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User: macdaddy

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  1. Re:Redirection on Comcast Thinks About Stopping Zombies · · Score: 1
    I'm not really concerned about it at all. In fact it's the only sensible thing to do no matter what your perspective is. A person should in almost every circumstance use their provider's MTA. If you want to run your own server then you're not a typical customer. You shouldn't have the same type of service that a typical customer has. You should have a class of service that fits your needs and it should cost you. That's why all major edge providers offer business class services. That's also why I worded what I wrote the way I did.

    And I also have to point out a major blunder in you last paragraph. Blocking outbound SMTP doesn't stop a small perentage of spam; it blocks the largest percentage of spam. Far and away the vast majority of spam is sent by compromised end-user desktop machines. The blocks on outbound SMTP weren't meant to target open relays. It's meant to target open proxies. You know, the little thing viruses like SoBig introduced... Almost all viruses come from compromised desktops. Blocking outbound SMTP is not on the the right thing to do, it's also the most sensible and logical.

  2. Re:Home Cellular Repeater - Cheap!! on Where's Your 'D-Spot?' · · Score: 1

    I would love to find a solution for getting cellular coverage for my folks out in the country. You can get a tiny signal about half a mile down the drive way. You can get a pretty good signal up on the hill a mile south of the house. You can probably get a pretty good signal on the hill a mile west of the house (tower is SE of the house, house backs up to a large hill on the east). If only I could retransmit the signal from one of those two hills. The carrier used to be called Kansas Cellular, now Alltel. They used to have a fancy map in all their offices that showed their cellular coverage across Kansas. It was color coded by signal strength from the towers out. They had almost every square inch of the state covered, even the barren western Kansas counties. I say almost because they actually had a small hole in their coverage area. That's where my home town is and where my folks built 5 miles north of town. If only they'd add one my stinkin' tower over here. grrrrr.....

  3. Redirection on Comcast Thinks About Stopping Zombies · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm trying to convince the powers that be to redirect outbound SMTP from all but our business customers and our own server farms to our local SMTP servers. That way we'd force all our normal customers into a mandatory Smarthost configuration. The only problem I've found while trying to get this going is a problem with redirection on Ciscos. It's been a few weeks since I stumbled across it. It's something about the redirected packet using the wrong source IP when dumped onto the wire facing the target of the redirection. Something like that. With a simple Linux firewall this wouldn't be a problem. I vote for redirection personally. Still this adversely affects users using SMTP authentication.

  4. BS on Does SPAM Unsubscribing Really Work? · · Score: 1

    I call bullshit. In fact as an anti-spam professional I know this is a load of crap. I have numerous domains I use for spamtraps and nothing else. I've scripted the seeding of hundreds of thousands of unique addresses for each domain (proper_pronoun@domain.tld) with these "remove" links. I've also seeded addresses with unique information that identified the "remove" form used to seed that particular list. I now get hundreds of thousands of pieces of spam per day on my spamtraps. Before I moved I was accepting and auto-reporting all that spam to NANAS and the FTC. When I moved I was forced to make the MX on all my spamtrap domains be localhost since I no longer had the bandwidth to accomodate the spew of spam. I can say with absolute certainty that "remove" forms DO NOT WORK. Anyone that uses them is an absolute idiot. If you know of any such idiot, lend them a hand and "unsubscribe" their address with every "remove" form you can find. If they're so sure it works then there shouldn't be any problem doing just that. I honestly can not believe that people actually think this works..

  5. Re:Reinstall TCP/IP stack... on Worst Explanation From Tech Support? · · Score: 1

    Yep. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It was such a common thing back when I did tech support that we made it one of the very first things we'd try (just after "is it plugged in" and "do you see an Apple in the upper left corner of the screen?" :-) ).

  6. Re:Real plans for the future? on Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Released · · Score: 1

    Well, the thing is it probably wouldn't require a Windows license. I'd expect Windows to be completely transparent to the user. Basically a stripped down version of Windows. You know, the kind they claim they can't create without breaking Windows. ;-) It might happen. Might not either. I won't be surprised if/when it does though. Economics always wins in the end.

