2003-09-23 · 07:02

ISA vs DMZ

From a reader at a major whiskey maker (really!):

I purchased Secure Messaging with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 at a Microsoft Windows 2003 conference in Cincinnati. The reason I purchased this book was for Chapter 14 Securing Outlook Web Access. I had been explaining to my boss that the traditional way of implementing Exchange 2000 (OWA) on a DMZ was not as secure as I would like, since you have to open several ports from the DMZ to the internal network. After explaining what I had found in your book and researching information on Microsoft’s website and others I convinced him and our corporate office this was the way to go. In June I implement your solution of Publishing OWA with ISA Server to secure our OWA server. This September we were audited by our internal auditors and they are telling us this is not as secure as the traditional way of placing Exchange 2000 (OWA) server on the DMZ. They could not give us a reason way, so I want to challenge them that this is more secure before I am force to change to the traditional way. I need information stating this method of securing Exchange OWA is more secure.

Tell your auditors to get off the glue. When you put an Exchange server of any stripe in the DMZ, you’ve created two problems. First, you’re putting a domain member in the DMZ, and if someone compromises it they may have a springboard to compromise other machines inside the perimeter. Second, to make Exchange work you’ve got to open a ton of ports. DMZ configurations can be made secure, but the whole point behind ISA is that it gives you strong security by reverse proxying so you don’t have to open anything in the DMZ.

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2003-09-23 · 06:49

Blade on blogs

In my “info” mailbox, I got a query from a Toledo Blade reporter working on a story about local blogs. I told her to call me any time. If any of you have comments for the Blade, feel free to leave ’em here 🙂

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2003-09-23 · 06:38

Buckeye Institute blog

This site is pretty neat: it’s subtitled “Up to the Minute Analysis of Ohio Public Policy”, and it delivers the goods. I haven’t read enough of the analysis to see if the author has any obvious biases, but I did note that searching for “concealed” (as in, “concealed carry”) turned up no hits. That tells me something right there; the ongoing CCW permit fight is certainly a public policy issue.

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2003-09-22 · 11:11

Delta relents, somewhat

There’s been a lot of complaining about Delta‘s decision to downgrade the benefits offered to their most frequent flyers. I voted with my feet at the beginning of this year and have accumulated almost enough miles on NW for their midtier elite program, which gives me unlimited free upgrades on any fare class.
Today I got some mail from Delta announcing changes to their Platinum Medallion benefits for next year. (See a summary of the changes here.) The resumption of unlimited upgrades is nice, but it’s limited to the most expensive (Y, B, and M-class) fares. No thanks.
On the other hand, with Continental’s recent decision to backstab their elites, can NW be far behind? One speculation is that CO and NW are aligning the details of their FF programs with Delta, which means that it may be in my best interest to spend a couple hundred bucks on a mileage run to Singapore or Tokyo to make sure I hit NW’s top tier– if CO and NW both slave their upgrades to DL’s program, I’ll be in trouble as a midtier member.

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2003-09-22 · 07:04

TiVo with rebate, now with 200% more hack

Tara points out that you can now get a $50 rebate on a Series2 TiVo. This is a pretty good deal, e.g. Amazon has ’em for $299 for the 80-hour unit (after rebate) or $199 for the 40-hour unit. Me, I’m waiting for the HDTiVo; in the meantime, I think I’m going to stuff another disk drive into mine to add some recording capacity. Interestingly, there are now 3 separate books on TiVo hacking: Krikorian’s TiVo Hacks (O’Reilly), von Hagen’s Hacking the TiVo (Premier Press; includes a bootable CD), and Keegan’s Hacking the TiVo (Wiley, not yet published).
The actual tools you need for the upgrade are freely available. In fact, I think I have a spare 40GB drive on the shelf over my head. Hmmm.

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Filed under General Tech Stuff

2003-09-20 · 16:23

The installer cometh

Arlene offered to buy me a gadget for my birthday (which isn’t actually until November). No fool I, I immediately took her up on it. On Tuesday, the Dish installer should arrive with a new Dish 6000u receiver that can receive over-the-air and satellite HDTV broadcasts. Dish has a promo: if you sign up for 12 months of their HD package ($9.99 for ESPN-HD, HDNet, HDNet Movies, and Discovery HD, plus HBO and Showtime HD if you get the SD versions), you can get the 6000u for $199. That’s less than half of what a new DirecTV receiver would cost– the best price I’ve seen is around $370 from one of the Google ads appearing on this very page 🙂 Best Buy had an open-box Samsung TS160 that was tempting me until I found out that a) it was $460 with no install and b) I’d lose the “superstation” package that Dish has.
So, by Tuesday night I should be all set to watch Alias, 24, et al in glorious HD.

