2017-05 on Funky Si's Blog (Dev)

Have I Been Pwned?

funkysi1701@gmail.com (funkysi1701) — Mon, 29 May 2017 20:00:45 +0000

Have you heard of the website https://haveibeenpwned.com ?

Well you should have. Have I Been Pwned is a website created by security expert Troy Hunt that keeps track of data breaches and allows you to search and find ones that affect you. As I write this Troy Hunt has tracked 3,752,984,562 pwned accounts from 216 pwned websites.

What does “pwned” mean?

pwn means to compromise or control, specifically another computer (server or PC), website, gateway device, or application. (as defined on wikipedia)

Originally, pwn and its variants were pronounced /ˈoʊn/ in the same way as the verb own, the tail of the p being “silent”.

In terms of this site Troy Hunt defines it as:

A “breach” is an incident where a hacker illegally obtains data from a vulnerable system, usually by exploiting weaknesses in the software. All the data in the site comes from website breaches which have been made publicly available.

What can I do?

As an individual you can search for your email address in Have I Been Pwned, I am in 7 data breaches.

As a person responsible for an email domain you can search and find which of your users are in a data breach.

You can also sign up to get notified of any future data breaches you might get caught up in.

If you are in a data breach change your password. If you use the same password across multiple sites or services change them as well. Consider using a password manager so you can have unique complex passwords for every services you use and not have to worry about forgetting them.

If you look after a website or service then follow Troy Hunt. Think about security, is your site vulnerable to SQL injection, do you store passwords with reversible encryption?

How worried should I be?

Data breaches are happening more and more often. Its not showing any sign of slowing down, in fact I expect there to be lots more in the years to come. However there are things you can do to mitigate the damage of being in a breach.

Use a password manager
Don’t share passwords between sites
Regularly change your passwords
Think of passwords as pass phrases and include spaces between the different words

Consider what information a company has about you. How worried would you be if this became public knowledge? Consider if you want this online, weigh up the benefits etc

Star Trek Discovery trailer thoughts

funkysi1701@gmail.com (funkysi1701) — Mon, 22 May 2017 20:00:45 +0000

I am really excited a new Star Trek Discovery trailer has just been released, if you haven’t seen it yet, watch it now.

The rumour mill has been going crazy about Star Trek Discovery but now we have a trailer with actual footage to analyse. In my opinion all the concerns about changes in the production team have gone out the window, this looks to be a polished Star Trek show that can sit alongside our favourites.

The Ship

When images first surfaced of the ship I wasn’t keen, however all the shots of the ship look great. I assume this must be the USS Discovery, although it is hard to tell anything from a two minute advert.

The Bridge

The Bridge looks recognisable as a Star Trek bridge, but also looks fresh and new. I think it feels very JJ Verse. I like it.

The Uniforms

The uniforms look like a mid step between what we saw on Enterprise and what we know as the Classic Trek look. I can’t see any Blue, Red, Gold to signify departments, but it looked like Gold and Silver could well signify something. Really hard to tell at this stage, but I like what I can see.

Characters

The show feels like it is going to be gritty and real. With characters you can really get behind. I liked what I saw of the captain and lead character. The alien character intrigued me, hopefully his line about death will be explored. It feels like there is a strong link between Vulcans and Sarek with the shows lead (played by Sonequa Martin-Green) Not sure how I feel about this yet, depends on what they do with it. I don’t want them to just redo what they have done with Spock, but again lets wait and see.

Klingons

OK I am not sure I like the strong emphasis on the Klingons. I think we have spent a lot of time learning about Klingons, so when I heard the casting news about Klingons I was not excited. The Klingons also have a new look, which doesn’t bother me that much as the Klingons have changed their look before. But lets wait and see what happens.

Star Trek is back

After over a decade with no Star Trek on TV, it is finally coming back. I am beyond excited about this. There are lots of things I want from this new show but this advert has definitely rekindled my excitement and hope that we are going to get something good.

Windows Update – don’t turn it off!

funkysi1701@gmail.com (funkysi1701) — Mon, 15 May 2017 20:00:45 +0000

No blog post this week. However why not check out Troy Hunts blog article about Windows Update .

I am probably fairly unique in that I like installing updates whether it be on my phone, my PC or for one of my favourite programs. One of my tasks when I used to work in a sysadmin role was ensuring all windows updates got installed on all servers and client machines. It was a never ending task, as soon as you got almost all updates done, it would be update Tuesday and a new set of updates would be released.

I can think of a couple of times an update got installed that caused a problem and needed to be rolled back. However I have no way of measuring how often it fixed a problem or improved the security of the OS or other software. If you compare the annoyance of waiting for updates to install against having a computer (or worse a server) be hacked or otherwise compromised I think it is fairly clear what you need to do.

As someone who works in IT I feel it is my duty to share the importance of keeping your devices updated. Don’t turn automatic updates off or disable it. It is there to help you and keep your computer safe and secure.

