I'm sorry man but this is nonsense. Have you ever seen a tornado or done much of any research into them?
You know, it used to be that people said they were safe in a big city. They believed the warm air bubble that seems to form around a city would protect them. That theory at least had some merit, allbeit a bad one. To debunk that theory one just has to list the large cities hit by tornados.
Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX
Wichita, KS
Oklahoma City, OK
Salt Lake City, UT
Memphis, TN
Topeka, KS
Nashville, TN
Miami, FL
At least that theory had merit. There used to be a myth that tornados only formed where two rivers met. Of course that's bunk but 50 years ago people just weren't sure.
I hate to say it but your theory isn't worth repeating, in public at least.
Re:the 1999 Tornado killed because it was so huge
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Surviving Tornadoes
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· Score: 4, Informative
Technically speaking F5 isn't the largest tornado. Ted Fujita'sscale was actually calculated through F-12, better known as Mach-I or the speed of sound (750 mph). The scale NOAA uses to categorize tornados ranges from F-0 to F-5. However an F-6 is entirely possible. A F-6 would have winds measuring 319-379 mph. It's actually believed that the Moore/Oklahoma City tornado was an F-6. However they'll never be able to prove it. The F-6 is called the "inconceivable tornado" and the "impossible tornado". It's not inconceivable or impossible that it will ever happen (or has ever happened) but that it's inconceivable and impossible by any practical measure to prove it ever happened. The F-6 damage would be masked by the damage caused by F-4 and F-5 winds around the core. The only way something like this could ever be proved is if researchers had an abundance of data and aerial views to compute the projected wind speed based on the ground swirl patterns in the debris. Most people don't realize that a tornado isn't categorized by its actual size. Many hear 1/2 mile wide and think "gee, it has to be a F-5." Not so. Tornados are classified by their wind speed. Wind speed can't be calculated at the actual time of damage (ie, they can't be taken directly from the tornado itself (yet)). Wind speed is calculated by the amount and type of damage done. For example researchers know exactly how muhc force it takes to put up a Ford Excursion and hurl it 45 yards. They know how much wind speed is takes to topple a 25-year old red oak tree in rocky soil. They know that it doesn't take much more than a stiff breeze to topple that 30-year old maple tree in moist soil (because it's soft as hell and moist soil means nutrients closer to the ground surface so you see a great deal of surface roots).
Tornados are a bitch. People would be well advised to learn about them and learn how to protect themselves before they have to adlib.
Re:Why do people live there? They have to!
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Surviving Tornadoes
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· Score: 1
Well, not really, no. It's not really a matter of economics. You'll find trailer parks in any city. Trailer parks are neccessarily the ghettos of the midwest either. Many of the mobile home parks are retirment residences. These are actually very nice doublewides. Do trailer home parks attract tornados more than a neighborhood of stick built homes? No. Then why do we see so many trailer parks destroyed? We can thank the media for this. It's much easier for a tornado to rip a mobile home to shreds than it is for it to do the same to a stick built home. Given that fact you'll see many more destroyed residences in a trailer park than you will in a stick built neighborhood. The media of course is attracted like magnets to the worst of the death and destruction and hence end up in trailer parks (back to their roots?). They can get more death and destruction in one shot in a trailer park. You don't have to live in a mobile home to lose your home to a tornado though. Take a look at these pictures. Follow the links at the top of the page. Look at photo gallery 2, the first picture. I was in that van in that very spot the day before that picture was taken feeding hamburger macoroni to the residents and emergency workers. There isn't anything left of that town. I didn't see any signs of mobile homes. They all appeared to have been stick built. Not good.
Re:we need to develope construction techniques
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Surviving Tornadoes
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· Score: 1
I hear you. Last night the tornados in Labette county were set to pass south of Pittsburg by about 10 miles. They weakened at the last minute and turned into Pittsburg. The cells headed your way were pretty damned big though. Glad to hear all were ok.
There should be some law against rubbernecking. Besides the damage it can cause in disasters such as these, rubbernecking is probably the 2nd most prominent cause of motor-vehicle accidents. You know that Police Pursuit shows on FX (I call them Fuck Up Shit Caught on Tape)? Look at at prevelant it is for a rubbernecker to hit an officer that has someone pulled over on the side of the road. There should be some sort of severe penalties for crap like that.
You know, I have to wonder if any of the 3 lives in Franklin could have been saved if the emergency response folks could have gotten to those people sooner. I haven't heard how those 3 died. I know one by Liberal was hit by debris and died at the hospital. Nevertheless it makes you wonder how many lives the rubberneckers put at risk by their careless and thoughtless gawking.
