Advogato blog for carl

29 Aug 2004

Sun, 29 Aug 2004 05:52:14 GMT

It's August 29, 2004...

Wow.

It's been about two years or so since I've ventured into this...

15 Apr 2002

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:16:10 GMT

Here I go again, taking a few months between entries. Not a whole lot has changed since the previous entry. I am listening to Noam Chomsky and reading about how much I hate the English language. The English language is a horrible pile of dogshit. Want to write something? Expect to break some "rules" of the language.

ANyway, enough about the English language. Today has been ... uh ... fun. Yeah, that's it -- fun. I slept through most of the day but the bit that I was awake for was nice. The weather has been good recently with warmer temperatures and some much needed rain.

On to what I've been doing. I am doing two main things at the same time: learning perforce (p4) and reorganizing sys/ on my FreeBSD tree. Changes can be viewed here: p4db.

I was reading TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 2 (Implementation) earlier but I left the book out in the car -- oops. This is all for now since life is still boring. Oh I guess I'll add that I had a nice job for five days receiving $18/hour but was promptly fired because the people in charge did not quite understand what I was there for. They were confused and thus so was I.

31 Dec 2001

Mon, 31 Dec 2001 00:03:47 GMT

Yeah so wow it's been what...like three months since I've used this. Well here's the deal, I've been doing some stuff lately involving C and I'm trying to understand it. I'm understanding it better than I ever did but it's still not "clicking" very well yet. I'm "getting there" though and that's a good thing as far as I can tell.

On the other side of things I am reading more about the history of the united States of America. I am also reading a lot about the laws of the past and the current implementation of law. It's a really sad thing to read though because of some of the blatant violations of those laws the united States government has committed. There are some very interesting sites to look over about the topic of government corruption and the ones to really look for are ones with code citings and regulation citings and executive order citings. They are generally better off because you can open up another browser window or run another instance of lynx or whatever and go to www.law.cornell.edu. Mind you, the site uses java on the front page so that pretty much sucks but you can access things like the U.S. Code, the constitution, and the U.S. code of federal regulations (coincides to some degree with the U.S. Code). There is more to it than just looking up the code and regulations. There is a large page on a .gov site, I forget the URL, with a cross reference of everything that is actually a law. If I find the URL I'll put it on here.

Basically all I've been doing is reading lately.

24 Sep 2001

Mon, 24 Sep 2001 04:54:41 GMT

Bah. I hope I am wrong on this and I hope many others are wrong on this but it would seem there will probably be some sort of knee-jerk reaction to all of this with regards to computer technology. Namely -- encryption. I'm reading far too many stories putting encryption in a bad light and whatnot for the sake of having a story to print.

Today hasn't been too bad. I only woke up at 3:30PM ... =( So I haven't been awake for too long and I haven't eaten anything yet. I've been reading some things today and doing some work on my server. Decided I want to go back to a stable apache so I can have php again (I was running the latest cvs code). I might consider running FreeBSD-CURRENT on my server soon but I'm not too sure about that yet. I will almost definitely run -CURRENT on my laptop soon because I could use some more fine-grain power management and better support for the hardware in general. That and I have an idea for something which was suggested to me a while ago about making some firewall extensions. I would like to do something where you say "only this (or these, perhaps a list in a configuration file) program(s) can access the Internet" or something like that. You get the idea. So that would be cool. It'd be more fine grained than just blocking tcp/udp/icmp etc. OTOH I can imagine that would inflict some serious overhead on the system. This is the price you pay for a little more security... I guess in some way it's like what linux's netfilter/ipchains/whatever the fuck it's called does except it'll be done on a non-toy OS. I see that ipfw does uid/gid filtering which is nice but it's not enough. Honestly I don't even know if it's a good idea to try and stop individual programs from using the network. It seems you can only do so much with being able to block certain ports, flags, options, types, etc. So I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea. I'm open to suggestions if you want to email me.

I'm finally reading more into 4.4 BSD D&I...something I should have done a long time ago. I would like to learn a little more about filesystems some time soon.

