mache - Slashdot User

Submission + - Need a Security Monitoring Company That Accepts VPN'ed Video Feeds 2

Submitted by mache on Saturday December 12, 2015 @02:11PM

mache writes: My cousin is finishing up a major remodel of his home in Houston and has installed video cameras for added security. At my suggestion, he wired up all the cameras to be on a separate VLAN that only uses wired Ethernet and has no WiFi access. Since the Houston police will only respond to security alarms if the monitoring company is viewing the crime in progress, he must arrange for the video feed to available to a security monitoring company.

I told him that the feed should use VPN or some other encrypted tunneling technique as it travels the Internet to the monitoring company and we proceeded to try and find a company that supported those protocols. No one I have talked to understands the importance of securing a video feed and everyone so far blithely suggests that we just open a port on his home router. Its frustrating to see such willful ignorance about Internet security.

Does anyone know of a security monitoring company that we can work with that has a clue?

Comment 2015-1952=63 (Score 4, Informative) 92

by mache on Saturday October 24, 2015 @02:36AM (#50792313) Attached to: RIP: Prolific Amazon Customer Reviewer Harriet Klausner (1952-2015)

I am confused, doesn't 2015-1952=63 and not 67? Am I missing something here?

Comment Re:There are none (Score 5, Informative) 175

by mache on Monday November 04, 2013 @05:09PM (#45330121) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Good Satellite Internet For Remote Locations?

I agree. You have to understand that most Internet communications satellites are in geo-stationary orbit at an altitude of 25,000 miles. With the speed of light limited to 186,000 miles per second and a round trip of 50,000 miles a quick calculations shows a minimum latency of around a 0.27 seconds and that is just signal travel time and not any processing overhead.

-- Mache

Comment Re:DD-WRT (Score 2) 241

by mache on Sunday July 14, 2013 @10:31AM (#44276837) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Enterprise Level Network Devices For Home Use?

I agree, I don't know what is causing this person to have to replace his routers every year, but a high end Asus or Cisco Linksys router can support enterprise loads and functions with DD-WRT. I have had my system running for years with enterprise specific functions. I have also had obsolete WRT54G routers also with enterprise function running in public facilities with huge loads. I don't get the problem this person is having.

-- Mache

Submission + - Old Linksys Routers Control BBQ Smokers (tvwbb.com)

Submitted by mache on Wednesday July 06, 2011 @06:21PM

mache writes: Its scary when you find two completely unrelated areas that you are passionate about merged. It happened to me with BBQ and hacking home network infrastructure. People have taken old Linksys WRT54G (and their derivatives) routers and made them into automatic temperature controllers for BBQ smokers. They support Wi-Fi and even have a web browser to monitor progress. More here http://tvwbb.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9270072103/m/7691098906

"Farming" Amoebas Discovered 49

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 20, 2011 @02:41PM from the rise-of-amoeba-agriculture dept.

Researchers from Rice University have found a type of amoeba that practices a sort of "primitive farming behavior." When their bacteria food become scarce, the Dictyostelium discoideum will group together and form a "fruiting body" that will disperse bacteria spores to a new area. From the article: "The behavior falls short of the kind of 'farming' that more advanced animals do; ants, for example, nurture a single fungus species that no longer exists in the wild. But the idea that an amoeba that spends much of its life as a single-celled organism could hold short of consuming a food supply before decamping is an astonishing one. More than just a snack for the journey of dispersal, the idea is that the bacteria that travel with the spores can 'seed' a new bacterial colony, and thus a food source in case the new locale should be lacking in bacteria." It's good to know that even a single celled creature is not immune to the pull of Farmville.

Florida Man Sues WikiLeaks For Scaring Him 340

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 13, 2011 @12:03PM from the don't-watch-the-news dept.

Stoobalou writes "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been accused of 'treason' by a Florida man seeking damages for distress caused by the site's revelations about the US government. From the article: 'David Pitchford, a Florida trailer park resident, names Assange and WikiLeaks as defendants in a personal injury suit filed with the Florida Southern District Court in Miami. In the complaint filed on 6th January, Pitchford alleges that Assange's negligence has caused "hypertension," "depression" and "living in fear of being stricken by another heart attack and/or stroke" as a result of living "in fear of being on the brink of another nuclear [sic] WAR."' Just for good measure, it also alleges that Assange and WikiLeaks are guilty of 'terorism [sic], espionage and treason.'"

Google Stops Ads For "Cougar" Sites 319

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday May 18, 2010 @10:52AM from the here's-to-you-mrs-robinson dept.

teh31337one writes "Google is refusing to advertise CougarLife, a dating site for mature women looking for younger men. However, they continue to accept sites for mature men seeking young women. According to the New York Times, CougarLife.com had been paying Google $100,000 a month since October. The Mountain View company has now cancelled the contract, saying that the dating site is 'nonfamily safe.'"

Comment X10 and Router iptables scripts (Score 1) 618

by mache on Sunday April 11, 2010 @03:16PM (#31810164) Attached to: What Advice For a Single Parent As Server Admin?

I do four things for my kid.

1. Install X10 controlled electrical outlets that you can control from either a secured (locked up) X10 keypad or from a secured computer interface. Nothing says do your home work like a dead electrical outlet.

2. Using third party firmware on the router, such as DD-WRT, set up iptables scripts that can either block all network traffic to the specific machine, block all Internet, block selected Internet sites, ... using a secured plink call to an on router script (see documentation on ssh and putty).

3. Set up separate non-admin accounts on each machine, one for fun and games and one for home work only. Share document storage area among the two accounts. Never give up admin tot he kids

4. Up to date antivirus software. .

Needless to say, I get lots of push back from my kid and I have not been completely successful in all four. But I have implemented enough so that he is not totally off the deep end (or so I am led to believe).

Being a parent has given me a new appreciation for functioning in a non-deterministic universe.

Good luck

-- Mache

Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes 538

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 13, 2010 @07:57PM from the less-math-more-social-science dept.

artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"

Man Sues Neighbor For Not Turning Off His Wi-Fi 428

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday January 12, 2010 @06:27PM from the have-you-never-wondered-why-I-drink-only-distilled-water-or-rain-water-and-only-pure-grain-alcohol dept.

Scyth3 writes "A man is suing his neighbor for not turning off his cell phone or wireless router. He claims it affects his 'electromagnetic allergies,' and has resorted to being homeless. So, why doesn't he check into a hotel? Because hotels typically have wireless internet for free. I wonder if a tinfoil hat would help his cause?"

The State of Ruby VMs — Ruby Renaissance 89

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday November 22, 2009 @11:59AM from the take-your-pick dept.

igrigorik writes "In the short span of just a couple of years, the Ruby VM space has evolved to more than just a handful of choices: MRI, JRuby, IronRuby, MacRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, REE and BlueRuby. Four of these VMs will hit 1.0 status in the upcoming year and will open up entirely new possibilities for the language — Mac apps via MacRuby, Ruby in the browser via Silverlight, object persistence via Smalltalk VM, and so forth. This article takes a detailed look at the past year, the progress of each project, and where the community is heading. It's an exciting time to be a Rubyist."

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