HighCharts

funkysi1701@gmail.com (funkysi1701) — Mon, 08 May 2017 20:00:45 +0000

High Charts is a javascript library that allows graphs and charts to easily be added to web pages.

A chart like this can easily be added with a few lines of html and javascript.

<script src="https://code.highcharts.com/highcharts.js">
<script src="https://code.highcharts.com/modules/exporting.js">
<div id="container"></div>

This adds the highcharts library and a container for the chart to be displayed in.

Highcharts.chart('container', {

 title: {
 text: 'Solar Employment Growth by Sector, 2010-2016'
 },
 subtitle: {
 text: 'Source: thesolarfoundation.com'
 },
 yAxis: {
 title: {
 text: 'Number of Employees'
 }
 },
 legend: {
 layout: 'vertical',
 align: 'right',
 verticalAlign: 'middle'
 },
 plotOptions: {
 series: {
 pointStart: 2010
 }
 },
 series: [{
 name: 'Installation',
 data: [43934, 52503, 57177, 69658, 97031, 119931, 137133, 154175]
 }, {
 name: 'Manufacturing',
 data: [24916, 24064, 29742, 29851, 32490, 30282, 38121, 40434]
 }, {
 name: 'Sales & Distribution',
 data: [11744, 17722, 16005, 19771, 20185, 24377, 32147, 39387]
 }, {
 name: 'Project Development',
 data: [null, null, 7988, 12169, 15112, 22452, 34400, 34227]
 }, {
 name: 'Other',
 data: [12908, 5948, 8105, 11248, 8989, 11816, 18274, 18111]
 }]

});

This adds the data and sets up various options for the charts. More details about the different charts and options you can set can be found at https://www.highcharts.com

I am quite a fan of the different gauges that you can put on your site, as you can add a bit of animation and make the needles bounce around. https://www.highcharts.com/demo/gauge-solid

As most of the data I deal with lives in a SQL Server database, I have been spending quite a bit of time writing Stored Procedures and functions to mould the data so I can easily pass data from the database to javascript.

Highcharts are very flexible with lots of different options that allow you to display charts of almost any data you have, these charts are also exportable as PNG, JPEG, CSVs etc

Office Move

funkysi1701@gmail.com (funkysi1701) — Mon, 01 May 2017 20:00:45 +0000

For the past few weeks my software developing has been taking a back seat as I planned and coordinated the IT requirements of an office move.

The company I work for has been working out of a converted barn, but as the company has grown we have outgrown the building and for quite a while it has been a real squeeze to get everyone in. We now have a shiny new offices with plenty of room for growth.

It was at the start of the year when I first started getting involved with the new office. At that time building work was about to begin. The office had concrete floors so in order to get network and power points in the floor, channels would have to be cut into the concrete for the floor boxes and cable runs.

At the old office our servers were in a cabinet in the corner of the room which meant they could be quite loud especially when the fans were going full pelt. Our American owners were supplying brand new IT equipment and we would have a dedicated server room.

Soon a weekly conference call was setup so we could coordinate with the IT people in America and the various different contractors that would help deliver our new office.

One thing I was particularly proud of was YDS. York Data Services (YDS) is an ISP I have worked with in the past at a previous job and I was able to continue my relationship with them and they were contacted and became our primary internet supplier.

Unfortunately most ISPs have to deal with BTOpenreach who have a bit of a monopoly on getting phone lines or leased lines installed. The initial estimate we were given was two weeks after we were due to move in. It was looking like we would move in and two weeks later we would get an internet connection. We were in the process of getting quotes for a temporary internet connection when BT contacted us and could get us connected up.

Soon afterwards a huge cabinet and two pallets full of equipment was delivered. Two days later a team was dispatched to rack everything up. On the rack we had the following equipment: 4 x UPS, 4 x Network Switches, 2 x Routers (for 2 x Leased Lines from different providers, the secondary connection has not been installed yet), 2 x Palo Alto Firewall devices, 2 x New Servers.

Just prior to our move we had a rack full of equipment but no patch cables, nothing connected up and I was beginning to get concerned that we would not be ready in time.

Thankfully a team was dispatched to help out over the weekend of the move, with the patch cables being delivered only hours beforehand. I worked closely with them and we worked late into the night. By the end of the Friday night our domain controller had been moved and its IP address updated. DHCP scopes had been setup for the new network. Once that was done we could get the WiFi points connected up (These had already been fitted to the ceiling).

The following day we moved our existing servers and updated their IP addresses and got everything patched up. Furniture started arriving so desks could start being setup and phones connected up. Everything was slotting into place, and for the first time our new office was starting to look like an office.

By the time it got to Monday the only problem was the phone number had not transferred as requested (something else to blame on BT) All staff could either connect via an Ethernet cable or connect to our brand new WiFi network and had access to all the IT services they had at the old office. Another minor issue was the NAS we used for backups had to be reset as it couldn’t communicate with the domain so no one could login, luckily this didn’t affect the data on it.

From my perspective the move was a massive success considering how complex and how many different people had been involved.