Posted on: September 30th, 2009 by Famous Phil

First, to cover my lack of posting here on my blog.  Between my school work and my personal email gateway server project I have had barely any time to myself for anything else (including this blog :/ ).    Hopefully my next post will be on how to configure an Exchange Email Filter Server (edge server) using Ubuntu Server, MailScanner, Spamassassin, and Clamav.  I’ve been working on this for a couple of weeks now and I’ve almost got everything working flawlessly!

I’m writing this blog to cover the lack of password security in today’s society.  Hopefully after reading this blog, you will be inspired to update your passwords and memorize pass phrases that are hard to remember for the sake of privacy and security.  To start, I’m going to tell you and use my first 2 passwords that I ever used as examples to prove my points.  My first password was “fish” and my second was “together”.  I’m posting these because I’m fairly sure that I no longer use these passwords in any environment that I care about although they may still linger on old geocities, yahoo, etc accounts that I may have created years ago.

Using dictionary passwords is the ultimate downfall to any password that you could ever come up with.  The reason why I say this is because passwords are generally turned into encrypted strings using several mathematical methods called algorithms in the computing industry.  These algorithms include the md5 and sha encryption algorithms (among many) and they are theoretically irreversible (meaning if you have the encrypted string, there is no one solution to getting the original password back).

For the longest time, I used passwords such as fish to secure my files because it was easy to remember.  I also used md5 encryption to protect passwords on my websites.  Little did I realize that being a dictionary password, an md5 lookup database exists that has all the known dictionary words in it.  This means that within a second of two, I can goto a rainbow table site and enter my encrypted (supposedly secure and irreversible password) and most of the time it will return my original password.  In addition to dictionary passwords, the rainbow tables calculate many common combinations such as 123, abc, !@# (123) and tack them onto dictionary words.  This means that passwords like fish123 are also insecure.

To fix this, many password encryption algorithms are supplemented by a salt.  This is a random phrase of characters added to the original password prior to encryption to further make the md5 irreversible.  This is great and all, but the salt usually can be easily retrieved if you compromise the system and get its value and the md5 password database.

As a system administrator, I am constantly paranoid about how secure my password is because I know how easy passwords are to crack if you use something easy or a predefined combination that is common.  Because of this, I now use passwords that look similar to “sdk3#8*(&JdS”.  I tend to use 10 characters that have no similarities or patterns to each other.  To generate these passwords, I bang my head (or hands) on the keyboard and see what comes up then I randomize that further.  Overall, I would consider the above password secure for about a year.

The reason why I say a year is because a super computer could easily brute force crack that password within a year going through every possibility up to 10 characters.  There is a chance the md5 would return multiple results when decrypted, but overall you wouldn’t go over your limit of entering bad passwords.  This is why it is strongly encouraged that you change your confidential passwords every few months or so.

For my server administrator accounts (full access accounts), I tend to use 25 character passwords that make cracking almost impossible.  Unfortunately, at the same time, they are very difficult to remember and I use a password book that is within a fireproof lock box.  I consider this secure since only 1 person (myself) has a key to this box.  I still change this password every 3 months, but it is far harder to hack.

Finally to ensure that no one can run a super computer brute force method (try every combination), I always make my computer lock up after 5 attempts so that you have 5 guesses to get my password.

Hopefully this inspires you to change your password often like I do!

Tags: md5, password, sha
Posted in Hosting / Server Administration
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Posted on: September 16th, 2009 by Famous Phil

I am taking an unusual course this semester that is titled “software engineering” but covers a much wider scope of not only software engineering, but common life problems.  The instructor, Michael “Fantastic” Buckley, took a few days outside of the curriculum  to discuss bad vs good design in everyday life.  This really has made me think a lot about designs and how horrible they tend to be.

The ultimate bad design that has always slowed me down is here at the University at Buffalo.  If you have any classes in the Natural Sciences Complex (NSC), you know exactly what I am going to be ranting about.  Have you ever got caught in the after class rush hour traffic? (sorry, I had no better words).  Whoever engineered the exit door for NSC into the surrounding buildings really designed it badly.  There are two doors and a single file stair case (basically 1 lane coming up and 1 lane going down).  Trying to push about 1000 people through that staircase at the same time results in HUGE backups and it usually takes me 5 minutes to get through that passage when leaving class late.  Here is a picture of this design:

Another bad design at the University at Buffalo is the front lawn between Bell Hall and Bonner Hall.  In this case, there is a sidewalk that runs about 150 feet in a square around this huge patch of grass.  Diagonally, there is a really beaten path that is now showing only dirt.  Unfortunately, whoever designed that path didn’t realize that putting a sidewalk through the center might be a good idea since the door to a building is about 20 feet from that diagonal path and most people going to it come from the exact opposite corner of that patch of grass.  Note that a^2 + b^2 = c^2 and the hypotenuse (c) is obviously the shortest path and most people take the shortest path.

Now lets talk a little about door handles.  Have you ever sprained your wrist because a door handle looked like a handle you pull, yet at that door, you push it?  Or even yet, a door bar that you push but the door was actually meant to be pulled?  I can give you many instances of this that occur on the University at Buffalo campus and I’m sure you could give me many examples also.  Mike pointed out a really surprising but believable story.  Between the math building and NSC, there is a tunnel that connects both buildings together.  The doors open out of this tunnel and both sides of the doors have a pull handle.  Someone entered this tunnel through one door and got trapped because he couldn’t pull and didn’t try to push the door open.  This is truly a bad design and it could potentially scar people who got seemingly trapped.  This is very similar to people who get trapped in an elevator once and never ride them again.

