I second Fail2Ban

I used to run DenyHosts but switched to fail2ban.

It is remarkably simple, uses iptables and has a TON of versatility.

I get scanned multiple times a day, tons of "Did not receive identification string from..." looking for a prompt so they can try and identify my host OS. Set it up so that when I get one of those, the ip is banned for a day. Failed login attempts on SSH bans for 24 hours after three failures.

I have a third rule which monitors the fail2ban log and if an ip shows up more than once in a month its banned for 6. Bans are global on all ports.

There is not a ton of active development on it but the reality is that its a mature product and works well. Setting up the filters and "jails" can be daunting but the configuration can cover anything you could possibly think of. Supports Regex, exclusion lists, and can be set up for any service or log files.

Fail2Ban its your friend.

I am not going to get into an argument over whether or not person A can tell the difference between format 1 and format 2 nor or am I going to debate the merits of one format over another because this move has nothing to do with providing a better product and only has to do with figuring out a way to charge you (the sucker) more to sell you the same thing they sold you two years ago.

Sure there are empirical ways to prove that one format has more dynamic range than another, just like you can prove 1080 via HDMI is better than 1080 via component, HOWEVER in practice, unless you are an elitist erudite prick who "can't stand to not watch or listen to the BEST" the reality is that most of us won't care.

And for the record its got nothing to do with not knowing any better or being ignorant of the quality difference.
It has to do with biology.
Take that wrist watch, if you were aware of it ALL THE TIME it would drive you crazy, but our nervous system has automatic processes which filter out continuous stimuli, like the watch or the hiss of a low quality recording.
Now I get annoyed when I can hear compression artifacts, but since I switched to high quality VBR, I rarely hear them and that's the point.
For 90% of the music out there, this is adequate for most listening environments.
There will always be a market for people like those audi commercials...."this cuestick is clad in the leather from a pigmy albino hossenpheffer's nutsack and is so rare that there are only three made each year"....whatever.
I am all about the minimum effective dose because once you get above a certain point you are just lining pockets that don't belong to you. Some might consider this aspirations of mediocrity, but I disagree and prefer instead to think in terms of efficiencies.
Why spend more when what I have is perfectly adequate for any and all of my requirements?

I don't know about anyone else, but it looked more like a hellraiser puzzle box than a rubiks cube.

Citation Needed I personally don't know anyone that can get broadband for 15 bucks a month. The cheapest plan I can find locally is 19.99 for 6 months and then 59.99 every month thereafter, and that 19.99 is closer to 30 bucks after the taxes are taken out....oh and some of those taxes are there to support infrastructure.
While we're on the subject of infrastructure and costs, don't forget that the federal government (that's yours and mine tax dollars) helped to fund and continues to fund the buildout of those networks through the Universal Service Fund.

Communications infrastructure occupies a unique position in the market. It connects consumers to multiple third parties who are all individually paying for their own access to the communication network. Now don't get me wrong, I see what your point is, but its wrong. What you are suggesting is that as the phone company, not only should I be allowed to charge my customers for phone service, but I should also be able to charge any businesses they call because I facilitated that exchange EVEN THOUGH the business is paying for the phone line in. How about this, where do you draw the line? I host my own website, should all the ISPs in the world be able to bill me when their customers connect to my site? Personal sites don't make any money, okay what about if it links to my Etsy store?

Anymore, data service to your home or business is more of a utility than a service. The difference is that the utility provider thinks they deserve a cut of a third parties profits when one of their customers does business with them and I take serious issue with that. Bits are bits and don't cost any more to deliver to amazon than they do to deliver to grandmas blog.

The thing you are missing is that Netflix, Hulu, Google, et al already pay to put those bits on the network. They spend TONS of money each month to maintain their connectivity to the net. So you're saying in addition to that, they should pay a tariff to every ISP when one of the ISP's subscribers uses their service?

What happens when they don't pay?
It certainly isn't Google that suffers.

There is already competition between the big bandwidth consumers. Its not over the last mile connection to the actual customer of that bandwidth, its over connectivity to the net in general. The internet is and always has been run from the idea that the endpoints pay for the connection to the network and the large carriers use peering agreements (ie you can send x amount of bits to me and I will send x amount of bits to you and we basically trade bits between us since we are both making money off our customers) to pass data between them.

What you are trying to justify is the idea that the middleman (who makes money from their subscribers) should be allowed to charge third parties when their subscribers access them which is complete horseshit.

Bandwidth IS a commodity. You and I paid for a significant amount of that capacity with our tax dollars. We continue to do so. The pipes are getting larger not smaller and for the most part capacity isn't really the issue here.
Net Neutrality is about ensuring that infrastructure that the public paid for in part is available for the benefit of the people that paid for it not just the people that built it.