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2003-09-20 · 07:23

Rotary business

Yesterday I had the pleasure of addressing the Perrysburg Rotary. The topic, you ask? Computer security, of course. Just like usual, I ran about 15 minutes long (people who have been to my sessions at TechEd or the MEC can attest that I’ve gone longer), but it seemed to be well-received. The presentation itself is here.
I also got three raffle tickets for our annual auction. 250 tickets, at $50 each, makes a nice chunk of change for the Rotary Foundation’s local projects, including the new park near Ft. Meigs Elementary. The winning ticket nets some lucky person their choice of a Caribbean cruise to Cancun for 2, a ski trip to Colorado for 2, or some cash. Winner need not be present. If you want a ticket, let me know. (I know I have one or two Toledo-area readers… think of how nice a February cruise would be!)

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2003-09-18 · 14:36

Speakeasy offers cheap WiFi

This is very cool: from Glenn’s WiFi News:

[Speakeasy’s] newest set of services includes a $49 deal that gets you all the Wi-Fi gear and support you need to get set up at home. For a short time a while back Speakeasy was giving away the gear for new customers, but that was a shortlived promotion. Speakeasy is also offering what it calls personal technology assistant which means you can talk to the same help desk person when you have a problem, instead of explaining your situation over and over to a new person each time you call.

This is especially cool because it covers new and existing customers. See, John, if you’d switched to Speakeasy when I told you to last year, you’d have an Xbox and WiFi now.

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Filed under General Tech Stuff

2003-09-18 · 10:29

Talk Like a Pirate Day redux

Tomorrow is Talk Like a Pirate Day (yes, again). I am seriously considering making my computer security presentation to the Rotary tomorrow in pirate talk. (btw, accordin’ to yon pirate name quiz, ye should be callin’ this old sea cur Black Sam Flint. Arrrr!)

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2003-09-18 · 06:57

What’s in the queue

My dear mother is worried that we’re not reading enough. In an effort to reassure her, I thought I’d share the contents of my current reading stack, in no particular order:

  • Bayou Farewell: Mike Tidwell’s account of the ecological destruction of the Louisiana marshlands and the way of life surrounding them
  • When the King Took Flight: overly earnest but still fascinating history of Louis XVI’s flight, capture, and execution during the French Revolution. (I’m about halfway through this now)
  • Empires of Light: fascinating account of the three-cornered battle between Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla for economic and technological supremacy in the early electric industry. Jill Johnnes is a terrific storyteller. (Halfway through this one too).
  • Fistful of Rain: I’ll read anything by Greg Rucka.
  • Positively Fifth Street: journalist goes to Vegas to write about the World Series of Poker and ends up placing fifth. Absorbing. (I still count this as in the queue even though it’s returned ’cause I owe an overdue fine on it).

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2003-09-17 · 15:36

I’ll have the silver one

Continuing Car Week here at el rancho, I just had to reserve a car for an upcoming trip to Seattle. Hertz sent me an invitation to enroll in their special business discount program, so I did. That netted me a daily rate of $57 for a Taurus, or exactly $1 less than the normal non-discount rate. Interestingly, though, it also quoted me $58.99 for a much nicer car, so I’m happily paying the $2 extra. I love transparent pricing.

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2003-09-15 · 14:58

Can this marriage be saved?

The station wagon is getting a little too small for the herd as they grow. That’s sparked a discussion of what we might replace it with.
What Arlene wants. Pro: available, capacious, familiar, ergonomic. Cons: booooring, slow.
What I want. Pro: supercharged 430-hp engine, wicked cool styling, 20″ wheels, nifty gun-slit windows. Cons: not available until spring 2004, likely to attract police attention, requires purchase of zoot suit.

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2003-09-15 · 11:25

HDTV hiatus

Buckeye is coming to get their cable box tomorrow. Why? Well, the test period’s finally up, so I either have to pay for the box and subscribe or give it back. I’m giving it back, which means I’ll be HD-less for a while. I have a confusing set of options at this point.
Option 1: I could pay Buckeye $385 for the box plus monthly charges of $6.95 (for the local broadcast channels; they still don’t have ABC, NBC, or PBS in HD even though they’re broadcast locally), plus another $10.95 (for DiscoveryHD, ESPN-HD, HDNet, and HDNet Movies). This is on top of my existing cable bill, and I really, really don’t like the idea of having to buy the box. I’m not sure why, since buying a satellite receiver doesn’t seem like a bad idea. I probably dislike it because there are newer, nicer boxes (like this one) that cost the same, but that Buckeye won’t let me use.
Option 2: I could subscribe to Dish Network’s HD package and buy a new receiver. This would require a new dish, too, which Dish will pay for if I commit to a year’s HD programming. However, Dish’s PVRs are widely denounced for being buggy, so I’d probably end up buying the 811 receiver, which doesn’t ship until November at the earliest. On the other hand, Dish is charging $9.99/mo for the same content as Buckeye’s $10.95 package, but their receivers can pick up over-the-air broadcasts, so I’d get local channels for free. Cost-wise this works out to be about the same as Buckeye, with the bonus that I get lots of channels (Speedvision and BYU-TV, anyone?) that Buckeye won’t ever carry.
Option 3: Wait for the HD-Tivo unit from DirecTV and switch to them. It’s not clear when this unit will actually ship, nor how much it’ll cost, so this is a risky alternative. However, it seems clear that this would give me the most of what I want: HD programming that I can TiVo– I just can’t have it now, or even by the end of the year (and possibly not until this time next year).
Option 4: Buy a cheap over-the-air receiver (like Costco’s $215 Samsung SIR-T151) now. That would give me Alias, Monday Night Football, college ball on Saturdays, 24, Smallville, and PBS in HD, covering the majority of my viewing needs. I’d miss Discovery and ESPN in HD, but I’d be able to resell the receiver later and recoup some of my investment. This looks like the best overall deal, so it’s probably what I’ll do.
Update: According to some knowledgeable (-seeming) folks on AVSForum, the FCC says that cable companies must put OTA HD channels in the basic tier, and they may not encrypt them. If true, that solves part of my problem, so I’ve asked Buckeye whether they think it’s true. If I don’t like their answer, then it’s on to the FCC.

