Welcome to DenyHosts

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DenyHosts is a script intended to be run by Linux system administrators to help thwart SSH server attacks (also known as dictionary based attacks and brute force attacks).

If you’ve ever looked at your ssh log (/var/log/secure on Redhat, /var/log/auth.log on Mandrake, etc…) you may be alarmed to see how many hackers attempted to gain access to your server. Hopefully, none of them were successful (but then again, how would you know?). Wouldn’t it be better to automatically prevent that attacker from continuing to gain entry into your system?

via Welcome to DenyHosts.

Not me.  If I let ssh into the network I only allow it for the IP address I’m going to be accessing the network from.  These brute force attacks are annoying.  This little app may prove useful.  Will look into this.

Wi-Fi patent troll hit with racketeering suit emerges unscathed

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Innovatio deliberately avoided targeting the actual manufacturers of Wi-Fi equipment, preferring to sue end-users. But in October, Cisco, Netgear, and Motorola teamed up to file an 81-page lawsuit [PDF] seeking to shut down Innovatio’s patent-trolling project once and for all. Not only were the patents invalid, but the suit alleged Innovatio’s whole campaign was a violation of the RICO anti-racketeering law. That law is more commonly used against crime families than patent holders.

via Wi-Fi patent troll hit with racketeering suit emerges unscathed | Ars Technica.

PayPal, Lenovo Launch New Campaign to Kill the Password with New Standard from FIDO Alliance

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Under the standards put forward by the FIDO Alliance, the device a person is using to log in to an account would play a more central role in authentication. That would make it impossible to compromise accounts by stealing passwords, as hackers did in order to break into Twitter this month and LinkedIn last year.

via PayPal, Lenovo Launch New Campaign to Kill the Password with New Standard from FIDO Alliance | MIT Technology Review.

Requiring a person to offer both a password and a physically linked secondary proof is an approach known as “two-factor authentication.”

An App Called Moves Logs Every Step You Take

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Created by a startup called ProtoGeo, Moves is free and currently available only for the iPhone (the company plans to release an Android version but hasn’t said when). The app’s precision and power consumption need work, but I’m convinced its simplicity represents the future of self-tracking.

via Review: An App Called Moves Logs Every Step You Take—No Extra Effort or Hardware Required | MIT Technology Review.

Six months without Adobe Flash, and I feel fine

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Things I miss: most YouTube videos are Flash-based (although often if you find them embedded on a page, YouTube will provide an HTML5 version on the fly). HTML5 playback in addition is smoother than FLV videos ever were. There are fewer glitches, slowdowns, jitters and so forth.

via Six months without Adobe Flash, and I feel fine » Houston 2600 — Computer security, hacking, coding and mayhem.

Interesting read.  I went without Flash for awhile a few years ago on when 64 bit was new on the linux box because I couldn’t get it to work and it became too much of a PITA and a waste of time to figure out.  I hardly ever use YouTube however.

Intel Invests in Big Switch

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“There’s a clear trend toward white box — getting away from the model where everything comes pre-integrated from one vendor,” says Guido Appenzeller, Big Switch’s CEO. Any of the “hyperscale” Web/cloud players — the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon Web Services LLC — have “at least tried out white boxes in the data center,” he says.

via Light Reading – Intel Invests in Big Switch.

This is the first I heard of the term white box.  The article is very informative.  Here’s one more blurb that may help describe it better:

“You will see some of the largest customers in the world demanding some very specific mandates, one of which is standardization, which implies white boxes,” says Jason Matlof, Big Switch’s vice president of marketing.

The bottom line:  The largest customers want open standards  — probably to create a more competitive marketplace for the massive amount of boxes they need to buy.  More competition = lower prices or better features or simply lower total cost of ownership.