Uncategorized Archives

When subversion doesn’t get you promoted

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized November 20, 2014November 15, 2014

Many resources for up and coming go-getter managers tell managers to subvert or go around processes in order to get things done.

Let me tell you a story about that strategy backfiring.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.

dfarq.homeip.net

Comments are working again

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized November 11, 2014

One of my very earliest readers alerted me today that comments were broken. I traced the problem back to WP-Spamshield. I disabled it, and comments are working again. I hate to lose that plugin, but comments are important, so I’ll search for a replacement or a fix action. In the meantime at least it’s working.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Here we go again. Net neutrality is not Obamacare either.

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized November 11, 2014November 10, 2014Barack Obama, FCC, net neutrality, netflix, republicans

To nobody’s particular surpise, yesterday president Barack Obama endorsed a form of net neutrality. And immediately, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) came out swinging against it, calling it, “Obamacare for the Internet.”

Sen. Cruz appears to have either failed to read, or refused to read, the four-point proposal, which is short and simple enough to fit on an index card, if not a business card. He also failed to discuss the alternative–and there is a perfectly fair alternative to net neutrality.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

An approach for helping demanding people

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized October 27, 2014October 15, 2014

I found myself in a conversation this past weekend about demanding people–specifically, people who every time you hear from them have a litany of 10 complaints.

At that point the conversation took a U-turn. “Yeah, how do you deal with people like that?”

About three years ago I met someone who was really good at that, and fortunately I was in a good position to watch him work and he didn’t mind. I’m still not as good at it as he is, but few people are, and we would all do well to try to be better at it.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Why we can’t have nice things: The reaction to IBM’s big black and blue quarter

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized October 21, 2014October 20, 2014AIX, amd, datacenter, hp, IBM, lenovo, mainframe, proprietary unix, unix, warren buffett, x86

IBM announced yesterday that it had a terrible quarter. They missed earnings, the stock plunged, and Warren Buffett lost a billion dollars.

Everyone assumes Warren Buffett is worried, or livid, and selling off the stock like it’s on fire. Read more

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Statistically predicting successful marriages

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized October 14, 2014October 13, 2014

I make my living by trying to statistically measure and present the security of a computer network. The month I started, it seemed nearly impossible. Today it’s merely difficult. So I loved this story about trying to apply statistics to something even more difficult: marriage success.

The strategy to take is to look at the risk factors, then do what you can to minimize them. In my case, we went 6 for 7. And I can tell you we felt the difference as the factors related to earning power declined over the years.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Do this before hitting send

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized October 8, 2014September 16, 2014lifehacker

Lifehacker suggests writing e-mail backwards. That’s not exactly what I do, but the effect is about the same.

Most people get way too much e-mail, and working in shops where that wasn’t true got me in some bad habits. In my current job, I quickly learned that I needed to put what I’m asking for right up front. Read more

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Net neutrality is not Marxism

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized August 27, 2014August 31, 2014AT&T, cable tv, internet providers, Major League, Major League Baseball, net neutrality, netflix

There is a fear campaign going on, suggesting that net neutrality is Marxism, or a plot for the government to take over the Internet.

That’s name calling. There’s actually something very different going on.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

The Bing conspiracy

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized July 30, 2014July 25, 2014Bing, windows 8

So my buddy Tom was working on a Windows 8 laptop, trying to fix it up, and he needed to uninstall a program. Tom’s been using Windows since about 1992, so he’s no newbie, but he couldn’t figure it out.

He had to resort to using a web search to find out how to do it.

I told him it’s a Microsoft conspiracy to get people to use Bing. But then Tom had to go and ruin it for them by using Google.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Verizon sabotages Netflix

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized July 19, 2014August 31, 2014net neutrality, netflix, verizon, VPN

I’m fed up with ISP duopolies. Why? Because Netflix paid Verizon the ransom it demanded, and yet Verizon hasn’t lived up to its side of the deal. To the contrary, evidence suggests Verizon is actively slowing down Netflix, because when Colin Nederkoorn encrypts his Netflix connection so Verizon can’t see what it is, it speeds up.

News flash: Encrypting data via VPN adds overhead, so it ought to slow the traffic down.

I’m starting to doubt whether net neutrality is enough to solve the problem. A better solution is to break these companies up, let them serve whoever they want, and let municipalities compete with them if they want.

Not that that is ever going to happen.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net