I work for a CLEC (phone company) that provides T1s data and voice. Most of the time we provide a router and manage it ourselves. You would not believe how many admins/IT departments don't know that their windows boxes have been compromised. Someone says their internet is slow, a ticket comes to my group, we look at the traffic going across the router and sure enough, some box inside the network is scanning subnets on a specific TCP or UDP port.
we've got the webserver worms scanning on port 80... then there's a nice SQL hack out there that scans on 1433 there's a netbios hack which scans 139 and there are a few other obscure hacks for some other servces which aren't used too much
in the last year of doing this job, i saw one guy with a linux box and an old, unpatched version of Bind. his box was scanning on port 53 of course.
why do i see so many windows boxes that are hacked/infected? mainly because most people don't know to use anything else!! beyond that they don't manage the boxes like they should (patches, updates...) and on top of that, they don't know when it's been compromised. poor management and lax security practices cause a BIG part of the problem. the correlation most people make is "windows = poor security" when they should be saying "admin-who-doesn't-understand-anything-but-point-a nd-click = poor security"
now i'm not a windows advocate, but for crying out loud, if a windows admin keeps up with patches and updates and keeps logs and does all the right stuff, he'll most likely be ok. on the other hand, if a linux admin installs the box and leaves it hanging out on the internet, he's going to have problems.
The RIAA patents sound in an attempt to draw royalties on everything that makes any sound including but not limited to musical works and things that go bump in the night.
Additionally, ISPs should start cutting off infected users without hesitation now.
Some ISPs do. I know because I get to cut them off after giving them a warning and ample time to fix the trouble. What's the problem with all of this?
Imagine the following...
Hi, this is Joe Tech from ISP X's Network center, we're seeing that your machine on x.x.x.x is infected with Nimda and this is affecting our network. Your service will be suspended if you don't take care of this.
Customer: uhhhh... how do I fix that? Will the guy at Dell fix it? Why can't you just fix my server and keep this from happening again?
My point, for every 10 business customer's I have only one of them knows A) they even have a web server on their connection B) they had their server's pants down to the whole world C) what nimda is.
besides, people paying business T1 prices don't like being shut off right or wrong.
In the interest of customer service, companies will many times fix stuff they didn't break to keep a customer happy. Dell giving away a Mobo is no skin off their back and many times it'll make a customer happier (and easier to deal with) to just say "we'll go ahead and take care of you, but you've been warned..."
1) Joe User likes Windows b/c he uses it all the time and is comfortable.
2) Linux? what's that?
People look at Microsoft as a nessacary evil. They bitch and moan about it crashing and blah blah blah but the truth is they don't see the options. My friends look at my linux boxen and think that's typical for me b/c I'm a tech pioneer. I try things they've never heard of. I play with technology they don't understand and that's my bag as far as they are concerned. Normal users however aren't interested in working outside the OS box (no pun intended) b/c it's territory they don't begin to want to understand.
Either that or they don't care.
I work for a company which provides broadband services to small to medium sized businesses. Many of our customers host their own mail/web/etc servers from their site on their connection. The big downside to that is that most of these operations either have a guy in house who stumbled around IIS long enough to get it working and hasn't touched it since or they contract someone who charges them way too much money to do a shoddy job. In short, 9 out of 10 of our customers have their pants down to the world because they lack expertise and/or experience.
The problem of course gave our trouble resolution group fits.
To make matters worse most of the CPE (customer premise equipment) on the network has some type of web based interface. I don't know all the ins and outs of this worm but I do know that it caused a bit of havoc on all these routers stitting out there listening for port 80 requests. This also gave our trouble resolution group fits.