Why don't they wait for the media to cover the damage? Then they could sit on their asses at home and watch it on TV. At the very least they could wait a week or two. There will still be plenty of damage to gawk at then. I swear these damn city folks... grrrr... >8-{ I felt pretty worthless in the Red Cross chow waggon but at least I was doing something which is more than the gawkers did. *sigh*
Re:we need to develope construction techniques
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Surviving Tornadoes
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Few people lose their lives nowadays though. Almost every single piece of bad weather it predicted well in advance by NOAA and the NWS and alerts are issued. I live in Pittsburg, KS (the far SE corner of KS). 6 miles north of me 3 people died in Franklin, KS in last Sunday's tornados. Those 3 people ignored the warnings on radio, TV, and via local fire whistles to take shelter. The gambled and they lost. For some reason people simply do not pay attention to the weather. They don't listen to the radios during periods common for tornados. They don't own a weather radio. They simply play dumb and hope they're safe. The evidence shows that they are not.
This tornado is the 5th that I've helped clean up after. I grew up 2.5 hours west of here, south of Wichita. I cleaned up from 4 different tornado incidents back home, including my grandfathers farm/ranch. Back home those families that weren't hit help those that were. That very night or early the following morning the community decends on the destruction in mass to help clean up. I was surprised by what happened in Franklin. I went up there expecting to help people dig out like I'd done before. I couldn't get into the town. The police were guarding all the entrances to the town and only permitting entrance to those people with photo ID that proved they lived in the affected area. As it turns out, within 30 minutes of the tornado city folks swamped the city streets looking for damage. They were rubbernecking. They couldn't stay home and watch it on TV. They had to get in their cars and drive through the affected areas looking for death and destruction. This prevented emergency vehicles from being able to gain access to those areas. Hence, the city was shut down. Damned city folk. In the end I donated some clothing and rode an Red Cross IRV and served food all day. I would have felt more useful doing something else but someone had to feed the people and workers.
Back on topic. There is no such thing as a tornado proof building. NOAA has done hundreds of studies into building material. They have yet to find anything that can withstand the winds of even a strong F3 tornado. A F3 tornado damaged reinforced concrete. A F4 ripped reinforced concrete apart. A F5 crumbles it into little bits. What needs to be focused on is tornado shelters and getting people into them. Homes and possessions can be replaced. People can not.
My home town had 200 people (and change) in it when I was a senior in high school. In 2000 the census reported that 231 people lived there. My school district was composed of about 10 small towns in the area. The elementary school had 220 students while the high school and junior together had 200. My 6th grade class at the elementary school (two in the district at the time) I attended had 6 guys in it. One teacher taught to grades at the same time. My class actually had a Senior Trip in high school. I knew every one of my teachers' full names, their spouses' names and faces, and their childrens' names. My teachers all knew me personally; I wasn't just an ID number to them. I knew the name of every student in school. At the time the football team played regulation 11-man football; however they've been playing 8-man for the past few years due to decreased player numbers. In school we didn't have to "try out" for any sport or other extra-curicular activity like band, choir, the debate team, or class plays. The top ten percent in my senior class was 3.2 people (used for scholarship applications). We had woodshop and vo-ag classes. Do you know how to weld? Do you know what resawing is or what machine you normally use to do it? My school didn't have metal detectors. I carried a pocket knife to school every day, as did all of the male teachers/staff.
When I lived in that area I could recognize roughly 90% of the vehicles I met on the road. The driver (and passengers) of 90% of the vehicles on the road would wave back at you. I still can recognize most of them or at least the driver. I know I'm getting close to home when I can wave and someone waves back. My town had community ice cream socials and bean feeds every year and nearly everyone would show up. The town would all but shut down for a funeral because we all knew one another. If you were the victim's family, the other community families would bring you enough food for a week. If you were ill, you were inundated with get-well cards. The town triples in size when there is a Liebau, Miller, or Conklin family reunion. The Liebau family has a barn dance every year (although there isn't much dancing any more); everyone is invited; almost the entire town attends. My grandmother used to teach in a one-room school house about 4 miles from town. She taught the local preacher in that school house and his sons in the new school many years later. That preacher laid her to rest 2 years ago this week in our town cemetery. My grandfather was a "handi-man", combination electrician, plumber, carpenter, and mechanic. He worked in that town and the surrounding counties for years and made a good living. He didn't even need to be bonded or certified for people to hire him. Knowing him and his family personally was enough. Seeing a dozen horse trailers lining the side streets near the local cafe in the early morning is a common scene. Seeing someone wearing chaps, cowboy hat, cowboy boots, spurs is a as normal as seeing a mud-covered tractor driving down main street. I used to ride my horse, Jingles, up and down the streets of that town all day long and no one batted an eye. Trick-O-Treaters didn't have to be escorted by parents. Parents didn't have to worry if Pearl Stauffer, my old babysitter and the old woman on the corner, gave out homemade popcorn balls. They knew it was ok. On a summer night you can hear the crikets, coyotes, and the train going through Moline eight miles away.
