Category: Uncategorized

This one just came in via my mom. I consider myself fortunate enough to have a mom who can recognize a good scam when she sees one.
And, on that note, is anyone else reeling from astounding spike in spam over the last couple of weeks? I mean everywhere, from email to IM to Skype, to blogs and other web forms. Everything from these scams to the traditional 419 to a “python in my pants.”
Side note:

Dear Spammer, please take note: I used to handle boa constrictors and have no desire to have a python in my pants.
Thanks,
Peter

Thought of the day: can we route the military to do something useful, like bombing spammers? Thanks.

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From: "Internal Revenue Service"<[email protected]>
Subject: Stimulus Payment form it's ready for you to submit
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 19:32:47 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
	boundary="----=_NextPart_000_00D3_01C2A9A6.2E79EE60"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
X-Bayes-Prob: 0.0001 (Score 0)
X-Spam-Score: 2.60 (**) [Tag at 5.00]
FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK,L_T_COMBINED,MSGID_FROM_MTA_HEADER,
MSGID_FROM_MTA_ID,UNDISC_RECIPS
X-Spam-Milter-Status: No, hits=2.60 required=5.00 l=75 f=1 st=1
tests=FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK,L_T_COMBINED,MSGID_FROM_MTA_HE
ADER,MSGID_FROM_MTA_ID,UNDISC_RECIPS
X-CanItPRO-Stream: sovernet:[email protected] (inherits from sovernet:default)
X-Canit-Stats-ID: Bayes signature not available
X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 209.198.112.38
Status:
X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 8.0.200 [270.10.2/1876]
X-Antispam: NO; Spamcatcher 5.1.0. Score 2
X-PMFLAGS: 570949760 0 1 PV1H9GJ5.CNM
After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that
you are eligible to receive a Stimulus Payment.
Please submit the Stimulus Payment Online Form in order to process it.
A Stimulus Payment can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.
To submit your Stimulus Payment form, please download the document attached to
your email.
Note: If filing or preparation fees were deducted from your 2007 Refund or you
received a refund anticipation loan, you will be receiving a check instead of a
direct deposit.
Regards,
Internal Revenue Service

We recently had an IT audit at one of my clients’ locations. One of the issues raised by the auditor was that our DHCP server was a security risk because it would allow anyone to plug in to the LAN, get an IP address, and start browsing or scanning the network for vulnerabilities.? Continue reading “Question for InfoSec Types: Is DHCP a Security Risk?”

I just ugpraded to WordPress 2.6.1, following my usual procedure (backup, download, extract over existing blog). I got some errors when I clicked to update the database:
WordPress database error: [Duplicate key name 'comment_approved']
ALTER TABLE nikolaidis_wp_comments ADD KEY comment_approved (comment_approved)

WordPress database error: [Duplicate key name 'type_status_date']
ALTER TABLE nikolaidis_wp_posts ADD KEY type_status_date (post_type,post_status,post_date,ID)
Upgrade Complete

Your WordPress database has been successfully upgraded!

Given the last line, I’m inclined to think that these database upgrades may have been done in the 2.6 upgrade I did a while back.
At least, that’s my hope…

In this week’s episode of the podcast, I made a comment which offended one of our listeners. She emailed us anonymously and stated she would be unsubscribing from our podcast.
After further consideration over the weekend, I decided that I was wrong, not in my initial comments to which she chose to be so offended by, but in the rendering of my apology. Continue reading “Apology to the Woman I Offended – Rescinded”

Last night, Brookfield, one of the three towns who have expressed an interest in ECFiber but not yet signed the agreement, did indeed sign on and is now a part of the initiative to bring fiber to every home and business in 21 (and counting) towns in east central Vermont.

NAME
mkdir – make directories Continue reading “Man Page Minute – mkdir”