Tom & Nan Dot Com

I recently ran across an article from the February 25th 1995 issue of Newsweek (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html) written by Clifford Stoll entitled “The Internet? Bah!”.  In it he asks “Do our computer pundits lack all common sense?” and states that online databases won’t replace our daily newspaper that CD-ROMs can’t take the place of a competent teacher and that computer networks won’t change the way government works…

Funny thing is that he’s dead wrong. Many daily newspapers have resorted to putting their news online, you can read for a fee, or sometimes you can go to sites that have it up for free… Yahoo News, CNN, and many other places put it up for free. Computer based training supplements competent teachers now, there are many colleges that offer courses online where you do the same work as you would when attending classroom based instruction, except that you have to be more motivated to not procrastinate your work. Finally, government has moved many (not all) functions online, You can eFile your tax return.  If you’re unemployed, you apply online, most interaction with the Social Security Administration is accomplished online… the list goes on…

Stoll complains about how “word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers”, about electronic publishing and how the “myopic glow of a clunky computer” is unpleasant compared to the “friendly pages of a book”.  Funny thing is that Mr. Stoll didn’t take into account advances in technology; we now have sleek elegant e-readers like the Nook, the Kindle and the iPad. In 1995 he doubts “we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet.” He couldn’t be further from the truth…

Another complaint is about how the “Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data”.  Enter Google… Mr. Stoll was writing about things as they were in February 1995.  The Internet was a fledgling network with only about 5.8 million machines hooked to it… Today we’re rapidly approaching the exhaustion of nearly 4.2 billion IPv4 addresses.  In 1995 we didn’t have Google to filter, index and catalog it.

Mr. Stoll complains that “What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact”. Now we have Facebook… Instead of telephones, families and friends keep in contact with each other from across town, across the state, across the country or around the world. Today, many people use the Internet to remain in touch on his “electronic wonderland” of the so-called information superhighway.

My opinion is that Mr. Stoll didn’t take innovation and invention into account. He could not possibly have seen Google, or Facebook,  He couldn’t have seen the potential for video on demand through YouTube.  He couldn’t have seen smartphones, digital cameras or any of the other advances in technology that we now take for granted.

So where will we be in another  16 years? I don’t know, but I’ve always been an early adopter and in the words of Timbuk 3, “The Futures So Bright”.

As I write this there is an area of low pressure about 500 miles NE of the Leeward Islands with a 20% chance of becoming a “subtropical” cyclone in the next 48 hours. That said, today is the last day of the 2011 hurricane season in the Atlantic basin. How did we fare this year?

In August, Dr. Gray issued an update to his seasonal forecast.  In it he called for 9 hurricanes with 5 of them being major hurricanes.  He called for 16 named storms, down one from his June 2011 forecast of 17 named storms. Meanwhile, the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) also updated their outlook for the season too.  In it they called for 14 – 19 named storms, 7 –10 hurricanes, and 3 – 5 major hurricanes.

How many named storms did we actually get?

Storm Name	Dates	Max Wind (MPH)
TS Arlene	20 June – 1 July	65
TS Bret	17 – 22 July	65
TS Cindy	20 – 22 July	70
DS Don	27 – 30 July	50
TS Emily	1 – 7 August	50
TS Franklin	12 – 13 August	45
TS Gert	13 – 16 August	65
TS Harvey	19 – 22 August	60
MH Irene	20 – 28 August	120
TS Jose	28 – 29 August	45
MH Katia	29 August – 10 September	135
TS Lee	2 – 5 September	60
H Maria	6 – 16 September	80
H Nate (1)	7 – 11 September	70
MH Ophelia	21 September – 3 October	140
H Philipe	24 September – 9 October	90
H Rina	23 – 28 October	110
TS Sean	7 – 11 November	65 (2)

Note 1. Hurricane Nate was upgraded during post-storm analysis to hurricane status. I haven’t seen the maximum observed wind on Nate so I’ve left the 70mph number as is.

Note 2. The strongest report I can find on maximum sustained winds in TS Sean were 65mph. NHC has not yet issued their final summary on the season, so I’ll update this post if 65mph was NOT the maximum wind for this storm.

Scorecard

I count 18 named storms though I’ve seen attempts by others in other places to count Tropical Depression 10 as a named storm.  My scorecard for the early forecasts:

	CPC	Dr. Gray	Actual
Number Named	14 – 19	16	18
Hurricanes	7 – 10	9	6
Maj Hurricanes	3 – 5	5	3

While we had more than the average number of named storms, our number of actual hurricanes was about average.  The increased number of named storms can be attributed to better sensing technology, modeling capabilities, and forecasting abilities. Four of the named storms had winds of 50 miles per hour (or less) many of which might not have been caught 20 or 30 years ago.

