John's Tech Blog

Very interesting stuff...

Google Taps Fiber with Manhattan Move: "Steve Bryant writes on Google Watch:

Google's new Manhattan office sites atop one of the biggest fiberoptic facilities in North America.

I've been doing research for a separate project on Google's new offices in Manhattan, which I first reported about here. I can't reveal everything just yet, but I do have more details to report. Turns out 111 8th Avenue is one of the premier 'carrier hotels' in the country, a 2.8-million-square-foot behemoth of a fiber gateway.

What's a carrier hotel? It's a very secure, very expensive location for firms that traffic in large amounts of data. 111 8th Avenue, it turns out, sits right on top of the Hudson Street-Ninth Avenue fiber highway. By moving into its new building, Google is gaining access to a nearly unlimited amount of bandwidth. The only other building in New York that has this kind of power is 60 Hudson Street. Suffice to say, the two are closely connected.

More here."

From: Fergie's Tech Blog

Another fine ISC story that I basically want to bookmark for myself. :-) [It's been sitting in my 'pending' file for some time.]

Notable Tidbits, (Mon, Aug 28th): "Notable updates for today:
http://liveview.sourceforge.net/

'Live View is a Java-based graphical forensics tool that creates a VMware virtual machine out of a raw (dd-style) disk image or physical disk. This allows the forensic examiner to 'boot up' the image or disk and gain an interactive, user-level perspective of the environment, all without modifying the underlying image or disk. Because all changes made to the disk are written to a separate file, the examiner can instantly revert all of his or her changes back to the original pristine state of the disk.
The end result is that one need not create extra 'throw away' copies of the disk or image to create the virtual machine.'

Live View is capable of booting

* Full disk raw images
* Bootable partition raw images
* Physical Disks (attached via a USB or Firewire bridge)

Containing the following operating systems

* Windows XP, 2000, 2003, NT, Me, 98
* Linux (limited support)
"

... (see link for more)

Source: SANS ISC

What's that, you say? This blog isn't dead yet? [Really, it's feeling better! ;-)]

Anyway, things have gotten in the way of updating...but I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this gem of Tom Liston's. But don't just follow my links to the ISC - read it daily! It's chockful of educational goodness, and preventative cures.

Quick plug: Netcat in the Hat, (Wed, Sep 6th): "Over the past several months, several of the handlers have written up security-based, 'themed' challenges. This month, I wrote one entitled 'Netcat in the Hat,' a nod to every child's best friend, Dr. Seuss. (And trust me, having written the challenge in rhyme, I have a new-found respect for the good doctor...) You can find it here. Check it out and submit an answer!"

Source: SANS ISC