Do you get the point I'm trying to make here?
The size of your town is relative only to your own perspective. Don't assume that we all share the same viewpoint as you.
PS==> This article isn't in the "mac" section. It's in the Apple section.
Think about it this way. Why on Earth would you want to call the people who have gone out of their way to say they don't want to talk to you? It's not likely they are likely to buy anything from you just because their impressed you can ring through on their landline and around whatever means they have to block you. All you'll really accomplish is to piss them off even further.
It might even be possible to say that by intentionally bypassing someone's blocks they put on your incoming calls that you're harassing them. IANAL though. I only play one on slashdot.
I've been an active anti-spammer for quite a while now and am quite proud of the knowledge I've acquired in the fight against spam. I even make good money off of filtering spam for others. As an anti-spammer I'm sure you've encountered folks that simply don't understand the purpose for a DNS blacklist. They claim it's prone to false-positives, dated information, legality issues, informally administrated, submission information isn't verified, hard to get removed from a DNSBL, or just plain silly (I actually had a person tell me this once). Most of these people make such claims due to a bad experience they personally had with a DNS blacklist at some point. It might be that they didn't get a newsletter they'd signed up for, when it reality the sender might actually use spam as a marketing tool. It could also be that they no longer get yahoogroups.com mail, when in reality they harbor spammers and take no action on abuse complaints. It could also be that they themselves had a MTA listed, when in reality they were incompetent mail admins and their MTA was an open relay. The last one is the worst of all. Unfortunately a large number of the people that have said these things somehow manage to call themselves mail administrators.
As a mail admin, I'm sure you have a better understanding than most about how much spam can hurt a business and can see the usefulness in DNS blacklists. How do you make the case for DNS blacklists when faced with the misguided biasness from those that simply don't understand?
...this is somewhat old news by a couple three weeks anyways. I noticed this a while back while looking up IPs I suspected of being open relay/proxies or just generally borked. The ARIN registry referred me to LACNIC. This was at least a couple weeks back. I don't know much other than that.
LACNIC, soon to be synonomous LAXNIC, shore for LAXATIVE-NIC, because a little spam goes in and a whole buttload of it comes out (with great force I might add).
I'm not for absolute certain on this but I'm pretty sure. I can go get our director's Tibook and verify it though. I'm pretty sure the back panel is either metal or is metal underneith a plastic layer. I'm pretty sure it's the first one.
Re:Why content filtering is not enough
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As the Spam Turns
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· Score: 2
" Open proxies [monkeys.com] are just as common today -- and worse, since they hide the tracks of spammers. (They're also used by all sorts of other abusers.) Moreover, open proxies are harder to get people to close down, since blocking access from them to mail servers doesn't usually affect their legitimate users -- and thus doesn't draw their attention."
Additionally it's also harder to get proxies closed because every 3rd Joe has one and any old Joe can run one on his DSL/cable-connect PC. In other words there isn't a competent admin behind the wheel whereas most production mail server generally have someone responsible for the machine even if they might not be competent.
Another problem that I see is MTAs that are still configured as open relays out of the box even today. Exchange has always been this way to the best of my knowledge. Are the later versions this way too? I'd have to say that all the IPs I relay check and find to be open, 95% of then are Exchange boxes. The other 5 percent oddball mail gateways or really really old Sendmail installations. I asked Joe Jared if he'd consider adding the MTAs HELO string to the message that rbcheck mails him and keeping track and graphing which MTAs are most often an open relay. Exchange would be the hands down winner.
Re:Why content filtering is not enough
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As the Spam Turns
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· Score: 2
"Sure, DNSBLs and other blacklists help. They should be used. The content filtering is just perfect for covering that last mile..."
Correct. I word it differently though. No good defense in comprised of a single layer. Every defense has multiple layers. With regardles to spam filtering, the first layer is DNSBLs at the MTA level. Next would be RFC2822 sanity checking at the MTA level (example, is the MessageID borked). The next layer is server-side scoring with tools like SpamAssassin. As an additional option your LDA can use the scoring to discard, or file certain matches in specific mail spools. Everything else is done at the MUA level with user filters, hopefully using the scoring mechanism's output. That's the way it should work.
