There's some major changes and updates coming to Firewall/SOSDG 0.9.4. I've been changing code and adding functions, trying to simplify how things are laid out. I'm hoping over the next month or two to get the code up to production status (1.0 would be nice).
There's nothing wrong with a business making money - that is what they are supposed to do.
There is one major change between businesses of today, and those of the 1900s:
CEOs, investors, etc were once rewarded for successful business practices - things like increasing sales, expanding the business, hiring workers, etc.
Instead, the higher ups and management types of today are rewarded for running the company into the ground, then firing/laying off thousands of workers, and putting the 'savings' into their own golden parachute.
There's a huge difference between making a profit and making an obscene profit - profit is made from good business practices, expansion, selling quality products, etc. Obscene profit is laying off thousands of people even though you made more money this year then in previous years 10 fold.
Just an FYI to all users, over the next few days, we'll be doing some upgrades to the servers. Shiny new large hard drives, upgraded Xen software, and other good stuff. If we are down at times, please be patient as these types of upgrades take time.
[ Update 7/27/2010 ]
Good news everyone! (I've always wanted to say that)
99% of the upgrades are already complete thanks to efficent and quick work, two days earlier then expected. Please let us know of any website issues you may run into.
Just a quick note to everyone, version 0.9.3 of Firewall/SOSDG has been released. This update features a new ability to create files with custom commands to inject at specific places during the file loading. I've also tweaked the coloring of the output a bit prettier.
Sometimes, people/companies do things which leave me scratching my head. In this case, Orange Internet of France wants us to whitelist or at least monitor for listings and spam from their network. Normally, this kinda request isn't all that unusual, however in this case, it looks like Orange Internet sent a mass mailing to DNSbl maintainers and possibly large ISPs.
Subject: Orange introduces new MTA servers Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:43:33 +0200 From: Service Abuse Orange Internet <abuse@orange.fr> Reply-To: abuse@orange.fr To: abuse@orange.fr Miss, Sir, Orange Internet is the major ISP in France where it provides about 6 million individual Internet accesses and about 16 million email accounts. By the end of this month, Orange will put on line few new email equipments (MTA) with new outgoing IP addresses. Therefore, we would like to share these new IP addresses since you could be able to observe a sudden raise of email traffic coming from them. Our new IP addresses will be : 80.12.242.123 80.12.242.124 80.12.242.125 80.12.242.126 80.12.242.127 80.12.242.128 80.12.242.129 80.12.242.130 80.12.242.131 80.12.242.132 80.12.242.133 80.12.242.134 and 193.252.23.210 193.252.23.211 193.252.23.212 193.252.23.213 193.252.23.214 193.252.23.215 Please, let us quickly remind you of our policy to fight, under our national laws, against Internet abuses from our subscribers: - All email traffic sent from a dynamic IP address is driven to our "subscribers MTA" - Legal measures of protection against spam are applied - Known compromised accounts are suspended and blocked - Every complaint, documented with the headers of the abusive emails, is treated by Orange abuse team (abuse@orange.fr) within 24h Complaints being a essential source of information about our customers' behaviour, thank you to let us know if you have a complaint feedback loop that we could register. You are also welcome to send us all complaints and all questions you may have at abuse@orange.fr. Finally, considering the specific role of our MTAs, we would be very grateful if you could whitelist their associated IP addresses or, at least, offer them the usual protection you offer to large ISPs SMTP servers. Regards, Abuse Orange Internet technical role.
*sigh*
They probably should have run this by someone who actually has dealt with DNSbl maintainers before.
Recently on the NANOG list, there was discussion going on about IPv6 and e-mail, and it slightly diverged into SMTP TLS. After some off-list discussion about SMTP level security and what a Debian system will do on a default install, I've made some observations I'd like to share.
Given how easy its been for people in the past to get valid but fake certs from Verisign and similar companies, is dependng on TLS/SSL certificates to guarantee the identity of the person you are communicating with really such a great idea?
We all are pretty well aware of the fact that Christians have this tendancy to allow violations of their own commandments as long as they can somehow justify it in the name of their imiginary friends, but its not often we see ones that post about how they think its okay and try to justify their position.
In this case, Chrissy Satterfield posted a commentary on WorldNetDaily about how she applauds whoever vandalized the atheist billboard in North Carolina.
Some bits from the commentary I thought were interesting...
