Certifications aren't the be-all and end-all of the training landscape, but if it's free, the price is right. Maybe. Here's a roster of those free certs that appear valuable to me, depending on your area of interest.
CISCO SYTEMS, INC
The site skillsforall.com is one area where Cisco lists most of their no-charge classes, courses and certifications. Overall Cisco may have close to 500 online classes or courses, but this is a convenient page for programs that don't require a third party proctor (like CCNA, etc.).
JUNIPER
At juniper.net (then "training", then "free training"), one sees not free certs but free training modules for eventually taking the test for paid certs. However, if one finishes a free module with a score of seventy percent or greater, one is awarded a 75% discount on taking the actual test. At current price schedules that's only $50, so almost free. Perhaps charging just a bit holds down the crowds and prevents slow website performance, such as the next organization typically faces...
ORACLE
At academy.oracle.com one can establish not a "member" account (unless you're an institution) but a "student" or student hub account for free. Depending upon the product family there may be dozens or more free courses of instruction. Beware of attempts to get access to a test or even the site on nights or weekends. Early in the morning would be best, since "free" is so popular.
OPSWAT
This is a provider of cybersecurity protection products that claims as clients 5 of the 10 largest US banks and 98% of all commercial and research nuclear power plants in the US. They have three levels of certification. There are the free one or two certs, then a $50 level, then a $1000 level. The two lower levels are best practices exercises of general applicability. The high priced level is for their specific products which are within the MetaDefender suite.
GOOGLE
Classes or instruction videos on these many certs can be seen on YouTube but rather than search there, it might be more profitable to use a list at reliablesoft.net. Search on "Best Google Certification Courses in 2024 (Free and Paid)". Although there's an emphasis on digital marketing (obviously for this company), many courses are available for general use of Google products and for general cyber security relevance.
AMAZON WEB SERVICES
A search (from anywhere) on the article "Make the most of AWS Training and Certification free offerings" should lead you to an Amazon page with links for many hundreds of tests and courses. Within the Amazon site also try searching for "AWS Training and Certification". AI, cloud, security and data analytics are well represented.
AZURE
Other than trying the Microsoft site or YouTube or a low-cost provider like Udemy, one can get search hits on pages like Class Central, listing over 1000 courses for capabilities and tools of this AWS competitor. And don't forget related issues such as Windows Server courses if you're on that side of the business.
Try pasting this link: https://www.classcentral.com/subject/microsoft-azure?free=true
Sunday, March 3, 2024
Monday, February 26, 2024
Still Good To Consider
I've been concerned with tech issues for some years now and with all the new developments, I'm again surprised at what hasn't changed and what problems are STILL with us after so long. I just pulled a Sun workstation out of the storage building to see if the clock battery cradle has rusted away, but over on the desk is this month's cell phone. Which I trust about as far as I can throw it. And in all the time between those two devices, I sometimes think that almost nothing has improved.
As a little test, I'll rip off my post of about August of 2022. I listed eleven things I'd listed before, and will no doubt list again. Do these sound familiar?
1. The network might not be secure.
Network maintenance and patching is a round-the-clock job and the safety level of your electronic environment may fluctuate between maintenance periods.
2. It might not be good to have only one copy of that file.
Any backup idea is better than no backup idea.
3. It might not be good to get sued.
Certain kinds of phone or computer use can create copyright problems, police issues, work misinterpretations or even more spam than other channels. Limiting use or having multiple phones or laptops for different purposes (personal VS work) could mitigate risk.
4. It will not be good to lose your laptop or phone.
Do you depend on apps to do things you haven't documented or set up in some other way? How would you get by with no phone, or during a period of switching devices?
5. Things break.
Beer spilled in keyboard? Phone dropped down porta-potty? SD card had a really acidic soft drink spilled on it? Device run over by car? Memory nonfunctional due to cracking? Backup or duplicate plans are in order.
6. Settings break.
Reinstalling a browser or app can cause "forgetting" of settings needed for the thing to work. Even writing settings down on paper is better than nothing.
7. Don't forget how good desktops and laptops can be at certain things.
The most insecure thing about a phone is that it gets to the 'net through a phone company that sells your information and may not make security a priority. The "older" ways may have more tools you know or tools that work better.
8. Earphones or headphones can be distracting and even dangerous.
You need to pay attention to traffic, possible muggers and even other pedestrians when on the sidewalk.