Microsoft disagreed. Windows XP, which is scheduled for an official launch on Oct. 25, "is designed to bring more choice and options to consumers, not fewer," company spokesman Vivek Varma said, in a statement.
this is a really strong argument i'd say. i mean, who wouldn't want more choices and options!
what choices and options you might ask? well... more.
this is about like microsoft saying "XP is a good product because we said so."
i own win95, 98 and NT4.0
i've used mandrake 6.0 - 8.0
mandrake has been more fun than windows, it's been just as useful, yeah, it's worth it.
thing is i don't mind spending my money on product provided that product is good. i've paid for windows only b/c it's the right thing to do. sure i bought NT4.0 with a student discount, but i'm not into stealing.
i prefer mandrake to windows and it's just a perk that i can get it free (cheaply). however, if they don't get any cash for it, the likelyhood that it's development will slow or stop rises. yes, mandrake is a product, a good product, and it's worth paying for. i think that somewhere down the line i need to show my grattitude and give something back.
well you're exactly freakin right!
RIAA is putting out crap and they don't want us to know it until we've bought the disc. no, it's not FUD, it's why they release singles to become hits and make such a big deal about promoting one song off an album of 20 tracks. the industry is and evil evil thing but they're out to make money just like the next guy. trouble is they're not selling the quality product that the people deserve.
trouble is, it's working. sheep go out and buy the new CDs by the coolest bands with the hit single and they listen to that song over and over again because it's the one everybody loves and they know this b/c they heard it twice in the last hour on the radio.
yes people, this is the same reason that 16 year olds are saving up their nickles and dimes to buy 100$ jeans. if it's promoted as 'pop' and 'the thing' then the sheep (people) will sell their souls for it.
the days of the singer who loves his fans has gone. those preformers are few and far between now. these days any old no-talent with a good looking face can be a star! talent and love for the music went out the window with fame and fortune. support local bands! support indie labels! if you don't know these bands then seek them out! these are ARTISTS! these are people who play for the love of playing. these are the folks we want to support!
now that's just a generalization i know. there is no 100% rule here but it's my experience talking. the industry is about money and they're taking advantage of the music lovers.
Under the licensing terms of Linux, it's very easy to share improvements to the Unix-like operating system but legally impossible to make it into a proprietary product such as the competing Microsoft Windows. This arrangement has underlain the growing cooperative effort among numerous companies to collectively improve Linux.
Linux works for whoever wants to work with it. I think this article dances around the idea that big business doesn't care for the MS tax any more than the home user when a viable alternative is avaliable. If many businesses come together to improve Linux, then they can provide their own solutions on their own terms without having to always deal with a third party (namely MS). This is what it's all about, innovation that benefits everyone and not just the vendor.
Big business is in it to make money sure enough, but if operating systems isn't their cash cow, why not use something free to all?
so i've been working in a few of the cisco 7200s here at work most of the day. i take a break and open up slashdot and start reading this comment. with my mind still on the ciscos i think "why on earth would i want to serve mail from a router?"
disconnects are most likely just phone line issues (but that's been talked about already)
the way things are today resale is the way to go. rather than you buying up data pipes, servers, dialup boxes, etc... you can get it wholesale from someone else and make a profit! companies have been doing this in the states for phone service for a while now. the company i work for now (T1 provider in the SE US) got started by reselling BellSouth local phone service cheaper than BellSouth sold directly to customers. over time we got big enough to have our own facilities (phone switches, routers, DACS, etc) and now we just lease unbundled loops from Bell.
resale is more a business venture than a tech venture, it's at least somthing to think about tho.
Rambus CEO Geoff Tate said. "If today's decision is allowed to stand, all companies that innovate risk having their intellectual property rights unjustly expropriated."
innovate... that word is tossed around so much today that i'm not sure that anyone really remembers what it means. it's become a buzzword like synergy or crap like that.
all i want (and i'm not the only one) is for people to stand up and demand somthing real from big business! not lawsuits and bickering and this and that. give us somthing we can use! microsoft blathers on about innovation but we've already discussed that. now RAMBUS goes on crying about having its innovation taken away! it's underhanded, it's sneaky and it's not doing a damned thing for the customer! innovation gives something back! it doesn't take and take and take so that someone's stock can go up so they can buy another million dollar house while their customers are screwed!
maybe i'm just pissed off and am not making any sense, but this is insane.
i used to do that, it DID cut down the volume of spam for a while, but it started taking so much time to reply to every single piece that i gave up. once i gave up i was spam free for about 3 weeks then it just came back in force.