The reality is that Net Neutrality has nothing to do with neutrality and everything to do with carriers wanting to enjoy common carrier protections without having to provide common carrier openess.

Companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T want to be able to not only charge their customers for internet access, but also charge the companies like Google, Amazon, and Netflix for the traffic that their customers generate when accessing those sites. Look at the recent move Comcast made against Level3, "Hey guys, nice work on getting that Netflix account, oh by the way we're going to charge you more to connect to us because you are supplying connectivity for a company which competes with our OnDemand services, thank you for choosing Comcast". What would have happened if Level3 said "meh....I don't think so" and turned off peering to Comcast. Who would have suffered? Mostly us, the consumers. Awesome.

It's also about being allowed to prioritize network traffic for hosted services over competing third party services, although beating voip providers on price (ala bundling) has pretty much destroyed most of the third party VOIP providers. Being able to provide a better quality hosted product is real easy when you de-prioritize competing services traffic on your network. A few months of poor performance and customers will be switching to hosted services in droves. I think we can all agree that this would fall into the "anti-competitive practices" category. The thing is, they might be doing this already, except that its technically not illegal, or at least its difficult enough to prove that plausible deniability plays a significant role and there is no legal precedent set to file suit on. Net Neutrality laws would make this illegal and at the very least require them to disclose that they are doing it.

Anyone can see that charging Google or Microsoft money whenever a customer accesses the site is wrong. Somehow they have twisted this into them getting a free ride on their network. Nevermind that the customer is paying for access to the internet and that the site being accessed is also paying to be connected to the internet.

I am all for traffic shaping based on volume to ensure equal access to all traffic, but if you are using public funds to prop up your infrastructure, you better have full disclosure available.


THIS is what they are really talking about and it has nothing to do with the government "taking over" the internet. Of course they tend to screw up most things they touch so I have very little faith that even if they do try to regulate things, that they will do a decent job.


On a side note, many people on both "sides" like to blame de-regulation for the banking problems we have had, and then argue against any other forms of regulation on the basis that regulation is bad and against the free market.
First off lets get one thing straight, there is no such thing as a free market. Whether by government hands or private hands, someone will ALWAYS be manipulating the rules in their favor. We are not free, but merely have the illusion of freedom so long as we don't piss the wrong person off.

My main point is that HFCS IS the "garbage in your diet" and that HFCS is handled differently by your body.

I have had this same argument with many people.

The issue its convoluted by special interest, however, I do believe HFCS is not a healthy product, and here is my argument.

You point out that surcrose breaks down to about the same thing that is in HFCS, but what you fail to take into consideration that there is an energy cost associated with the body doing the work vs having both products readily available to your body.
The net result is that while on paper they seem to be equivalent and the gross calories in similar quantities are close enough to not seem different, the reality is that HFCS is ready for rapid absorption and and use by your body, while straight up sucrose takes some work to prepare which to some degree lowers the net caloric intake for sugar over HFCS.

Check out the wikipedia article on fructose and check out the metabolism section.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose
The whole argument that HFCS is the same as sugar and no different to your body is complete horseshit.
The fact that HFCS is usually a 1:1 ratio of glucose and fructose may even exacerbate the issue since there have been some recent studies which indicate increased uptake and absorption when fructose and glucose are administered this way.
There are other factors as well, since HFCS is cheaper (due to subsidies) and has a longer shelf life than sucrose, and sweeter than sucrose, food manufacturers looking to make a palatable shelf stable product turn to HFCS because its cheaper, sweeter(thus less is needed), and easier to deal with. Sweet is a flavor humans are biologically predisposed to and makes things taste better, but somethings shouldn't be sweet, so they have to add sodium to offset this sweetness and maintain palatability while "tasting" better than other products. This has led to an arms race in the food industry that has been increasing sugar and sodium content in prepared foods over the last 25 years.
Don't believe me? Compare similar products in the store, I will bet you that the products using HFCS have more salt and sugar than a similar product that uses sucrose.


So yes, I think HFCS is not healthy because it adds easy to process calories and it is in so much of the food that people can afford to eat and while it may not be single handedly causing the obesity issues in the USA and to a lesser degree the world, but its inclusion into high caloric, shelf stable, cheap, unfilling food leads to consumption of unhealthy amounts. Its difficult to moderate intake when its in everything that you can afford to eat.

of course the 101010 = 42 thing was accidental which makes it even better.....

There....Fixed that for you.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html Here's a link to the live K-index.

Based on my lat/lon, my magnetic lattitude is 53.2

Which basically means that anything less than 6 probably isn't worth my while to go outside for.