P For Paranoia OR a quick way of overwriting a partition with random-like data

(General Surgeon’s warning: The following post contains doses of paranoia which might exceed your recommended daily dosage. Fnord!). A lot of the data sanitisation literature around advises overwriting partitions with random data (btw, SANS Institute research claims that even a pass with /dev/zero is enough to stop MFM but YPMV). So leaving Guttman-like techniques aside,… Continue reading P For Paranoia OR a quick way of overwriting a partition with random-like data

Hello world demystified

Hello all, in the finest programming tradition, I take it that every time one took a programming course or decided to have a quick look into a programming language, writing a “Hello World” program was one of the first things done. However, even in such a small program, do you really know what it does… Continue reading Hello world demystified

CPython threading vs multiprocessing – the 5 minute introduction

MJC brought to my attention the following piece of code which attempts to provide some empirical data comparing the use of threads vs processes in CPython. This code, which I understand that it is stored for historical purposes, has some bugs, which I have pointed out in the comment section, but this is not the… Continue reading CPython threading vs multiprocessing – the 5 minute introduction

The trouble with OSSIM

If you fiddle with MSSP, then you will most likely have heard of OSSIM. While the software itself appears quite powerful, it lacks in the MOST critical aspect of all: there is little if any documentation. Most of it is outdated and sources of information include a forum and a blog/tweeter feed. Come on OSSIM… Continue reading The trouble with OSSIM