Modern Ninja :: Ahhhh yes read what I have to say.

Novosibirsk - T minus 1 day Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:51:29 -0400 EST

So tomorrow morning we leave Novosibirsk, Siberia. It's been a lot of fun and have some great memories. I'll try to post some images at some point. Not much else has changed. I've tried to buy some seuvenirs to take back home, however there appears to be a complete lacking of anything that's truely local. Much like the United States it appears that everything here is imported from China. I can't even find post cards!

Anyway I am finishing up packing the bag at the moment and look forward to being back home with my wife and everything that is familiar to me.

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Novosibirsk - Day 6 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:12:16 -0400 EST

Sorry I haven't made any posts since leaving, but understandably I am busy. Until this morning I usually wake up right in time to shower get dressed and then head up to the top floor of the hotel for eggs, bread a juice then downstairs for our ride to the office. However this morning I woke up a bit early, by around 2 hours. It's interesting how 10pm EST is 9am here.

So coming into the country wasn't so bad, the flights were all screwed up (thank you Chicago Ohaire) but we got here and that's what's important. On first impression Russians seem very mean and ill-tempered, it wasn't until yesterday I had it explained to me the chief cultural difference between westerners and Russians when it comes to the smile. Westerns smile and it's considered having good manners, but when a Russian smiles it means they personally like that person, a person like friends, family or that they just generally like. So to a Russian when I smile they are thinking "why are you smiling at me? Do I know you? I don't like you I don't even know you!".

Another major obstacle here is obviously language. However like many places just because a person doesn't speak english, doesn't mean they do not understand every word that is coming out of you mouth. I have proof of this! Friday evening one of the girls in the office was having a birthday, so there was a party. There was beer (piva), chips, fish jerky and these sandwiches with bread, cream cheese, sliced cheese, either ham or bologna and a thick slice of tomato. It was very good actually. Oh yes and juice and vodka (naturally). So once the drinks started to flow we began to play charades!! And they were very good at playing.

I have learned many many things about the people here and it's been a very eye opening and interesting trip that I have enjoyed. I have to thank the people here that have basically baby sit us, Ilya and Vadim they have taken great care of us and taught us so much and been very patient with all of our hundreds of questions. I'll try to post again before I leave.

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Novo-say-what? Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:22:10 -0400 EST

So in a few day's I'll be traveling to Novosibirsk, Russia for a 10 day work trip. I'll me doing knowledge dumps on a bunch of developers taking over a project of mine. As I prepare to move on to other things.

Not really what more to say other than it's a LONG travel and I doubt I'll have much to say on the subject until after it's done. I am going into this without any real expectations.

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My Take on the Kaminsky DNS Flaw Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:10:21 -0400 EST

Okay so everyone has by now heard about the Kaminsky DNS flaw that has been the buzz of the network security world for the past couple of weeks. Given that I have only read preliminary data and hear-say from comment posts from other people who 'say' they have privileged access to details.

NOTICE: As of yet I have not read any specific details about the Kaminsky DNS details so this is all speculation and might change completely once details arise

So the main patch appears to be to randomize the source port for which the DNS resolver uses to look up a domain against another DNS server. Now I will not go into the details of how the exploit works, but to my knowledge this is the patch. There is supposed to be a fundamental DNS flaw in this, I don't see how that is as I have written DNS servers from scratch and mine is not vulnerable. (Sorry not for public release and no it's not djbdns, tho I do use that dns server and yes it is awesome).

So here is a question I have about a possible _REAL_ fix to this. When the resolver does the look up and receives it's response, why does the DNS server not compare each answer (which is referenced to it's answer) against the question initially asked. This information can be stored on the DNS server to compare this to. I understand that CNAME records might exist, but obviously that can be compared. Is answer of type CNAME? If so then use the answer to the CNAME and compare thant against the rest of the answer. Instead of just copying the entire answer into the cache. That just doesn't seem to work in my opinion.

So again this idea of a fix might be flawed or not, but that will be determined later. With any hope there will be more information released today to give some light on this. As a hosting provider and hacker I am extremely interested in what this has in store.

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I'm back Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:07:41 -0400 EST

Hey Everyone

Sorry about this but you may have noticed that the site has been down for the last week or so. I didn't have the money on hand to renew it so it expired. Lucky my best buddy Kris Bailey was able to fund our shared account and renew it for me. Thanks again Kris ;)

So lots has been going on, lots and lots of changes I've moved back and forth on a few projects. I have been using a lot of django and python (sorry PHP) and am now thinking about rewriting this site using the django framework. Sorry just like it _THAT_ much.

A few other new items I've been up to:

Installed Ubuntu Hardy Heron on my laptop
Dropped the Gentoo install that I had on it, I had originally installed that in 2002!!!! (that's 6 years!)
Using emacs as my new default IDE
Using irssi instead of xchat

I think what this is all coming back to is migrating to a more stress free method and faster development environment for me. It may not work for everyone, but that's OSS, freedom to choose.

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