9. Touch or proximity radiation from cell phones can be an issue.
Guys: the regular pocket? Girls: phones in the cleavage? Repeated storage of a phone in skin contact or close might cause radar-like burns over long periods of time. Consider a holster or some sort of shielding.
10. It's not good to improperly dispose of cell phones or other data-carrying objects.
I've been finding old user files on replacement or refurbished drives for almost 20 years. They were supposedly wiped clean. Nope.
11. It might be good to turn things off sometimes.
The OFF switch! There it is. In an always-on, always-connected world, disconnection or power-down situations (where practical) can head off many problems, and possibly stretch battery life.
As a little test, I'll rip off my post of about August of 2022. I listed eleven things I'd listed before, and will no doubt list again. Do these sound familiar?
1. The network might not be secure.
Network maintenance and patching is a round-the-clock job and the safety level of your electronic environment may fluctuate between maintenance periods.
2. It might not be good to have only one copy of that file.
Any backup idea is better than no backup idea.
3. It might not be good to get sued.
Certain kinds of phone or computer use can create copyright problems, police issues, work misinterpretations or even more spam than other channels. Limiting use or having multiple phones or laptops for different purposes (personal VS work) could mitigate risk.
4. It will not be good to lose your laptop or phone.
Do you depend on apps to do things you haven't documented or set up in some other way? How would you get by with no phone, or during a period of switching devices?
5. Things break.
Beer spilled in keyboard? Phone dropped down porta-potty? SD card had a really acidic soft drink spilled on it? Device run over by car? Memory nonfunctional due to cracking? Backup or duplicate plans are in order.
6. Settings break.
Reinstalling a browser or app can cause "forgetting" of settings needed for the thing to work. Even writing settings down on paper is better than nothing.
7. Don't forget how good desktops and laptops can be at certain things.
The most insecure thing about a phone is that it gets to the 'net through a phone company that sells your information and may not make security a priority. The "older" ways may have more tools you know or tools that work better.
8. Earphones or headphones can be distracting and even dangerous.
You need to pay attention to traffic, possible muggers and even other pedestrians when on the sidewalk.
9. Touch or proximity radiation from cell phones can be an issue.
Guys: the regular pocket? Girls: phones in the cleavage? Repeated storage of a phone in skin contact or close might cause radar-like burns over long periods of time. Consider a holster or some sort of shielding.
10. It's not good to improperly dispose of cell phones or other data-carrying objects.
I've been finding old user files on replacement or refurbished drives for almost 20 years. They were supposedly wiped clean. Nope.
11. It might be good to turn things off sometimes.
The OFF switch! There it is. In an always-on, always-connected world, disconnection or power-down situations (where practical) can head off many problems, and possibly stretch battery life.
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Since Another War Started...
... I might as well make this a tech issue, as I'm wont to do on this page anyway. Not to callously ignore other aspects of the current Levant worries, but the situation brings up many questions you KNEW I'd have:
A) Since it's possible for country X to build dossiers of the soldiers/police/politicians/citizens of country Y in order to try to interfere with (at least) their gizmos in time of war, why don't we see more remote shutdown/wipe/corruption/redirection or whatever of opponent devices? I think we have indeed seen DDOS's but I was expecting more.
B) And if country X is so much smarter than country Y, why not take over the stupid COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) crap they're using in order to redirect missiles, smart bombs and such back toward the shooter?
C) Is it possible to use an opponent's wireless telemetry emissions in order to locate and shoot at that enemy instantly (in real time)?
D) If not the above, why not get into enemy cell towers or services in order to track from that point? It may not be as good as the signal coming from General XYZ's tablet but it's better than nothing.
E) Might be good to track (or invest in) portable Faraday cage stuff, if there's a big increase in field confiscation of enemy cell phones and such. Or just use aluminum foil or snack bags.
F) And since there's been an apparently major intelligence failure somewhere, perhaps at least one or two groups have rediscovered dead drops, word-of-mouth and other such non-network-based methods of communication. I've always said there's still a place for HUMINT (human intelligence) but no one seems to be listening.
A) Since it's possible for country X to build dossiers of the soldiers/police/politicians/citizens of country Y in order to try to interfere with (at least) their gizmos in time of war, why don't we see more remote shutdown/wipe/corruption/redirection or whatever of opponent devices? I think we have indeed seen DDOS's but I was expecting more.
B) And if country X is so much smarter than country Y, why not take over the stupid COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) crap they're using in order to redirect missiles, smart bombs and such back toward the shooter?