Now if your institution can stand little to no false positives then this process should still apply to you, but with a few changes and restrictions. The DNSBLs used at the MTA level for message rejection should be limited to only those DNSBLs that list misconfigured servers (open relays, open proxies, vulnerable formmail.cgi machines, etc...). You could also say that direct-to-MX blacklists could also be used with no expected false positives. The other types of DNSBLs are more subjective and *could* give you false positives. I didn't used to consider Spamhaus to be very non-subjective, assuming they only listed the spammers. However I now have to consider them subjective since they listed Verio and not the spammer (not that I hold that against them. I'll still use the SBL until the day I die. I just have to look at them in a slightly different light). SPEWS is very subjective; I use it heavily though. Country-code DNSBLs, will not subjective, will give you numerous false positives. You should stilled rejected malformed messages with at the MTA level. You should still use Spamassassin. However you should raise your personal filtering rules by 3-4 points if you want practically not FPs. You can also use the DNSBLs that are subjective (or country-coded) in SpamAssassin scores. Set each one's score to.5-2, depending on your taste. At the LDA level you can still automatically organize your incoming mail into spam or not spam. However you should probably not delete incoming mail unless it has a very high score. At you MUA level you should also not auto-delete mail unless the score is very high. Making these changes to your setup will reduce you FP rate. Personally I use the first setup.
Spammers can kiss my spamhole, and you can quote me on that.
I guess you've never seen the itty bitty screws that hold the rack mount brackets to the device they're holding up. Little bitty teeny tiny screws compared to the bitches that attach the brackets to the racks.
In fact I said it in a later posting. If Verion lawyers up and cartooneys, the sound that they'll hear is resounding *PLONK* from admins like ourselves as they earn themselves their own entry in our personal DNS blacklists. I don't mind one bit blacklisting them to hell and gone if they pull a legal stunt. They can rot in my spambin.
If Verio takes unfounded legal actions...
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As the Spam Turns
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· Score: 2
...the sound they will here will be a resounded *PLONK* as they are entered into a thousands of mail admins' personal blacklists everywhere including my own. When Exactis sued MAPS, all they managed to do was to get permanent REJECT entries in Sendmail ACLs everywhere. Verio should expect no less.
...I think all IT people should do SOME consulting and make it known to your co-workers that you have done some. I don't mind answering a question from a past employer if I left on good terms. I will not do work for free though. Currently I do consulting on the side and I've made it clearly known to everyone that I do it. That way if a former employer (left on good terms) calls me for help, they should not be surprised if I tell them that I'm doing consulting in my spare time and that if I work for them my standard consulting rate will be applied to the task. In fact they really should expect it. If they say no then simply say that you're doing this as a business now and can't afford to do pro bono work.
ALso, a minimum number of hours is also worth it. Min 3 is fair for most tasks like KIA server. Min 2 or even 1 if the task is pidly and you want to make the point. Also make it know that your charging system works like the telephone company's long distance system, only you count by hours and not minutes. Ie, you round up to the next hour regardless if you work 5 or 45 minutes into an next hour.
You should have all this stuff typed up in a contract and have it signed by the boss (no one else!) as soon as you get onsite. Without it, don't do any work. Also don't negotiate. That's the contract, take it or leave it. You need to have legalease wording that absolves you of all responsibility if the system breaks again after you leave. You need to make it clear that you can't be sued after the fact. I travel is required, include a blurb about mileage and the rate. Include text that says what will happen if they fail to pay by 30 days after service is rendered. Also say that failing to pay also includes a bad check.
Carry a carbon copy ticket book with you. As you work on different systems, write out what the system is and why you're doing it on the carbon form. Write down every system you have to touch and the major points of what you do to each. "Had to reboot border router." "Had to kick the DNS box in the nads". Before you leave have the boss (no one else!) sign the each carbon page (if you had to use multiple pages) and give them one set of the carbons and file away the others. This way you can show exactly what systems you touched. If their NT box breaks later and you didn't touch it, they can't blame you for it. It's also very wise to record all tty output (commands, stdout, etc). If you have a laptop with a CDR in it, burn two copies to disk. Both you and the boss should sign both. Give them one. Don't let them leave you alone at any point and time during the onsite visit. If you aren't alone, they can't claim you stole backup tapes from the locker or pissed under the raised floor.
Write every password they gave you on the carbon mentioned above. Include in your contract that they are responsible for changing every password they gave you after you leave. Also include that you are absolved from any future damages coming from said systems where the passwords weren't changed. Writing it on the carbon emphasizes this.
It's important to make sure the signatures are from a person at the company authorized to pay you. Odds are you old super isn't authorized to make such payment. The director of the dept is usually the person that can do such things. They could potentially claim that the person that signed the contract wasn't authorized to make such agreements. Don't give them a way out like that.
It wouldn't hurt to use a tape recorder for all verbal conversations and make that something else they agree to in the contract.
Have the contract say something about parking (if parking garage fees are incurred or if a certain parking permit is required for parking (tickets or towing are the penalty).