As far as storms go, my philosophy is that it’s better to be prepared and not have a storm rather than not be prepared and actually getting one.  I like to attempt to try to forecast where they will go before the National Hurricane Center starts issuing forecasts on them… I did that last year and again this year.  My best forecast was for Irene.  I predicted it would “Rake the east coast” with a landfall in North Carolina approximately a week before it did… was my best attempt at forecasting a hurricane ever.

What’s Ahead?

Storm names for 2012 from the National Hurricane Center:

Alberto
Beryl
Chris
Debby
Ernesto
Florence
Gordon
Helene
Isaac
Joyce
Kirk
Leslie
Michael
Nadine
Oscar
Patty
Rafael
Sandy
Tony
Valerie
William

Our next hurricane season begins in just 185 days… Are you ready? If not follow the old scout motto of “Be Prepared” so make a plan and be ready!

We took a trip over the Thanksgiving Holiday to Pulaski, Tennessee.  Pulaski has a rich history and ties to the US Civil War. Pulaski is the county seat of Giles County. It’s city square features a courthouse that was built in 1859.

Pulaski is the site where Union soldiers hung Sam Davis. Sam Davis was a Confederate scout who saw action at Cheat Mountain, Shenendoah, Shiloh, and Perryville. He was captured by Union forces near Minor Hill, Tennessee on November 20th, 1863 and was hung on November 27th 1863, his 21st birthday.  There is a statue of Sam Davis on the south side of the courthouse square in Pulaski.

Pulaski was also the original birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1865 by group of former Confederate soldiers. One of our geocaching adventures took us here.

We’ve been to Pulaski several times over the years and the old section of town hasn’t changed much, but the city has expanded to the southwest a bit and now is home to a Home Depot and a Super Wal-mart store. US-64, the main east-west highway through Pulaski, was recently 4-laned and goes past the site of the Bodenham School. Bodenham was a K-12 school that operated here from 1928 to 1978. The school was closed and schools in the county were centralized with 2 High Schools remaining in Giles County.

The only parts of the school that remain are parts of the foundation for the main building and  second building that is now a day care.

So, how would I know so much about the area? I lived in Giles County off and on in the late 1970s and early 1980s. My dad bought land here and built a log cabin and is buried not far up the road from where he lived. I attended Bodenham for part of the 7th grade, moved away and attended Giles County High for 2 years. Since my Dad died, my mom has moved to the area.  Two of my brothers are graduates of Giles County High School. I visit as often as I can and enjoy Geocaching in the area, I like driving the windy country roads, which were all dirt when I lived there as a teenager but have all since been paved. I like the friendliness of the people and still have friends that live in the area. I’ve never lived anywhere else where people, total strangers to me, wave a friendly hello as we drive past each other on the back-roads; I wave back!

So why am I posting this to our long neglected site for our family and friends to view??? I took all the photographs that I’m posting here at the request of a co-worker of Nan’s, Miss Pat. Miss Pat almost bought a house in Giles County years ago and was surprised to hear that we visit often. She asked that we take some pictures so here are the best of the rest of the photos I took in Pulaski for Miss Pat.

When I was making rules for the firewall earlier this week, I set up logging for when people attempted to connect to our network using automated tools.  Many times people who know nothing about the underlying ports and protocols will use automated tools to try and break into a computer on the Internet; they’re called “script kiddies”  They connect to a machine that has a Secure Shell server running and repeatedly connect to it trying different passwords hundreds if not thousands of times hoping to guess the password.  I have the rules set up so that I connect in case I need to connect from the outside, but if someone uses one of these tools the packets get dropped on the floor.  This is what this set of rules looks like:

###  ALLOW SSH FROM RED INTERNET
# Limit external attempts to connect to SSH to 3 per minute
$IPT -A INPUT -p tcp -i $RED –dport 22 -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
$IPT -A INPUT -p tcp -i $RED –dport 22 -m tcp –syn -m recent –set
$IPT -A INPUT -p tcp -i $RED –dport 22 -m tcp –syn -m recent –update –seconds 600 –hitcount 4 \
-j LOG –log-prefix “SSH_EXT_GT3PKTS: ”
$IPT -A INPUT -p tcp -i $RED –dport 22 -m tcp –syn -m recent –update –seconds 600 –hitcount 4 -j DROP
$IPT -A INPUT -p tcp -i $RED –dport 22 -m tcp –syn -j ACCEPT

