www.jclaudius.net/blog

So I started pulling stats on this blog a little while ago just to see who was peeking in on my posts and where they were coming from.  I started using statcounter.com and it’s awesome for a free service.  I wanted to share a little of the information for my fellow blogging friends so they know to expect should they also want to know who’s peeking in on their posts.

The first graph that I found particularly interesting was the activity map that showed where my hits were coming from around the world.

The next set of information that I thought was surprisingly interesting was the distribution of web browsers hitting the site.  I was actually surprised to see that some people have already started using IE 8.0.

The last statistic was the google search terms that new visitors used to find my my site.  I’m not sure how it’s getting this information, but I really like knowing what people are looking for when they end up on my site.

 
I’m coming into the final turn of my race to get through the new CompTIA 2008 Security+ Certification Exam material.  I know that if I didn’t schedule the exam I may have never gone back to it.  Next Friday at 10pm is my scheduled test time to take a stab at round two.  I’m feeling much more confident this time around because I’m actually studying material that was created for this years exam and I’ve taken a much more structured approach over the past week or so.  I’ve committed to reading a chapter a day and making sure to do the follow up chapter assessments a full 24-hours after I read the material to reduce my ability to use short-term memory to answer questions.

I’ll probably be finishing my training book early Sunday and will be moving into the final “stage” of my training plan, which includes studying each day this week as if tomorrow was the exam and taking a practice exam for each day and following up on any question I get wrong to make sure I’ve got most of my bases covered.  I know this sounds like over-kill, but if getting an 81% (you need an 85%) on the first attempt wasn’t a kick in the junk, not passing the second time will probably end my interest in this cert as my focus will be changing on the first of the year to the CISSP certification.

***Update Tuesday Night (AKA: Early Wednesday Morning) ***

Do you ever feel like you’ve made one step forward only to make two steps backward?  That’s how I’m feeling with these practice tests.  So here is where I stand so far….

Practice Exam #1 (Monday) = 86%
Practice Exam #2 (Tuesday) = 71%

… I surely don’t have any clue how I could have gotten 15 points worse in one day (after studying the content I got wrong the first time).  Anyways, I’m finding that my book and the exam don’t “exactly”match up and there where more “choose all that apply” questions which hurts my multiple guess strategy.  At any rate, I need to get better scores from here on out.  I want to be well into the 90’s by tomorrow (preferrably 100’s) if I’m to expect a 15 point swing on a bad day.  “Just keep swimming…, Just keep swimming…”

***Update Wednesday Night***

Well,  that feels a little better.  It’s not the 100 I was hoping for but it’s certainly the closest I’ve gotten so far.  I’m happy to have rebounded back.  For a minute there I was a little worried.  Just keep swimming…

Practice Exam #3 (Wednesday) = 88%

***Update Thursday Night***

Confidence is not 100%, but feeling better.  Measurable results that implying that this information is sticking is quite refreshing.  Well, time for bed.  Wish me luck!  Just keep swimming…

Practice Exam #4 (Thursday) = 92%

***Update Friday Night***

I passed! Now off to work on the CISSP.

Final Exam #2 (Friday) =92%

Tonight was the night I finally got motivated enough to give our recently purchased blue ray player a connection to the Internet.  I originally tossed and turned on the decision, but now that I’m running the latest firmware and I love it.  Some unknown features that have recently been brought to light include being able to stream video and audio content from 3rd parties.  Two authorized third parties include NetFlix and Pandora both of which I am going to be using more in the coming weeks.  NetFlix has a two week trial so I’ll give it a try and see if it’s going to be a monthly expense.  From what I’ve seen in the demos it’s much more robust than any cable providers “ondemand” features.  I’m also pretty excited to see what comes out in the next firmware release scheduled for the 31st of this month.  With any luck another great feature will be revealed further reforcing my belief that getting this player was well worth the $150 ($399 on Samsung’s website) I paid at best buy.

Does anyone else have this player or a similar one that allows you to upgrade?  I’d be really interested to see what other vendors have done in this space and how it compares.  I’d also be curious to see if there are branch firmware sets that allow further customization beyond the standard manufacturer support (e.g. Linksys <-> dd-wrt/tomato/open-wrt). At any rate, I want every device I buy from here on out to have some form of “auto-update” feature to ensure my gear is kept up to snuff with added features and most importantly security updates.

Of course, like any like minded security professional, I scanned the thing to see what new interesting vulnerabilities I’d be introducing to my home network and funny enough  it came back running rpc over 111.  Maybe when I get more adventurous I’ll take a closer look and see if there are any vulnerabilities that need fixing/reporting.

