Computer Tips -Tech Info

Vmware has launched a tool (windows only it seems) aimed to convert a REAL running system into a virtual machine. (For use with VMWare’s virtualization products. The converter also can convert images from competing virtual machine “platforms”(?) (Microsoft Virtual PC, Microsoft Virtual Server, Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery (formerly LiveState Recovery) and Norton Ghost9 (or […]

I’ve seen skype I just haven’t used it personally until very recently. In fact there was a place (dialpad?) that I had used once upon a time for a few free long distance calls online. It was neat, but had some limitations (delay). It quickly became non-free and frankly the microphone I have hooked up […]

This was weird and now that the switch is replaced I haven’t been able to duplicate it, but let me explain. There was a netgear fs608 (8 port unmanaged) switch plugged into a linksys router (model number not noted.) The cable was straight (although the fs608 has support for link through straight or crossover cables.) […]

Incidents.org has been running their security tip a day this month and I really liked this one. It’s essentially a way to encrypt your wireless traffic using ssh. That’s something I’ve covered here before, but it’s worth reminding that it’s possible and a good idea.    Send article as PDF   

The other day I was struggling with something that should have worked “out of the box”. It was a little wireless bridge (Linksys WET54G Wireless-G Ethernet Bridge). The idea was to just connect it to the pc and it would just work. Well…. in a word NO. It “sort of worked”, the problem is the […]

The new Docsis 3.0 standard has been finalized and it allows for 160Mbps or more downstream and 120Mbps upstream. It also will support IPv6. Of course, in order to support those speeds cable system hardware will need to be upgraded (and cable modems…) so don’t expect those speeds next month. But, perhaps by ~2008? Our […]

There were several articles about a new “wardriving” technique that was talked about at Defcon (this topic and a bit more Defcon coverage here). In fact, this takes the driving out of the mix and involves launching a rocket. Essentially rockets were equiped with access points and launched to get a 6000+ foot view (for […]

There were demonstrations of some nasty javascript attacks at Black Hat as well (as if the wireless driver issues wasn’t a big enough problem…) Javascript is a powerful language and can be used for many things, but in these demonstrations, it was used to track recently visited sites (by the browser victim) and identify the […]

“All you need to know about network security in one chart!!” I found an ad for this at javvin.com In addition to the “network security” charts…. they have other references…. “network communication protocols map”…. These look like they’d be good references. It looks as though they may have other good references too. Anyone have any […]

Some people spend a lot of time finding ways to block the freeloaders from their wireless internet. Others find fun ways to mess with them…. They start off by settup up dhcpd.conf to carve out two subnets a “good” one with known mac addresses and an untrusted…. then the fun begins with some proxy side […]