All these are just some of the ways you could potentially get screwed. It's better to take precautions beforehand than post mortem.
...I could honestly get more done if some of my co-workers were given the boot. Deadwood isn't the same as someone who intentionally causes problems and slows down productivity. Deadwood is more synonymous with "dead weight". Those that intentionally cause problems are the real burden on IT institutions. Those are people in power positions that do not know everything (or anything) technical but think they do. They try to slow things down and cause problems to have these tasks put under their incompetent selves or try to improve their competency standing by questioning others. They try to make technical decisions that they have absolutely no right to make. If management would take 3 steps back and let the grunts do the job, everything would get done a lot faster and a lot better. However this is not to say that there aren't problematic grunts. Grunts that do not want to change are a big problem. Grunts that want everything technical to be funneled through them are another problem. Cutting or controlling the fat in IT groups would greatly increase productivity.
I might also add that I think people with colleagues that have been axed work harder and take on more responsibility with no additional pay just to try and keep their own jobs. In the end what suffers is their health and the quality of their work.
...about ten minutes and you'll get all the information you need to get your degree from a Windows messenger popup ad. I've found them to be really handy!
"How much time would the gov waste if we all sent blank emails to Kabul?"
Why send blank messages? Why not send cryptic "orders"?
The pink cow is on the grassy roof.
I repeat, the monkey has left the cornhole.
Release the reindeer. The rabbit is horny.
Eagle spies a floater. Release the corn. Emergency blow!
I made a comment up higher that applies here. If the pres could line item veto part of a bill and then resubmit it back to the houses, everyone gets to vote on it again. This way the pres could say I'm not letting this through until you cut the fat. Of course it would make things go even slower than they already do. Of course if fatty bills never made it to the pres, everything would work anyhow. I don't think ANY BS item should be allowed to be added to a major bill without extensive (read: months) of deliberation. If it isn't present right the first time, kill it, rewrite it, and try again IMHO.
Perhaps if the pres could line item veto a piece of it and then resubmit it back to the houses for another round of voting it would work. That way everyone gets a chance to vote again. My $.02.
Well, ok I am impressed that Mozilla is implementing spam filtering abilities in their MUA. I AM NOT impressed with Bayesian spam filters AT ALL. I've been using Mac OS X's Mail.app since I switched to OS X. It's not my primary MUA but I am letting it POP out a copy of all my mail and "learn" from it. It does a pretty good job of finding maybe 80% of the spam I get. However it has a BAD false-positive rate. I mean hell its been flagging CERT advisories as spam. That kind of crap is really annoying. It's flagged co-workers' mail as spam numerous times (and even though I happen to agree...:) ). The biggest problem I have with Bayesian as a mail admin is that I am constantly dealing with spam. Users forward it to me. I receive a number of spam bounces. I work in spam all that damned time. That's the problem. I need a MUA with Bayesian filters that are smart enough for me to tell them to ignore all mail from certain domains or that went to certain accounts. All of the Bayesian filters built into MUAs I've worked with so far can't do things like that. It's really annoying given the position that I'm in.
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You know, it used to be that people said they were safe in a big city. They believed the warm air bubble that seems to form around a city would protect them. That theory at least had some merit, allbeit a bad one. To debunk that theory one just has to list the large cities hit by tornados.
Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX
Wichita, KS
Oklahoma City, OK
Salt Lake City, UT
Memphis, TN
Topeka, KS
Nashville, TN
Miami, FL
At least that theory had merit. There used to be a myth that tornados only formed where two rivers met. Of course that's bunk but 50 years ago people just weren't sure.
I hate to say it but your theory isn't worth repeating, in public at least.
Tornados are a bitch. People would be well advised to learn about them and learn how to protect themselves before they have to adlib.
Well, not really, no. It's not really a matter of economics. You'll find trailer parks in any city. Trailer parks are neccessarily the ghettos of the midwest either. Many of the mobile home parks are retirment residences. These are actually very nice doublewides. Do trailer home parks attract tornados more than a neighborhood of stick built homes? No. Then why do we see so many trailer parks destroyed? We can thank the media for this. It's much easier for a tornado to rip a mobile home to shreds than it is for it to do the same to a stick built home. Given that fact you'll see many more destroyed residences in a trailer park than you will in a stick built neighborhood. The media of course is attracted like magnets to the worst of the death and destruction and hence end up in trailer parks (back to their roots?). They can get more death and destruction in one shot in a trailer park. You don't have to live in a mobile home to lose your home to a tornado though. Take a look at these pictures. Follow the links at the top of the page. Look at photo gallery 2, the first picture. I was in that van in that very spot the day before that picture was taken feeding hamburger macoroni to the residents and emergency workers. There isn't anything left of that town. I didn't see any signs of mobile homes. They all appeared to have been stick built. Not good.
