Geek Style

I am pretty sure that Yahoo! passes some spam messages by purpose.
I have a Yahoo! email account that I do not use at all. But like other email accounts, it

VuXML is one of the recent additions to FreeBSD ports system.

In fact:

VuXML is the Vulnerability and eXposure Markup Language, an XML application for documenting security issues in a software package collection such as the FreeBSD Ports Collection.

Having such a database is a brilliant idea. This allows you to run a specific program to find out whether or not your installed ports are vulnerable to known vulnerabilities. Luckily, portaudit was created for the same reason.

portaudit can check the installed ports manually using “portaudit -a” command, and it is also integerated into the ports system so it can warn the user before installing a piece of software which is vulnerable.

VuXML is one of the best things that the FreeBSD Security Officer has done. Good job nectar.

Steve Friedl has pointed out that how DNS root operators use some tricks to make life easier.

The trick in fact in called “Anycast Addressing” and it is like setting the same IP address on different servers at different places. In DNS root server case for example, K root server (operated by RIPE NCC) has one IP address which is 193.0.14.129. But its not only one server in one location. There is one in London, another in Amsterdam and the last one in Frankfurt. And always the closest one to you (from routing point of view) answers your request.

Why is that? The reason behind this trick is load balancing. Root servers are very busy by serving thousands of requests every second. So its better to balance the load between different servers at different locations for load balancing, fault tolerance and traffic management reasons.

And a little bit more about anycase of you are interested:

Anycast addressing is nothing more than assigning a common IP address to multiple instances of the same service, which are located at strategic points in the overal network topology. By utilizing the underlying routing infrastructure of the Internet, IP packets are forwarded to the nearest instance of an anycast service. Common network services that can most easily take advantage of anycast addressing include DNS, multicast rendezvous points (RPs), syslog, network flow export, IPv6 to IPv4 relay routers and sink hole networks.

via Kuro5hin: Anycast Addressing on the Internet

In fact, the IP engineering and network traffic management is always tricky, especially when you are dealing with high traffic services like operating DNS root servers.

NANOG Security Curriculum is a collection of security related talks that have been presented on NANOG meetings. You can download the presentations, and even better, the video for each session is available.
I was checking out “Implementing a Secure Network Infrastructure” by Merike Kaeo (three sessions, each one and half hour) which was great. Another favorite of mine is “Analysis of the DDoS Attack Against SCO“.

If you are a networker and haven’t been in one of NANOG meetings yet (like me!), and got enough bandwidth, I really recommend those presentations.

Today is the second day that I am using Windows XP SP2 Preview (RC1) on my home pc and laptop. Microsoft has warned that it would be incompatible with some applications because of massive changes that MS made into this service pack. In fact SP2 is mostly focused on security, and this causes major changes to OS functionality and as a result some older apps may not work.

For me, everything worked just fine after upgrade. And the result was impressive. Though the installation took more than half hour, but it turned my XP into a new OS. Windows Firewall (which is a new feature, descendent of ICF) is more serious than the old ICF. Its more like a stripped down version of zone alaram. The next good thing was the new patch management and new windows update website which almost forces you to install the latest patches. and the new “Security Center” watches your system health and antivirus program to be in most secure mode.
There are many many changes that I can’t explain and I really recommend you to give it a try on your test machine.

Neil Turner has done a very good job by reviewing XP2 with some screen shots and good explanations.

ViewFinder is little sister of Geek Style. In fact its my new PhotoBlog.

I created it using MovableType and did some template hacks. No plug-ins were harmed during making of this photoblog Just some quick facts before you proceed to ViewFinder:

• I am no professional photographer
• I take photos using my small Canon PowerShot A70. Its a great camera, but do not expect excellent photos
• This photoblog is almost beta. Please kindly report bugs and let me know your suggestions

If you don’t believe this, ask Google!
Today I learned that when you search google for KB833407, my page is on the second place after Microsoft’s advisory. Cool!

I have noticed this already, but it was only looking different from one of my computers not on others. It was like seeing an alien waving at you in your backyard, and no one believes this story. So I forgot what I saw and considered it as a CSS rendering problem on my Mozilla.

Now I am not alone and there are many others who have seen that waving alien.
Here is some screenshots to prove. Jesse Ruderman also explains his experience. Discussion on this subject on Neowin forums with many screenshots.

Q: What is your favorite RSS aggregator?
A: No doubt. It’s Yahoo! RSS aggregator.

It’s not the complete solution yet. But it is very easy to use and fits to My Yahoo! page easily. I can even use it on my Pocket PC.

iCapture lets you see your website in as a Mac user sees it through the Safari. That’s very useful if you are creating a website using your PC and you want to know how it looks in a Mac.
On the other hand, if you are a Mac user and want to know how does your website look on a PC, ieCapture is your pal. Not only IE (5.01,5.5 and 6), it lets you see your website with Mozilla Firefox as well as Opera.