  7. Re:Reinstall TCP/IP stack... on Worst Explanation From Tech Support? · · Score: 1
    You're kidding, right? I can't even remember how many times I came across a Win95 box with a hosed up TCP/IP stack. No, I'm not kidding. I'd say 40% of our Win95 calls that had absolutely no other explanation were fixed be uninstalling the TCP/IP adapter and Ethernet nic driver (tried previously unsuccessfully), rebooting, and reinstalling. It was the mysterious fix for almost all problems that didn't seem to have any other fix. In the end it happened so much that it became one of the first things we'd try when arriving onsite to fix a problem.

    As a Mac guy I've also seen this happen dozens of times, especially when OpenTransport made it's debute in System 7.5. Fortunately it was quite easy to do on the Mac if you knew what you were doing. Hell I could still do it blindfolded being an old Mac guru.

  8. Firewall on 71% of Spam Servers are Located in China · · Score: 1

    I guess the Great Firewall of China isn't doing it's job then. Maybe we need one on our end instead. :-)

  9. Re:Real plans for the future? on Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Released · · Score: 1

    They actually are a good team. That's surprising for MS. Still I think it's going to happen. It's costing them a small fortune to develop a handful of duplicate products just for the Mac community. I can't think of any other non-Office applications that they make for the Mac anymore with the exception of MSN and Windows Media Player. I think if they could emulate that and use the same player for both platforms they would. I too hate to see the team get broken up. Maybe Apple or Adobe could hire them. :-)

  10. Real plans for the future? on Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Released · · Score: 1

    I still say that Microsoft will stop making Office for the Mac and instead replace it with Office for Windows and a PC Emulator running a stripped-down Windows (VirtualPC which they bought from Connectix).

  11. FCC Violation on Cell Phone Jammers: Coming To An Event Near You? · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't interfering with those radio transmissions be a FCC violation? The devices that transmit on those frequencies have to not interfere with other devices IIRC. Interesting thought.

  12. Not a new thing on Manure-Powered Generators On The Rise · · Score: 1

    I saw a documentary about something just like this in Michigan or Wisconsin or some place like that. The dairy farmer pushed all the manure into a oblong pit, add a small amount of yeast and water, and let it rot. The methane produced powered the large dairy farm, a couple nearby cities, and a few additional farms. This is a great thing let me tell you. The only downside is that at the moment it's only practical to do this with dairy farms. Let me explain. Dairy cattle (Holstein and Jersey are by far the most common) have to be milked twice daily, usually but depends on the breed, age, and environmental conditions. The cattle are hearded into a dairy barn by human or dog (dogs are excellent for this). Each cow ends up in their own stall head first. Usually the stalls are elevated above the walkway for the farmer and his help. The cattle are fed while the farmer milks his cows. Today this is easily done with milking machines. While the cows are being fed and milked they tend to shit. They tend to shit a lot in fact. Now here's why dairy cattle are the only practical application for harvesting manure. Milking buildings have concrete floors. All the shit ends up on concrete floors rather than in a pasture or feedlot. With a little foresight one could easily engineer a dairy barn that facilitates the collection of manure with machinery. Pure manure ends up in the hopper for methane production rather than a manure/dirt mix like what you'd get if you harvested manure from a feedlot (like the world's largest feedlot in Dodge or Garden City, KS (or it at least was, not sure if it still is). You can easily harvest the crap and nothing but the crap from a concrete pad in a dairy farm. The same can't be said about a feedlot. It would be interesting to see a solution to the problem though. There's no reason for us to not harvest that potential source of energy.