There should be some law against rubbernecking. Besides the damage it can cause in disasters such as these, rubbernecking is probably the 2nd most prominent cause of motor-vehicle accidents. You know that Police Pursuit shows on FX (I call them Fuck Up Shit Caught on Tape)? Look at at prevelant it is for a rubbernecker to hit an officer that has someone pulled over on the side of the road. There should be some sort of severe penalties for crap like that.
You know, I have to wonder if any of the 3 lives in Franklin could have been saved if the emergency response folks could have gotten to those people sooner. I haven't heard how those 3 died. I know one by Liberal was hit by debris and died at the hospital. Nevertheless it makes you wonder how many lives the rubberneckers put at risk by their careless and thoughtless gawking.
Why don't they wait for the media to cover the damage? Then they could sit on their asses at home and watch it on TV. At the very least they could wait a week or two. There will still be plenty of damage to gawk at then. I swear these damn city folks... grrrr... >8-{ I felt pretty worthless in the Red Cross chow waggon but at least I was doing something which is more than the gawkers did. *sigh*
This tornado is the 5th that I've helped clean up after. I grew up 2.5 hours west of here, south of Wichita. I cleaned up from 4 different tornado incidents back home, including my grandfathers farm/ranch. Back home those families that weren't hit help those that were. That very night or early the following morning the community decends on the destruction in mass to help clean up. I was surprised by what happened in Franklin. I went up there expecting to help people dig out like I'd done before. I couldn't get into the town. The police were guarding all the entrances to the town and only permitting entrance to those people with photo ID that proved they lived in the affected area. As it turns out, within 30 minutes of the tornado city folks swamped the city streets looking for damage. They were rubbernecking. They couldn't stay home and watch it on TV. They had to get in their cars and drive through the affected areas looking for death and destruction. This prevented emergency vehicles from being able to gain access to those areas. Hence, the city was shut down. Damned city folk. In the end I donated some clothing and rode an Red Cross IRV and served food all day. I would have felt more useful doing something else but someone had to feed the people and workers.
Back on topic. There is no such thing as a tornado proof building. NOAA has done hundreds of studies into building material. They have yet to find anything that can withstand the winds of even a strong F3 tornado. A F3 tornado damaged reinforced concrete. A F4 ripped reinforced concrete apart. A F5 crumbles it into little bits. What needs to be focused on is tornado shelters and getting people into them. Homes and possessions can be replaced. People can not.
When I lived in that area I could recognize roughly 90% of the vehicles I met on the road. The driver (and passengers) of 90% of the vehicles on the road would wave back at you. I still can recognize most of them or at least the driver. I know I'm getting close to home when I can wave and someone waves back. My town had community ice cream socials and bean feeds every year and nearly everyone would show up. The town would all but shut down for a funeral because we all knew one another. If you were the victim's family, the other community families would bring you enough food for a week. If you were ill, you were inundated with get-well cards. The town triples in size when there is a Liebau, Miller, or Conklin family reunion. The Liebau family has a barn dance every year (although there isn't much dancing any more); everyone is invited; almost the entire town attends. My grandmother used to teach in a one-room school house about 4 miles from town. She taught the local preacher in that school house and his sons in the new school many years later. That preacher laid her to rest 2 years ago this week in our town cemetery. My grandfather was a "handi-man", combination electrician, plumber, carpenter, and mechanic. He worked in that town and the surrounding counties for years and made a good living. He didn't even need to be bonded or certified for people to hire him. Knowing him and his family personally was enough. Seeing a dozen horse trailers lining the side streets near the local cafe in the early morning is a common scene. Seeing someone wearing chaps, cowboy hat, cowboy boots, spurs is a as normal as seeing a mud-covered tractor driving down main street. I used to ride my horse, Jingles, up and down the streets of that town all day long and no one batted an eye. Trick-O-Treaters didn't have to be escorted by parents. Parents didn't have to worry if Pearl Stauffer, my old babysitter and the old woman on the corner, gave out homemade popcorn balls. They knew it was ok. On a summer night you can hear the crikets, coyotes, and the train going through Moline eight miles away.
Do you get the point I'm trying to make here?
The size of your town is relative only to your own perspective. Don't assume that we all share the same viewpoint as you.
PS==> This article isn't in the "mac" section. It's in the Apple section.
It might even be possible to say that by intentionally bypassing someone's blocks they put on your incoming calls that you're harassing them. IANAL though. I only play one on slashdot.