I don't think I'm going to be IRC'ing anymore for a number of reasons. I'm tired of all the fighting and whining that I do. It doesn't make me feel good to fight and complain all the time so why bother? Besides that -- idling is rather boring too and a big waste of time. I said it before on IRC that I am unproductive when I am on there. So I think it's time to be a little more permanent on a previous decision I had made. Believe it or not this has very little to do with events that happened last night -- I've been feeling this way for a while now and think it is time to stop wasting time (heh). I don't think many people would disagree that IRC can be very unproductive while it can be very productive as well; it just depends on the topic and the people I guess. As has been said about me before I do not have much skill with programming but I am going to change that...somehow.

So today marks a new day (this is getting very repetitive isn't it?). I think I've probably said that at least once before. Oh well :).

If it weren't for the fact that I like having a healthy liver, a healthy brain, etc. I would probably go get fucked up because I feel like damaging myself. However, getting fucked up is not in the list of priorities so that won't happen. I've never been so depressed as I am right now and am, in some strange way, proud of the fact that I haven't turned into an alcoholic yet.

Bye people. Don't be surprised if I don't write another entry for a long time (though it would behoove me to keep up with this).

23 Sep 2001

Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:51:41 GMT

Man. I feel sick. I haven't been sleeping very well. Haven't been sleeping much at all actually and when I do it's at very strange hours...again. But today I feel really sick. My stomach is aching like a little bitch and my eyes are burning after I lit some incense.

Lots on my mind over the past few years. More than I can really try to put down here. Things like where to get a job, should I give college a try again, etc. Not sure if I even want to stay in this country. Not sure about how to teach myself some things I need to learn. However I am sure about a couple of things. I am sure that when someone doesn't know the same things I know I'll put a little extra effort into not rubbing that fact in. I know that I have just had one of the worst fights with my mother ever. I know that I have some serious problems, physically, that need to be addressed really soon. I know that there are a lot of problems in this world and not a whole lot is really being done about them. If I really tried I could probably generate a list the size of a encyclopedia of problems this world has.

Yeah so my mom thinks I have a porn addiction. My mom thinks I need to find "God" too so take that for what it's worth. My mom thinks a lot of things. My mom tries to be the mom of a little child probably because she wasn't really much of a mother when I was younger and was living with my father.

Knowing that this is really intended for developers and whatnot I shall keep this short. Maybe I will do something on my website some day. I don't know if I really care much about these things anymore. It seems there are far more pressing matters than whether or not I understand C.

13 Sep 2001

Thu, 13 Sep 2001 07:48:23 GMT

Man. I just noticed a horrible typo in my diary entry. So I am editing this. I typed "I believe it is far more important to not do whatever you can to help the people in New York and Washington D.C." There should be no "not" in that sentence. I'll blame this on just poor typing and not checking it over before posting. Sorry to anyone this might have angered (no one has said anything -- I just noticed).

This is extremely delayed because I've actually been sort of busy watching TV. That's very unusual for me but given the events that have happened yesterday I think it's warranted. This drivel that Americans love war is such total bullshit. The drivel about guns being on planes, shit like that, this isn't the time. I believe it is far more important to not do whatever you can to help the people in New York and Washington D.C. I believe that praying, if it makes you happy, is fine. Don't expect me to think any higher of you because you're performing such acts.

I am very unsure about what I am going to do. I would very much so enlist if the need arises. I have already attempted to join the Army and the Marines when I turned eighteen (will be a year in october). However I was rejected due to asthma. I am horribly overweight which concerned the Army but the Marines showed me that they were willing to try and get me into shape for it but when they asked about physical conditions they told me it wasn't possible. =( As much as I dislike war and I dislike military actions they are a necessary evil of the times and have been for quite a very long time.