C) Is it possible to use an opponent's wireless telemetry emissions in order to locate and shoot at that enemy instantly (in real time)?
D) If not the above, why not get into enemy cell towers or services in order to track from that point? It may not be as good as the signal coming from General XYZ's tablet but it's better than nothing.
E) Might be good to track (or invest in) portable Faraday cage stuff, if there's a big increase in field confiscation of enemy cell phones and such. Or just use aluminum foil or snack bags.
F) And since there's been an apparently major intelligence failure somewhere, perhaps at least one or two groups have rediscovered dead drops, word-of-mouth and other such non-network-based methods of communication. I've always said there's still a place for HUMINT (human intelligence) but no one seems to be listening.
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Win11 Experiences... and Possibilities
I bought a refurbished 3-year-old game computer with an option to upgrade its Win10 to Win11 Pro, so as to be able to claim familiarity with this latest release for professional reasons. Now running 11 Pro, I'm releived to have experienced little trouble in the way of being forced to establish a Microsoft account before OS activation could occur. I got to the point of being asked "Don't have a Microsoft account? Create one!". Making that choice experimentally, what happened when clicking "create one" was not the state of being dropped into an account establishment form, but an end of the current procedure. It sent me out of the installer completely and allowed normal activity. I then set up a local user with no problem, got updates, etc. Surprise.
I'm annoyed that the apparently arbitrary requirement of Win11 to run on processors only 3 or 4 years old or less requires many to buy new (or new-to-me refurb in my case) computers. There, however, is an opportunity here. With so many boxes abandoned by 11 that may have 2 or 3 Ghz processors and 8, 16 or 32 gigs of RAM expansion capability, what to do with them? This is the time for Linux-on-the-desktop advocates to get to work. Linux is free and the boxes will just be sitting around. Time to get creative, America - or World.
The kinks have been worked out of the Ubuntu's, mostly. There's MX Linux if you have the need for speed. And many gaming situations have embraced Linux for years.
The shortsightedness of the Win11 situation is the best case for DT Linux I've ever seen, and I remember UUCP over 300 baud modems. Which is still possible to do, I'll have you know, you young whippersnappers.
I'm annoyed that the apparently arbitrary requirement of Win11 to run on processors only 3 or 4 years old or less requires many to buy new (or new-to-me refurb in my case) computers. There, however, is an opportunity here. With so many boxes abandoned by 11 that may have 2 or 3 Ghz processors and 8, 16 or 32 gigs of RAM expansion capability, what to do with them? This is the time for Linux-on-the-desktop advocates to get to work. Linux is free and the boxes will just be sitting around. Time to get creative, America - or World.
The kinks have been worked out of the Ubuntu's, mostly. There's MX Linux if you have the need for speed. And many gaming situations have embraced Linux for years.
The shortsightedness of the Win11 situation is the best case for DT Linux I've ever seen, and I remember UUCP over 300 baud modems. Which is still possible to do, I'll have you know, you young whippersnappers.
Monday, March 20, 2023
Why haven't we seen...
In my last post I speculated about a theoretical conflict between two countries and some computer security aspects of such a conflict, at least regarding the public web. Let's now look at an actual conflict and some unanswered questions I have about that situation.
The Russian invasion of the former Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic (now simply Ukraine) has been in progress for some time now. Russia is known to be at least historically quite capable in the areas of military intelligence, network infiltration and practically every other technical aspect of warfare. If I were some GRU (or whatever they call Russian military intel now) person in charge of an offensive operations group, I'd have a checklist that went something like...
A. Compile account records of all cellular telephones in current operation in target country
B. Compile records of all citizens of target country where local phone providers are concerned (addresses, bank accounts...)
C. Compile network maps of target country telephony (central offices, cell towers, microwave locations, exchanges, line types...)
D. Compile network maps of target country public internet, military net, government net and so on
E. Compile network maps of target country IOT situation
F. Map all current visible WLANs and active phones for immediate action
G. Map water, electrical and sewage systems, automated rail and road traffic control and communications methods for such
H. Compile data from compromised and/or captured cell tower equipment shacks
And so on. I'd think with even a small amount of some of the above information that the Russians would, from a Moscow suburb, be able to target everything from a railroad roundhouse to an individual cell phone user with 155mm artillery, if in range. I'd think that they could mess with control capability for everything from a military targeting computer to a garage door opener. And with the right tools, all from a coffee shop laptop over a VPN.
I haven't seen any reports of this nature.
