The Washington Post’s weekly traffic column has a article on a couple who received a ticket from photo radar for driving 100 MPH in their Toyota Echo. Photo radar tickets are supposed to be reviewed before being issued. Given the street, car and time of day, its hard to imagine this one passing the laugh test.
Upon review prompted by the Washington Post, it was reported that the traffic camera issues ‘exceptional” speed tickets of zero or 100 to indicate to the ticket reviewer that there is a problem with the camera.
There has to be a better diagnostic alert.
Archive for August 2008
Toyota Echo at 100 MPH? Not so fast
Housekeeping – upgrades
I’ve upgraded the blogging software over the weekend so let me know if you spot any troubles. You can get an email address for me on the home page, just click on the link and solve a recaptcha.
Now that I’ve upgraded, I have OpenID 2 support which allows me to offer Yahoo logins for commenters. Unline the AIM openID login, Yahoo allows you to setup a alternative screenname (and by default uses a guid which is really unfriendly) so your email/IM address isn’t disclosed in the process.
More “help” from the Filezilla project owner
I’ve written before about the Filezilla project lead’s lack of people skills. Its getting to the point that I’d rather buy something than use this guys product for free.
I’ve been getting disconnected from FTP servers within seconds of concluding a download. I couldn’t find the keepalive settings in Filezilla, so I thought I’d check out the forum to learn how to do that and I found this thread, “Filezilla disconnects automatically please help.”
Here are some gems:
“FileZilla does not disconnect on its own. The server or some router or firewall disconnects you. This is not FileZilla’s fault.”
“Go ahead, prove me wrong. Show me which part of the code is causing the disconnects. Good luck finding what’s not there.”
“With seven nines reliability, I can assure you that the problem sits between chair and keyboard.”
It was worth it just to see this PARODY of the developer/site admin’s reply:
Filezilla is a totally flawless, dare I say bulletproof piece of software. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Filezilla.
You’re probably hallucinating. It’s ok though, I’m hallucinating too. I experience the same problem despite all my other FTP clients working fine on the same computer on the same network. We’re not alone, there are other threads with people claiming the same strange visions, Here’s one for example:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7065
As soon as you start thinking that it might be Filezilla’s fault, shoot yourself in the face. I found shooting myself in the face to be far less painful than having a rational conversation with the developer.
Then there is this thread
“Guess I should spend more time in my ivory tower, happily coding away. Customer support makes me want to bash my head into the nearest wall.
I do not like to be accused to be wrong, I want to be proven to be wrong. One possible proof for a software problem is a patch.”
I’d like to believe the first part of that is tongue in cheek, but the second part seems to be impossible to explain except take it at face value.
“Do I have to start banning people? FILEZILLA DOES NOT ****ing DISCONNECT YOU, THE SERVER, SOME ROUTER OR FIREWALL DISCONNECTS FILEZILLA.”
Thanks Mr X
I received a funny email today from Mr X.
From: Mr. X
Subject: Business Opportunity
Hi
I m 21 year’s old guy, and looking for some business Opportunity
that’s why i need u’r help.
So kindly will u tell me something about u’r Organization and what’s u’r future planning.
Actually, that’s a small step from all the sales guys that have been calling. “You dont know me from adam, but tell me about your security needs.”
Clippy: It looks like you’re writing a letter
Sales guy: What can I sell you today
The answer to both is surprising similar.
SEP11 Liveupdate EventID 13
Late last week I began noticing an error in the Application event logs on some of my SEP11 systems
Event ID 13: “LiveUpdate returned a non-critical error. Available content updates may have failed to install.”
Over at Symantec Forums people report receiving a couple different answers from tech support. Looks like the definitive answer is:
The Event ID 13 error is due to a defective patch that went out via LU on August 4, 2008. It was pulled from LU on the 7th, but machines that already downloaded the patch will display these symptoms.
Besides cluttering logs, these errors are not detrimental to system performance or security.
When the new patch to replace the defective one goes out sometime next week, the errors will stop happening.
I’m assuming the fix they are referring to is the Symantec Eraser update scheduled for Monday.
Symantec expects to post its quarterly update to the Eraser engine in the
certified definitions of Monday, August 11th, US Pacific Time. This release
includes internal enhancements and does not address any specific customer
issues seen in the field. Eraser file versions will be 2008-2.0.125. This
update will cause the size of the xdb file to temporarily increase.
Knowing What you Have
In the year that has passed since the I-30 bridge collapse in Minneapolis, inspectors have struggled to doublecheck every bridge that had the same steel deck truss design.
The Federal government had a National Bridge database using data compiled from the states which showed 756 bridges of that structure. MSNBC reports that as inspectors began their process they found that 280 of those bridges weren’t of that design at all.
Some of the bridges had been torn down years ago. Others were misclassified and were actually privately owned (not subject to inspection) A pedestrian bridge made the list as did 13 bridges using wood timbers.
With the data so faulty, how many bridges of this design were miscategorized and thus not given the emergency re-inspection?
Obviously the same holds true in the world of computers. The old adage “you can’t patch what you don’t know you have” is still true. You can’t even watch out for vulnerabilities in things you don’t know you have.
GPU Password Cracking
Last October, much ink was spilled regarding GPU password cracking. With GPU password cracking, the work is offloaded to the video cards Graphics Processing Unit. Due to the nature of the GPU, password cracking can occur at speeds previously only seen by people with a lot of computers working together.
Recently InsidePro makers of SamInside, released the Extreme GPU Bruteforcer. I love SamInside so I had work buy a GeForce 8800 GT video card and a copy of Extreme GPU Bruteforcer.
There were a couple of false starts. Not being much of a hardware guy, I made the mistake of not considering the power needs of a high end card. I upgraded my power supply, installed the new video card and began cracking.
Previously bruteforcing on my computer chugged along at 6.6 million passwords per second. With the new setup, I’m checking NTLM passwords at approximately 324.75 million passwords per second. If my math is correct, that means for a 8 character password that could have uppers, lowers or numbers, it would now take almost 8 days instead of taking 382 days. Not bad for less than $300 including the new power supply.