In my office the hourly folks who are asked to be on call are paid 3 hours regular time each day they are on call plus time and a half each hour they are in the office if they are called plus 5% shift differential if it is after 7:00pm.
That only applies if you weren't working the day you were on call. If you're on call only in the evenings, you're paid 3 hours overtime just for comming in, plus each additional hour you are in past one hour.
cellphones remind me a pagers back a few years ago. I remember when doctors and important people had pagers. then people who wanted to feel important got pagers. then cellphones (car phones as they were called then) started showing up and then 'normal folk' had pagers. cellphones were a sign of money and importance, so of course the average person would want to have one too. now you can't go anywhere without seeing people everywhere displaying their cellphone. i even heard someone tell me about the different ways you're supposed to wear your cellphone to be cool.
glad you know everything there is to know about networking.
just know that one day, when you least expect it, your 'perfect' network will crash to its knees. you'll toil for hours hours on end to discover the problem.
it won't be some massively complex problem that your vast amount of networking knowledge solves.
it'll be something stupid, like a bent pin in an RJ-45 jack somewhere
Slashdot Mirror
I work for a CLEC (phone company) that provides T1s data and voice. Most of the time we provide a router and manage it ourselves. You would not believe how many admins/IT departments don't know that their windows boxes have been compromised. Someone says their internet is slow, a ticket comes to my group, we look at the traffic going across the router and sure enough, some box inside the network is scanning subnets on a specific TCP or UDP port.
a nd-click = poor security"
we've got the webserver worms scanning on port 80...
then there's a nice SQL hack out there that scans on 1433
there's a netbios hack which scans 139
and there are a few other obscure hacks for some other servces which aren't used too much
in the last year of doing this job, i saw one guy with a linux box and an old, unpatched version of Bind. his box was scanning on port 53 of course.
why do i see so many windows boxes that are hacked/infected? mainly because most people don't know to use anything else!! beyond that they don't manage the boxes like they should (patches, updates...) and on top of that, they don't know when it's been compromised. poor management and lax security practices cause a BIG part of the problem. the correlation most people make is "windows = poor security" when they should be saying "admin-who-doesn't-understand-anything-but-point-
now i'm not a windows advocate, but for crying out loud, if a windows admin keeps up with patches and updates and keeps logs and does all the right stuff, he'll most likely be ok. on the other hand, if a linux admin installs the box and leaves it hanging out on the internet, he's going to have problems.
you know, some hard drives have a jumper on them for hardware level write-protection
The RIAA patents sound in an attempt to draw royalties on everything that makes any sound including but not limited to musical works and things that go bump in the night.
Film at 11:00
I totally agree. Email is really bigger than IM is right now and will remain that way for a while.
Believe me, when a business internet customer's email goes down all hell breaks loose, they never scream about their IM not working.
Additionally, ISPs should start cutting off infected users without hesitation now.
Some ISPs do. I know because I get to cut them off after giving them a warning and ample time to fix the trouble. What's the problem with all of this?
Imagine the following...
Hi, this is Joe Tech from ISP X's Network center, we're seeing that your machine on x.x.x.x is infected with Nimda and this is affecting our network. Your service will be suspended if you don't take care of this.
Customer: uhhhh... how do I fix that? Will the guy at Dell fix it? Why can't you just fix my server and keep this from happening again?
My point, for every 10 business customer's I have only one of them knows A) they even have a web server on their connection B) they had their server's pants down to the whole world C) what nimda is.
besides, people paying business T1 prices don't like being shut off right or wrong.
the reminds me of the old cyrix chips...
a chip with model number 200 was actually only a 150Mhz chip.
this doesn't bother me too much with AMD doing it tho, their processors tend to have more bang for the Mhz anyway unlike those old cyrix things.
