@scottalanmiller said in Introduction to IP - CompTIA Network+ N10-007 Prof Messer:

Humans do tend to get confused a bit on ports. Here are some things why...

• TCP and UDP have the same port ranges but are different protocols and TCP ports are unrelated to UDP ports. So TCP Port 22 can be doing one thing and UDP port 22 something totally different.
• Ports under 1024 are traditionally designated by the operating system as protected and require admin level to open. Ports at 1024 or higher can be opened by anyone. But that is an operating system thing, not a networking thing. But important to know.
• TCP and UDP are not the only protocols and not every situation has a port. ICMP doesn't use TCP or UDP and does not use ports at all, for example.
• TCP is connection based, UDP is connectionless. So people often get confused with UDP because you can't "open a connection" to see if it is working. Even people with 20 years of experience forget this constantly and fail to troubleshoot.

I'll tell you a UDP joke, but I'm not sure you'd get it.
Might tell you another UDP joke, but I'm not sure you'd get that either.
But then, I'll tell you a TCP joke, and I know you'll get that one.

Yesterday, at about 4pm EST, one of our engineers at NTG was notified by a client that our website was inaccessible. After some tests from several locations, we found he was right- all that came up was a blank page. So three of us dive into VSphere and jump into a Lync conference call with a screen share to determine what it happening. We jump into console access to the server and start digging into a the files that are our website. The first line bunch of lines is just one huge block of garbled text. After scrolling a little lower, we run into a line that states '//Silence is Golden.' Yup, we got hacked.

We pull out this text and keep going to see the extent of the damage. 'Sheesh, the site is running slow. What is going on in here?' After doing some looking, we realize that there are over 36 thousand emails queued to be sent out just sending back rejection errors due to being flagged spam. Okay, time to do some rollbacks. What all is on here?

A database for the hosting. apparently. Since databases don't really play well with external backups, we do some file level restores on our sites, disable postfix, and write up the problems to be looked at when we have the authority to do a full scale baremetal restore after backing up that database. How far back can we go?

Unitrends has been passed through several hands and setups over time by the time we got here. We can't find a solid retention policy and have difficulty finding a decent backup. We can go as far back as a month, so that is what we do. We look back into some of the files for our website and there are traces of the infection being already in there. Luckily, we do not store sensitive data there,nor do we ask for sensitive data there, so nothing was ever compromised on that end.

In conclusion, we had a website that had been compromised for a little while, a server acting as a spambot, questionable backups, and a large headache. Let this serve as a warning to us all on what happens when you think you can just set it and forget it. Do not forget to give your machines and servers a once-over every once in a while

@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@danp that still counts as broken in my world. If the people developing the software don't understand how to use the tools they need to develop the software. . . well then there is a break there. .

Let this be a lesson to everyone who is writing scripts and programming...
COMMENT YOUR CODE.

Sometimes I have difficulty finding the proper line between helping out a friend and servicing their technology. I mean, sure, a lot of it is pretty straightforward. Can't figure out how to send an email? I'll help you. Obliterated your TCP/IP settings and uninstalled the drivers for your network adapter because 'I don't use an adapter for anything?' That will cost you.

What about everything in between? Do you guys have a line in your head where you will not cross as then you may be trapped in the endless game of 'Hey, can you help me out?' If so, where is that line?

This sounds very sketchy offhand. Sorry, I don't mean offense, but can you give us some background on why you need this?

I am looking to jump into Software Development, Web Dev, essentially anything that requires writing code. I've got a decent amount of languages under my belt already and have done a couple projects before now, but not too much as far as applicable experience to put on a resume. Do you guys have any tips for me for a good way to get into this? One of the big roadblocks I run into is that once I start learning a language, I have no direct application for it to be able to sustain what I learn.

Just picking the brain of the community.

I'm expecting to be able to make it. Gotta wait until I get vacation time in January to really be able to plan my year out lol

It also got approval from Steve Gibson- http://blog.lastpass.com/2010/07/lastpass-gets-green-light-from-security.html

Lastpass is my go-to utility for management. I can't really imagine going without it nowadays.

Pull up your General Settings page, and under dialing options make sure to add Ww to both options fields if not already there. This might clear this up for you.

Okay, a little bit of a rant. Just had to edit a holiday schedule for a customer and help them record a greeting for being closed for said holiday...

Have IE11 which usually has to be used because it doesnt load the scripts properly in chrome. Well, that stopped working due to security issues with the call manager. Okay... Download Firefox, turn off some security settings that it yells about, and boom. I'm in...

Okay, let's check out the recording. you need java to run this Damn. Alright. Download and install Java...

Okay, now let's try again. security issue: this applet doesn't meet the requirements for high or very high security and has been blocked. Really?! Okay. Reconfigure Java to allow exemptions. Reconfigure again because it didn't like taking IP's very well...

This entire process took half an hour. and all because of antiquated UI's with poor security, and if I recall right there's Cisco Call Manager, and also there's a lot of bank UI's that require certain versions of Java, and only run in IE. When did any of this become okay to just let sit idle like this and everyone be like "Yeah, that's just how it is."?! Are these applications just going to continue to callously disregard security because "Oh, well, it shouldn't matter in an internal environment or with all of these other security checks in place."? To the point where we have developed full workarounds as standards to accessing these things?
</rant>

Just looking to hear your thoughts on this. I know at least a handful of you have ran into things like this.

Mind you that it is zoomed out, but is it supposed to do that or is it just me? I use Chrome.
If that is by design, it seems quite a bit odd, but something tells me it is supposed to display much differently

I'm a little late to the party, but I'm Joe. I am going to start posting more often, I've just had a lot on my plate. My life knows nothing besides work and the rare sleep every now and again lol. Coffe, Monster, Caffeine IV. The works.

You don't want to see my internet speeds. I might get my official IT card revoked.

Nice! Yeah, TED talks can really lead you to some amazing things. Reminds me of the one I saw about transferring data via the lighbulbs in our house to wifi devices using more of the light spectrum. I'll have to find the link to that.

I was recently doing a PBX install for someone and they were using a Sangoma Gateway. At first, it looked pretty simple and straightforward. The instructions to configure it with Elastix were about as straightforward as can be. If only it worked that way...

I ran into many little obstacles that I didn't expect to see with this setup. First, we couldn't get a SIP account to register as the instructions told us to do. Then, fax information seems to be stuttering and not passing through the way it's supposed to. DTMF tones transmit in a way that is completely arbitrary to the settings that are mentioned. As icing on the cake, for some reason it felt the need to strip the first character of the CID off as well.

Am I just severely unlucky or has anyone else had troubles like these with gateway devices for a PRI?

You'll find me there.

We all know that we can always improve on documentation, which makes me wonder- is it actually possible to be as up to date on documentation as you actually want to be or is it truly meant to be one of those elusive goals that you must constantly strive for?

When I look around, I can think of countless forms I could create, a multitude of documents on X system or Y project, and not to mention updating old piles of documents. Has nayone actually gotten on top of their documentation to a point where they were satisfied?

I once thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken.
I would like to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not like the passengers in his car.

@scottalanmiller said in Looking forward for my First IT job:

@FiyaFly said in Looking forward for my First IT job:

CDS.... Corporate Data Systems?

Uh..... hopefully it means more than that.

With the way this entire conversation is leaning hard on "Generic as hell" I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe it's a language barrier or wording, but this has raised many, many red flags for me.

@DustinB3403 said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Posting this to remind everyone what we had, and lost... Good job guys. Good flipping job!

I showed this to my girlfriend. Her response?
"EXACTLY
That's how a woman should be
What went wrong? How did we end up in this mess of modernity?"