The White “Ty” Affair

Most people reading this probably already know that if you delete files, or move to another location/encrypted container/etc. Remember that the original isn’t really deleted, only the filesystem’s record of the file being there is deleted in order to allow future use of the space. (Which is why unerase programs work.)

It’s also the reason that if you want to securely erase a file, you should use a tool that doesn’t just erase the file, but also shreds it. In other words, it overwrites the data with random noise, (multiple times if you want) so it can never be recovered.

This makes unerase programs useless, so if someone steals your unencrypted drive or laptop, they can’t go snooping for deleted files. (And if you’re paranoid and think the NSA or similar adversary with a very large budget is after you, shredding multiple times prevents any lifting of your data via magnetic force microscopy.)

To accomplish this, use a something such as Eraser:

No, not that kind of eraser…. This kind of eraser. You can wipe your recycle bin, unused space, or specific files or filetypes, both on-demand or scheduled. (If you have a lot of space to wipe, it can be slow, so you would want to schedule it to happen during off-hours.)

It’s open-source, easy to use, and seems to be well-trusted by those in the security-conscious community.

Being the parent of a 3-year-old and a 9-month-old, I’m always interested in products that increase their safety.

Imagine my delight when I found bulletproofbaby.net.

With a line of products with every day practicality, such as a full set of Urban Camoflauge, including everything baby might need. Jacket, Boots, Dungarees, and Camo bib. As well as an armored bulletproof stroller.

Then there’s items you’d probably only use once every week or two, such as “my first gas mask“, and “my first D4-55 riot helmet“, baby flak jacket, baby bomb blanket, the perfectly sized ultra-light riot shield, and for those kids who have developed their grip skills to the point they can hold onto a pistol-grip, no S.W.A.T. toddler-in-training would be complete without his or her own toddler taser.

I know what you’re thinking… “They left out the home necessities. Well you’re wrong! Of course they have one of the most important things you could possibly get for your infant, a bulletproof crib.

They stand by their products enough that they even have a video demonstration of the stroller:

There’s been a youtube video clip going around via email, and on The Digg Reel, etc. of the Oprah Winfrey show featuring a Computer Science professor from Carnegie Melon University who has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. He gives a summary of his “final lecture”, The clip is beyond moving, and if you want a short summary of what an amazing speaker he is, go find it.

However, if you have a bit more than an hour to spare, you definitely should watch the complete lecture that he gave at CMU, (It’s Oprah-less too, bonus.)

It’s really unfortunate that the reason he’s getting the kind of exposure he has lately on tv and the net is because of the fact that he’s sick, and amazing people with his positive attitude, because Randy is one of the most phenomenal lecturers that I’ve ever heard speak. The school is losing someone who I think must be one of their best professors.

Hope everyone had a great holiday. We finished pulling nearly 10,000 feet of network cable through my Uncle’s new office building on Friday. My legs and feet were feeling it from climbing up and down the ladder countless times, but they’re back to normal now.

Now I get to punch down a few hundred keystones, telephone, and patch panel connections.

During an episode of net@night they talked about commoncraft.com It’s an interesting idea, they take concepts that might be difficult to explain to people and “explain it in plain english”.

(Take the example below, it answers the question I had, “what in the world do I do with somethig like Twitter”, which seems like such an odd service.)

I added links to my twitter, pownce, and facebook pages over in the sidebar.

The only thing I’ve been messing with much lately is twitter though…

Go click if you’re interested.

Installed Vista SP1 on the Macbook Pro tonight. Everything went perfectly smoothly, no problems with Boot Camp at all, and it seems to have fixed the one glaring problem I’ve had with Vista since it was released.

You can copy files at what seems to be a reasonable pace now. It doesn’t take several minutes just to “calculate time remaining” before it even starts copying.

I’m not sure if it was faster than it would have been copying at a command line, I’ll do some testing later and time some file copies, but it’s there’s no question that it has improved.

Mandi sent me a link to Improv Everywhere today…

I’m not sure what I’d think if I was sitting there eating in the food court and this happened:

However seeing it from an outsider’s perspective, I must say that it’s fabulously done.

Apparently Salt Lakc County Mayor wasn’t lofty enough. SuperDell is going to now run for Governor…

Good luck with that.

What’s funny is that he’s a Libertarian, which means that unless someone convinces me that there’s a better choice, I’ll probably end up voting for the nut.