Archive for February, 2012
Have you ever wondered if what you know about data recovery is accurate? Consider the following paragraphs and compare what you know to the latest info on data recovery.
Sooner or later your company could become the victim of a natural disaster, or something much more common like a lightning storm or downed power lines.
Just because your company may be a small business doesn’t mean it’s immune to data disasters. If a small business does not have a good and tested disaster recovery plan in place when disaster hits they may never fully recuperate and it may even cause them to go out of business. Sometimes even a data recovery service is unable to be of any help.
Following are some questions that should be answered in order to give you some idea of what you need to do to that will help you if you do have a data disaster situation.
Do you know where your company’s most important data files are located?
Are these files being backed up and by what means?
How often do you run these data backups and are they verified and tested?
Do you have automated controls that correctly and on a consistent basis do the backups?
Do your data backup tapes go off-site and how often?
Do you have some kind of security against tampering or theft of your data backups?
Do you keep your servers, routers, hubs, and phone system controllers in locked areas to keep them more secure?
Does just anyone have access to your servers and your other technology assets or do you limit access to at least two, but no more than four people?
Read the rest of this entry »
OSPF is a major topic on both the CCNA and CCNP exams, and it’s also the topic that requires the most attention to detail. Where dynamic routing protocols such as RIP and IGRP have only one router type, a look at a Cisco routing table shows several different OSPF route types.
R1#show ip route
Codes: C – connected, S – static, I – IGRP, R – RIP, M – mobile, B – BGP
D – EIGRP, EX – EIGRP external, O – OSPF, IA – OSPF inter area
N1 – OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 – OSPF NSSA external type 2
E1 – OSPF external type 1, E2 – OSPF external type 2, E – EGP
In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at the difference between two of these route types, E1 and E2.
Route redistribution is the process of taking routes learned via one routing protocol and injecting those routes into another routing domain. (Static and connected routes can also be redistributed.) When a router running OSPF takes routes learned by another routing protocol and makes them available to the other OSPF-enabled routers it’s communicating with, that router becomes an Autonomous System Border Router (ASBR).
Let’s work with an example where R1 is running both OSPF and RIP. R4 is in the same OSPF domain as R1, and we want R4 to learn the routes that R1 is learning via RIP. This means we have to perform route redistribution on the ASBR. The routes that are being redistributed from RIP into OSPF will appear as E2 routes on R4:
R4#show ip route ospf
O E2 5.1.1.1 [110/20] via 172.34.34.3, 00:33:21, Ethernet0
6.0.0.0/32 is subnetted, 1 subnets
O E2 6.1.1.1 [110/20] via 172.34.34.3, 00:33:21, Ethernet0
172.12.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks
O E2 172.12.21.0/30 [110/20] via 172.34.34.3, 00:33:32,
Ethernet0
O E2 7.1.1.1 [110/20] via 172.34.34.3, 00:33:21, Ethernet0
15.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
O E2 15.1.1.0 [110/20] via 172.34.34.3, 00:33:32, Ethernet0
E2 is the default route type for routes learned via redistribution. The key with E2 routes is that the cost of these routes reflects only the cost of the path from the ASBR to the final destination; the cost of the path from R4 to R1 is not reflected in this cost. (Remember that OSPF’s metric for a path is referred to as “cost”.)
In this example, we want the cost of the routes to reflect the entire path, not just the path between the ASBR and the destination network. To do so, the routes must be redistributed into OSPF as E1 routes on the ASBR, as shown here.
R1#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
R1(config)#router ospf 1
Read the rest of this entry »
If you were around in the mid 70s in the United States you’d have to have been living under a rock not to know about the great citizen band radio craze made popular by the smash hit “Convoy” by C.W. McCall. If you were into citizen band radio at all you knew that there was a certain prestige to having certain kinds of antennas, especially if you had a CB setup in your home.
For the mobile units, the ones that were installed in your motor vehicle, the antennas were rather simple and relatively weak. They could only send and receive a short distance depending on the time of day. In the afternoon, mobile CB antennas were lucky to reach a few miles, especially during sun spot time. At night, if you were lucky you could reach about 10 to 20 miles, maybe sometimes a little more.
Mobile antennas came in several types. One of the most popular antennas was the fiberglass model that hooked on the back bumper. These antennas were very good transmitters and receivers. Most were about 3/8 of an inch in diameter and about 2 feet tall. Some could handle up to 1000 watts of transmission power.
Another popular type of Mobile Antenna was the magnetic roof top antenna. These were not very powerful but they were real easy to hook up. Just pop the cable into your CB, which was installed usually under the dashboard in your car, and then just take the antenna, stick it out your window and pop it on your roof top. The magnet was strong enough that there would have to be a hurricane for that thing to blow off. These antennas could handle about 300 watts of power which made them a pretty low end antenna for CB use, but they were also very cheap.
Then we have the center load mirror mount antennas. The most popular of these were the Cobras. Don’t let these small things fool you. They could handle up to 3000 watts of power, usually made of 24 carat gold-plated 8-gauge copper coil. These antennas were also very expensive and today go for as much as $60 or more.
Read the rest of this entry »
Whether you are an amateur or a professional, gadgets play an essential role in the life of a spy. Although there are some tools and gadgets which are only designed for specific situations that you may encounter as a spy, there are other gadgets which can be useful to you every single day. If you are a spy and don’t have these five gadgets, you are missing some valuable tools from your arsenal:
1) Portable Bug Detector-As a spy, you are responsible for not only obtaining information, but also keeping privileged information completely secret. Whether you are concerned about a phone, room or car bug, a portable bug detector can provide you with the security you need. Portable bug detectors are extremely easy to operate, and allow you to quickly decide whether or not it is safe to divulge confidential information in your current environment. Best of all, portable bug detectors are easy to conceal, which means that you can take one everywhere you go.
2) Room Bug-Although you need a portable bug detector to protect yourself, the primary job of a spy is surveillance. In order to do this, you need to know what other people are talking about. The best way to accomplish this is with a room bug. You can place a room bug in any environment, and then listen to the conversation from a secure location. Because they can only be picked up by radio scanners, Ultra High Frequency (UHF) room bugs are your best option.
Read the rest of this entry »