I hate phones

I wandered down to the Louvre last night and took some pictures, but my phone is refusing to speak to my laptop, so here is the Seidenstrasse instead. I am hacking from the amazing Mozilla Paris offices this week, for some reason this is the projects favourite place to meet.

Reading: Babylon's Ashes, Cryptonomicon

On the road

Time for a quick international measurement tour!

Well no, nothing as cool. I have meeting and a hackathon in Paris this week, then on Friday I am jetting (on a train) up to Brussles for FOSDEM. Travelling gives me a chance to run my network tracing tool from lots of strange places, hopefully strange places reveal strange networks.

Now I am going to have a wander around this city for a bit, before a great day of coding tomorrow.

It is Sunday, so that makes seven days of writing .

Reading: Babylon's Ashes, Cryptonomicon

Edge Measurements

Something for work meant I had to throw together a DSCP probing tool at the last minute. It still needs lots of work, but I needed to get out today and test on some real networks (just work and my house don't count). If I have to spend a lot of time in cafes, pubs and chains doing measurements from edges I might as well enjoy it.

If I can manage more than a couple of shots like this I can put together an excellent slide when presenting this work.

Reading: Babylon's Ashes, Cryptonomicon

There is no lounge

I wonder if a CCC style lounge would work as a real club, I guess the status of DNA Lounge indicates it isn't a great proposition. Hacker bars for console jockeys are really appealing, the properties that would make them a nice place to be; not too crowded, room to hack, exclusive, don't really translate to a successful business.

Still, one can dream.

Reading: Babylon's Ashes, Cryptonomicon

The Network is susceptible to security violations

RFC602 published in December 1973: 

           "The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney with Care"


The ARPA Computer Network is susceptible to security violations for at least
the three following reasons:

(1)  Individual sites, used to physical limitations on machine access, have
     not yet taken sufficient precautions toward securing their systems
     against unauthorized remote use.  For example, many people still use
     passwords which are easy to guess:  their fist names, their initials,
     their host name spelled backwards, a string of characters which are
     easy to type in sequence (e.g. ZXCVBNM).

(2)  The TIP allows access to the ARPANET to a much wider audience than
     is thought or intended.  TIP phone numbers are posted, like those
     scribbled hastily on the walls of phone booths and men's rooms.  The
     TIP required no user identification before giving service.  Thus,
     many people, including those who used to spend their time ripping off
     Ma Bell, get access to our stockings in a most anonymous way.

(3)  There is lingering affection for the challenge of breaking
     someone's system.  This affection lingers despite the fact that
     everyone knows that it's easy to break systems, even easier to
     crash them.

All of this would be quite humorous and cause for raucous eye
winking and elbow nudging, if it weren't for the fact that in
recent weeks at least two major serving hosts were crashed
under suspicious circumstances by people who knew what they
were risking; on yet a third system, the system wheel password
was compromised -- by two high school students in Los Angeles
no less.

We suspect that the number of dangerous security violations is
larger than any of us know is growing.  You are advised
not to sit "in hope that Saint Nicholas would soon be there".

via

Reading: Babylon's Ashes, Cryptonomicon

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