***Update: A few hours later***

So after a reboot of the blue ray player the RPC bind port is closed.  Anyone got an unpatched version of this of the Samsung BP-2500?  I would surely like to know more about the RPC services enabled prior to patching.

Last week I made the plunge and decided to sell my 2006 MazdaSpeed6.  The girly generously put together a sweet little for sale sign that I could hang up in my car.  I even posted my car on a few online sites hoping that someone would be interested.  At some twist of fate, on Friday I ended up in a head on collision with a 1997 Dodge Intrepid (AKA: The Tank). Please send all inquiries to my email address (claudijd<at>yahoo.com).

More updates as soon as I hear whether or not it’s “totaled”!  Check out the girly’s site for more picture.

Exterior

 Interior

***Update December 12, 2008***

I heard back from the insurance company this week and my car in fact was “totaled”.  The estimated damages were above and beyond $17,000.  Considering engine damage, airbags and the body work needed I’m glad this was the final result.  The next day I went to go pickup my new ride (2009 Volkswagen Rabbit).  It’s no where near as fast as my old car, but it does make me feel much better leaving this one at home while I’m off gallivanting around the nation for work.  Not to mention, the payments are much less and are doing wonders for my “house fund”.

**Update December 17, 2008***

It’s been about a week since I bought the rabbit.  Who knew that I fall in love with this car.  It’s prefect for what I need it for and it’s not too shabby in the snow either.

Nearly every Christmas I make the trek back home to New York to be with the family.  This year marks the first year that the girly and I put up a Christmas tree.  It’s not the biggest or fullest tree in the world, but its ours.

An unsuspected but exciting surprise that has presented itself in the past few days was my mom’s recent engagement to her long time boyfriend.  Congratulations mom and Mike!  I am very much looking forward to attending the wedding in the near future!

So as most of my friends know, with all the travel that I do for work, I have more than enough hotel points to burn (> 1/2 Million).  As a result, the girly and I thought it would be a good idea to spend the recent holiday weekend in the city (Chicago).  To sweeten the pot, we also had some visitors (my sis and her bf) join us to celebrate the occasion.  I’m hoping to get my hands on some of the pictures to post an update soon.  All in all we had a great time and didn’t get too silly or sloppy.

Special props goes out to C. Bopp for rocking the D**k in a box costume.

See the following youtube video if you don’t know what I’m talking about.  It was priceless!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwbxEfy7fg

So this past weekend I made the annual trip back to NY to celebrate my birthday with the family.  Some of the highlights of the weekend were the annual father-son golf scramble at Big Oak and the Timber Creek fishing tournament.

• Saturday (Timber Creek Fishing Tournament)  - The tournament was broken into four categories Biggest Bass, Biggest Perch, Most Weight of 5 Perch - Largest Perch, Most Weight of 5 Bass - Largest Bass.  I am happy to report that I ended up catching a 66+ oz. (4+ lbs) bass for our team to win the biggest bass of the tournament.  The next closest bass was within roughly 1oz. difference so we barely squeaked by with the win.

• Sunday (Big Oak Golf Scramble)  - We (My dad and I) played our typical horrible once a year golf game and had a blast with my uncle (Ron) and my cousin (Nate).  This marked my third year in a row and think it was the first tournament that I made it through the day with only having just a few beers, but this was severely canceled out when the birthday shots (prairie fires of course) were broke out to celebrate the big 25.  This year we seemed to come away with a large number of the raffle wins and walked away with the following items which also included 18 holes of golf, a steak and clam dinner and lunch on the turn for only $75 bucks.
  • One folding camp chair (a small little tripod)
  • One umbrella (works perfect for my golf bag)
  • A horse statue? (which was later exchanged for a heavy duty igloo cooler)
  • Three bottles of wine
  • Branded shirts, hats and other clothing
  • A life-size toy fire truck (I’m sure this will be under the tree at Christmas time for little Ben)
  • Three pack of Top Flight 2000XL golf balls (I lost more than three during the 18 holes )

I also had the pleasure of meeting up with a few other family members that I hadn’t seen in a while to celebrate my birthday and saw my sisters new apartment. However, I did miss the chance to do a guys night out because I got some crazy throat sickness that resulted in having to go to an urgent care center.  I’m only now starting to feel better after about two-three days of Z-pack treatment, but I’m hoping to have the sickness cured soon as I’m slated to hit up a corn maze with the girly and some friends this weekend.