Events have transpired that I'd hoped for a long time never would but they have and they must be dealt with. There is no intelligent answer anyone has come up with as an alternative to retaliation. So if you think retaliation is unnecessary I'd suggest you come up with a damn good solution real fucking fast. Otherwise you need to shut the fuck up and do your part to help in any way possible. Joseph Mallett has written an article and mentioned some things you can do if I recall correctly. If I'm wrong then you needn't look much further than a news site such as CNN.com to find something.

Otherwise I am for the most part speechless in reference to the whole thing. I think it is nuts that people go to these extremes in any part of the world, not just America. Now that it has finally hit home a little harder than ever before I think people will finally wake up to the reality that we are not as safe as we sometimes, very arrogantly at times, believed we were. There are huge oceans separating the lands of the people at war with each other at times but that does not guarantee any amount of protection when people are absolutely determined to get the job done.

I must say that watching this all happen on TV is certainly something I will never forget and I cannot imagine too many people that have seen it in person or otherwise will not forget this for the rest of their lives. Seeing the people jumping out of the building was awful, seeing the buildings collapse was a spectacular, in a very bad way, thing to see. It was completely numbing to watch those buildings fall. I think it is, as an aside, a great testimony to the strength of some of these more modern buildings that it lasted as long as did but the result is still the same no matter how long they lasted.

An to hopefully end this now I must say that being prejudice is the worst thing anyone can do right now. Maintain composure and try to go about your daily life as you did before, though I know that is very difficult to do right now. If you see someone committing hate crimes against a group of people or one person of a certain nationality, report it to the police immediately.

I just want to say that this is undoubtedly the worst couple days of my life. Seeing the nation I used to value so much when I was younger get attacked is a very sad thing indeed no matter how much I disagree with the politics. Seeing -any- nation get attacked in such manners is saddening. It is such a shame that we cannot act civilized towards fellow human beings. I can only hope the entire world gets a very serious wake up call from this event so that at least something good may come out of it.

7 Sep 2001

Fri, 7 Sep 2001 01:46:56 GMT

Oops, I forgot to mention in the previous entry that my site is currently down because I may kill off the domain (i.e., no longer use the server to host a site or anything of the sort). The odds are good I'll at least start the site again just because I need somewhere to put docs and things. I tried this once before -- turning the server into a fileserver/webserver for personal usage and the occasional link dropping on irc to something interesting I think I did or whatever. The site is never spectacular and it doesn't get many hits but I don't care because it's not supposed to. :)

Blah.

7 Sep 2001

Fri, 7 Sep 2001 01:20:56 GMT

Blah blah blah blah!WJUIFJQ(FJ(FJ!QJF!Q

I am in a most unlovely mood. I am obsessing over people/things again in my highly incompatible with those people/things life. Ugh. I am so fucking bored. I am so fucking tired. I am so fucking drained. Yet I do nothing. Why? I am emotionally exhausted. My physical condition is not helping the matter. Soon we (my mother and I) will be moving into a house. I should be happy, right? No more apartments for me. No more worrying about playing my music too loud. No more worrying about whether or not the stupid land-lord (hah) is actually going to fix the leaky faucet this time. So I should be happy then because I'll have my own room once again with my little slice of privacy, right? HAH. I have just now decided to start liking this area. It's nice. The people are generally nice, though I very rarely actually interact with them, and the township acts like a community. That could be just as bad as it is good but it's nice to see people fucking get along for once. Although I doubt the sincerity of many of those people they still act it out well enough to make it liveable.

I am starting to really think about what the hell I am going to do with the rest of my life. I am not happy about the options because I don't even know what all my options are. I have considered writing because my past experiences with most (if not all) of my English teachers says that I am a pretty decent writer when it's about something I really care about. I feel so bad though because the things I say I care about I am not really sure I care about them at all or if I am just acting as though I care for some reason. It's very confusing and somewhat scary to feel like you don't have complete control over some of your thoughts and actions. The possibilities of such things scare me a lot. Confused is probably the closest term to match up with my emotions over the past five years or so. Things just don't make sense. I am hopelessly naive probably due to a lack of interaction with the "real world" and I can't seem to budge my way into it now that I'm older.