Perhaps I'm not looking in the right places. Perhaps media workers don't understand heavily technical issues and therefore can't effectively write stories regarding such (I've seen that on the job in my distant past). Perhaps the current Russian military technical capabilities aren't what they used to be. Yes, I've heard of a few ddos attacks and some city services disruptions, but nothing of the widespread nature that I'm assuming is possible. In addition to the above, perhaps total cyber-warfare isn't applicable to a society that's not so fully "wired" that people place their lives onto their phones, communicating with the outside world via free (poorly coded) applications. Excuse me, 'apps'.
I don't know. I'll report back on this as soon as I know more about any of it.
The Russian invasion of the former Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic (now simply Ukraine) has been in progress for some time now. Russia is known to be at least historically quite capable in the areas of military intelligence, network infiltration and practically every other technical aspect of warfare. If I were some GRU (or whatever they call Russian military intel now) person in charge of an offensive operations group, I'd have a checklist that went something like...
A. Compile account records of all cellular telephones in current operation in target country
B. Compile records of all citizens of target country where local phone providers are concerned (addresses, bank accounts...)
C. Compile network maps of target country telephony (central offices, cell towers, microwave locations, exchanges, line types...)
D. Compile network maps of target country public internet, military net, government net and so on
E. Compile network maps of target country IOT situation
F. Map all current visible WLANs and active phones for immediate action
G. Map water, electrical and sewage systems, automated rail and road traffic control and communications methods for such
H. Compile data from compromised and/or captured cell tower equipment shacks
And so on. I'd think with even a small amount of some of the above information that the Russians would, from a Moscow suburb, be able to target everything from a railroad roundhouse to an individual cell phone user with 155mm artillery, if in range. I'd think that they could mess with control capability for everything from a military targeting computer to a garage door opener. And with the right tools, all from a coffee shop laptop over a VPN.
I haven't seen any reports of this nature.
Perhaps I'm not looking in the right places. Perhaps media workers don't understand heavily technical issues and therefore can't effectively write stories regarding such (I've seen that on the job in my distant past). Perhaps the current Russian military technical capabilities aren't what they used to be. Yes, I've heard of a few ddos attacks and some city services disruptions, but nothing of the widespread nature that I'm assuming is possible. In addition to the above, perhaps total cyber-warfare isn't applicable to a society that's not so fully "wired" that people place their lives onto their phones, communicating with the outside world via free (poorly coded) applications. Excuse me, 'apps'.
I don't know. I'll report back on this as soon as I know more about any of it.
Monday, March 6, 2023
A Kind Of Hacktivism
Here’s a way to suppress dissent: bait commentary from people who can’t conceal their identities. Then attack those people when identified.
Suppose there’s a debate raging on some chat post at the BBC website. The peaceful country of Smedleyville is being invaded by the belligerent country of Hornswaggle. Hornswaggle operatives are commenting on the post in favor of invasion. Then, a defender of Smedleyville comments with competing facts or analysis.
Now, suppose – just suppose – that Hornswaggle operatives have prepared the way by infiltrating the BBC chat page system. When a Smedleyville supporter sees the chat and establishes an account in order to comment (and then does so), the Hornswaggle operative fishes out the real name, email address, secondary email address and whatever other info is associated with the user name (displayed name) the page comment shows. Then Hornswaggle’s attack team uses various free tools to search for general information to show more about the Smedleyville defender available from the general web, database leaks, whatever.
When the Smedleyville defender is identified as to actual name, other legit email addresses, physical address, etc. then offensive operations can begin. This can be anything from real-world thug attacks to just providing the defender’s real information to junk mail lists and African prince scammers. The Hornswaggle forces have all the options at this point.
--------------
The moral of the story is that anything one does online leaves tracks. If the Smedleyville defender wishes to operate on the chat board, I’d recommend using a paid email service (no free webmail or disposable addresses) with an address specifically created for use on the chat board in question. This email address must have a password not used on any other account. The defender must use no slang or regional references that would suggest location. The defender must use no professional jargon that would aid in identification of the person commenting. The defender must not attempt insult, since that’s often cultural in nature, thus aiding in identification.
And the defender may choose not to comment. No doubt there would be many ways to help Smedleyvillle other than arguing with someone on a chat board possibly read by very few. These boards are useful to see how the other side argues, but not necessarily useful to use as venues for advancing one’s cause.
Suppose there’s a debate raging on some chat post at the BBC website. The peaceful country of Smedleyville is being invaded by the belligerent country of Hornswaggle. Hornswaggle operatives are commenting on the post in favor of invasion. Then, a defender of Smedleyville comments with competing facts or analysis.
