What kind of person do you think said these words? Try college educated making over $80,000/year as an IT consultant.

What is it with these types anyway? I spent a couple weeks with like three of my then peers a while back and noticed a major trend:

1. Highly neocon (see NOT conservative)
2. Highly ignorant of world events (is Darfur a new reality show?)
3. Obsessed with Fox News (their only source of news)
4. Thought Obama’s name was Osama (seriously)
5. Were quite convinced Obama is Muslim (see #3)

It was only three people, so it’s a stretch to call it a “trend”, but still. I’ve heard similar reports from many of my other friends in IT. Where do these people get their information?

I think I have the answer: they seem to be so lazy that they just latch on to whatever ideology makes them most comfortable. And the Fox News narrative makes lazy, ignorant people VERY comfortable.

So it’s not just the so-called mouthbreathers that are hopelessly clueless in this country — the problem is much more wide-spread than that. Depressing.:

Eating beef jerky in the dark
Line after line on the 185
An unseen meat product consumed as I drive
Eating beef jerky in the dark
All I can say is I hope it’s real food
If I taste something nasty it’ll dampen my mood
Eating beef jerky in the dark

I’ve been studying web security again recently and decided to do a POC of CSRF (Sea Surf) (Cross Site Request Forgery).

The link below is a page on my website that logs you out of dslreports.com (my favorite security forum) without you doing anything but viewing the page. It works by my having an image on the page that points to the logout URL, which your browser automatically loads upon visiting the page.

The problem? If you’ve been to DSLR recently it sends your cookie along with the request to logout. So YOU did it, not me. What else can someone make you do using your own credentials?

So here’s the link. Don’t click it unless you don’t mind me logging you out of DSLR.

[ CSRF POC: CSRF is Wicked ]

Anyone know of a good list of potential iPhone source networks?

So, if I were to want to allow anyone with an iPhone access to a resource on my home network, what ranges should I allow?

Here’s the list I’ve compiled based on 20 minutes of web research:

66.102.x.x

32.163.x.x

166.195.x.x

166.214.x.x

66.209.x.x

208.62.x.x

So if you guys know of any other way of getting solid network ranges for AT&T mobile (most resolve to mycingular.net) let me know. Also, if you have an iPhone and want to submit a source address (first 2 octets is fine) in the comments, that would be stellar.

Thanks.

[ Gods We Don't Believe In ]

I feel somewhat dirty making this declaration, but I’m entirely enthused about the fact that we’re getting a new Starbucks right by our house. Adding to my enthusiasm is the fact that Starbucks is dumping T-Mobile and going with AT&T for their wireless service.

That not only gives us a more natural matchup for the whole Starbucks iTunes collaboration but they are also starting a new policy of allowing two hours of free Internet per visit.

Maybe it’s sad…maybe it’s corporate, but I like Starbucks. Drinking coffee and reading and writing cool stuff on the Internet — especially in that environment — is just enjoyable to me.

So it looks like Apple fixed their iChat video conferencing finally, as well as a number of other things. A short list:

1. Stacks
2. Menu Bar
3. Video Chat
4. Screen Sharing
5. Some other stuff…

As one astute observer pointed out, 10.5 has arrived.

Got a wicked PayPal spam message today. Looked totally legit.

Here are the headers:

So SPF caught it but it failed “soft”. At what point do we as mail server admins (Google in this case) start dropping these emails instead of letting them through?

Or, to put it another way, what part of an official email from PayPal coming from mail.royalimaging.net (64.2.112.131.ptr.us.xo.net [64.2.112.131]) doesn’t make you want to drop it?

grrr.

Most in the United States don’t know much about the Middle East or the people that live there. This lack of knowledge hurts our ability to understand world events and, consequently, our ability to hold intelligent opinions about those events.

For example, frighteningly few know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and most think the words “Arab” and “Muslim” are pretty much interchangeable. They aren’t. So here’s a very brief primer aimed at raising the level of knowledge about the region to an absolute minimum.

Basics

1. Arabs are part of an ethnic group, not a religion. Arabs were around long before Islam, and there have been (and still are) Arab Christians and Arab Jews. In general, you’re an Arab if you 1) are of Arab descent (blood), or speak the main Arab language (Arabic).

2. Islam is a religion. A Muslim (roughly pronounced MOOSE-lihm) is someone who follows the religion. So you wouldn’t say someone follows Muslim or is an Islam, just as you wouldn’t say someone follows Christian or is a Christianity.

3. Shia Muslims are similar to Roman Catholics in Christianity. They have a strong clerical presence via Imams and promote the idea of going through them to practice the religion correctly. Sunni Muslims are more like Protestant Christians. They don’t really focus on Imams and believe in maintaining a more direct line to God than the Shia.

4. Sunni Muslims make up most of the Muslim world (roughly 90%). ¹

5. The rift between the Shia and Sunni started right after Muhammad’s death and originally reduced to a power struggle regarding who was going to become the authoritative group for continuing the faith.
   
   The Shia believed Muhammad’s second cousin Ali should have taken over (the family/cleric model). The Sunni believed that the best person for the job should be chosen by the followers (the merit model) and that’s how the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, was appointed.
   
   Although the conflict began as a political struggle it now mostly considered a religious and class conflict, with political conflict emanating from those rifts.

Sunni vs. Shia | Arab vs. Non-Arab

Here’s how the various Middle Eastern countries break down in terms of Sunni vs. Shia and whether or not they are predominantly Arab. Keep in mind that these are generalizations; significant diversity exists in many of the countries listed.

• Iraq Mostly Shia (roughly 60%), but under Saddam the Shia were oppressed and the Sunni were in power despite being only 20% of the population. Arab.

• Iran Shia. NOT Arab.

• Palestine Sunni. Arab.

• Egypt Sunni. Arab.

• Saudi Arabia Sunni. Arab.

• Syria Shia. Arab.

• Jordan Sunni. Arab.

• Gulf States Sunni. Arab.

Conclusion

What’s depressing is the fact that this only took me 20 minutes to write and you 2 minutes to read. Yet most people in the United States, including those in the media, the house of representatives, and probably even the Pentagon, lack even this cursory level of knowledge about the region.:

References

Wikipedia | Sunni Muslims

Wikipedia | Shia Muslims

Wikipedia | Arabs

I’m no feminist by any stretch, but this offends me. Oh, and makes me laugh and throw up a the same time.

[ The Anti-Feminist ]