You've got a good approach to building systems. It's just too bad most folks can't see past the price barrier of SCSI.
In the interest of customer service, companies will many times fix stuff they didn't break to keep a customer happy. Dell giving away a Mobo is no skin off their back and many times it'll make a customer happier (and easier to deal with) to just say "we'll go ahead and take care of you, but you've been warned..."
1) Joe User likes Windows b/c he uses it all the time and is comfortable.
2) Linux? what's that?
People look at Microsoft as a nessacary evil. They bitch and moan about it crashing and blah blah blah but the truth is they don't see the options. My friends look at my linux boxen and think that's typical for me b/c I'm a tech pioneer. I try things they've never heard of. I play with technology they don't understand and that's my bag as far as they are concerned. Normal users however aren't interested in working outside the OS box (no pun intended) b/c it's territory they don't begin to want to understand.
Either that or they don't care.
I work for a company which provides broadband services to small to medium sized businesses. Many of our customers host their own mail/web/etc servers from their site on their connection. The big downside to that is that most of these operations either have a guy in house who stumbled around IIS long enough to get it working and hasn't touched it since or they contract someone who charges them way too much money to do a shoddy job. In short, 9 out of 10 of our customers have their pants down to the world because they lack expertise and/or experience.
The problem of course gave our trouble resolution group fits.
To make matters worse most of the CPE (customer premise equipment) on the network has some type of web based interface. I don't know all the ins and outs of this worm but I do know that it caused a bit of havoc on all these routers stitting out there listening for port 80 requests. This also gave our trouble resolution group fits.
Just goes to show, worms don't just kill servers.
Microsoft disagreed. Windows XP, which is scheduled for an official launch on Oct. 25, "is designed to bring more choice and options to consumers, not fewer," company spokesman Vivek Varma said, in a statement.
this is a really strong argument i'd say. i mean, who wouldn't want more choices and options!
what choices and options you might ask? well... more.
this is about like microsoft saying "XP is a good product because we said so."
There are a lot of innovative users in the Chicago area, which is exciting.
innovative!! it's their generic term for 'microsoft approved'
these MS marketing guys need a thesauraus(sp?)
grenade launcher and voice acticated mp3 player?
these guys know how to party!
i own win95, 98 and NT4.0
i've used mandrake 6.0 - 8.0
mandrake has been more fun than windows, it's been just as useful, yeah, it's worth it.
thing is i don't mind spending my money on product provided that product is good. i've paid for windows only b/c it's the right thing to do. sure i bought NT4.0 with a student discount, but i'm not into stealing.
i prefer mandrake to windows and it's just a perk that i can get it free (cheaply). however, if they don't get any cash for it, the likelyhood that it's development will slow or stop rises. yes, mandrake is a product, a good product, and it's worth paying for. i think that somewhere down the line i need to show my grattitude and give something back.
if nothing else, it's like saying "thank you"
well you're exactly freakin right!
RIAA is putting out crap and they don't want us to know it until we've bought the disc. no, it's not FUD, it's why they release singles to become hits and make such a big deal about promoting one song off an album of 20 tracks. the industry is and evil evil thing but they're out to make money just like the next guy. trouble is they're not selling the quality product that the people deserve.
trouble is, it's working. sheep go out and buy the new CDs by the coolest bands with the hit single and they listen to that song over and over again because it's the one everybody loves and they know this b/c they heard it twice in the last hour on the radio.
yes people, this is the same reason that 16 year olds are saving up their nickles and dimes to buy 100$ jeans. if it's promoted as 'pop' and 'the thing' then the sheep (people) will sell their souls for it.
the days of the singer who loves his fans has gone. those preformers are few and far between now. these days any old no-talent with a good looking face can be a star! talent and love for the music went out the window with fame and fortune. support local bands! support indie labels! if you don't know these bands then seek them out! these are ARTISTS! these are people who play for the love of playing. these are the folks we want to support!
now that's just a generalization i know. there is no 100% rule here but it's my experience talking. the industry is about money and they're taking advantage of the music lovers.
