So last weekend, I discovered that Spamhaus decided it would be a good idea to place all of the public IP addresses for Slicehost (my Linux VPS hoster) into their Spamhaus block list (SBL). This covered both my slice in Dallas and the one in St. Louis – meaning an impressive chunk of inbound mail to my domains was being trashed by the sending MTA and an even bigger chunk of my outbound mail was being outright rejected since the sending IP’s were on the SBL.  Slicehost worked hard to convince Spamhaus to recind the blocklist, so the Slicehost IP’s got moved over to the less-nasty-but-you’re-still-probably-a-spamming-dirtbag Policy Block list (PBL) assuming affected IP owners would request to be removed from that list.

Sample query to see if you’re on any Spamhaus block list:  http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=10.11.12.13

It seems it’s time to relinquish the care and feeding of my own Postfix mail system and turn to a hosted solution.  This means I need to migrate about 5GB of IMAP store to another site (again).  Last time I did a wholesale migration, I used imapsync to make the transition painless. In the code example below, an SSL connection to the IMAPS server at imap-server.sourcedomain.com is made with username@sourcedomain.com and the password stored in the plaintext file secret1. An SSL connection is made to the target system (which happens to be the server on which the imapsync tool is running, but could just as easily be another IMAPS server somewhere on a network accessible to the host where imapsync is running). The –delete and –expunge1 arguments will clean the successfully moved messages from IMAP store #1 .. so be sure you have your messages on the target successfully! Imapsync can be run iteratively to ensure you have got all the messages from your source.


/usr/bin/imapsync \
--host1 imap-server.sourcedomain.com \
--ssl1 \
--authmech1 LOGIN \
--user1 username@sourcedomain.com --passfile1 secret1 \
--host2 127.0.0.1 --user2 username@targetdomain.com --passfile2 secret2 \
--ssl2 \
--delete --expunge1 \
--buffersize=128

And one can use the

--dry

option to just test the process but not actually move any of the messages.

So that’s it – I’m about half way though migrating my current IMAP stores over to a hosted mail solution, so that I don’t need to keep up with the increasing level of care and feeding that running your own mail service requires.  Before I get too many darts about that .. I first started running my own personal MTA in 1995, adding spam and av filtering over time, and adding substantial redundancy (servers, sites, storage) so I could rely on it and fix things that broke as I had time rather than right when they broke (which was always at a bad time).  My new hosted solution takes over from two VPS servers running Postfix, Spamassassin, ClamAV, Greylisting with the IMAP store replicated across data centers in different states (15 minute rsyncs).  So soon, the (hopefully) last Allen Pomeroy owned and operated MTA can be turned off, while I get to work on fun stuff, rather than figuring out why my email is bouncing. 

Whether you have a Mac or a Windows PC, there are some basic steps you can take to reduce the risk and personal impact of a malware infection.  This advise is especially impactful when you have just purchased a new Mac or Windows system. There are several steps that you can take to protect your new investment and more importantly your information. In the following detail, I mainly focus on Windows as that’s the main technology that my non-IT type friends ask about.

Basically what you should be doing is:

1. Ensure that a hardware firewall/router is in between the internet and the PC (I’ll just call it a firewall from now on)
   • Use a recognized brand name like Linksys, avoid the no-name generics as they often have bad defaults and don’t implement the stateful-packet-inspection that you want to filter out most of the cruft on the Internet from reaching your PC
2. Ensure all default passwords on the firewall and PC have been changed
   • When you initially turn on the power to your PC and to your firewall, do NOT have them connected to your cable or DSL modem initially.  Do the setup of your firewall and PC first in order to ensure malware doesn’t have a chance to get at your shiny new PC before you’ve turned on the needed protection
   • Point a browser to your firewall (likely 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1) and change the default administrator password.  This is very important, as some malware will seek out your firewall and try to use the manufacturer default password to change things like your DNS server settings – inserting the bad guys in between you and the rest of the Internet (eg. forcing your traffic to them first before it goes to your bank)
3. All normal accounts used for day-to-day business on the computer should NOT have administrator privilege (see my post on running without admin privileges)
   • On Windows XP, Vista (and I think 7), the default “user” that accesses the PC has full administrative privilege, that enables software  installation and configuration changes.  This is very dangerous, as malware that you come in contact with from infected emails or websites use this privilege to install their spyware, keyloggers, backdoors and other nasty stuff on your PC – without your explicit permission
   • Set a password for your Administrator account
   • Create a new user right away, before you setup your email, music, photos, documents, etc; ensure that new user is NOT a Computer Administrator
   • Always login with this non-Administrator username for your day-to-day use; only use the Computer Administrator username for software installation and configuration changes.
4. Never surf the Internet with an account that has administrative privilege
5. If this is a common PC for a business, ensure employees accounts are individually assigned (if practical). Ensure those employee accounts are not administrators (unless there is a need and a high degree of trust)
6. Run a good commercial anti-virus program with annual software support (or a subscription)
   • There are some good free AV packages (AVG, Clamwin, Avast) .. Google them for the links
   • Sophos makes a good Mac AV package .. yes, Macs are vulnerable to malware as well; it’s just not as prevalent
7. Finally ensure regular (daily) backups are being run to protect your business, financial, customer information from loss if there is a problem with the PC
8. For setup of your wireless access point (if you have one .. sometimes it’s built into the router/firewall)
   • Chose wireless encryption of at least WPA or WPA2 .. never use WEP or no encryption
   • There is no significant increase in security by obscuring your network name (SSID)
   • Don’t use any personally identifiable information in your network name

If you are unsure of how to do any of these steps, get one of your computer knowledgeable friends to help you.  Of course if you are purchasing a new system right now, I’d strongly recommend you check out Apple’s Mac products.  They’re not immune to malware, but the architecture and core are by design much less vulnerable to the types of malware that plague Windows.

Have you ever had a daunting task that just seemed like a nightmare to get your head around how to organize it? If you’re like me, you try to find some patterns in all the individual elements that make up whatever the topic is you’re trying to get a handle on. The patterns may not come easily, and even if they do, it’s usually a pain to try and re-categorize an element as you see fit (ever tried to create lists and categorize things in Excel??).

I came across a tool that one of my clients uses called FreeMind – it’s a Java app that allows you to enter a number of text elements and reorganize them in a hierarchical fashion.

FreeMind example

Ok, one can do that with an unstructured word processor document or a spreadsheet, but FreeMind allows you to dump all these random ideas onto the page then drag and drop into categories or tags that make sense as you’re rearranging the elements.

So after about an hour of dropping in ideas around areas of improvement for the IT security of one of my clients, I had over 250 elements organized into 8 high level categories and about 18 subcategories. It was grouped well enough to lead discussions on what the current priorities for their programmes should be. If I had attempted this in a spreadsheet (and I had) it would have taken hours and untold frustration – not to mention I probably would have missed relationships that I could see in FreeMind.

If I had attempted this in a spreadsheet (and I had) it would have taken hours and untold frustration

FreeMind icons

You can add icons to each element to make labeling and categorization easier. Best to check out the FreeMind home page as it is a feature rich tool. From the project Wiki, typical uses include:

• Keeping track of projects, including subtasks, state of subtasks and time recording
• Project workplace, including links to necessary files, executables, source of information and of course information
• Workplace for internet research using Google and other sources
• Keeping a collection of small or middle sized notes with links on some area which expands as needed. Such a collection of notes is sometimes called knowledge base.
• Essay writing and brainstorming, using colors to show which essays are open, completed, not yet started etc, using size of nodes to indicate size of essays. I don’t have one map for one essay, I have one map for all essays. I move parts of some essays to other when it seems appropriate.
• Keeping a small database of something with structure that is either very dynamic or not known in advance. The main disadvantage of such approach when compared to traditional database applications are poor query possibilities, but I use it that way anyway – contacts, recipes, medical records etc. You learn about the structure from the additional data items you enter. For example, different medical records use different structure and you do not have to analyze all the possible structures before you enter the first medical record.
• Commented internet favorites or bookmarks, with colors and fonts having the meaning you want

What a great tool .. I’m sure I’ll find more uses for it!