Sanctum Sanctorum Mark III

This useful tidbit came across from Pawel Rogocz on the djbdns mailing list today.

If you don't know what actual host is really doing your DNS lookups - or you suspect that, despite having your DNS resolver set to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, some network trick is going on, and some other host is actually doing the lookups... you can look up whoami.ultradns.net. It always returns the IP address of the actual DNS server that is doing the query.

Very nice. So now if you're on some hotel network set up with a tunnel to work, but DNS pointed at your favorite open DNS resolver, you can check whether the hotel net is playing games with you. Or your cable provider. Or your DSL provider....

Why does it matter? Well, first off, some folks use alternative DNS roots - for corporate name space, and for extensions on the 'normal' DNS root. The intercepting box may be a benign "feature" of the network you're on, but have a way out of date root nameserver file, causing you to fail to resolve new TLDs like .name. And finally, it may be a security concern if someone is intercepting and giving you bogus DNS responses and you rely on the names (rather than on a site certificate being correct, but you knew that didn't you?). Of course, a savvy man-in-the-middle attacker will just return the correct IP you suspect, but this'll let you know about all the cache engines and proxies you might encounter that get in your DNS way.

host whoami.ultradns.net
nslookup whoami.ultradns.net

Whatever tool you like. Useful. You can even uncover nameserver's alternate IPs this way.
host whoami.ultradns.net nameserver.IP.address.here

Coolness.

There is a very serious, unpatched issue with IE right now. In short, IE will happily treat an html (or, apparently, text!) file containing Active Scripting elements as a safe document. Hilarity ensues.

You can:
1) turn off Active Scripting, or
2) stop using IE (recommended!), or
3) Use the workaround patch from eEye

If you use the patch, remember to uninstall it before installing the official MS patch (when it comes out). eEye has made that part easy, by the way.

I prefer option #2.

Yes, ask YOUR doctor about new PANEXA.
*guffaw*

Cogent sales manager: "We are the crack of the Internet."

Me: "Uh, you might want to rephrase that."

Him: "Um... er... yeah."

Pokemon Olympics Rosh Hashana children are Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Wow. You just learn the darndest things from spam.

A KPLC TV (Lake Charles, LA) skeleton crew updated a website and kept broadcasting and webcasting through the night, as the NE of Rita's eye clipped the city. Working from the fifth floor of an apparently solid-as-heck hospital (with a line-of-sight microwave link to their broadcast relay), the crew reported on screaming wind and rain, area conditions, and tornado warnings. Reduced to a couple of gravity boom cams, one mic, and a laptop, the crew used hand-written signs in lieu of the usual alerts ticker at the bottom of the screen. Relaying warnings, updates, wind conditions, and even police info, they seemed about the only central information relay in the area.

They kept going on the web through about 2:45AM when local comm links broke down just after the crew commented on how quiet it had become, and surmised they were in a calm zone past the front of the inner eyewall. Then, apparently, the back wall roared in with fresh gusts, and cut off their major comms to the 'net. Later in the morning, they lost their microwave relay link. Webpage updates became sporadic. But by 11AM, they had restored their on-the-air broadcasting and had their website updates going at a good clip again.

12:30 [pm] - Mayor Randy Roach says there is extensive wind damage and that it is practically impossible to get through the city. Storm surge is still a problem. Bord du Lac Drive is flooded over onto Lakeshore Drive. The Mayor urges people to not drive at all in the city at this time. Buses to temporary shelters will be picking people up at the Civic Center between 2 pm and 3 pm. There is a curfew for Lake Charles from 7pm to 6 am. Lake Charles residents should boil all water until further notice.

The lake is at a level "no one has seen before." And keep in mind, it's still raining in force upstream.

Now, at about 12:45PM, they're working to get the web simulcast back up. These folks remind me of the New Orleans crew of WWL-TV, which at one point were broadcasting from a hotel room. The big difference is this crew found themselves right in some of the worst of it. Winds outside were estimated at well over 100MPH.

Edit: (2PM) - KPLC put up a Flash photo exhibit . It's only half of the Lake Charles area, but seriously -- look at photo 7. Those are huge barges that were torn loose (by tornado, one phone-in witness said, last night on KPLC) and washed up against the railroad bridge.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-rehnquist,1,6551882.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

The AP got the story. The Chief Justice passed away at his home just about an hour ago, say the reports.

I often did not agree with his opinions on more touchy matters, but his positions were reasoned even where differing from mine on those political points that mattered (political being those points on which rational people can disagree, sometimes to great ultimate difference). He was, ultimately, a Justice who maintained the respect due the position. So, given the extreme polarization and frequent demands for pundits on the Court, I do quake to think of who may follow.

Yet another financial manages to have "go missing" a tape-set full of "Social Security numbers, names, account history and loan information about retail customers, and former customers" -- this time from a division of Citi; the tapes were bound for Experian. They didn't make it.

Read about it on CNN.

A number of other financials have also reported missing tapes. Makes you wonder whether these are "coincidental" losses. Two possibilities: things have been sloppy all along and new audit rules are finding out; and/or there's a targeted effort to nail [backup] copies of this financial data.

Mind, I think the REAL issue is that this petty data is all it takes to compromise someone's financial LIFE... but that's a rant for another day.

EndNote 8 comes blazoned with the feel-good slogan, "...Bibliographies Made Easy^TM" in a colorful, friendly-looking box . . .

. . . containing a 580 page manual.

Not usually one to get into the random name cranking engines... but when the Unitarian Jihad generated the below name immediately, well, I just had to post.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister/Brother Claymore of Loving Kindness.
Get yours.

I've seen some people trim down their names to include only "brother" or "sister." In the spirit of this newfound membership in the forward-going (while looking back and including all possibilities) organization (that while organized is not repressively over-structural), I think (without placing judgment on those who have done differently) that the idea may be (perhaps, at least from my point of view, which is subject to change) to use both terms and perhaps someday to bring all languages (without harming the cultural roots of any of them) to the point where more inclusive terminology is readily available to those who might perhaps prefer sometimes to use such terminology (without judgment on those who choose in their personal perfection of selfhood to not so do).