Subtle Rantings

Some of you may remember me asking back in March if anyone had any NAS recommendations. I finally came across a solution that I think is going to serve me well. I picked up a D-Link DNS-323 NAS and a couple Seagate 500GB SATA/300 drives to fill the dual bay D-Link enclosure. The total investment was right at $360 - not too shabby for a terabyte’s worth of data.

One of the reasons I chose the D-Link was because of it’s RAID options. It offers RAID-0, RAID-1, and JBOD. I am currently using RAID-1, which is just disk mirroring. This way if/when one drive fails, the other just takes over and since it’s a mirror of the other disk, all data is safe and secure. This does not protect me if I happen to accidentally delete some files, as the mirrored disk will have those same files removed. To combat this, I’m thinking of buying another DNS-323 unit to serve as a backup unit to my first DNS-323 unit. This way I can do a nightly differential rsync on this secondary unit and I will again have a highly redundant storage system.

In regards to setup and install, it was very easy and straightforward. D-Link provided a “Quick-Install” guide that walked me through it. Basically, you insert both your drives into the enclosure, connect the network and power cables and power it on. No tools are necessary for drive installation or removal. Once the unit is powered on, you can use the included D-Link Easy Search utility which will find the DHCP IP address that unit was assigned. From there, you open a browser and connect to the NAS via the web interface. Basically, set up just consists of choosing which RAID option you would like (if any) and formatting the drives. Once that was done, the unit was ready to be accessed from any Windows PC via a standard shared drive.

I’ve had the NAS for a week now and I have to say I’ve been very happy with it so far. I would definitely highly recommend this NAS enclosure and the drives of your choice to anyone. It’s definitely a much more budget friendly NAS when compared to other similar products like the NetGear ReadyNAS or any of the Buffalo TerraStation’s.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Jeff Jonas shares quite a bit of insight into the security and tracking that goes on at a Casino in this Computerworld article. Plus there’s some interesting little anecdotes.

“There’s this one casino, one of their high rollers beat them for US$18 million,” Jonas said. “That’s actually going to show up on quarterly earnings. So they left with US$18 million. The casino sent a jet to their town and left a limo in front of their house on weekends and said ‘you know just in case you get the bug.’ And they got the bug and they took them up on it and they came back and lost something like US$22 million.”

Popularity: 47% [?]

I just signed up for Twitter a few days ago. Frankly, I’m not quite sure why. I think mainly because I keep hearing about it and I wanted to find out what’s all the fuss. I don’t yet understand the point of it. At first glance, it still seems like a bunch of people detailing every minute of their lives for all to see.

Right now I’m just experimenting with using it for fun. Since this is another “social network” per se, I can definitely see myself wasting a lot of time here, so I’ve got to be careful.

If anyone is interested in following me on Twitter, I can be found here. And if anyone can offer any insight as to how you’re using it for means other than personal pleasure, I’d be interested.

Popularity: 59% [?]

With the wife and I acquiring more digital matter (as I’m sure everyone is), I am wanting to move away from my antiquated, albeit functional, FreeBSD file server. Currently, I am running FreeBSD on three boxes. One box is the main file server that anyone on my network can access. The other two boxes serve as backup systems for the primary file server. Through a variety of rsync scripts, I have a very redundant system of storage that has served me very well over the past few years.

To give you an idea of my existing configuration, I have two main partitions on my file server. One is for my MP3 music collection, and the other is for anything else (documents, archived programs, email backups, etc). I wanted to create a system that would be easy to use, but at the same time impervious to a number of attacks or disasters.

I have one script that runs every 15 minutes on the 2 backup servers. This script does a differential rsync on the main file server to see if any new files were added. This rsync does not delete anything. This means, I’ve created an environment where there is only a 15 minute window of vulnerability. For example, I just created my budget for 2008 and I save it to the file server. If the file server were to die BEFORE that rsync script runs every quarter hour, I would lose that file. However, no files that had already been backed up during the last 15 minute script execution would be lost. As you can see, this is MUCH better than a daily backup routine.

Here’s the coolest feature of my design in my opinion. Since I am syncing the backup servers with the main file servers every 15 minutes, what if I got a virus on my machine that started deleting everything on my local and networked drives? Or what if I accidentally deleted an entire folder that I didn’t meant to? That’s OK. Here’s why: Whenever I delete something on the main file server, it is indeed deleted from that server. However, the deleted item(s) still exists on the backup servers. You may remember me saying earlier how my rsync script only copies new items and doesn’t delete anything. Once a week I run a “cleanup” script that goes through and compares the backup server filesystem with the main file server and will delete items that no longer exist on the main server. This protects me from any worm or trojan outbreak that may occur on my network.

The only way I lose all my data is in a house fire or some other locally physical event. How’s that for redundancy?

While my current setup has served me well and flawlessly, I’m ready to move to a NAS. I want something that has a much smaller footprint, less power requirements, and a more standardized implementation. So I need someone to recommend a NAS to me. Here are my requirements in order of importance:

• Supports RAID 5
• Network Attached (duh)
• Relatively fast
• Web GUI as well as Shell Access

Any ideas?

Popularity: 54% [?]

Once again Charter Communications has confirmed it is the absolutely worst company in America. As if poor cable service, poor customer service and absolutely poor HD channel selection wasn’t enough, now news sources were reporting today that Charter has accidentally deleted the email accounts of approximately 14,000 of it’s customers. 14,000!