  13. Re:Sudo and CVS on How Would You Distribute Root Access? · · Score: 1

    I have a root-level user (uid 0) for each of my admins. Works ok. Could be better. I've also written a simple wrapper around our CLI text editors like vi (bleah!), joe (ewww), and pico (don't laugh!) to stuff the changes into RCS with a copy of $LOGNAME and a timestamp as comments. It works pretty well. That way I can tell which admin ran chmod -R 720 .* from their personal home directory (grrrrrrr).

  14. Re:Hang on... on Justice Department Censors ACLU Web Site · · Score: 1
    ...I have great faith in individual American citizens...but frankly your government blow...and sucks at the same time...

    I hope that when I travel abroad in the future that other people think the same way.

  15. Re:So on Justice Department Censors ACLU Web Site · · Score: 1

    *nods*

  16. Re:Your civil rights called... on Justice Department Censors ACLU Web Site · · Score: 1

    That's right. I never really have understood it though. As someone defending our country, its people, and their rights the heroic defenders don't get to enjoy the same rights and freedoms as those they are defending. The most basic of which is the right to freedom of speech. I never really have understood that. That's one reason why I could never be in the armed forces. My hats off to those that are though.

  17. Re:Your civil rights called... on Justice Department Censors ACLU Web Site · · Score: 1

    Right on target. If all the smaller groups that you mentioned banded together along with the intelligent tech voters, we could very well swing the vote. I think Bush has managed to piss on enough of the minorities in his 4 years of screwups that he'll easily be given the boot. I just wish we had someone better than Kerry to replace him. Maybe next time we will.

  18. Re:Your civil rights called... on Justice Department Censors ACLU Web Site · · Score: 1

    A lot of folks thought the PATRIOT Act was a good thing at the time. However not hardly anybody (and that includes US, you and me) bothered to read what it actually did until after it passed. In fact we all thought it was an ok thing until people started pointing out the various ways it could abuse our civil liberties. The fact of the matter is almost no one bothered to read what they were voting for and took what the Justice Department mouthpieces said the law did on face value alone. It would have never gotten into law if sufficient time had been available for it to be read and understood.

  19. Re:Ok, here's plan B for pirates using XP on Slashback: XPiracy, Panel, Gentoo · · Score: 1

    Starcraft? Age of Kings? (even I have to relent sometimes and cheat my way into a rousing game of AoK) SOF2? I haven't played a game in a long time. :-(

  20. Well duh on 802.11 WiFi Denial of Service Exploit Discovered · · Score: 1

    This isn't news. Any ham radio operator can legally disrupt a wifi network if they are using the same frequency(ies). Hams take precendence over those frequencies and can therefore tell the wifi operators to shut their equipment down. I wrote about this a couple years ago at my last job when our Unv was considering rolling out some wifi. Nothing new here. $5 worth of electronics can be used to illegally disrupt wifi too. Fun, eh? :-)

  21. Re:clarification on How to Protect a Network Against Lightning? · · Score: 1

    Actually no. NEC states that both uninsulated grounds and neutrals can be connected to the same bus bar. Both the ground bus bar and neutral bus bar are connected through the back of the panel. Best practice is to connect the ground homeruns on the bus bar physically connected nearest to the site ground cable and return ground to the pole; then connect the neutral homeruns on the far bus bar. I'm wiring a house as we speak so this is fresh in my mind. I thought I'd toss that into the discussion.

  22. Cash on What's the Right Way to Accept Donations? · · Score: 1

    In cash of course. :-)

  23. Snow skiers on Privacy in the Woods? · · Score: 1

    Don't they highly recommend a tracking system for snow skiers in the form of a medallion on a lanyard that rescue teams could home in on if a skier is believed to be caught in an avalanche? It doesn't track people on their trek across the mountain. It's only used when something bad happens. They highly recommend skiers (in avalanche environments) carry them. Maybe hikers should do something similar.

  24. Re:parent is a troll, and flamebait on Videogame Character Threatens National Security? · · Score: 1

    Ask and ye shall receive, troll.

  25. Re:Hey on Mars & The Teachable Moment · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The same could be said of religion, correct? Just because the story is on paper doesn't make it any more truthful.