Month: July 2012

New digs

Dave Farquhar Personal , ,

Tuesday was my first day on the new job. Who starts a new job the day before a holiday? Me. Hey, I tried to start one the day after Christmas one year. This is completely in character.

The new job uses the pieces of the CISSP I wasn’t using. It’s a stretch. Stretching is good. My new boss handed me a schedule for the next six weeks, with objectives for each week. It’s good to go in knowing what’s expected. He also said I’ll be doing a little Unix work. I was glad to hear that.

A data classification study question

Dave Farquhar security , ,

I was in a meeting last week where two CISSPs were battling wits, and one challenged the other with a question. I elbowed my boss and said that’s a great CISSP or CISM study question. He agreed. So I’ll repeat it here, with explanation.

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No matter what brand you buy, you’ll have carburetor trouble

Dave Farquhar Saving money ,

Last Updated on August 30, 2017 by Dave Farquhar

I bought a lawnmower this weekend for the other house. Of course they tried to get me to buy the $40 extended warranty to cover a $162 lawnmower. “You’ll have carburetor trouble no matter what brand you buy,” she said.

The bold print on the warranty paperwork said it excluded carburetor cleaning, so I don’t know what the point of that was. “I’ll pass,” I said. Read more

Ping sweep from Windows

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking, Windows
Ping sweep from Windows

Last Updated on August 21, 2022 by Dave Farquhar

Here’s the best Windows command-line one-liner I’ve seen in a very long time: a ping sweep from Windows. Ping sweeps, also known as ping scans, are something every sysadmin and security analyst is likely to need at one point or another. You don’t need a special tool either. It can be as simple as a one-line batch file. Ping sweep scripts for Unix are common, but you won’t always have a Unix box available. You can almost always find a Windows box anywhere you go. That makes a Windows ping sweep useful.

If you’re not familiar with a ping sweep, read on. If you need to quickly scan your network to see if anyone’s added any new systems without telling you–something that only ever happens to me, right?–this tool will help you detect that, then head off those questions about why you haven’t patched and installed antivirus on that new server yet. Sometimes I run this on my home network too, to help me jog my memory.

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