They also mention there is no way to retrieve any of the emails, attachments, or other data that was in the user’s email account at the time. I guess they’ve never heard of backups? From a privacy standpoint, I support the decision to NOT have the data reside elsewhere. However, some sort of backup should not have been out of the question.

How did this happen? According to Charter spokespeople:

…Charter gives each broadband subscriber a free e-mail account. But since many people use other e-mail addresses, the company routinely deletes unused accounts. On Monday, some active accounts wound up being deleted with the inactive accounts.

Oh and here’s the best part. If you were one of the 14,000 affected by this incident you are entitled to a $50 credit. Now aren’t you glad you’re a Charter customer? Good luck getting someone from the Billing department to actually answer the phone too.

I really can’t stand Charter. I wish they would go bankrupt or at least lose their monopoly on the cable market in my area.

Popularity: 49% [?]

I did forget to mention one thing the other day when I was talking about senduit.com. Not that it matters that much, but senduit.com is ad supported. This isn’t a huge price to pay for such a cool service. The ad in question, yes just one, is displayed whenever someone goes to download your file. So at least you as the file sharer don’t have to look at it.

Like I said, it’s not much in reality, but I did want to let everyone know just…because I can.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Often times I’ve found the need to send someone a file that is much larger than would be considered acceptable to send via email (ie. greater than 5 or 6 megabytes). Personally, I am fortunate enough to have some tech savvy and a place where I can upload all the files I want. Most importantly the latter of the two in case you were wondering.

This is however not always the case for the average non-geek computer user. Which is where senduit.com comes in. Senduit.com is a site where you can upload any file, up to 100 mb, and they will store it on their servers for up to 1 week. It’s a very simple, easy to use interface that anyone would be able to use.

Once your file is uploaded, you are given a link similar to this one:

http://senduit.com/7827ed

This link in particular was a file I uploaded and gave it an hour expiration time. I like the fact they give you a small, easy to handle URL, that also doesn’t expose exactly what the file is. I like this for any prying eye’s that may be reading over your shoulder, reading your email, or spying on you in some other manner.

While senduit.com does not claim to be a secure, encrypted file sharing site, it does address security and privacy concerns in their Privacy Policy. In their Privacy Policy they claim to not save, review, or analyze the file name, contents, type or even origin (IP address). They throw in the standard 21st century disclaimer that while they attempt to maintain perfect security, they cannot guarantee it, so it would be best to not share sensitive data using their service. Duh!

All in all, as I stated earlier, I’ve never really had the need for a file sharing service like this, but I like it. It’s perfect for that short term sharing of files. Plus there’s no clean up of storage space to worry about. I think I’ll be bookmarking this one and using it from time to time.

Popularity: 32% [?]

First let me say there is a TON of news that has come out over the weekend, so I think I’ve got my content for the week in just one day. This is unfortunate, as I’m sure there will be more good content coming out this week as well. You say I should just post more often right? Ha! I wish! Anyway, on to today’s posting.

No longer will you need WEP or WPA encryption schemes for your wireless networks. There is a new paint that you can paint on your walls and it will keep all wireless signals from “leaking” out to the real world. However, I hope no one will need to use a cell phone or cordless phone for that matter in this “secure” room as I’m betting most all signals at 2.4Ghz range and maybe even 5.8Ghz range will be blocked.

I see one huge problem with this that is going to be great business for pen-testers once and if this product ever gains widespread popularity.  I think it’s possible people could start using this new paint product and give them a false sense of security whereby they begin to believe they no longer need wireless encryption protection. I was joking earlier when I said WEP and WPA are no longer needed, but unfortunately, some people will believe they no longer need it. Like I said, this will be great for criminals and pen-testers alike.

The correct stance to take on this product is to regard it as an additional layer of security for wireless networks. Continue the use of normal wireless security measures as well. I personally would definitely use this product if I didn’t need to have cell phone coverage in my office. Heh, and I just thought about a great practical joke. Paint someone’s room with this stuff. Then paint over it and they’ll never know why their cell signal isn’t getting out of that room anymore. Which brings up a very good question: How do you take this stuff off if you don’t want to be “secure” anymore? Guess I need to do some more reading on the product. Anyway, check it out if you’re interested: EM-SEC Technologies

Popularity: 46% [?]

This is totally awesome. One number for life! A friend of mine sent me this article today from the NY Times. Do you have too many phone numbers? Do your phone numbers change frequently for whatever reason? Then this service may be for you. GrandCentral is offering a one number for life service. They assign you a “virtual” phone number that is good forever! Then you configure what phones you want to ring when someone dials your “virtual” number.

Only one phone number to give out at parties. Centralized voicemail for ALL lines (cell, home, work, doesn’t matter). Record phone calls. LOTS more features. I’m not getting a referral or anything for this but you guys need to check this out.

Popularity: 39% [?]

So now, not only do OneCare users have to battle the normal malware/spyware problems, they have to worry if OneCare is going to eat their email. Read the story here: Over-Zealous OneCare Eats Some Outlook E-mail

So not only did it delete this person’s entire .PST file, it REALLY deleted it. I’m talking, no Recycle Bin deleted. Ahhh, Microsoft, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Seriously, please continue to screw up and put out totally shoddy products so that my switch to a Mac will be so much easier.

Popularity: 27% [?]