So last Friday through last Tuesday I took a mini vacation up to Maine with the girly.  The main reason for our visit was to part-take in the wedding festivities of the girly’s best friend’s wedding (Congratulations Leya and Nathan!!!).  The wedding was a great time which was topped off with a rocking reception.  The reception band was not your typical wedding singer affair and before the night was over the hall was filled with the rocking sounds of Lynard Skynard, Metallica, Nirvanna and the like.  Let me tell you one thing, people from Maine love to throw down, get crazy and have a blast.  I managed to find their MySpace page online.  I would highly recommend giving them a shout if you need a band who can throw down!

The remainder of the trip was devoted to relaxing, handing out with the girly’s family and trying to forget about work for a few days.  One highlight of the trip was making the trek back up to freeport to hit up the LLbean store.  I just love that place! I think whenever you can keep the doors open 24/7/365 on a outdoor clothing and goods store you have to be doing something right. I found this great device that would me to listen the radio and weather alerts, have a camp lantern and charge my cell phone from solar and hand cranking power.  Being a huge advocate for renewable energy sources I think this is definately going to make my Christmas wish list.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed and my eyes out for as good if not better deals

The second big highlight of the trip was that I got to go fishing for the first time ever in Maine.  We went “striper” (AKA striped bass) fishing in the Saco River and had a great time.  I actually ended up catching the biggest fish I had ever caught while fishing so it was quite a big deal to me.  I was also really facinated how we ended up snagging our 1ft long “pogies” (AKA menhaden shad) which where then send back into the river only be gobbled up by the much larger “stripers”.

I had a great time with the girly, her dad and their good friend Rick even though the girly ended up reeling in the biggest fish of the day.  Maybe I’ll beat her next time!

So this week is the first time I’ve been home in a whole month (**Long exhailing breath**).  First it was Alabama for a week (Business), Vegas for the weekend (DEFCON16) and then Puerto Rico for three weeks (Business and Pleasure).  It’s been a roller coaster of great experiences mixed with the feeling of missing home.

DEFCON16 was, as always, a blast.  It’s always great to meet up with old faces and catch up. I stopped by the lockpick village at the Sky box and picked up the ward lock key set.  Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to check it out a client site, but I’m keeping my eyes open.  I think the talks this year were on par with previous years with Fyodor’s Scanning the Internet talk, the NTML is dead talk and the VoIP talk in the skybox being the highlights for me.  As with every trip to Vegas, even three days feels like I’m overstaying my welcome.  I’m happy to say I made the parties that I wanted to and I didn’t end up outside the gas station over by the Hard Rock on my hands and knees.

As for Puerto Rico… I was surprised.  It was not what I expected what so ever. I think the bigger item that started to wain on me was the language barrier.  Although the tourist areas had a number of bi-lingual individuals I had a difficult time trying to communicate when I visited the more remote areas.  I now have an informal commitment to the girly to learn some more Spanish before my next trip to PR.  By far the best part of the trip was the Tropical Rain Forest.  I didn’t know that Puerto Rico had a Rain Forest until I arrived at work the first day, but sure enough it was in my weekend vacation schedule as soon as I found out there was a mountain (El Yunque) to climb.  The girly and I took a trip up to a smaller peak called Mt Britton (40min) the first weekend and after a week of talking smack to my coworkers I decided to make the impossible trek from the mountain base to the El Yunque peak (3000+ Feet).  I made it to the top, surprisingly, in about 4 hours of straight hiking, but it was well worth the view once I got to the top. I wish I had my camera with me, but nothing could erase the image of sitting on the edge of the mountain face staring down at the clouds :).

Finding:

After an exciting week of training, my roommates and I arrived home to discover that our house had been broken into. The word around the house is that we have a “finding” under physical security because our security alarm failed to alert the police and we have no idea when the breakin occurred. Luckily we have video cameras placed at both entrances which should help us narrow our search for the responsible party (Don’t F3CK with Geeks!).

One fortunate thing was they only stole about $900 worth of electronics rather than the thousands of dollars in desktop computers, stereo equipment, game consoles and not to mention our passports and other sensitive documents.

Management Response:

Now, I’ve had things stolen from me before and it is not a good feeling. Being that we are still going to be in our current place for a few more months and that our maintenance guy won’t arrive until tomorrow we chose to “mitigate” our risk until we have a better solution in place.

This included a field trip to K-mart to buy everyone, including the girly, a wooden baseball bat to exact any current or past frustrations on a would-be burglar to our precious home.