Some days, I cringe when I page through my list of newsfeeds at the things going on in the world right now. For starters, the US Transportation Safety Agency, a government organization charged with watching over points of entry and egress to this country has been a thorn in the side of many a passenger since its inception. Have a piercing or two under your skin that sets off the magnetometers? There's an excellent chance that you'll be forced to remove it regardless of the health risk. If you've had it for a while, I hope you packed hand tools …
Whenever I plan on using my laptop at a convention, in particular at hacker cons, it's practically assured that an unknown number of attendees will be monitoring the wireless network in some manner for nefarious purposes. Because many application protocols in use do not use cryptographic systems to protect traffic (like instant messenger and webmail), it's possible to record what people are doing as they do it, or worse record the credentials used to log in. The software to do this is trivially easy to acquire because protocol analyzers (more commonly called packet sniffers) have legitimate uses when troubleshooting networks …
Got back from The Last HOPE about two and a half hours ago. Dead tired. Lots went on. Even had a couple of "No shit, there I was" adventures. I'm going to go to bed shortly.
Just a few scant minutes ago I boarded the Acela express train out of Union Station in Washington, DC destined for the city that never sleeps. Yes, once again New York City is my destination, and I sincerely hope that it's prepared for the advent of Hackers On Planet Earth, the biannual convention held by 2600 Magazine at the Hotel Pennsylvania.
Taking the train is probably one of my favorite ways to travel. It's quiet, it's fast, and the scenery is something that you don't often get to see in the DC …
Work's had me running around a bit more than usual lately, which has put a serious crimp in my time to write, let alone keep up with current events. I don't know how much time I'll have this week because I have wedding-type running around to take care of, on top of getting ready to travel to the city that never sleeps - good old New York City to attend what could be the last HOPE conference organized and thrown by 2600 Magazine. As one might expect, available time allocated to sleeping, resting up, or getting other stuff done has been …
At more or less the last minute last week, I decided to attend Walking the Thresholds 0x0B at the Four Quarters Farm, just over the Pennsylvania border, in the lands I simultaneously love and fear because they're so far off the grid that you're fortunate to get three GPS satellites to lock on to. After co-ordinating with Hasufin, Mika, and Sarah for a bit it was decided that I'd head over to their place, leave the TARDIS behind to save on fuel costs, and ride up with them. Our colleague in arms and all things nerdcore Jason would be going …
It's probably hit your local news by now, but I'll push on with this article, anyway. A series of violent thunderstorms ripped through northern Virginia yesterday afternoon and went on well into the night, wrseaking havoc as they went. Lyssa tells me that the power went out in our neighborhood around 1500 EST5EDT yesterday, around the time that she and Jason were on their way to the optomitrist's office to get her eyes checked. They tell me that it took them better than an hour to make a three hour drive from route 7 to our road. For my part …
Running between work, home, and the bed to sleep, mostly. It's been an unusually long week (and it's not even Friday yet), and rather than write incoherent posts in the evening I've decided to catch up on sleep where and when I can. Consequently, there hasn't been much to write about in the past few days, but I can authoritatively state that there are no pin-holes in my eyelids. Battling highway traffic in southern Virginia is tiring work, though ultimately rewarding.
I've just pre-registered for The Last HOPE conference in New York City later this year (18-20 July 2008, to …
Work was work this week, and that's the fairest thing that can be said about it. It wasn't glamourous, it wasn't fun, and it wasn't an adventure, but it wasn't horrible, either. It's long, tiring, and a case study in how badly screwed up things can be without actually self-destructing. Consequently, I haven't been sleeping a whole lot, nor have I had the time nor energy to post here.
I have a cat in my lap that knows that I don't own a cat, and is ensuring that my good clothes (trousers, shirt, and waistcoat) will be covered with cat …