I chopped stuff out of the log file but kept stuff for analysis. There are some interesting things in this log excerpt that can be further used to create rules for the firewall.  I’ll explain after:

Oct 6 01:35:06 SRC=61.158.99.224 TTL=43 SPT=47787 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 01:35:09 SRC=61.158.99.224 TTL=43 SPT=47787 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 01:35:15 SRC=61.158.99.224 TTL=43 SPT=47787 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 18:14:22 SRC=218.108.0.68 TTL=43 SPT=3091 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 18:14:25 SRC=218.108.0.68 TTL=43 SPT=3091 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 18:14:31 SRC=218.108.0.68 TTL=43 SPT=3091 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:34 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=60242 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:34 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=60340 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:37 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=60242 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:37 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=60340 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:38 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=36291 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:41 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=36291 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:43 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=60242 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:43 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=60340 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:45 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=44009 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:47 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=36291 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:48 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=44009 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:53 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=53125 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:54 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=44009 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:46:56 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=53125 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:47:02 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=53125 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:47:06 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=38358 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:47:09 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 SPT=38358 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 6 20:47:15 SRC=206.172.28.171 TTL=55 PT=38358 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 06:19:15 SRC=212.150.184.184 TTL=51 SPT=36483 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 06:19:18 SRC=212.150.184.184 TTL=51 SPT=36483 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 06:19:24 SRC=212.150.184.184 TTL=51 SPT=36483 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 07:28:50 SRC=211.118.104.11 TTL=53 SPT=38767 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 07:28:53 SRC=211.118.104.11 TTL=53 SPT=38767 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 07:28:59 SRC=211.118.104.11 TTL=53 SPT=38767 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 8 09:20:54 SRC=60.191.222.84 TTL=52 SPT=39716 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 8 09:20:57 SRC=60.191.222.84 TTL=52 SPT=39716 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0
Oct 8 09:21:03 SRC=60.191.222.84 TTL=52 SPT=39716 DPT=22 SYN URGP=0

If you look at the timing:

Packet 1, 2, and 3 are received before logging occurs
Packet 4 is dropped, the tool waits 2 or 3 seconds and sends another packet from the same source port
Packet 5 is dropped, the tool waits 5 or 6 seconds and sends another packet from the same source port
Packet 6 is dropped, the tool gives up

I don’t know how long the network stack on the far end waits before clearing the dropped attempts from their network queues but it’s pretty effective at reducing the number of brute force password guesses on my machine. Also if you look at the log you notice that 206.172.28.171 made numerous attempts from numerous source ports.  Looks to me like 6 attempts from 6 different source ports;  I think my rule treats attempts from an address on different source ports as separate entities.  Will keep things posted here as I learn more on how this stuff works.

WARNING:  This is a technical geeky post my Internet firewall… friends and family not interested need to read no further…

For friends and family still with me here, iptables is the software in my Internet firewall that keeps the big bad Internet hackers from poking at my computers and causing problems.

I’ve been studying  the docs and looking at other people’s examples around cyberspace and got it working…  One ot the problems I’ve run into was when I tried to ping out to the world.  if I tried to ping www.google.com I got this message back:

ping: sendmsg: operation not permitted

I’m running ubuntu server 10.04LTS as a border gateway/firewall.  Lots of discussion on the net, and a few gave me clues but didn’t solve the problem…  The hints were that it was a firewall issue… ok.. no worries…  here is the code I used to fix the problem:

iptables -A OUTPUT -o $extif -p icmp –icmp-type 0 -j ACCEPT

iptables -A OUTPUT -o $extif -p icmp –icmp-type 8 -j ACCEPT

iptables -A INPUT -i $extif -p icmp –icmp-type 0 -m limit –limit 10/s -j ACCEPT

iptables -A INPUT -i $extif -p icmp –icmp-type 8 -m limit –limit 1/s -j ACCEPT

The problem I had was I couldn’t remember which icmp type was the echo request and which was the echo reply… Time to look at the RFC (for friends and family, RFCs are “Requests For Comments”).  They are the specifications on how the Internet works.  Ping uses a language called ICMP or “Internet Control Message Protocol” and ICMP is just one of MANY specifications out there.  Turns out that the pings I was sending out were being blocked by my own firewall. A ping, known as an echo-request, is type 8 in the spec. The responses, known as echo-replies are type 0 in the spec. I had them backwards.  So I fixed it once I figured the problem out, and set it up so my system can also respond to pings from my ISP but you’ll notice I’m limiting stuff on my input to prevent misuse by people on the outside…  The four lines above do the following:

Line 1:  Allows my machine to send out ping replies.