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2003-09-15 · 06:44

Stop whining

I am fuming after reading this article in the New York Times. Titled “For Citizen Soldiers, an Unexpected Burden”, it’s the story of some folks from an MP company in the California National Guard. They got deployed to Iraq, and their tour has now been extended. This is another in a long series of reports featuring people who signed up and took the king’s shiling taxpayer’s money and now claim they didn’t know they might actually have to do their jobs!
I vividly remember sitting in a college English class in 1990, a week or so after Iraq invaded Kuwait. Thanks to my nifty haircut, my classmates knew I was in the military, and on this particular day they peppered me with questions. “Will you have to go?” “Are you worried that you might get deployed?” “Did you know this might happen when you enlisted?”
Of course I knew it might happen. Anyone who says “gee, I never thought I’d be activated” is either fooling themselves or you. For example, take this fellow:

Specialist Jory Preston, 30, of Pleasant Hill, Calif., signed on with the National Guard in January and was assigned to the 870th. He was working at a small telecommunications company and, having served in the Army in the 1990’s, saw the National Guard as a way to earn extra money. He was married in February, and his wife was already pregnant by then. The next month, he was on his way to Iraq.

Here we have a 30-year-old with prior Army service. Undoubtedly he knew that, in the Army, people get sent overseas, away from their families. He enlisted in January, after it was already crystal clear that US forces were heading to Iraq. Then he acts surprised when he gets deployed.
I don’t want to minimize the difficulty of being separated from loved ones, or the financial impact of going from a good civilian job to crappy military pay. But don’t act surprised, people. It’s not like you were drafted; you knew, or should have known, what you were getting into.

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Filed under Smackdown!

2003-09-13 · 14:37

Randy Travis / Rachel Proctor, Detroit, 9/12/03

Great show. We had good seats, in row U on the right-hand section, no more than 100′ from the stage. The lawn section was packed; given the amount of beer, the number of teenage couples, and the presence of country music, I suspect a mini-baby boom in 9 months.
Rachel Proctor opened; I’m normally willing to skip opening bands that I’ve never heard of, but she put on an enjoyable show, playing most of the songs off her only album. Her set was pretty quick– call it maybe 35 minutes. After that, we got an extended Merle Haggard set (with “From Graceland to the Promised Land” repeated probably 15 times, thanks to an inattentive sound guy) before Randy came on stage. He brought his whole band– all 8 of them– and they put on a terrific show. I didn’t keep a detailed set list, but he played most of his #1 hits (including “Three Wooden Crosses”, “Digging Up Bones”, “I’m Gonna Love You Forever”, “I Told You So”, and “Deeper than the Holler”.) I don’t remember the first encore; the second was “America Will Always Stand“, which I hadn’t heard before (see, I told you I don’t listen to country music much).
Between songs, he was relaxed and talkative, and he seemed genuinely surprised at the volume and level of crowd reaction. He spent a good ten minutes accepting roses (mostly from women of a certain age) and signing autographs during the two encores, which I thought was a classy touch. (personal to Betty: he’s going to be in Gulfport at the casino on 10/24– you should go!)
This was a country concert; according to the master tour dates list, he also playes “inspirational concerts”, mostly at Baptist megachurches. I might have to dust off my missionary nametag and go to one of ’em.
Getting to and from the venue was a hassle, thanks to construction on I-75 in both directions and a complete lack of parking control at the amphitheater– once the show was over, the parking lot became a huge free-for-all. There were staff on hand to direct traffic, but none of them did. It took us about 2 hrs up and almost 3 coming back, all for a distance of about 100mi each way. Overall, it was quite an enjoyable experience, and well worth even Ticketmaster’s bloated prices ($31 for the ticket, plus another $9/ticket of fees).
Julie wanted to know which Muppet most closely resembles Randy. Judge for yourself…

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