Wed, 23 Jul 2008
What About The DVD Reviews
Someone asked me recently why I haven't posted a DVD Roundup in a while. Well, the answer is that I haven't really seen anything worth writing about.
I'm not sure if it's because I've been caught up in other things (Euro2008 in June?, work?, tech crap?) or if I was just watching more TV from the DVR. Or maybe I've just been negative about everything. . . I have a theory about the movie-watching-slowdown, but I'll save that for a future blog post. But I tell you what, I've gone through my Netflix rental history and my stack of borrowed items. Here's what I've seen recently:... there's more to read here ...
23 Jul 23:42 | /movies | 3 comment(s)
Even More . . .
Inforworld has great column up with more details about teh Sf h4x0r if you're interested. Some key points/quotes:
.As for the impact of [Childs'] actions to the rest of the City, the mayor's statement basically has it right. The network is completely up and running. No servers that I'm aware of are affected. No one has had any downtime (yet). But until they get back into those routers, they can't make any changes. I don't know yet if Terry's lockout applies only to the FiberWAN or also to the other routers, firewalls, switches, etc. in the City network..Wheeee 23 Jul 13:53 | /rants_and_raves | 0 comment(s)
.Terry's area of responsibility was purely network. As far as I know (which admittedly is not very far), he did not work on servers, except maybe VoIP servers, AAA servers, and similar things directly related to the administration of the network. My suspicion is that you are right about how he was 'monitoring e-mail'; it was probably via a sniffer, IPS, or possibly a spam-filtering/antivirus appliance. But that's just conjecture on my part..
A key point made in the e-mail is that Childs' managers and coworkers all knew that he was the only person with administrative access to the network. In fact, it was apparently known and accepted in many levels of the San Francisco IT department. Again, quoting from the e-mail:
"This is where it gets tricky for the prosecution, IMO, because the localized authentication, with Terry as sole administrator, has been in place for months, if not years. His coworkers knew it (my coworkers and I were told many times by Terry's coworkers, 'If your request has anything to do with the FiberWAN, it'll have to wait for Terry. He's the only one with access to those routers'). His managers knew it.
"Other network engineers for the other departments of the City knew it. And everyone more or less accepted it."
sf h4x0r (again)
So . . . Batman wannabe Newsom just goes down to the jail, talks to "teh h4x0r" and gets the passwords, no problem. Wow. sfgate story here. No press conference needed, no talking to the DA first . . .he must've wooed him w/ his Bruce Wayne looks and a pack of cigs . . . I like this part:
"He gave the mayor the codes, and then we went over to (the Technology Department)" and gave the codes to computer engineers, Ballard said. "And when we got back to City Hall, we were each separately questioned by the (police) inspector, because we are now witnesses in the case."I can see them calling back-- "uh, can we talk to the prisoner again? yeah, hey, that pw didn't work . . .what? no, I put gnewsom@sf.gov, what? take out the @sf.gov part? Hey, that worked! Thanks! Kbye!" And the last paragraph of the story let the defense attorney get in a dig:
But there was a snag, Ballard said - the code that Childs supplied to Newsom didn't function immediately. Newsom had to call back the attorney, who provided more information, and the system started working, officials say.
Referring to the felony computer-tampering counts, Crane said, "Mr. Childs intends to not only disprove those charges, but also expose the utter mismanagement, negligence and corruption at (the Technology Department) which, if left unchecked, will in fact place the city of San Francisco in danger."I gotta get a job with the city . . man, 6 figures!? Wooo . . . 23 Jul 11:46 | /rants_and_raves | 0 comment(s)