Chrissy, I'd like to point out that you seem to be confusing truth with opinion. What you consider 'truth' is actually a rather limited and tunnel vision view of what some people believe in, rather then what the world and country believe in as a whole. I know its very easy to bob your head back and forth like a cheerleader and scream "la la la!" whenever someone happens to bring it to your attention that there are people in this world who don't believe the same way you do, but for once, do mature a little.
But, Chrissy, you did just encourage vandalism! It comes back to the Christian way of 'law' (I use this term loosely, considering Christians, if they could write laws, would make being gay and being black an executable offense) where as long as its claimed to be in the name of your imaginary friend, its okay.
One must ask, how would you feel if someone defaced a church billboard? Oh wait, that issue is next!
Atheists vandalizing Christian billboards? Chrissy, please, you really think that atheists are really that desperate to get their message across? We've got other ways to get our message across - some of them are quite humorous and intellegent in nature - but then again, most of the people who would find phrases like "One nation indivisible" offensive, are the ones who can't think for themselves because of what the chruch has done to them.
Only the strongest survive in the world today, it's not my fault you choose to be feeble and weak. You think the priests and such call you the "shepherds flock" because you can think for yourselves and lead?
Its not abuse to try and share your views with others - in fact, your 'modern' Christian doctrine makes you force your views onto other people even if they don't want it. Every time I answer my door, and its someone trying to sell me 'the saving power of jesus', I find that abusive, offensive, and a waste of my time.
Being oppressed is the rallying cry of Christians who don't like being told that they aren't special and above everyone else. Forget the fact that throughout history, Christians have been the oppressers of others, rather then the opposite way around.
I doubt you've had many 'conversations' with atheists - I'm sure it was pretty one sided, with you doing a cheerleader head bobbing "la la la, I can't hear you!" the entire time. I suggest you speak with Hemant from the Friendly Atheist - he's one of the coolest, bad ass, friendly, and logical atheists I've ever come across. I can guarantee you, that he will never not be civil and polite to you.
*ghasp* You might just like him!
Atheists and LGBT people alike have to do that on a daily basis - stand up against Christian oppression and bigotry, and say "To hell with what anyone thinks.". Of course, the difference is, when we do it to you, you call for us to be executed or beaten to death. On the other hand, we just laugh at your supposed 'openness' and 'good Christian nature' knowing full well that the 'open hand of god' is actually grasping a AK-47 pointed right at us.
Chrissy, I always welcome you proving what i've said wrong. Please don't hesitate to contact me - unlike most Christians, I welcome constructive feedback.
(Update: James @ Cubik's Rube also blogged about this as well and is an excellent read)
As if this couldn't have been predicted, Laurie Higgins of the IFI is attacking Hemant (The Friendly Atheist) again. Last year, she called him charismatic, funny, kind, and iconoclastic, now she's saying he's uncivil and disreputable.
Can't she just make up her mind already?
Damn Hemant and his socialist teachings of maths! :-P
The perfect example of a WoW player at their finest. Kudos to the girlfriend for doing what needed to be done.
There's been a bit of lashback against the AHBL over our decision to list GoDaddy for allowing/supporting abuse from their network. One particular person, Maria Langer decided to contact us about the issue directly.
Because there's an awful lot of misconceptions about how DNSbl systems work, and where we stand on policies, I decided to help Maria understand why we had taken the position we did, and explained to her in fairly reasonable detail. Apparently, it's a cardinal sin to explain things, as she decided to write this lovely post blasting me.
The best part? She didn't even bother to read the response I gave her. I took quite a bit of time to think out what to say to her, and respond to it. And even better, she's calling me unprofessional with a holier-then-thou attitude in how I handled the issue.
For someone who seems to be the expert in professional behavior, she sure had no problems sending me the following e-mail response:
Here's a hint, Maria, if you are going to call someone else unprofessional, do yourself a favor and behave professionally yourself. Oh, and I'm a she. not an it. Hoity toity enough to write a blog posting blasting me under the guise of being a kook, but obviously not important enough to use the spell checker while writing a response to an e-mail you never bothered to read.
And people wonder why I get annoyed with some people's ignorance.
For a second day in a row, i've gotten calls from GoDaddy in the morning, and both have been met with a *click* when I answered.
Seriously, knock it off, GoDaddy. If you want to talk to me, then stop hanging up on me.
