ATM skimmers, AnyConnect, Queues (fail), OVH, Private Cloud, OpenBazaar

Post date: Oct 29, 2016 1:37:19 PM

• Periscope ATM Skimmers - The joke goes on. Banks claimed that chip cards are secure, yet magnetic strip and human readable numbers are still there. What a joke.
• Cisco AnyConnect VPN is blaah! To make it work, it's required to uninstall the client. Reboot Windows, re-install the client and then use it. Why? Well one customer uses domain.example/identifier and the stupid client claims that it's invalid address. But after re-install it works again. So lame. Also Cisco doesn't provide updates directly from their website which stinks too. - Can't stop loving bad software and bad support.
• Message processing queues: Yet another fail. In one batch transfer process there's usually one file per day. But the file name is counter. So basically it doesn't matter, if there's 0 or "more" files per day. Yet someone has coded the rest of the processing pipeline so, that it'll actually processes only ONE file from that path and after that removes all files. Then someone claims that my software hasn't sent all data. Yes I have. I can show you the exact logs. You've just lost it. Not my problem, don't call me. Go and seek your lost data. - But as we all know, this is business as usual. Because the occurrence of this kind of event is rare. Basically only when the process has been manually started out of schedule. I'm pretty sure they won't fix it. Therefore we'll end up having this same fruitful conversation again.
• Got more or less interesting issues with OVH. It's just like all the other helpdesks out there. Extremely simple issues gets fixed. But more complex questions seem to get redirected to /dev/null . If task is more complex than the reset monkey guy pressing the reset button on server.
• Had interesting discussions with one private cloud provider. They provide managed private cloud platforms in deep underground bedrock cave bunker protected from EMP and other stuff. I'm afraid this falls in category, way cool stuff, but why to pay for it? After radioactive fallout starts and EMP has wiped most of electronics and power plants etc. It might be possible that people really don't care too much about their servers. It's history anyway. Systems also might actually look pretty affordable when built for "optimum capacity", but truth is that capacity requirements change all the time. Which could be a problem because when you run out of capacity, especially in quite small setup, the additional cost of getting more capacity is quite high. You can't get a little more capacity, because unit cost is too high. You'll have to get "a lot more capacity", in percentage compared to previous capacity and then you'll end up with under-utilization for quite a while. - This is one of the reasons why affordable public cloud is actually awesome. Capacity management becomes much easier when scale is almost astronomically larger compared to small setups.
• Reminded my self about Sponge functions. Useful for both encrypting data & hash creation, Pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) - deterministic random bit generator (DRBG) - in form of deterministic pseudorandom number generators (DRBG). Because the internal state remains hidden. Using different stirring algorithms can easily alternate the output, as well as using bad stirring algorithm makes the sponge function pretty much broken.
• Also due to latest science news checked out: Ganymede, Europa and phys.org got lot of interesting stuff. IEEE Spectrum is worth of checking out.
• OpenBazaar 1.1.8 released with new features. Listing pinning, Hidden listings, Maximum Quantity, Addresses, Images, Shipping and Misc stuff.
• Something different? WU-14 - Chinese experimental hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). As well as American counterpart project Tactical Boost Glide (TBG).