Speaking of older -- I will be nineteen years old in a month and three weeks (approximately) or alternatively on October 25th if you must know the exact date. I am not looking forward to yet another reminder that I have wasted a year and a half of my life accomplishing very little.

My mother and I are really not getting along well lately. I almost care but I try not to because I didn't really know her much when I was growing up -- I just sort of visited her every now and then. I don't think she really understands what happens to someone when they don't grow up with them even though they are their mother. I don't have that mother/son relationship that some people have. I don't have that caring I should probably have for her. She is not the most cherished thing in my life and never will be. I had a quick argument with her about buying things with cocoa in them a few nights ago. She came home from work at like 8:30PM (rather early compared to some days) and I noticed she got a few things from work (she works at a grocery store...). One of the items was a quart of chocolate soy milk. I should be thankful and happy that she's trying to help me out with my vegan lifestyle change but I'm not going to be happy when she buys things with cocoa. In case you don't know why -- I read in the local paper about a slavery problem with cocoa suppliers. Some of the suppliers are buying slaves and using them as laborers to get their cocoa. I do not support slavery and therefore I try to avoid things with cocoa in them which is fine anyway because usually things containing cocoa aren't that great for me. But with her it's like "ah who cares I just want to try it". She also accepted some fudge from my sister which was purchased at one of the fudge shops in Wildwood, NJ. I wasn't happy with that either but didn't really say anything about it.

So anyway -- she decides she's tired and goes to bed while I'm trying to talk to her about this issue. She normally does not go to bed until about 11PM -- it was 9PM. So I continued to ask her about it as she's getting ready for bed and all she does is ignore me. She never bothers telling me why she is supporting these people and/or why she is giving off the impression that she does not care about the problem. I go off into this little room and do my thing after a few minutes and she decides she's no longer tired and goes into the living room to watch tv and call some people (!!!). I just ignored the fact that she lied to me earlier when she said she was tired and wanted to go to sleep and went about my business as usual.

Okay so why did I bother typing all that out? Because I'm pissed off. Just two days later she wants "to talk to you for a few minutes". Oh my. NOW she wants to talk...two days later. What the fuck. I told her I wasn't interested and she got so pissed off at that. She starts yelling and saying "you expect me to care about these people when you don't care about anything I say"...uh okay. I just sat in the little room and ignored her. Now maybe I am wrong here but I really don't think I am -- she's telling me that because I give off the impression that I don't care about her means she can't care about slaves being used to harvest cocoa? Does -anyone- else see the problem with that? So because we have our problems means some other person has to suffer? Granted someone could just as well say that the person is likely to suffer anyway whether she buys things containing cocoa or not and that's just fine. I still won't think purchasing products from the companies that practice slavery is a good idea nor will I do it.

I have a shit load more I want to write about but this is getting very long. I am thinking of writing a script for a movie -- very seriously considering it. Or at least writing a book (going back quickly to my career prospects) about something...I can't say what just yet. I have what I think is a good idea for a book/movie/whatever but am not entirely sure. I am getting extremely frustrated with my inability to learn certain things and/or concentrate on certain things. I think perhaps if I can get in shape physically and mentally then maybe I can pursure more computer related things but until that happens (which should be a hell of a lot easier once we're in the house -- the primary reason I am doing no weight lifting or anything of the sort is a lack of room -- I don't like going outside to exercise so I'd like to confine it indoors as much as I can until I reach a certain goal -- then I will go outside and exercise) I wish to pursue other things and relax on the computer stuff for a while. I'd like to pursue music and writing and perhaps even some acting. I acted a very little tiny bit in fourth grade. It was a nightmare for me but didn't really turn out too bad. I was the lion in "Wizard of Oz" -- I had to sing and run around a little bit so there wasn't a whole lot of acting involved really but it was pretty neat. They had a great little outfit for me to wear and all and I might still have the picture of me wearing it.

