This is a good video and introduction to the problem of credit default swaps, which is one of the primary causes in our current financial meltdown.
http://vimeo.com/1915392
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
Once a Month
Seems I'm on the once-a-month blog posting. Not bad really, but improvements could be made.
Well, lacking anything really insightful to post, here is a useful chart:
The Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart
Well, lacking anything really insightful to post, here is a useful chart:
The Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart
Monday, September 29, 2008
Quote of the Day
Another quote, this time from my very good friend and teacher, Ron H.
We were talking about the market and such. Especially after today's 7% drop in the DOW, I thought what he said was timely:
He always makes me smile.
We were talking about the market and such. Especially after today's 7% drop in the DOW, I thought what he said was timely:
Doesn't much matter what the stock market, etc. does; the rivers still run and the leaves still change colors. Somebody else is in charge of that, so it still works.
He always makes me smile.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Quote of the Day
I've been reading a bit about Patrick M. Byrne (CEO of Overstock), in particular his campaign against naked short selling. This quote (from March 8th) comes as a response to a Business Week reporter. It made me laugh:
And, if you don't know anything about naked short selling, or of Mr. Bryne's "campaign" against it, try www.businessjive.com (a site of Byrne's).
Since I think "EBITDA" is the stupidest thing I ever heard emanate from Wall Street (no small feat), I … don’t begin to know how to answer. I suppose I could go and recast all my numbers into EBITDA (or for that matter, "pro forma") but I think I’ll do something more valuable with my time, like alphabetize my CD’s by, "Name of drummer."
And, if you don't know anything about naked short selling, or of Mr. Bryne's "campaign" against it, try www.businessjive.com (a site of Byrne's).
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Subprime Primer
Do you understand the subprime mortgage financial crisis which we're currently enjoying? I didn't until I read this:
(Note: potty word alert)
The Subprime Primer
(Note: potty word alert)
The Subprime Primer
Friday, June 13, 2008
Greylisting Whitelist for Gmail via SPF
[update: 10/14/2009]
I just noticed that Google provides this same technique on a Google Apps help page. Here is the link:
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60764
--------
In the ever escalating arms race between spammers and hosting providers, the technique of greylisting was, at one a point, an extremely effective weapon against spam. These days, greylisting is not as effective, because spamming hosts now correctly handle the temporary error condition used by a greylisting server. But it still is a good tool and first line of defense when used correctly.
Of course, one of the biggest problems with greylisting comes from large email hosting providers, like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. These services use multiple servers to deliver their mail (they have to), and as such, when a message is returned as a temporary failure, it's not guaranteed that the same sending server will attempt to deliver the message a second time.
As such, the only thing to do is whitelist the servers used by these large hosting providers. Due to, I'm sure, Google's ever growing infrastructure, Gmail is particularly difficult to keep up on which servers belong to the Gmail cloud.
I just stumbled upon a pretty decent way, however, to easily learn all of Gmail's outgoing mail server IP addresses. This information is readily available in their SPF records for their service.
Here is a link which describes which type of SPF record should be added to a domain which has email routed through Google Apps: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=33786
You can see that Google specifies an "include" directive which is aspmx.googlemail.com. So, now we can do a TXT query on this domain, which gives us:
The same query against googlemail.com and gmail.com returns the same information, too. So, following the redirect:
Obviously we can infer from this the following ip address ranges:
I don't know if Google has officially published all their mail servers to help us who use greylisting. However, the above technique seemed to be a pretty slick way to determine which IP address ranges should be considered for whitelisting Gmail.
Well anyway, it was one of those "oh duh" type moments for me. Hopefully this helps someone else too.
I just noticed that Google provides this same technique on a Google Apps help page. Here is the link:
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60764
--------
In the ever escalating arms race between spammers and hosting providers, the technique of greylisting was, at one a point, an extremely effective weapon against spam. These days, greylisting is not as effective, because spamming hosts now correctly handle the temporary error condition used by a greylisting server. But it still is a good tool and first line of defense when used correctly.
Of course, one of the biggest problems with greylisting comes from large email hosting providers, like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. These services use multiple servers to deliver their mail (they have to), and as such, when a message is returned as a temporary failure, it's not guaranteed that the same sending server will attempt to deliver the message a second time.
As such, the only thing to do is whitelist the servers used by these large hosting providers. Due to, I'm sure, Google's ever growing infrastructure, Gmail is particularly difficult to keep up on which servers belong to the Gmail cloud.
I just stumbled upon a pretty decent way, however, to easily learn all of Gmail's outgoing mail server IP addresses. This information is readily available in their SPF records for their service.
Here is a link which describes which type of SPF record should be added to a domain which has email routed through Google Apps: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=33786
You can see that Google specifies an "include" directive which is aspmx.googlemail.com. So, now we can do a TXT query on this domain, which gives us:
]$ host -t txt aspmx.googlemail.com
aspmx.googlemail.com descriptive text "v=spf1 redirect=_spf.google.com"
The same query against googlemail.com and gmail.com returns the same information, too. So, following the redirect:
]$ host -t txt _spf.google.com
_spf.google.com descriptive text "v=spf1 ip4:216.239.32.0/19 ip4:64.233.160.0/19 ip4:66.249.80.0/20 ip4:72.14.192.0/18 ip4:209.85.128.0/17 ip4:66.102.0.0/20 ip4:74.125.0.0/16 ?all"
Obviously we can infer from this the following ip address ranges:
216.239.32.0/19
64.233.160.0/19
66.249.80.0/20
72.14.192.0/18
209.85.128.0/17
66.102.0.0/20
74.125.0.0/16
I don't know if Google has officially published all their mail servers to help us who use greylisting. However, the above technique seemed to be a pretty slick way to determine which IP address ranges should be considered for whitelisting Gmail.
Well anyway, it was one of those "oh duh" type moments for me. Hopefully this helps someone else too.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
From the Horse's Mouth...
I figured my last blog about him would bring out the best. Sure enough. Here's what Dell Schanze, Libertarian candidate for governor of Utah, left as a comment to my blog post about him:
No rebuttal needed.
Ok Adams Daft, who are you going to vote for?? EXACTLY!!! ME!!! No matter how much crap you want to talk about totally false media stories I am the only hope you have as I am the only American on the ballot. I have tons of support as I helped hundreds of thousands of people with the businesses I owned and people know I did what I said I would and went out of my way to take care of them if any issue arrose. I am by far the best candidate and the only one of the ballot worth voting for. Even those that don't like me will still vote for me even if for the mere reason of NOT voting for the other guys. Your ridiculous story is what makes the party look stupid and ununified. The homos in the tootoos rejecting me at the convention are what make the party look stupid. I built the 4th largest system builder in the western US and won the World System Builder Award by over 30%. You should pull your head out and start supporting candidates on the issues and not attacking them because of your personal issues. I am your only hope and it doesn't matter if you like that or not. I'm it. Now quit being an idiot and attacking the only person that WILL stick up for your rights. Dumb Ass!!
No rebuttal needed.
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