Monday, February 1, 2010

Broken ISP?

Sometimes, IT things go wrong, really wrong. Here's a case in point, as illustrated by the following trace:

Tracing route to www.c.....r.com [24.217.29.127] over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.x.y
  2     9 ms     7 ms     8 ms  10.148.0.1
  3    23 ms     7 ms     9 ms  96.34.25.120
  4     8 ms     9 ms    11 ms  96.34.25.143
  5     9 ms     9 ms     9 ms  96.34.25.148
  6    12 ms    10 ms    11 ms  96.34.25.147
  7    13 ms    10 ms    11 ms  96.34.25.167
  8    14 ms    12 ms    13 ms  96.34.17.2
  9    15 ms    17 ms    16 ms  96.34.16.145
 10    17 ms    15 ms    18 ms  96.34.16.228
 11    16 ms    14 ms    16 ms  96.34.2.78
 12    24 ms    22 ms    23 ms  96.34.0.9
 13    24 ms    23 ms    24 ms  96.34.0.67
 14    34 ms    35 ms    33 ms  96.34.0.64
 15    34 ms    32 ms    33 ms  96.34.0.69
 16    34 ms    42 ms    34 ms  24.217.29.211
 17    33 ms    41 ms    35 ms  24.217.29.127
Trace complete.

Now, if you're not familiar with traceroutes, you might not get the significance of this lengthy set of IP addresses. The problem is that 17 hops to go from my ISP's cable modem connection to my ISP's own web server is evidence of a major configuration goof.

To make matters worse, when a customer calls and mentions things like DNS, traceroute, DHCP, it might be worth paying attention instead of asking them to reboot into safe mode.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

grub4dos and ubcd411.iso problem - Boot Land

grub4dos and ubcd411.iso problem - Boot Land: "CODE
title boot UBCD 3.4/ntfs4dos
map hd0,0 /ubcd34-basic.iso hd32
map --hook
map hd32 /IMAGES/NTFS4DOS.IMG fd0 #ensure capital letters or not
map --hook
root fd0
chainloader +1"

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Veltsos joins Editorial Board of SANS NewsBites Newsletter

Regular readers of the SANS NewsBites Newsletter (semi-weekly newsletter about information security) might have recognized a familiar name (Veltsos) in the comments section of some recent newsletters. Here are newsletters that Dr. Veltsos contributed comments to or full write-ups.

  1. The first Guest Editorial appearance by Chris Veltsos in SANS Newsbites. In that particular issue, Veltsos' name was mispelled (missing the last "s") SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 41 (May 23, 2008).
  2. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 43 (May 30, 2008).
  3. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 45 (June 6, 2008).
  4. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 46 (June 10, 2008).
  5. This time, Veltsos contributed a writeup for one of the top stories for Issue 47. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 47 (June 13, 2008). Here's what he had to say:
    House Passes Intellectual Property Bill
    The US House of Representatives recently passed HR 4279, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 (PRO-IP). The bill establishes a Property Enforcement Division within the DOJ; amends federal copyright law to increase civil damages; amends federal criminal code related to copyright infringement and counterfeit packaging, and; creates ten new intellectual property attaches to work with foreign governments to reduce counterfeiting and piracy. The bill is not without controversy as it strongly favors large content owners (RIAA, MPAA), levies increased domestic penalties, and directs state and local law enforcement agencies to combat intellectual property theft and infringement crimes.
    http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_HR_4279.html
    http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-4279
  6. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 48 (June 17, 2008).
  7. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 49 (June 20, 2008).
  8. This time, Veltsos contributed a major rewrite of one of the top stories for Issue 52. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 52 (July 1, 2008). Here's what he had to say:
    More Than 630,000 Laptops Lost at Airports Each Year
    A Ponemon Institute survey of 106 airports in 46 states found that as many as 637,000 laptops are reported lost each year. Overall, more than12,000 laptops are reported lost at the airports every week, and 67% arenever recovered. The 36 largest US airports account for more than 10,000lost laptops each week. The laptops are most commonly lost at securitycheckpoints and departure gates. The survey also included feedback from 864 business travelers: 53% said their laptops held confidential data; 42% said their data was not backed up; 16% said they would do nothing if they lost a laptop while traveling on business; 77% said the chance of recovering a lost laptop was less than ten percent. The study was commissioned by Dell, which has just released "a suite of data protection and asset protection services," including laptop tracking and remote data deletion.
    http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/services/dell_lost_laptop_study.pdf
    http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9105198&source=rss_topic17
    http://www.crn.com/managed-services/208801451
  9. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 53 (July 8 , 2008).
  10. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 55 (July 15 , 2008).
  11. SANS NewsBites Vol X, Issue: 56 (July 18 , 2008).
  12. Stay tuned for updates.