Author: Dave Farquhar

What I would have done to secure the Astros’ database

Dave Farquhar Baseball, security , , , , ,

The now-infamous breached Houston Astros database sounds like a classic case of what security professionals call Shadow IT: a project that the business needs, done without adequate involvement from security and, most likely, from the IT department as well.

These kinds of things happen a lot. A go-getter implements it, cutting through red tape to get a useful project done in record time, and it’s great until something goes wrong.

In this case, “wrong” meant a competitor got into the database and stole trade secrets.

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Minor-League hacking in the MLB

Dave Farquhar Baseball, security , , , , , ,

So, about a year ago, the Houston Astros announced their internal player database had been breached. This week, more details emerged, pointing right at the St. Louis Cardinals.

It wasn’t a terribly sophisticated attack. You knew I’d write about this, but I’ll explore it from an IT security perspective more than from a baseball perspective.

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How to use a router as a switch

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking , ,
How to use a router as a switch

Most of us have an old router like a Linksys WRT54G laying around, or if we don’t, it’s very easy to find one–the nearest garage sale or thrift store is a good bet–but sometimes all we need is a switch, to hook up a couple more computers or other devices to a wired connection. Using a router as a switch wastes some of its capabilities, but it’s easy to do. Here’s how to use a router as a switch.

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Hot tip: Memory probably isn’t going to get much cheaper

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,
Hot tip: Memory probably isn’t going to get much cheaper

Friday I saw a story from a financial publication suggesting that DDR3 DRAM prices will be increasing soon due to increasing demand for PCs, thanks to Windows 10’s release and the back-to-school season.

That got me thinking, and while memory prices aren’t at an all-time low right now, they are pretty cheap. A Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB kit runs about $105 right now. About two years ago, I paid $99 for the same kit. According to the pricing history available to me, the cheapest it’s ever been was $70, and the highest it’s been is $160.

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Preventing front or rear truck derailment on Lionel locomotives

Dave Farquhar Toy trains ,

Years ago, I brought a Lionel 2026 locomotive in for repair that had belonged to my dad. It ran poorly, and either dad or his kid brother had taken it apart at some point and lost some of the parts, including the front truck.

And then, when I got the locomotive back and I put it on the track for a test run, it derailed constantly. The front truck just wouldn’t stay on the track, no matter what I did.

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How to test whether your TV has a digital HDTV tuner in it

Dave Farquhar Saving money ,

If you’re thinking about canceling your cable TV subscription to save money, you might be worried about buying an antenna, only to find your TV isn’t capable of receiving over-the-air broadcasts.

If you live near a major metro area though, you can test it with a one-cent paper clip.

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Meet Waze, the crowdsourced GPS

Dave Farquhar Android , , ,

I’ve read a few things here and there about Waze, a crowdsourced GPS that runs on smartphones, including those that run Android, Apple, and Windows. Its premise is simple: Based on how traffic is moving, it figures out the fastest way to get where you want to go. It adds intelligence to the GPS.

The trade-off, of course, is that it’s tracking you too. The data is anonymized, they promise, but it’s up to you to decide whether it’s a showstopper.

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Why someone would hack a WordPress account

Dave Farquhar security, Wordpress ,

I wasn’t surprised people were trying to hack my blog. What surprised me were how many people were trying to hack my blog–there was a time when I probably had more hacking-related traffic than I had reader-related traffic.

If you have a WordPress blog, you’re probably in a similar situation.

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Twelve percent.

Dave Farquhar Saving money , ,

Last week, a former classmate shared a Dave Ramsey article about early savings. Ramsey stated a teenager could save a couple thousand a year, stop saving in their 20s, and still retire a multimillionaire. I agree with the sentiment completely, but I’m concerned that Ramsey overstates how rich that person can expect to become.

Ramsey’s favored investment vehicle is a mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500.

The problem with the article is that he assumed an annual return on investment of 12 percent, which is well above every reasonable historical estimate I’ve ever heard of S&P 500 rates of return. Forbes agrees. Ramsey is basing his number on a subset of history, not all available history.

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My Babe Ruth lottery ticket

Dave Farquhar Baseball , , , ,

It was June 2, 2015, the 80th anniversary of Babe Ruth’s final Major League Baseball game. That day, I bought a lottery ticket. I spied a 1935 Goudey Babe Ruth card on Ebay, which casually mentioned it was an “RP,” which is usually shorthand for “reprint.”

Chances were, the seller was telling the truth, and hoping some bidders would fail to notice the code word. But the card looked just convincing enough that I decided to place a bid, just in case the seller was wrong. I won. The total price including shipping was $11. No one else had taken the bait.

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