Ah well...life really isn't as bad as I might make it out to be for me. I have a lot of ups and downs just like everyone else does. Some people are more level-headed than I am and some people are more wise than I am because they have more of that "real world" experience. So I want to write. Maybe journalism or something. Freelance journalism ... *cough* no money *cough* but what the fuck I'm not making any money sitting here on this chair either so why not? It just might work. If all else fails I fall back on music and then computers. I don't want to make computers a primary anymore because it's draining my life away in a hurry. I need the social interaction I didn't get when I was a kid or I will be hopeless for relationships...

Maybe I'll keep this thing up-to-date a little bit better. Sorry it's been so long.

18 Aug 2001

Sat, 18 Aug 2001 19:15:52 GMT

WOOHOO. My mom bought me a new laptop a couple days ago. It's great. It's an HP Pavilion n5440...has a 850MHz P3, 128MB RAM (soon to be 256), 20GB hard drive, dvd-rom, builtin 10/100 card (3com mini-pci -- device dc), s3 savage/ix graphics chip w/ 8mb sgram (max 1024x768 on the lcd but 1280x1024 on a standard vga monitor and also has a s-video output for tvs :)), a modem (winmodem i think), an incompatible-with-freebsd sound card (ESS something...I'm working on this), touchpad, comes with WinME, etc.

Much as I cannot stand WinME I actually installed it over FreeBSD today. I cannot get X working and I can't get the sound to work. That just about renders it useless for my needs but I'd like to some day work on a driver for it. Some day :). Right now it has WinME and I just got Cunning Stunts on DVD to watch. So far the dvd is okay but it could be better I suppose (I'd really like to try it with the TV output but I need a TV that doesn't suck and an S-video cable).

Aside from all that I'll probably only use WinME for about a week to get some usage out of it. Then I think I'll put FreeBSD-CURRENT back on it and perhaps start trying to help out the xMach team a little bit (some code review and whatnot). I'd really love to learn how to get a sound card driver running on this but that'll be a while.

My mom is really pissed off because I bought the Cunning Stunts dvd. I told her what was on it and she was mad. I was laughing so hard at Lars picking his nose and eating it and I was like saying what he did. She didn't think it was so funny. Oh well. =(

I really think she's upset that she can't watch what I'm doing anymore. She has such a huge lack of trust in me. She thinks I'm an evil hacker (I'm being serious) and I'm out to do harm and watch porn all the time. I really haven't been watching too much porn lately but I have plenty to watch if need be. Life sucks when you're fat and ugly and are good at not much else but typing. Oh well. There she goes, off to work...one of these days I'll have a job that isn't trying to rip me off for minimum wage even though I'm doing $20/hour work. I know $20/hour isn't a whole lot but it'd be great for me. I need a job. Time to go job hunting...again. My resume is here.

Later folks. I'm tired. =/

11 Aug 2001

Sat, 11 Aug 2001 10:24:37 GMT

Wheee. This is fun. I started working on a secure logging machine paper. It's probably way overkill considering my lack of experience in the area but I am going to try some of the ideas when I get another machine (which could be quite a while from now). My naivity would be readily apparent to any experienced systems administrator if he/she were to read my beginning of the paper but it's fun because I'm getting down a few ideas. They're my ideas that are largely unaffected by the outside world. We shall see how much work I have to do yet.

I'm really starting to gain an interest in security. I am trying so hard to learn C past printf(). ;) It's not easy for me because I have a hard time remembering what I read. I used to be so good at reading/comprehension...something went wrong a long time ago and it just isn't so anymore. =(

But anyway, I just want to audit code for a while and see what I can pick up on just by reading full (not just partial clippings) code examples of bad and good code side by side. I am finally beginning my security approaches on my server because I think it's time I start using some of the things I keep talking about to other people or I just think about.

Oh and since it's pretty much a dead issue now I figure I'll go ahead and paste my codered scan count. =)

[carl@carbon]$ grep default.ida access_log.* | wc -l
1903

[carl@carbon]$ grep default.ida access_log.* | awk '{print $1}' | sort -u | wc -l
1247

They're both from the same IP.