Naturally, I could go on and on about bad design so I’m going to stop ranting here.  I am going to leave this little tidbit for you though: as you go through the day, how often do you hit a bad design such as the door handle and blame yourself for being stupid?  I know I do it quite often.  Mike pointed out that it really isn’t the case that I’m stupid, but rather, the person who designed what I’m doing wasn’t really thinking critically for real life application.  So the next time you hit a bad design, blame the designer, not yourself!

Tags: bad design, design, university at buffalo
Posted in Student Life
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Posted on: September 13th, 2009 by Famous Phil

For as long as I can remember, I have always had multiple computers on that I use simotaneously.  With multiple computers sitting on the same desk, I have always had a separate monitor, keyboard, and mouse.  Unfortunately, the tray under my desk only has room for a single keyboard and mouse.  This means that I often clutter my desk unnecessarily with an extra keyboard and mouse.

Another unfortunate fact is that I have tendinitis in both of my wrists.  Putting my hands on the keyboard and mouse that sits on the top of the main desk really hurts my wrist and hand to the point where I can’t bear the pain.  This pain has triggered me to find alternative solutions to using the same keyboard and mouse that sits where I can easily use them without the pain.

One of my best solutions up until today has been using a KVM (Keyboard Video Mouse) switch.  This essentially connects many physical computers to the same KVM.  This works fine on a single monitor setup when I only need one screen at one given time.  What happens when I need to have access to several monitors at once when I’m trying to read something and work on it at the same time?  There simply isn’t enough room on a single 17″ monitor!

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: computer, keyboard, kvm, mouse, synergy
Posted in Technology
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Posted on: September 8th, 2009 by Famous Phil

When I first began attending the University at Buffalo in my Freshman year (I believe its 3 years ago now), all the professors would tell the class to use the UB provided email accounts for all email communications.  Unfortunately at the time, I had many addresses including my Phil@matthouse.us, Phil@famousphil.com, etc etc.  I liked to use my phil@matthouse.us as my primary send from address but shortly afterwards, I was sort of forced into using my UB Email account as my primary email send from address.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: autodiscover, exchange, Microsoft, outlook
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Posted on: September 5th, 2009 by Famous Phil

A week ago in WalMart while coming back to school, I had a long shopping list.  Of all the items on that long list, the bulkiest item is water.  Water is the most abundant molecule on Earth if I recall correctly from all the useless physics classes I took in college.  I wouldn’t say they were useless in the context that physics sucks and shouldn’t be studied but rather the way they were taught did me no good since I didn’t take anything away from them.

Regardless, every semester that I return to college, I end up carrying 10-15 cases (24 bottles / case) up the stairs to my room at UB.  As you can probably guess, that is a lot of work (=F*D ) and I’m the type of person that avoids a large physical work value in the end.  This year, returning to UB, we had to go into the electronics for a fan and continuing on we passed the water filters in the kitchenware section (I’m not sure if that’s what they call it).

When we passed the brita filters, my father mentioned to me that some people swear by them and would never consider another alternative to tap water like bottled water (my solution).  For there, that was about the extent of our looking and conversing about brita’s water filters.

Later that day at UB, I had to go to CVS for whatever reason (I believe I needed a power strip).  While I was there, I passed by the brita filters again.  This time, I thought to myself, its only $30 bucks and the filters are about $6 and last a month.  I also figured that for the cost of a filter, I would go through 5 cases of water or an entire month’s supply (thus I’d save money in the end).  I also figured that it is worth a try because if all else fails I could use it as a nice tea pitcher.

When I got the brita to my room and opened it, there were unusually long directions for it.  Unfortunately, it got off to a bad start, but my friend has gotten them working before so he gave me a very short version.  So after 15 minutes of soaking the filter in water and quickly rinsing the pitcher out afterwards, I was on my way.

To my surprise, the chlorinated water here at college acquired the taste of bottled water through the brita filter.  I didn’t really expect the brita to filter out the water that well.  Overall, I’m quite happy with it and it has curbed my usage of bottled water.  At the same time, it has helped me become a little more environmentally friendly.

Next time you need bottled water and don’t really need it bottled, try the Brita solution, you will be pleasantly surprised, I know I was!

Tags: bottle, brita, h20, solution, water
Posted in food
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Posted on: September 4th, 2009 by Famous Phil

I have been around long enough to safely say that I have been through many lectures, speeches, and conversations.  Besides being a part of these communications, I have witnessed many more conversations while I have been alive.  A few years ago, I began to notice a few key words that we as a human race use to fill in conversation gaps while our brains generate enough content to continue the conversation.  These words include, but are not limited to: 1. umm, 2. ok, 3. ehh, and the most annoying 4. you know.

I am guilty of using “umm” all the time provided I don’t completely lose it and end up reading directly off from my notes.  Besides “umm”, about 3 months ago, I noticed that I tend to use “you know” every so often.  I find that I use it when I feel that the person or group I’m talking to might have a slight clue to what I’m talking about but doesn’t really know.  This really bothered me because usually, the person I am talking to has no clue what I’m talking about, so they really don’t know!

Since noticing this the first time about 3 months ago, I began noticing heavily when others use you know as a filler and I also monitor how often I use it.  I used it quite often and have trained myself to revert back to “umm” although the best way to fill up voids in conversion is by saying nothing at all.  Unfortunately, now when I hear others use this, it drives me nuts.  For example, the other day, a professor walked in and began lecturing on advanced computer networking.  I will admit that I knew about 80% of the material but I counted at least 40 “you know” statements in that 50 minute lecture.

If you lecture at all, hopefully this will wake you up to this filler.  I know for a fact that it drives me nuts and I’m sure it drives many other people nuts too.  So next time you are trying to fill in your lecture’s silence, try “umm” instead

Tags: lecture, public speaking, You Know
Posted in Student Life
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