The two numbers on the caller ID so far are (480) 505-8877 and (480) 505-8859. Based on what I get when I call back, I'm guessing they are sales calls.
Oh, and check out GoDaddy Ignores Abuse Dot Com.
Amazingly enough, its not hard to find large amounts of Smug around here in Boise.
Going to dinner tonight at Fuddruckers, we were greeted by no place to park - not because there was no parking spaces, but rather because Valley Corvettes decided to put cones in all of the parking spaces to make sure no ugly and dirty cars parked next to their precious endowment enhancing horseless carriages. Can't have the pleebs and unwashed masses getting too close!
In fact, even though the club had their own private party room, the smug cover was so thick that we could barely breathe without seeing their supposed superiority and uppity nature every where we went. I could have sworn I saw a bowl with keys in it too...
Anyways, the best part is, the cheezy $5 traffic cones they bought from Play It Again Sports were blowing all over the parking lot, so people were parking wherever they wanted to by the time we were leaving. Notice I'm not shedding a tear, and the world's smallest violin I'm playing.
So much for those great christian values, eh? Dr. Jillian Weiss of the Transgender Workplace Diversity Blog and of my homestate of New Jersey is under fire from a right wing christian hate group that likes to claim it follows 'traditional family values'.
Now, I know that the "Traditional Values Coalition" doesn't like being called out on their behavior, but noone likes the truth when it hurts. If you want to prove me wrong that you aren't a bunch of hate mongering bigots, please feel free to.
On a side note, based on what i've been reading from the GOP, Tea Party, and religious fundies lately, here's a list of the evils that the Liberals want to push on children:
Way to go, Fulton Mississippip, you've made your bed, now you can lie in it.
But, we're not done yet!
Because the “real prom” was held in a secret location outside of the county...
Now, look down through the comments, and check this one out from Lindsey Begley:
I am a senior at IAHS, and I’ve known Constance for the last 6 years. Please hear our side of the story before you decide on our fate.
The party we had in Evergreen (the county neighborhood I live in) is 30 mins away from the school. we rented out the community center, hired vendors, decorated, and our parents ran the security/chaperone staff- but it wasn’t prom. Prom was at the country club where constance and 7 other students were. The reason the senior class boycotted the actual prom was not because we hate gays. We wanted a drama-free gathering to celebrate 3 great years and 1 lousy one together, and we wanted to lay low. We also wanted to do it without the main cause of the lousy. What people are failing to realize is that much of the fault of this whole stink lies with Constance, not her mistreatment by the school district, but her crazy-reckless need for attention. It sounds mean and horrible and like we planned it all specifically to embarrass Constance, but we didn’t. We let her have her prom with her girlfriend and her tuxedo and we went to party it up in the “boondocks” not because we wanted her rights violated, but so we could salvage what has turned into a total fiasco. As a whole we didn’t support her decision to throw the district under the bus, or her insinuations that we’re all just a bunch ‘a hicks driving around in beater pick up trucks spitting tobacco and burning crosses. IAHS is one of the top schools in the state and I’m proud of that, and I’m proud that we took a stand and just said you know what? forget it, we have just as much right as you do to have a party for ourselves. So we did, and now we’re getting flack because poor Connie’s ego got a bit of bruising. She’s playing the lesbian card to prove she ALWAYS gets what she wants. This time, we didn’t just let her.
Take it as you will, because I’m sure it sounds like we faked her out, but understand this- the decision NOT to attend prom had nothing to do with the school or with Constance’s sexual preferences; it had everything to do with proving we weren’t going to let her and the ACLU steamroll us into doing what Constance wanted. We flexed the muscle of the majority and we’ll suffer the consequences.
For the record, her twitter, facebook account.
The fight is on. The Internet doesn't forget, and neither will the legions of people who now know Fulton's true colors. It will haunt you.
FINALLY! Someone besides Obama who appreciates just how important the health care bill is to the well being of the United States. Kudos to you Biden for still speaking your mind like the average Joe rather then being the pompus fools the GOP and Tea Klux Klan are.
And, thank you to the Texas Republicans, and the GOP in general, for proving you are, as always nothing but of inbreed racist hicks with no class what-so-ever when you don't get your way. Next time you wonder why studies show the average intellegence of Republicans is lower then that of Democrats, think back to the Tea Klux Klan shouting racial comments at black lawmakers and Neugebauer shouting "Baby Killer!" at a highly anti-abortion Democrat representative.