TeamTuxedo

Internet security has become a major issue over time, and even non technical folks are beginning to think in defensive terms. Firewalls have become standard equipment, and when it comes to firewalls, a router is mans best friend. The advent of affordable internet access has spawned a whole new generation of internet attackers, and malicious software such as viruses and worms. Malicious software has two basic elements, the delivery system and the “warhead”.

Before the internet connected computer was as common as the dining room table, anti virus software was a must to defeat the delivery system of the malicious code. The virus package was often delivered to a computer by the installation of an application. Frequently the victim was the unwitting carrier of the infection, placing it on their own system. Once the malicious software was delivered to it’s intended target, the “warhead” code would attach itself to your system and begin inflicting the damage it was designed to do. They are very hard to combat because there’s a lot of electronic real estate inside your computer and they hide well. Viruses ranged from the annoying, such as the “I love you” virus that periodically said so on your screen, to the plethora of destructive viruses designed to corrupt your data and render your computer unusable. Anti virus software struggled to keep up with the tide of harmful software in a never ending electronic arms race. But the situation was about to get quite a bit worse.

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Filed under: General, Tutorial

There is a free Linux live CD that is a must-have tool for the Windows user as well. It’s a boot disk that loads a Linux operating system and provides tools for diagnosing, maintaining, manipulating and repairing your file systems and network connections. As a live CD, it doesn’t matter what operating system is installed on your computer, and which file system is being used on the hard drive. That’s because it runs directly from the CD drive without using the installed operating system at all. For any computer user with an intermediate level of knowledge, this disk can be system CPR.

If you’ve ever had a major computer system failure, and not known where to turn, SystemRescueCD can make the difference between throwing your computer in the recycle can, and getting your computer running properly again. It can help you to retrieve data from a corrupted file system, or damaged hard drive. You can take a look at the drive contents directly, and manipulate a large variety of file systems. I have used it to clean-erase a hard drive (not just reformat), and move, resize, create and delete single and multiple file system partitions. I have also used it to trouble shoot and correct network connections. The authors describe it this way:

Description: SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM for repairing your system and recovering your data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains a lot of system utilities (parted, partimage, fstools, …) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It is very easy to use: just boot the CDROM. The kernel supports most of the important file systems (ext2/ext3, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

This is a must-have, and it’s free.

System Rescue CD at Distrowatch

System Rescue CD home page

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Filed under: General, Help, Linux

There is a free online utility that has been available for years that I have used and recommend to my friends. It’s called Shields Up! and it tests the internal ports that your computer uses to pass information between your computer and the internet. These ports are used for such services as FTP, internet file sharing, and web browsing. Shields Up! has a variety of functions all designed to test the security of your computer based on the status of your ports. It scans your ports and gives you a pass or fail security rating, with detailed information about what it means. This is a great way to test your firewall software because the first thing a firewall should do is make your computer invisible to the internet, hiding the presence of any ports at all. A good filewall will stealth your ports so they don’t respond to outside probes or pings. Shields Up! is available at:

Gibson Research Shields Up!

Gibson Research are the makers of Spin Rite, a commercial data recovery and storage product.I’m not affiliated with them. They provide many valueable free services, one of which is Shields Up! Credit where credit is due as they say.

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Filed under: Free Web Services

The United States Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay has a special place in U.S. Military history. It is located in Southeastern Cuba, and has been in continuous use since 1903 when the United States government obtained a lease on the land from the Cuban government. It is the only military base located in a country without diplomatic relations with the United States. Guantanamo Bay Naval Station is beyond my experience. I cannot know what life in a war zone is like. I have never been to war. However, I can say with certainty that the state of readiness that our soldiers maintain, and the location that they occupy, places them in a unique position. They are the only permanent United States military station on hostile soil in a state of battle readiness. We’ve been there for 105 years. The cold war is not over. Ask the soldiers that are garrisoned there.

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Filed under: Educated Guesses

I’m blessed with many things I rarely give much thought to. I think that may be the case for many of us. It’s easy to lose sight of the true gifts in life, those things that are really precious. Painful adversity so often assaults us in force.

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Filed under: General