Author: Dave Farquhar

Are PDF files safe to open?

Dave Farquhar security
Are PDF files safe to open?

Are PDF files safe to open? It depends. Don’t you hate when security people say things like that?

There are risks involved with PDF files, but you probably also can’t avoid PDFs entirely. So here’s what you can do to work with PDF files safely.

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Cyber security and cryptography

Dave Farquhar security
Cyber security and cryptography

Cryptography is one of the more difficult concepts to master when studying for a certification like CISSP. I know from my own experience it’s really easy to let the details overwhelm you. After seeing an acquaintance’s Linkedin post, I thought I’d write about cyber security and cryptography and what you really need to know.

Let me start with one thing. I have never, ever had to encode or decode anything by hand. I’m very confident I can stay employed another 20 years in the cyber security field and never have to do the math myself.

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Most valuable Fleer baseball cards

Dave Farquhar Baseball
Most valuable Fleer baseball cards

No company worked harder to get into the baseball card market than Fleer. Baseball cards and bubble gum will always be linked, and yet, the inventor of bubble gum wasn’t able to get into the baseball card market for good until 1981. Sadly, Fleer went defunct in 2005 after being mostly an also-ran to Topps in value and interest. But here’s a look back at the most valuable Fleer baseball cards.

Fleer had a hard-luck existence in the baseball card market and it got worse after the baseball card bubble burst. But it had some great stories, especially in its early years. The stories behind the cards are often what makes the hobby fun.

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CISSP vs CEH

Dave Farquhar security
CISSP vs CEH

CISSP and CEH are two of the most common computer security certifications you’ll see in security program job descriptions. If you want to advance your career by becoming a certified professional, you might consider each of them. Here’s my experience of CISSP vs CEH.

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How to find estate sales

Dave Farquhar Saving money
How to find estate sales

The Internet changed the estate sale business dramatically over the last 20 years, but I’ll argue it’s mostly for the better. Let’s look at how to find estate sales and how to find out about estate sales, but perhaps more importantly, how to find the right estate sales.

Where you look for estate sales in your area makes a difference. Estate sales are a great place to find bargains, but that doesn’t help you if you can’t find the sales first.

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Commodore 1581 drive

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Commodore 1581 drive

The Commodore 1581 drive was the C64 3.5 floppy released in 1987 to extend the usable life of its 8-bit line of computers. It was an 800K floppy disk drive using the 15then-new 3.5-inch disk format. It stored almost as much data as five 5.25-inch disks formatted by a Commodore 1541, and was the closest thing to affordable mass storage available for the C-64 at the time.

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DNS over TLS: Protect your network with Ubuntu

Dave Farquhar ISPs
DNS over TLS: Protect your network with Ubuntu

Right now the only consumer OS that supports DNS over TLS is Android Pie 0r newer. But that doesn’t mean you can’t run DNS over TLS yourself to protect your DNS privacy. Here’s how to implement a local DNS server that uses TLS to talk to upstream DNS servers to keep your ISP and other hostile third parties from seeing your DNS lookups. As a bonus, it caches your requests to speed up your Internet connection, and you can filter out malware domains with it.

There’s a lot to like with this setup.

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Vulnerability assessment vs penetration test: What’s the difference?

Dave Farquhar security
Vulnerability assessment vs penetration test: What’s the difference?

You can expect any midlevel or higher security certification test to require you to compare and contrast a vulnerability assessment vs penetration test. The difference is important. But since I still see people confusing the two, let me explain them.

I conduct vulnerability assessments for a living. I’ve done some light pentesting in the past, but I’m happier doing assessments. I don’t want to be a penetration tester. That seems strange to some people. Maybe that gives me a good perspective to compare and contrast the two, because both have their uses. But they aren’t interchangeable.

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Apple IIgs vs Macintosh

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Apple IIgs vs Macintosh

The Apple IIgs was a 16-bit Apple II with a Mac-like user interface. Why did Apple make something like that? Let’s take a look at the Apple IIgs vs Macintosh to understand what the differences were, and what Apple was thinking when they did it.

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Welsh Baby Carriage Company, St. Louis

Dave Farquhar St. Louis
Welsh Baby Carriage Company, St. Louis

The Welsh Baby Carriage Company, and its eponymous five-story factory, is a prominent landmark along I-55 in St. Louis. The Welsh Baby Carriage Factory on the south side of downtown no longer bears the company’s name. But the building survives as the Soulard Market Apartments.

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