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The problem, with facts

15-May-08

Well, things have finally calmed down regarding the OpenSSL problems. Not that it’s necessarily bad to see that many posts and news. One can actually think it’s a good thing problems are addressed and discussed, but I was starting to get tired of reading nothing more than a bunch of complaints.

News flash: Shit happens!

I actually had a big text about the package maintainer, the severity of the problem, etc, etc, etc written, but it’s better to just be quiet, since I can’t do it any better.

Exploitation

After reading so much about it, I was intrigued on how super-easy-because-of-the-32,767-possible-outcomes to crack attack would work, and hdm (from Metaploit) answered them on a great paper:

http://metasploit.com/users/hdm/tools/debian-openssl/

The keys were generated and made available:

http://sugar.metasploit.com/debian_ssh_dsa_1024_x86.tar.bz2
http://sugar.metasploit.com/debian_ssh_rsa_2048_x86.tar.bz2

And a script to use them has been published to Milw0rm:

http://milw0rm.com/exploits/5622

After giving it a try on a unpatched virtual machine, I understood the real severity of the problem.

Filed in Debian, Security, Ubuntu | | Comments (2) »

Debian Day PT

12-May-08

My hat is off to the Portuguese Debian Community! Even though it’s still on it’s early stages I’m really happy to see a national Debian event take place. +

Let this be a lesson the the Portuguese Ubuntu community.

To all involved on the project, thank you and congratulations! I’m available to help in case it’s necessary.

Filed in Debian | | Comments (0) »

restore-backup

20-Apr-08

I’m always finding good uses for my ‘old’ laptop! I just wish I had more old computers laying around so I could come up with ideas on how to use them.

I’ve always wanted to have a good disaster recovery solution implemented at home, who would also take care of my Internet hosts. After several attempts of using custom scripts with rsync, I finally gave up and decided to go with a much easier solution.

Restore-Backup - The reason backup was invented

After some planning, I now have a effective solution. It backups the content of my NSLU2 (file server), all my Internet sites (from Dreamhost), the database for this blog, and our home computers (including Gi’s Vista machine).

Screenshot

restore-ee or restore-dc (enterprise and data-center) can be downloaded from their repositories or as a custom Xubuntu LiveCD with restore-backup pre-installed.

Filed in Software | | Comments (0) »

Be nice, asshole!

27-Mar-08

Like I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I started to get involved in GNU. One of the things I noticed (I won’t mention names or teams) is how people (the ones responsible) talk to the ones trying to get involved.

Remember something:

- No one is obligated to do anything for any free software project! However, people work on these projects because they want to. They want to contribute because they believe they can be helpful.

- The project needs everyone’s help! It doesn’t matter if it’s something as ’simple’ as translations. It’s important to the project. If you don’t want it, don’t ask for it!

- You will push them away! No one wants to send an application for a position (say translator) and receive something along the lines of: You think you know, but you don’t know shit!

- You’re not GOD! Dude, you’re not even close! Do you have a high position on a project. Well, that’s great. I’m sure you worked hard to be put in charge, but remember one thing, you don’t have to be an asshole. Actually, you have to give an example! And telling someone to ‘fuck off’ is not a good example.

You will win allot more by being nice. If you don’t think your a people person, go to some basement1 and do some code. But having these types of people being the first line of communication for something as important as GNU, is NOT, in my opinion, a good idea!

There are exceptions. I say this to prevent someone mentioning it on the comments. I know patience has it’s limits, and I’ve been tested lately for a submission to UbuntuWeblogs.org. You don’t have to be a saint, hell, I even told the guy to stop emailing me otherwise I would block his email, but try and be helpful.

The world is full of pricks already, let’s try and keep the free software community assholes-free and an example of how geeks are nice (good luck with that)

  1. don’t read basement as offensive [↩]
Filed in GNU/Linux | | Comments (1) »

linux-cell on Ubuntu mailing list

25-Mar-08

After a long month of waiting, we finally have the mailing list. It will be used mainly for the PS3 Port of Ubuntu, however, any other topic related to linux-cell is welcome.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-cell

Filed in Ubuntu | | Comments (3) »

Amazon is having a busy week

23-Feb-08

Another two great findings that were delivered yesterday:

/me has allot of reading to do for the next months

Filed in Personal | | Comments (3) »

Amazon, bringing Christmas all year long

20-Feb-08

Sure feels good to have the post office guy delevering this to my place…

Linux Kernel and Network Internals

I’m happy as a kid with a new toy.

Filed in Personal | | Comments (3) »

Decent bandwidth

11-Feb-08

After 1 year, yes, you read it right, I finally have the Internet bandwidth I’m paying for.

This may sound something easy to accomplish, but try and explain ADSL line synchronization to the guys at Tech Support of my ISP. Ohh, and if you’re ‘one of those persons who use Linux’, there is no way to support your problem, even though the problem has NOTHING to do with your computer.

On the first few calls I was getting pissed because they would not tell me what the tests were and I didn’t have a Windows machine around. One day I give it a try and said I was using Microsoft Windows XP SP2 Professional. Well, it turns out, all I had to do was to visit the Customer section of the ISP website and do one of those Speed Tests, where you receive/send 1Mb of information.

Luckily I was using Windows to do that.

Big story short (or not that short) I now have what I’ve been paying for:

Bandwidth

Filed in Personal | | Comments (2) »

Going back home - The end of vacation

30-Jan-08

Seems like yesterday I wrote about going on vacation. Well, unfortunately it wasn’t, and my vacations are over.

Time to get back to real life. Traffic, quick meals, stress, more traffic, away from family, more traffic … Not to mention an entire day wasted because of the flight. It’s unbelievable how a 2 hour flight can occupy the whole day (only in Portugal).

The small things in life are becoming more enjoyable by the day. Staying home with my family (wife and parents) and having great talks during dinner (I’m getting old!).

Time to remove that /away and set the status /back.

Filed in Personal | | Comments (0) »

Dual-head configuration, #2

24-Jan-08

When I got to my parents house I decided to do a clean install of Ubuntu 7.10. Like I mentioned before, I’m not a fan of upgrade.

After installation both monitors were working. Secondary monitor was working as a clone, which didn’t used to happen on previous releases. I tried using the instructions of my previous post, which I’ve been told that work quite well (and for the incoming links to the blog).

With the ATI property drivers available on 7.10 repositories, that set of instructions will not work (Bug number 54680). The _only_ way I was able to get it to work as by installing a more recent version using the ATI Catalyst 8.1 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver (available here).

Even though I still don’t have the perfect dual-head configuration1, it’s working OK.

  1. I can only open Firefox on one monitor at a time; I can’t drag windows from one monitor to the other, etc [↩]
Filed in Ubuntu | | Comments (11) »
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