Line 2: Allows me to send out ping requests

Line 3: Allows replies to pings I send out to come back.  I’m limiting the replies in case a hacker tries to flood me with unsolicited replies.

Line 4: Limits incoming ping requests, I’m limiting these to prevent hackers from flooding me with ping requests.

Now when I send pings out I get the replies back instead of bombing out with an error. I don’t claim the limiting I’ve implemented will stop all abuse that hackers might dish out, but it will slow them down enough so our home network will stay up instead of going down cold.

Welcome to fall, again… We have a few interesting tidbits to shed some light on…

NHC has designated Ophilia a hurricane. It’s forecast to safely miss the US. as of this writing it’s moving NNW at 10 knots and it’s packing 100kt sustained winds with gusts up to 120kt and a Tropical storm warning is in effect for Bermuda. Official forecast and models brings the storm due east of the island by 8pm Eastern time on the 1st.

In our neck of the woods we’re going to see our first dip of the mercury below 50 degrees for this season. should be in the upper 40s tomorrow morning.

Fall is definitely in full swing as the annual change of colors is in full swing up north and I’ve even seen a maple tree here turn yellowish brown leaves out.

The weather has been perfect for the past few days, and it’s going to get better over the next few days… and the models show good weather for at least the next week. It’s a great time to live in paradise.

If you’re out and about in the local area, check out the Destin Seafood Festival (in Destin, Florida).

Back in the saddle and it’s been a busy summer… Daniel and Holli moved, Nan and I took an awesome vacation in the Smokies, and I spent a good portion of the summer in Omaha.

So today was the last summer.  The Autumnal Equinox occurs at 0904 UTC (about 4:04AM Central) on Friday September 23rd.  So far the hurricane season has been somewhat quiet for the US, There have only been 3 hurricanes… Irene hit North Carolina and terrorized the Northeast.  Katia and Maria missed land all together.  We also had Tropical Storm Lee landfall on the Louisiana coast and move north into Ohio and dump a lot of rain in the northeast.  The bad thing is that hurricane season runs for a few more months, the good thing is we’re past the peak and the storms have not been as strong as previous years… which is good news, but the flooding in the northeast isn’t good, it’ll take months to years to get things back to normal up there.

I think I got the move from Netfirms to Hurricane Electric complete.  The mobile side of things works as does the web browser.  The move was a lot less painful than I expected.  If you notice any weirdness let me know.

On Tuesday we went to Cades Cove, a small valley within the Great Smokey Mountain National Park.  This area was first settled in 1818 by the John Oliver family.  By the time of the Civil War rolled around there were about 685 people here among about 120 families.  The settlers established the Primitive Baptist Church in 1827.  Many of the early settlers are buried here.  There was also a Methodist Church.  It has two doors, one for the men and one for the women. Finally, there’s a Missionary Baptist Church here because some of the members of the Primitive Baptist Church were expelled because they favored missionary work.

This place is very peaceful.  Except for the caravan of automobiles and the paved roads, it’s almost a step back in time when you go here.  There’s no electricity, no cell phone service, and no Internet.  Kitchens in these homes were primitive, usually some sort of a wood burning stove or a kettle hung in the fireplace.  Of course there was no plumbing or running water. The accommodations were tiny.

We took a lot of pictures, these are the best:

Well I thought I’d write about this… We thought we had wifi so we could post here while we were in the cabin. Well we were less than impressed that there wasn’t internet available so we went to the realty and rented a MiFi…

MiFi is a service available from Verizon that is basically a cellular cable modem with a WiFi access point… Think of it as being able to get on the internet with a wifi enabled device… like the netbook I’m writing on… anwhere.  At the moment it is sitting here on a table at “Flapjacks Pancake Cabin on the border of Great Smokey Mountains National Park and GatlinBurg, TN.

I uploaded a 585 MB video to YouTube with it last night and I also made the last post with it.

Speeds are pretty good considering it’s a device that basically fits in the palm of your hand.

If I were a road warrior on the road all the time and always needed internet service on the road, this would be the thing to get.

You can check it out at http://products.verizonwireless.com/index.aspx?id=fnd_mobile_hotspot