JDPFu.com 2025

Ok, everyone seems to be really confused about Mars and how close it is to earth this year, 2006. In 2003, Mars came as close to earth as it will be almost 60,000 years. For some reason, it has been making the internet spam rounds this year. Heck, even my Mother forwarded it to me.

See this article for info on the 2003 viewing. Mars to Get Closer than Ever in Recorded History in 2003

/. article – which spam filter is best?

Fast forward to 39:42 into the movie to see his rankings.

Here’s what I saw (YMMV):

1) bogofilter

2) ijsSPAM2

3) spamprobe

4) spamasas-b (learning only)

5) crmSPAM3 (1:40 ham eaten)

Of course, he immediately showed other views of the data and had different rankings. Basically, you need to decide how much real email you are willing to lose to fight any spam getting in.

GRC has been working on dynamic web content without JavaScript. Check this out

New Gizmo and router forwarding settings!

Ok, I logged into the Gizmo to make these settings: according to it (the gizmo) the following ports are reserved: 68, 16384-16403, 5060. Better than what Linksys support is suggesting. I’ll forward these from my router. VoIP quality should be perfect once this is done.

The Gizmo also has configuration settings for bandwidth management – but they aren’t clear whether they have anything to do with VoIP quality or if they help when the LAN traffic doesn’t flow thru the Gizmo.

I’ve been listening and subscribing to Podcasts recently. My favorites are:

• The Value Guys – Value Line Observer
• Security Now! – a technology podcast related to computer and network security
• PerlCast – the best hacker language
• a number of books on tape from my local library system

I’m currently listening to Red Mars and plan to listen to Green Mars and Blue Mars immediately following. Hugo Winners are almost always a good read. Heinlein is my favorite author and has won the greatest number of Hugo awards.

Today I learned about a completely legal javascript hack that scans your internal network. It isn’t a hack and doesn’t take advantage of any javascript errors. This is scary. I tried this with firefox and IE and neither worked correctly. IE always reported open with a web server. Firefox always reported closed or no server on the IP, but I run with fairly secure settings, so perhaps that is why? Who knows, but it isn’t worth it, IMO.

Basically, it isn’t safe to surf without javascript disabled. This breaks most of the web sites, but a good webmaster will allow "some" level of browsing without javascript enabled. Clearly I suck as a webmaster – on my top level page at least.

Ok, to that end, this site will be redone using CSS-only as soon as I can make it happen cleanly. Removing javascript is no small task since this is a wiki too.

Intersted in ETFs? That is ‘Exchange Traded Funds":http://www.schwabiis.com/fundfocus.html. Here’s an article titled //Five Myths of Exchange-Traded Funds//.

The ’Ultimate Buy and Hold Strategy":http://www.fundadvice.com/FEhtml/BHStrategies/0108/0108a.html is an interesting read.

Ellis Traub wrote a great book called Take Stock which describes the NAIC – Better Investing Method to investing. Highly Recommended.

A note from my sister who lives in rural Iowa …
Just to let you know, in spite of all the terrorist news, oil pipeline news, etc. the Des Moines Register’s front page reported that a 1,199 pound Hampshire-Duroc hog won first place in the Iowa State Fair’s big boar contest…..

I searched for that article, but couldn’t find it online. However, … this is almost as good! ‘Butter cow’ family stunned after cattle booted from fair

It appears to be a dead link already.

It looks like Linksys may replace my WRT54GXv2 router, they asked when it was purchased and whether I still have the receipt. I’m happy with it except the QoS doesn’t seem to be working well enough to fully support VoIP needs. Since everything else works well, I don’t think it is a hardware problem, but what do I know? I’m hardly a router expert or an embedded systems hardware expert (at least since 1996).

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email
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Standard Logging
What does that mean? It is common practice is to capture the following information in log files or email or web servers concerning visitors. This site also captures this data; however, those logs are usually rotated weekly. Upto 4 weeks worth of data is retained for troubleshooting or cracker research. Backups may be retained indefinitely.

1. Your Internet Address
2. Your Email Address
3. Your Current Browser
4. The time of your visit
5. A list of the web pages you visited
6. The last page you came from
7. other assorted non-personal information – load times, file sizes, etc.

Cookies
Some tools that I’ll use may use cookies, but you are welcome to turn them off in your browser. That is how I surf the web. Obviously, so things might break, but that’s life in the big city.

Hidden Images
As of 2/18/01 no hidden images used for tracking are used by this site. I have no intention of ever using these techniques. A Web beacon, also known as a Web bug, is a small, graphic image on a Web page, Web-based document or in an e-mail message that is designed to allow the site owner or a third party to monitor the address and other information of the site viewing the item. Web beacons are often invisible to the user because they are typically very small (only 1-by-1 pixel) and the same color as the background of the Web page, document or e-mail message. Web beacons are represented as HTML IMG tags in the Web page; users can click on "view profiles" of the Web page to see whether the page is using a Web beacon. Web beacons collect the IP address of the computer that the Web beacon is sent to, the URL of the page the Web beacon comes from and the time it was viewed. Web beacons can also be linked to personal information.

However, most 3rd party products do use cookies for personalization. If you come across a 3rd party product on this site, it would be reasonable to expect cookies to be set. As of 7/18/03, there are a number of 3rd party products running on this site. It is very clear when you are using those tools.

Click Here to see what your computer gives away about [[Your Privacy|]]

Privacy Links

• privacy.org What people can know about you without your permission!
• Junkbusters Telemarketing, spam, and other bothersome marketing hassles
• GRC Learn how to protect yourself while connect to the Internet! After you are on the page, click on the "ShieldsUp" image to see information about your computer that anyone can get when you are connected to the Internet. It is worse than the wild west of America in the 1800s!
• the grand daddy of all SecurityNow
• PING