Under the licensing terms of Linux, it's very easy to share improvements to the Unix-like operating system but legally impossible to make it into a proprietary product such as the competing Microsoft Windows. This arrangement has underlain the growing cooperative effort among numerous companies to collectively improve Linux.
Linux works for whoever wants to work with it. I think this article dances around the idea that big business doesn't care for the MS tax any more than the home user when a viable alternative is avaliable. If many businesses come together to improve Linux, then they can provide their own solutions on their own terms without having to always deal with a third party (namely MS). This is what it's all about, innovation that benefits everyone and not just the vendor.
Big business is in it to make money sure enough, but if operating systems isn't their cash cow, why not use something free to all?
How about serve email from your 7200?
so i've been working in a few of the cisco 7200s here at work most of the day. i take a break and open up slashdot and start reading this comment. with my mind still on the ciscos i think "why on earth would i want to serve mail from a router?"
maybe i need a coffee...
Microsoft has the right to innovate! innovate innovate innovate!!
however, when they run out of innovative ideas for their products they start looking for innovative ways to bill...
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
resale!
disconnects are most likely just phone line issues (but that's been talked about already)
the way things are today resale is the way to go. rather than you buying up data pipes, servers, dialup boxes, etc... you can get it wholesale from someone else and make a profit! companies have been doing this in the states for phone service for a while now. the company i work for now (T1 provider in the SE US) got started by reselling BellSouth local phone service cheaper than BellSouth sold directly to customers. over time we got big enough to have our own facilities (phone switches, routers, DACS, etc) and now we just lease unbundled loops from Bell.
resale is more a business venture than a tech venture, it's at least somthing to think about tho.
Rambus CEO Geoff Tate said. "If today's decision is allowed to stand, all companies that innovate risk having their intellectual property rights unjustly expropriated."
innovate... that word is tossed around so much today that i'm not sure that anyone really remembers what it means. it's become a buzzword like synergy or crap like that.
all i want (and i'm not the only one) is for people to stand up and demand somthing real from big business! not lawsuits and bickering and this and that. give us somthing we can use! microsoft blathers on about innovation but we've already discussed that. now RAMBUS goes on crying about having its innovation taken away! it's underhanded, it's sneaky and it's not doing a damned thing for the customer! innovation gives something back! it doesn't take and take and take so that someone's stock can go up so they can buy another million dollar house while their customers are screwed!
maybe i'm just pissed off and am not making any sense, but this is insane.
from the destroying-intellectual-property-since-1991 dept.
Isn't open source about keeping IP intact? just open?
i used to do that, it DID cut down the volume of spam for a while, but it started taking so much time to reply to every single piece that i gave up. once i gave up i was spam free for about 3 weeks then it just came back in force.
In my office the hourly folks who are asked to be on call are paid 3 hours regular time each day they are on call plus time and a half each hour they are in the office if they are called plus 5% shift differential if it is after 7:00pm.
That only applies if you weren't working the day you were on call. If you're on call only in the evenings, you're paid 3 hours overtime just for comming in, plus each additional hour you are in past one hour.
it's really not a bad deal over all
cellphones remind me a pagers back a few years ago. I remember when doctors and important people had pagers. then people who wanted to feel important got pagers. then cellphones (car phones as they were called then) started showing up and then 'normal folk' had pagers. cellphones were a sign of money and importance, so of course the average person would want to have one too. now you can't go anywhere without seeing people everywhere displaying their cellphone. i even heard someone tell me about the different ways you're supposed to wear your cellphone to be cool.
mine stays in my pocket thank you...
glad you know everything there is to know about networking.
just know that one day, when you least expect it, your 'perfect' network will crash to its knees. you'll toil for hours hours on end to discover the problem.
it won't be some massively complex problem that your vast amount of networking knowledge solves.
it'll be something stupid, like a bent pin in an RJ-45 jack somewhere