I've been an active anti-spammer for quite a while now and am quite proud of the knowledge I've acquired in the fight against spam. I even make good money off of filtering spam for others. As an anti-spammer I'm sure you've encountered folks that simply don't understand the purpose for a DNS blacklist. They claim it's prone to false-positives, dated information, legality issues, informally administrated, submission information isn't verified, hard to get removed from a DNSBL, or just plain silly (I actually had a person tell me this once). Most of these people make such claims due to a bad experience they personally had with a DNS blacklist at some point. It might be that they didn't get a newsletter they'd signed up for, when it reality the sender might actually use spam as a marketing tool. It could also be that they no longer get yahoogroups.com mail, when in reality they harbor spammers and take no action on abuse complaints. It could also be that they themselves had a MTA listed, when in reality they were incompetent mail admins and their MTA was an open relay. The last one is the worst of all. Unfortunately a large number of the people that have said these things somehow manage to call themselves mail administrators.
As a mail admin, I'm sure you have a better understanding than most about how much spam can hurt a business and can see the usefulness in DNS blacklists. How do you make the case for DNS blacklists when faced with the misguided biasness from those that simply don't understand?
LACNIC, soon to be synonomous LAXNIC, shore for LAXATIVE-NIC, because a little spam goes in and a whole buttload of it comes out (with great force I might add).
I'm not for absolute certain on this but I'm pretty sure. I can go get our director's Tibook and verify it though. I'm pretty sure the back panel is either metal or is metal underneith a plastic layer. I'm pretty sure it's the first one.
Additionally it's also harder to get proxies closed because every 3rd Joe has one and any old Joe can run one on his DSL/cable-connect PC. In other words there isn't a competent admin behind the wheel whereas most production mail server generally have someone responsible for the machine even if they might not be competent.
Another problem that I see is MTAs that are still configured as open relays out of the box even today. Exchange has always been this way to the best of my knowledge. Are the later versions this way too? I'd have to say that all the IPs I relay check and find to be open, 95% of then are Exchange boxes. The other 5 percent oddball mail gateways or really really old Sendmail installations. I asked Joe Jared if he'd consider adding the MTAs HELO string to the message that rbcheck mails him and keeping track and graphing which MTAs are most often an open relay. Exchange would be the hands down winner.
Correct. I word it differently though. No good defense in comprised of a single layer. Every defense has multiple layers. With regardles to spam filtering, the first layer is DNSBLs at the MTA level. Next would be RFC2822 sanity checking at the MTA level (example, is the MessageID borked). The next layer is server-side scoring with tools like SpamAssassin. As an additional option your LDA can use the scoring to discard, or file certain matches in specific mail spools. Everything else is done at the MUA level with user filters, hopefully using the scoring mechanism's output. That's the way it should work.
Now if your institution can stand little to no false positives then this process should still apply to you, but with a few changes and restrictions. The DNSBLs used at the MTA level for message rejection should be limited to only those DNSBLs that list misconfigured servers (open relays, open proxies, vulnerable formmail.cgi machines, etc...). You could also say that direct-to-MX blacklists could also be used with no expected false positives. The other types of DNSBLs are more subjective and *could* give you false positives. I didn't used to consider Spamhaus to be very non-subjective, assuming they only listed the spammers. However I now have to consider them subjective since they listed Verio and not the spammer (not that I hold that against them. I'll still use the SBL until the day I die. I just have to look at them in a slightly different light). SPEWS is very subjective; I use it heavily though. Country-code DNSBLs, will not subjective, will give you numerous false positives. You should stilled rejected malformed messages with at the MTA level. You should still use Spamassassin. However you should raise your personal filtering rules by 3-4 points if you want practically not FPs. You can also use the DNSBLs that are subjective (or country-coded) in SpamAssassin scores. Set each one's score to .5-2, depending on your taste. At the LDA level you can still automatically organize your incoming mail into spam or not spam. However you should probably not delete incoming mail unless it has a very high score. At you MUA level you should also not auto-delete mail unless the score is very high. Making these changes to your setup will reduce you FP rate. Personally I use the first setup.
Spammers can kiss my spamhole, and you can quote me on that.
I guess you've never seen the itty bitty screws that hold the rack mount brackets to the device they're holding up. Little bitty teeny tiny screws compared to the bitches that attach the brackets to the racks.
Just kidding. My question, do the new Star Trek movies/episodes meet your expectations?
In fact I said it in a later posting. If Verion lawyers up and cartooneys, the sound that they'll hear is resounding *PLONK* from admins like ourselves as they earn themselves their own entry in our personal DNS blacklists. I don't mind one bit blacklisting them to hell and gone if they pull a legal stunt. They can rot in my spambin.
...the sound they will here will be a resounded *PLONK* as they are entered into a thousands of mail admins' personal blacklists everywhere including my own. When Exactis sued MAPS, all they managed to do was to get permanent REJECT entries in Sendmail ACLs everywhere. Verio should expect no less.
