Posts by Salad

Vixie warns: DNS Changer ‘blackouts’ inevitable

Re: Hey Paul, this is an opportunity

"Perhaps the ISPs, who know exactly which customers are infected, should be asked to contact their customers prior to the cutoff date and explain to them how fucked up their computers are, and tell them how to fix it."

That's actually what we've been doing. The original article alludes to this... "Many users, Vixie said, are so untrusting and hostile that they resent being told they have a problem."

We set up the necessary monitoring to see which of our subscribers is contacting the known bad DNS servers and sending the IDs to Tech Support to give them a ring... but that doesn't mean they all take action! To the average Joe, their PC works fine, and they'd have to hire someone to run a virus scan (sad, I know). So they're not going to do it. I'm up in Canada but I'm sure in the USA you'd probably get people claiming its part of their right to free speech or some nonsense.

Re: Moar options!

Totally agree - just for clarity I find there are two camps that are not already doing that:

Old school "you get the Internet, and the whole Internet!" types

Corporate too lazy to give a shit types (such as Earthlink, I think they still allow direct SMTP outbound from public IPs)

Really, blocking direct SMTP from the average customer is a no-brainer and best practice. On the business end it's a plus, too, to send mail you should sign up for a static IP address. Which actually makes technical sense in the world of reverse DNS and reputation-based systems. This is an easy sell to the Internet freedom die-hards as it saves a lot of trouble. You'd think it'd also be an easy sell to lazy corporates as a revenue generator... /shrug

Optional DNS blocking sounds like a neat idea, will have to try that. Unfortunately most people can barely turn their machines on (maybe it needs a new starter?), and FWIW a lot of people seem to like services like Goggle and OpenDNS.

Secret's out: Small 15K disk drive market is 'growing'

Eggspensive

I guess NetApp thought that enterprise flash storage would come down in price. Even now our storage vendor is quoting us I think the same price for two flash drives vs an entire shelf of 15K.

Hmmmmmm...

Server vendors and the dead hand of commoditisation

SAN vendors already onboard with flash

Not entirely sure why you refer to NetApp's caching mechanisms as the only bridge between DRAM-based cache and spinning media. Several other SAN vendors have been on board with SSD technology for years, like EMC and Dell Compellent integrating SSDs into their existing FC-based systems.

I don't think there really is much to say on the topic of storage within commodity servers themselves. Any workload that outpaces current technology, like 15K RPM 2.5" SAS drives for example, generally warrants a dedicated storage system whether it be for capacity, scalability, reliability, or economy reasons. I don't think that server vendors have really left anyone in the cold here.

I don't think many server operators are keen on the idea of obliterating a valuable I/O slot that could drive so much more than storage, which is already available on the front of the box in a little hot-swappable form factor. The market would be so small - the last time I heard about PCIe flash storage it was in a desktop PC that had water cooling and LED-lit fans...