-charge. The solutions offered to date by Apple for dealing with the so-called “death grip” malfunction—such as holding the device differently, or buying a cover for it—seem to be insufficient. These proposed solutions would unfairly place the burden on consumers for resolving a problem they were not aware of when they purchased their phones.

I also encourage Apple to keep its promise to provide free software updates so that bars displayed accurately reflect signal strength; I further urge Apple to issue a written explanation of the formula it uses to calculate bar strength, so that consumers can once again trust the product that they have invested in.

I look forward to Apple's swift action on this matter, and once again laud Apple for its innovative efforts and service to millions of Americans.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer

Continue reading "Dear Senator Schumer..."

Inverse Coherence - An exploration of my brain from the inside out.

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:09:22 -0400

This is a fair warning: Everything below the break is unedited and incoherent, possibly repetitive, and really I don't know why I'm posting it.

This is a ride through my mind, stream of consciousness style - I could probably sell tickets, and very few have seen the whole show (most aren't around anymore). We're not going all the way on this tour - I think there was still some safety rope somewhere, but enjoy it for what it is - You may even see the boundaries of my mind, though I'm not even sure where they are myself.

For the sake of your sanity, anything written in (parentheses) can (and SHOULD) be skipped in evaluating a sentence. Come back to them later for insight, inanity, and [Insert: Something else beginning with "i"].

Feel free to comment on it, and don't let it upset you -- Remember, it's only my brain: You don't have to live with it.

Continue reading "Inverse Coherence - An exploration of my brain from the inside out."

Wikileaks, Lamo & Manning (Oh My!)

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:42:00 -0400

Wow, a blog post? Yeah, this one didn't fit in 140 characters...

So much hay has been made recently about Adrian Lamo (@6) "outing" SPC Manning for leaking the Collateral Murder tape & other somewhat embarrassing (you could even say downright shameful) activities that the US Government has been engaging in. Both sides are throwing their fits and I'm saddened to see that mud slinging has already begun, so here I stand in defense of... well... everyone.
For those who want my $0.02, here is is:

Don't crucify The Leaker for following his conscience.
Don't crucify Lamo for making a judgment call & doing the same.

For those interested in more, here's my $19.95 plus postage, handling and applicable taxes:

Continue reading "Wikileaks, Lamo & Manning (Oh My!)"

InterMapper & RT: You two play nice now…

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:30:00 -0400

This is going to be one of my rambling sysadmin-y entries talking about stuff that's probably of little general interest. Fair warning given.

There are two components that I would consider essential to proper system administration: GOOD Monitoring and Issue/Incident Tracking. It is imperative that you know when a problem arises (preferably before anyone else notices) and that you keep track of the problems you have encountered in order to spot troublesome systems and redesign them to stop bugging you.
Those of you who have worked with me know I have my prejudices in both of these areas, and that for the last few years I've settled on two pieces of software to fill these roles: InterMapper for monitoring and RT for issue tracking.

The major caveat of this pairing is that the two have no formal integration: InterMapper will happily send emails, and RT will happily accept emails and turn them into tickets, but RT doesn't know when InterMapper is telling it about the same problem twice, or that a previous issue has been cleared. The end result of this lack of integration is that you have a bunch of RT tickets for the same issue which need to be manually merged and resolved, and this manual bit bugged me enough that I actually took the time to fix it!

Continue reading "InterMapper & RT: You two play nice now…"

F the CC - Joe Biden's F-Bomb

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 01:00:00 -0400

So the Vice President of the United States of America said "Fuck". On the air. Twice.
Big fucking deal.

I've been prodded by a few people about this, so here's my 90 second commentary:
Joey-B dropped the F-Bomb twice during daytime programming hours (well outside the 10pm - 6am "Safe Harbor" for cussing up a storm on the air).
The last time I checked the FCC was to levy a fine of $7000 for each violation (i.e. every time a word slips out over the air), scalable up to $32500 based on other factors, like a history of prior infringements (and we clearly have at least two violations here).

So I have a few quetions.

Is the FCC going to fine all the broadcasters who carried this speech live-live (no delay) and/or those who carried it with a net & failed to hit the bleep button fast enough?
Is the FCC going to fine either Joe Biden (personally) or the US Government (as an entity) for producing/distributing profane material?
Will we ever get rid of our nation's irrational fear of the word FUCK and the sight of breasts?

... seriously folks, it's just a word. Get over it and move on.

