Viraj's Weblog

I'm reading this very good book documenting a surgeon's life through residency. It is written as the doctor is just starting out, and goes through the learning process. Here is a good quote from the first chapter:

Not everyone appreciates the attractions of surgery. When you are a medical student in the operating room for the first time, and you see the surgeon press the scalpel to someone's body and open it like fruit, you either shudder in horror or gape in awe. I gaped. It was not just the blood and guts that enthralled me. It was the idea that a mere person would have the confidence to wield that scalpel in the first place.

There is a saying about surgeons, meant as a reproof: "Sometimes wrong; never in doubt." But this seemed to me their strength. Every day, surgeons are faced with uncertainties. Information is inadequate; the science is ambiguous; one's knowledge and abilities are never perfect. Even with the simplest operation, it cannot be taken for granted that a patient will come through better off--or even alive. Standing at the table my first time, I wondered how the surgeon knew that he would do this patient good, that all the steps would go as planned, that bleeding would be controlled and infection would not take hold and organs would not be injured. He didn't, of course. But still he cut.

I've been using Nagios at work for network monitoring. I honestly wish this was still called Netsaint, as I sound like an idiot trying to pronounce Nagios.

Anyhow, it's a great system that works very well. I have it currently installed behind our firewall on a private IP. We have 2 T1s, one through Bellsouth, and one through Qwest. The default gateway for the monitoring system is through the Bellsouth T1.

I would like it to monitor connectivity through both T1s and was thinking how to do this. Our routers are actually Linux boxes, so one way I was thinking is I could use the 'check_by_ssh' plugin to execute a network connectivity test directly on each router, by doing something like a wget to www.google.com.

Another way is I setup a static route for some external website to go through the Qwest T1. Let's say I use www.cnn.com for the Qwest T1 check. Looking up their IP I could add their address block to a static route:

route add -net 64.236.16.0 netmask 255.255.240.0 gw QWEST_FW

I decided to do the route method. It's not great, since cnn could change their IPs anytime, and also just because cnn is not accessible doesn't mean the Internet connectivity is down. But we had no monitoring in place so I wanted something.

Good article on cell phone security. It's true the average person does not give a shit about security of such devices.

Checkout the Wikipedia link for what pictures were found on Paris' phone (bottom of page).

Here is an interesting article on certifications. I agree that GIAC's main benefit was its practical assignment. It was probably the most difficult part of the certification, and a shame that they will be taking it out.

As far as RHCE, the article states:

... Is this certification worthwhile? For many security people looking to understand Linux better, the answer would be a resounding yes. The RHCE seems to be the last remaining cert that makes you demonstrate your skills via a practical, hands on portion. Unlike the "paper certification" syndrome as mentioned above, the practical segment of the RHCE makes it stand out for all the right reasons. A prospective employer will know that you can actually do the hands on work once you have earned this certification.

I definitely agree with this. The RHCE has a great hands-on test that requires you to fix broken systems. It requires that you know quite a bit about Linux systems in general, even if somewhat specific to Red Hat. Many times I have had to employ the same skills in the work environment.