A universally secure internet may have its defenders and detractors but like it or not, Google is going to force site encryption (https) across the board. First it was the SEO penalty threat, supposedly giving higher scores to secure sites but it doesn't seem like that worked out great. I think Google recognized that just — Continue reading »
The Dawn of AWS Zombies
📆 July 22, 2015
One of the less enviable tasks in a techie's life is identifying bogus robot traffic on their networks. Robots suck up bandwidth without giving anything in return and in most cases try to brute-force their way into systems and steal information and then assimilate their target hosts into new recruits in their army of zombie — Continue reading »
Craigslist eBay Motors Car Scam
📆 June 27, 2015
I'd been in the market for a used car when a too good price on Craigslist caught my attention. I'd sold a street bike on Craigslist a few years ago and had a good experience so figured to go into this but with raised antennas. An email later, the seller reveals a sob story about the — Continue reading »
DNS Verification Error
📆 December 22, 2014
Recently it was brought to my attention that the domain name hashemian.com has a DNS error associated with it. The domain's DNS is hosted with its registrar as many registrars provide basic DNS service for free. This service generally consists of two name servers with varying degrees of restrictions to configure zones and records. Concerned, — Continue reading »
Amazon Diapers To The Rescue
📆 December 7, 2014
When I opened my inbox last friday, an email from Amazon greeted me with the title: "Announcing Price Reductions for AWS Data Transfer and Amazon CloudFront" I wondered how Amazon was going to make up the difference in the face of stiff competition from other cloud vendors. Then I saw Amazon diapers in the news and — Continue reading »
Linux Shellshock Bash Bug Workaround
📆 September 26, 2014
The warnings about the shellshock bash bug are ominous and not unfounded. This is perhaps a greater risk than Heartbleed. Here are the gory details of this bug. To test your system for this bug run the following command from the shell: $ env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a — Continue reading »
Amazon FireTV
📆 April 3, 2014
So we have wireless-ready TVs, wireless-ready DVD players, Roku, Chromecast, game consoles, and who knows how many other devices attached to our TVs. Now here comes Amazon with its amazingly innovative Fire TV that does incredible things such as, wait a second, stream videos to your TV just like any other device. Why again do — Continue reading »
Was Bitcoin a Fad?
📆 December 18, 2013
Remember the Million Dollar Homepage? Back then everyone thought pixel advertising was the future of web marketing. People went crazy over it, pixel sites popped up like weed, and then the whole thing faded away like it was never there. To me that is what bitcoin is. Sure, I have a few bitcoins and I'd — Continue reading »
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