Interesting (impractial) OpenSSL attack

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:31:23 -0500

While I usually read El Reg for teh lulz occasionally they come up with an interesting nugget, like their article on a "severe" OpenSSL vulnerability (quotes theirs). This vulnerability comes to us courtesy of the University of Michigan, and is tied to a simple oversight in the OpenSSL code: It doesn't perform a verification pass on signatures before sending them to a client.
So all you crypto-nerds, how many of you do a verify on your signatures before you send them? Hands please? Nobody? Not even me? -- Yeah, we all tend to trust that our math Just Works. I mean it's a computer, you put in fixed input through a deterministic algorithm and you get the same output ever time. Right? Nope.

in their paper

That is all well and good, except it relies on errors in the system generating the signatures. These errors are rare (and pretty random) in the real world, so no problem, right? Wrong again Sparky! These clever folks came up with something I wouldn't ever have thought of.

Those of you who have worked on old Commodore computers probably know one of the first symptoms of a power supply going wonky is that the system starts acting up: Lots of random crashes, video corruption, etc. Why does that happen? Because the voltage being supplied to the system is fluctuating. Fluctuating voltages (specifically down-swings) cause all the magical voltage regulation hardware to go out of regulation, which feeds out-of-spec voltages to the chips, which in turn start making mistakes in their math.
The bottom line for this attack is an extension of that well-known Commodore problem: By putting controlled voltage fluctuations into the power supply of real computers (SPARC boxen running Linux) the UMichigan folks were able to induce errors in the math used by the real-world OpenSSL code and recover an actual key.

Continue reading "Interesting (impractial) OpenSSL attack"

Born Trilogy (@rob_t_firefly takes the blame for this)

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:11:48 -0500

So the point of this whole thing is trivial enough that I went ahead and did it: Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday (month and day). Then you write down 3 events, 3 births, 3 deaths and 3 holidays.
December 29

Events

1778 – American Revolutionary War: 3,500 British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia without firing a shot.
Way to go Georgia, just roll over and take it. Bitches.
1890 – United States soldiers kill more than 200 Oglala Lakota people with four Hotchkiss guns in the Wounded Knee Massacre.
120 years later we're still treating the natives like shit & using the treaties to wipe our national ass -- Progress, we no can has
2003 – The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct.
Interesting tidbit in honor of all those linguistics courses I took.

Births

1800 – Charles Goodyear, American inventor (d. 1860)
A subtle reminder from the universe to check your tire inflation and wear pattern
1921 – Robert C. Baker, Inventor of the chicken nugget (d. 2006)
Cue ironic chorus of "Nugget Man"
1967 – Andy Wachowski, American director
I still won't forgive him for the Matrix sequels. Filthy humans ruinsed a good thing.

Deaths (Excluding the "event" death)

1731 – Brook Taylor, English mathematician (b. 1685)
1737 – Joseph Saurin, French mathematician (b. 1659)
1891 – Leopold Kronecker, German mathematician (b. 1823)

Apparently not a good day to be a mathematician… Do I get any bonus points for a trifecta?

Holidays
Only 2 and nothing relevant: The 5th day of Christmas (but nobody cares aside from the song) and apparently St. Becket's day (patron saint of secular clergy, so I suppose that's appropriate with me being an ordained minister and all)

The Wheel: Let me reinvent it for you! (update-notifier redux)

mikeg@bsd-box.net (mikeg) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:57:51 -0500

OK, for the record: I DESPISE Linux. I Hate, Loathe, Abhor and Revile it. I am a BSD-Bigot and proud of it, and if all the BSDs suddenly evaporated I would eschew Linux in favor of a commercial Unix (probably AIX).

Why do I hate Linux so much? Simply put, it's shoddy code written by shoddy coders. In my experience shit mysteriously breaks for no reason, standards and conventions are arbitrarily ignored, critical components of the system are perpetually at version zero-dot-something, regression testing seems to be a myth, and the average Linux developer seems to make no effort to ensure their code will work on anything except their particular favorite distribution (to say nothing about porting it to <GASP> a BSD system, or <HORRORS> Commercial Unix).

This particular tirade was kicked off by the Ubuntu update-notifier program suddenly and mysteriously no longer popping up update notification balloons. As some of you know my company ships a Linux-based appliance (built around a very stripped-down Ubuntu plus our commercial packages), and one of the things that made me go with Ubuntu was that they had gotten the update-notifier thing working beautifully and it had been stable for several versions.
Lo and Behold about a month ago our support guys came to visit me and asked "Hey, is the update notifier bubble broken?" I looked upon it and saw that it indeed appeared to be non-functional, but as all good (lazy) admins are wont to do I demanded they test and verify the breakage.

The breakage came back to me verified earlier this week, and as I really couldn't be assed to figure out why the update-notifier is happy to display the "you must reboot!" dialog box but refuses to display the "Yo, bitch! You have updates!" notifier icon & bubble I took the easy way out and re-implemented update-notifier in Python.

Continue reading "The Wheel: Let me reinvent it for you! (update-notifier redux)"