Robby Pedrica's Tech Blog

Category: Computer Tech

  • Corrupted Intel SSDs?

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    Intel has indicated that there is the possibility of corruption on X25m and X18m SSD units related to setting a drive BIOS password. The problem is triggered if a user has set a password, changes or removes the password and then reboots the host computer. Shipments of these SSDs have been suspended however here in…

  • Groklaw, Sys-Con Media and journalism

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    I’ve been a keen follower of Pamela Jones’ editorial on the SCO-IBM case for a number of years now, mainly because of the importance of the topic but also because of Pamela’s straightforward and factual journalism style. Whether or not this is her real persona has never been an issue with me because her facts…

  • DNS Security

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    .. has always been a hot topic, considering that it is the cornerstone of the Internet. Without DNS or with a broken DNS, the Internet stops working ( correctly ) so it’s important that this building block is always in top shape, something that has been lacking from time to time. Considering it’s age and…

  • Bind security issues

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    This time the security issue is with BIND 9 specifically and not DNS in general as Dan Kaminsky’s fabled cache poisoning issue from last year. Receipt of a specially-crafted dynamic update message to a zone for which the server is the master may cause BIND 9 servers to exit. Slaves are unaffected however. Patches are…

  • Internet Explorer patch

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    This past Tuesday saw Microsoft release a patch targeting a number of vulnerabilities in its browser on Windows 2000 and XP platforms ( possible IE 5, 6 and 7 ). The bugs relate to how IE handles objects in memory and table operations, more specifically it could allow remote code execution. The vulnerabilities can be…

  • Microsoft, Hyper-V drivers for Linux and the GPL

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    Microsoft released some drivers for Linux running on Hyper-V this week, with a lot of bell ringing and fanfare. Most people don’t know that behind the scenes, a protracted battle has been fought due to the fact that Microsoft have had these drivers for some time but they weren’t GPL-compliant. Microsoft have now been forced…

  • Cluster and distributed filesystems

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    This is a surprisingly large ecosystem for an area of OS’s that would on the face of it seem very specialised. I think there are a few  facts that are bringing these features to the mainstream: 1. we’re looking at new IT innovations like cloud computing 2. management interfaces to provide these features are being…

  • This week’s security and more botnets

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    This week’s security issues are dominated by Oracle and Adobe Acrobat/Reader flaws – Oracle’s issues look to be in remote access and listener areas while Reader/Acrobat are to do with image decoding buffer overflows ( 14! ). Perhaps Adobe should do some code checking once in a while considering the high rate of vulnerabilities they…

  • Recent source of Mydoom attacks found – UK

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    The recent DDoS attacks on SKorean and US websites have been found to have originated out of the UK, with analysis indicating an estimated size of 176000 botnet-controlled PCs! The master host was also found to be a Windows 2003 Server machine. Seeing as the IP address is known, it will be interesting to see…

  • Old Windows viruses just keep on coming

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    The 2nd week of this month saw a large number of DDoS attacks on prominent US and South Korean web sites. Many thousands of compromised Windows PCs were used through a botnet to perform these attacks with a subtle variation of the Mydoom virus/worm. Considering that Mydoom was released in Jan 2004, it’s surprising (…

  • WorldWideWorx, Arthur Goldstuck and new cables

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    The talk given by Arthur Goldstuck this evening at Bandwidth Barn was very enlightening. Entitled ‘the cables are coming’, it concentrated on the new undersea cables that are due to be going on line in the next few years, the effect they will have on the internet in SA and the internet trends in SA…

  • Ubuntu the minor player?

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    Well that’s according to Dana Blankenhorn on ZDnet … While Dana is not an anti-Linux person, his view is limited to presumably the closed US ecosystem. Meanwhile the rest of the world is speeding on and adopting FOSS at a rate of knots. Ubuntu itself ( and others ) is being used everywhere from education…

  • Mono where art thow?

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    The debate surrounding Mono, the ‘open source implementation of .Net’, has been going on for some years now. And a very roudy debate it has become lately. Some history first. Mono was originally conceived by Miguel de Icasa, now a Novell employee. Originally part of the Ximian project, it was later incorporated into Novell at…

  • Viruses, viruses, and more viruses

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    3 new scenarios for the weekend … I recently had to rebuild a Linux server for a large national retailer, running a console-based app, due to hardware failure. This duly done and the machine back in operation, I was surprised to get a call relating to high traffic usage on that network. As some background…

  • The IT supply ( value? ) chain in South Africa

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    Being at the end of the world, and with past issues like Apartheid, South Africa has had a different and sometimes less than optimal method for providing sales, services and support of IT equipment. The aforementioned issues have resulted in a vendor -> distributor -> reseller -> client arrangement which sometimes works well and other…