Hashemian Blog
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Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Deer vs. Hunters
There's a battle brewing in my hometown (Ridgefield, CT) that has been nothing short of divisive. The division lines are drawn upon whether the town is experiencing an overpopulation of deer and what to do about it.
Judging by the letters in the town paper, both sides have become pretty militant in trading barbs and fanatically defending their positions. The hunters (majority of which are NRA type guys), are obviously supporting an open season on the deer. To support their argument, they point to the number of accidents caused by deer and the threat of Lyme disease, as deer are the predominant transporters of ticks that actually transmit the disease. I suppose their support base is mainly gun owners, hunters, Lyme-scared people, and a few with ruined flower beds.
Anti-hunters are generally made up of animal lovers, anti-gun people, and non-violent individuals who do not wish to see a hunter in pursuit of a mortally wounded animal, traipsing through their yards.
My dilemma is that I agree with both sides, at least with some of their positions. I own a handgun and enjoy an occasional target practice, but would gladly give it up if laws were passed banning gun ownership. I share the compassion of animal lovers, but I also know most hunters are staunchly pro open-space and anti-development, something I agree with.
No, I don't buy the claims of tick reduction by decimating deer population, nor do I want to see a savage scene acted out in my backyard. As for accidents, I must believe most cars collide with each other, rather than with deer. I also don't care for most hunters' arrogant and cavalier attitudes either. So, if it were up to me, I would vote to keep the hunters out in the upcoming referendum. But since I find myself in agreement with some of the positions held by either side, I decided to sit this one out and see how it flows. Sometimes it's best to trust the judgment of others.
deer,hunting,guns,lyme disease,nra <Deer vs. Hunters>
// posted by rh
Monday, May 22, 2006
Fighting DDoS - Part II
One of the first things to do when faced with DDoS is to make certain that the servers are actually under attack. Sometimes misconfigured code or other errant programs could soak up server resources, and while such conditions could lead to denial of service, they certainly do not constitute an external attack. If possible, in Windows open up the task manager, go to processes and sort the items by CPU usage to see which programs are using the mot resources. In Linux, the "top" command produces a list of processes with their resource utilization. That could give an indication of which programs might be misbehaving and need to be terminated.
Another area to investigate is whether the server is a target of an attack, or it has been compromised and is being used as a zombie to attack another server. There are plenty of utilities with varying capabilities out there than can show network traffic in real time. I can think of TCPView (free) for Windows, or IPTraf (free) for Linux. The command line "netstat –an" works on both platforms and produces a list of outbound and inbound connections to investigate.
It is also possible that the DDoS attack is inadvertent. Years ago a Chinese company had sent an email to a large list of people specifying a return address with our domain (using .com instead of .cn). I'm not sure if this was accidental or deliberate (the sender company looked real enough). The undeliverable emails brought one of our servers to its knees. After reporting the incident to the company, the emails subsided and the problem resolved itself.
If the DDoS is a genuine attack, use netstat, TCPView, or IPTraf to check to see if you are under attack by a limited number of servers. In those cases you should be able to block them at the firewall level and spare your servers from processing the needless requests. The attacker could call off the attack if he notices that he's hitting a wall. If, however, the attack is extensive, blocking IP addresses will do little good. First, it would take a long time to detect and block thousands of IP addresses. Second, a firewall with such a large block list will run into performance issues as it needs to vet packets against the lengthy list. Third, even though they are being blocked at the gate, the packets would still choke the edge router nonetheless, preventing legitimate traffic to efficiently travel on the line.
When dealing with large-scale attacks, your ISP should be contacted. They might need to allocate extra bandwidth to your servers, and migrate the servers to another IP range meanwhile. Most ISPs have sufficient bandwidth and the processing muscle to handle such attacks.
You might need to consider various options to guard against DDoS, by negotiating a DDoS support clause with your ISP, having geographically distributed servers, and buying enough bandwidth and equipment to foil such attacks.
Unfortunately most ISPs balk at disconnecting zombies from the Internet. It really doesn't matter if the PC is compromised without the owner's knowledge. If a PC is participating in a DDoS attack, the ISP should block the errant machine, alerting the user of situation and offer help in removing the infection before allowing them to reconnect. I suspect most users wouldn't mind being notified of the nefarious programs lurking in their PC's.
ddos,zombie,isp,tcp/ip,firewall,hacker,virus,netstat,windows,linux <Fighting DDoS - Part II>
// posted by rh
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Credit card's big swindle
I just received a letter with a generous offer from my credit card company. Yeah, right. Here's how it starts out:
"You can earn an additional 2% cashback on purchases you make in any month you choose to carry a balance of $500 or more."
Some people may view credit cards as a blessing. A tool that helps the economy chug along by giving consumers the freedom to spend any time anywhere. I look at them with disdain. Sure they have helped the flow of commerce to some degree, but they have also contributed to the pain and suffering of so many. Who knows how many bankruptcies, divorces, and foreclosures have been caused by easy access to unsecured credit.
But the pain doesn't stop there. Merchants are charged fees every time they accept a credit card, and guess who pays for it. We probably pay an extra 5% for everything because the credit card quietly inserted itself into commerce and is skimming off the top. It's a perfect racket, and it's lucrative beyond belief.
Now, the consumer obliviously comforts itself by signing up for cashback and mileage cards. It's like choosing to be robbed by the thief that returns a tiny part of your stolen money. But here comes the next scam, the letter I received. Let us charge you 20% on your balances and we'll give you 2% back. Shameless.
Cash-paying consumers should have the right to ask for a rebate from credit card companies, on the grounds that credit cards have inflated prices even for those who do not or can not benefit from credit cards. A class action lawsuit would be a good start.
credit cards,scam,interest,bankruptcy,merchants,cashback <Credit card's big swindle>
// posted by rh
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Canada geese
Ah, spring time. Longer daylights, warmer weather, budding trees, and new families. Living in the wooded area, we are used to seeing lots of animals roam the area. Just about every year during this time we are witnesses to new additions in the animal families.
Here is a family of Canada geese, proud Mom and Dad, and the chicks in tow foraging for food near our home. They are exemplary parents. Wise enough to avoid any danger and guide their young families to safety, and brave enough to defend their young with ferocity if anyone dares to get close. Just their angry hissing is sufficient to keep most predators at bay.
Invariably a few chicks don't make it. Some catch disease, others fall victims to snapping turtles or birds of prey, and some get run over by careless drivers. We have even seen swans with families of their own try to drown a few Canada goslings as they compete for lake supremacy. Those that are strong and lucky enough to survive the early hazards grow up in a short couple of months to become almost indistinguishable from their parents.
Some never migrate as there is always ample supplies of people that feed them during the brutal winter months. Cleaning up their occasional waste in the yard is no fun, but they add character to the neighborhood, and in some ways I am happy that they are around. This place just won't be the same without them.
canada geese,goose,spring,chicks,geese <Canada geese>
// posted by rh
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