ALso, a minimum number of hours is also worth it. Min 3 is fair for most tasks like KIA server. Min 2 or even 1 if the task is pidly and you want to make the point. Also make it know that your charging system works like the telephone company's long distance system, only you count by hours and not minutes. Ie, you round up to the next hour regardless if you work 5 or 45 minutes into an next hour.
You should have all this stuff typed up in a contract and have it signed by the boss (no one else!) as soon as you get onsite. Without it, don't do any work. Also don't negotiate. That's the contract, take it or leave it. You need to have legalease wording that absolves you of all responsibility if the system breaks again after you leave. You need to make it clear that you can't be sued after the fact. I travel is required, include a blurb about mileage and the rate. Include text that says what will happen if they fail to pay by 30 days after service is rendered. Also say that failing to pay also includes a bad check.
Carry a carbon copy ticket book with you. As you work on different systems, write out what the system is and why you're doing it on the carbon form. Write down every system you have to touch and the major points of what you do to each. "Had to reboot border router." "Had to kick the DNS box in the nads". Before you leave have the boss (no one else!) sign the each carbon page (if you had to use multiple pages) and give them one set of the carbons and file away the others. This way you can show exactly what systems you touched. If their NT box breaks later and you didn't touch it, they can't blame you for it. It's also very wise to record all tty output (commands, stdout, etc). If you have a laptop with a CDR in it, burn two copies to disk. Both you and the boss should sign both. Give them one. Don't let them leave you alone at any point and time during the onsite visit. If you aren't alone, they can't claim you stole backup tapes from the locker or pissed under the raised floor.
Write every password they gave you on the carbon mentioned above. Include in your contract that they are responsible for changing every password they gave you after you leave. Also include that you are absolved from any future damages coming from said systems where the passwords weren't changed. Writing it on the carbon emphasizes this.
It's important to make sure the signatures are from a person at the company authorized to pay you. Odds are you old super isn't authorized to make such payment. The director of the dept is usually the person that can do such things. They could potentially claim that the person that signed the contract wasn't authorized to make such agreements. Don't give them a way out like that.
It wouldn't hurt to use a tape recorder for all verbal conversations and make that something else they agree to in the contract.
Have the contract say something about parking (if parking garage fees are incurred or if a certain parking permit is required for parking (tickets or towing are the penalty).
All these are just some of the ways you could potentially get screwed. It's better to take precautions beforehand than post mortem.
I might also add that I think people with colleagues that have been axed work harder and take on more responsibility with no additional pay just to try and keep their own jobs. In the end what suffers is their health and the quality of their work.
Remember that not all porn is guy girl.... You don't happen to resemble a gay porn actor do you? Ha! Now that would be funny.
...about ten minutes and you'll get all the information you need to get your degree from a Windows messenger popup ad. I've found them to be really handy!
Why send blank messages? Why not send cryptic "orders"?
The pink cow is on the grassy roof.
I repeat, the monkey has left the cornhole.
Release the reindeer. The rabbit is horny.
Eagle spies a floater. Release the corn. Emergency blow!
I made a comment up higher that applies here. If the pres could line item veto part of a bill and then resubmit it back to the houses, everyone gets to vote on it again. This way the pres could say I'm not letting this through until you cut the fat. Of course it would make things go even slower than they already do. Of course if fatty bills never made it to the pres, everything would work anyhow. I don't think ANY BS item should be allowed to be added to a major bill without extensive (read: months) of deliberation. If it isn't present right the first time, kill it, rewrite it, and try again IMHO.
Perhaps if the pres could line item veto a piece of it and then resubmit it back to the houses for another round of voting it would work. That way everyone gets a chance to vote again. My $.02.
Well, ok I am impressed that Mozilla is implementing spam filtering abilities in their MUA. I AM NOT impressed with Bayesian spam filters AT ALL. I've been using Mac OS X's Mail.app since I switched to OS X. It's not my primary MUA but I am letting it POP out a copy of all my mail and "learn" from it. It does a pretty good job of finding maybe 80% of the spam I get. However it has a BAD false-positive rate. I mean hell its been flagging CERT advisories as spam. That kind of crap is really annoying. It's flagged co-workers' mail as spam numerous times (and even though I happen to agree... :) ). The biggest problem I have with Bayesian as a mail admin is that I am constantly dealing with spam. Users forward it to me. I receive a number of spam bounces. I work in spam all that damned time. That's the problem. I need a MUA with Bayesian filters that are smart enough for me to tell them to ignore all mail from certain domains or that went to certain accounts. All of the Bayesian filters built into MUAs I've worked with so far can't do things like that. It's really annoying given the position that I'm in.
Try pico -w <filename>