Now, suppose – just suppose – that Hornswaggle operatives have prepared the way by infiltrating the BBC chat page system. When a Smedleyville supporter sees the chat and establishes an account in order to comment (and then does so), the Hornswaggle operative fishes out the real name, email address, secondary email address and whatever other info is associated with the user name (displayed name) the page comment shows. Then Hornswaggle’s attack team uses various free tools to search for general information to show more about the Smedleyville defender available from the general web, database leaks, whatever.
When the Smedleyville defender is identified as to actual name, other legit email addresses, physical address, etc. then offensive operations can begin. This can be anything from real-world thug attacks to just providing the defender’s real information to junk mail lists and African prince scammers. The Hornswaggle forces have all the options at this point.
--------------
The moral of the story is that anything one does online leaves tracks. If the Smedleyville defender wishes to operate on the chat board, I’d recommend using a paid email service (no free webmail or disposable addresses) with an address specifically created for use on the chat board in question. This email address must have a password not used on any other account. The defender must use no slang or regional references that would suggest location. The defender must use no professional jargon that would aid in identification of the person commenting. The defender must not attempt insult, since that’s often cultural in nature, thus aiding in identification.
And the defender may choose not to comment. No doubt there would be many ways to help Smedleyvillle other than arguing with someone on a chat board possibly read by very few. These boards are useful to see how the other side argues, but not necessarily useful to use as venues for advancing one’s cause.
Thursday, November 24, 2022
A theory about Twitter
Or a hypothesis...
In all the talk about opinion moderation, it looks like folks are missing a big technical point: If you were Elon Musk and walking into the ownership of Twitter for the first three minutes, you might wonder to yourself...
"Why do you need 16,000 employees to run a website?" (or whatever the staffing number is or was)
Evidently the previous administration DID need them for something. Ordinarily you'd think that a programming and development department plus some sales and back office would be all you'd need to run a big conversational text board. I'd peg that at around 400 people. But the others I suspect were at least a vast division of cat herders, breaking up the worst arguments among a mass of humanity with too much time on its hands, getting onto the site basically to argue with each other.
If there ACTUALLY IS an effective way to do that, you have two choices: either use computers to automate the process (which automation would be the main justification of the computer in the first place) or do it with manual, analog people. Fine - but what happened? It seems both choices were made. They have both automation AND a few aircraft carrier loads of people. What the hell??
It might be that in pursuing machine learning, artificial intelligence and algorithm creation goals, they didn't make as much progress as their social media competition (which also may not be making much progress either). If their AI is failing, that's why they need the other X thousand people - to amend the decisions the AI misinterpreted, failed to identify or got wrong some other way. If you can't just script this stuff with a keywords list then you have to automate - but if that's inefficient, you have to have an army of moderators TOO.
This would explain Twitter having to find a buyer. Ad revenue isn't enough to support a contingent of AI developers that make six-figure incomes plus an army of moderation people at the same time.
In all the talk about opinion moderation, it looks like folks are missing a big technical point: If you were Elon Musk and walking into the ownership of Twitter for the first three minutes, you might wonder to yourself...
"Why do you need 16,000 employees to run a website?" (or whatever the staffing number is or was)
Evidently the previous administration DID need them for something. Ordinarily you'd think that a programming and development department plus some sales and back office would be all you'd need to run a big conversational text board. I'd peg that at around 400 people. But the others I suspect were at least a vast division of cat herders, breaking up the worst arguments among a mass of humanity with too much time on its hands, getting onto the site basically to argue with each other.
If there ACTUALLY IS an effective way to do that, you have two choices: either use computers to automate the process (which automation would be the main justification of the computer in the first place) or do it with manual, analog people. Fine - but what happened? It seems both choices were made. They have both automation AND a few aircraft carrier loads of people. What the hell??
It might be that in pursuing machine learning, artificial intelligence and algorithm creation goals, they didn't make as much progress as their social media competition (which also may not be making much progress either). If their AI is failing, that's why they need the other X thousand people - to amend the decisions the AI misinterpreted, failed to identify or got wrong some other way. If you can't just script this stuff with a keywords list then you have to automate - but if that's inefficient, you have to have an army of moderators TOO.
This would explain Twitter having to find a buyer. Ad revenue isn't enough to support a contingent of AI developers that make six-figure incomes plus an army of moderation people at the same time.
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