In my previous post, I pointed out that the internet is the most complex system in existence. I also promised insight regarding security issues relating systems attached to the internet. Although the first and most important way to prevent security breaches is to keep your system patches, PTFs, fixes, etc. up to date, the subject of this post is IBM i (i/OS).

I see a lot of articles and discussions about whether IBM i is really secure or just so old that it’s really irrelevant. In point of fact, it’s very difficult to find any hard information explaining the how or why of IBM i security or lack thereof. To treat the subject fairly requires a book, so I will only address one small aspect of IBM i security today – 16 bit pointers.

First, 16 bit pointers have what’s called tags associated with them. That makes the pointers actually 18 bits with two bits that only the kernel (System Licensed Internal Code) can access. If these pointers are changed outside of a kernel operation, one or both of the tag bits get reset which invalidates the pointer. Although it’s not apparent to high level languages, the system is designed so that all information, on disk or in main storage, is accessed via these pointers. As a result, all information is addressed as though residing in main storage; hence, the term single level storage.

The system also organizes storage and uses the pointers in such a way that a program cannot go outside of the bounds of its assigned storage without causing a system exception. In addition, no program, procedure or data object – files, data spaces, queues, etc. – gets accessed without full kernel validation using these pointers. This validation includes access, operation and management rights verification against the user profile whose authority rights are being used to access the object. To protect the system against outside manipulation, certain system critical objects, including user profiles, cannot exist outside of the system Auxiliary Storage Pool.

Due to the design of these pointers and their use by the kernel, a worm or virus cannot take control of a program and trash or corrupt the kernel or access unauthorized information so long as the system runs at security level 40 or above. More about security levels at another time.

This only touches on one aspect of IBM i security. However, the security of the most security capable system in the world depends on
1. The competency of the system administrators
2. Limiting user authorities to only those needed to perform the required jobs and
3. Properly securing assets including passwords.

To dig deeper into aspects of pointers and IBM i internals, read the following. Some of the articles are outdated but still contain important information. Also, some of the articles contain specific information that enhances understanding of IBM i in addition to repeated information from other articles.

Notes for Storage Research by David McKenzie

AS/400 Memory Management from Inside the AS/400 by Frank G. Soltis

Architecture of the IBM AS/400 by Vincent LeVeque at James Madison University, document CS511 dated March 2001

An Object-based Systems Architecture from Smalltalk Musings by Richard Demers

Use the MI to Work with Pointers in ILE RPG by Junlei Li in MC Press Online

The AS/400’s Architecture Goes Beyond Technology by Frank G. Soltis via SystemiNetwork

OS/400 Storage Management from the IBM Information Center

Materialize Pointer (MATPTR) from the IBM Information Center

Resolve System Pointer (RSLVSP) from the IBM Information Center

A Gallop poll released on December 24th, once again shows the rapid decline of religious importance in America. The questions ranged from church membership to the relevance of religion today.

I was most surprised by the results from this question:

This makes absolutely no sense. The poll concludes that 78% of Americans consider themselves Christian, but 29% believe religion is out of date? And another 15% had no opinion? And only 56% believe religion is important?

WTF? Why do people insist on associating themselves with a religion they view as an out of date relic from a primitive time in human history? If religion is no longer relevant to a person, why continue to call yourself a Christian?

I have personally experienced how difficult it is to discard something you’ve whole-heartedly lived and believed your entire life. But the moment a person decides religion is out of date and irrelevant, they are no longer a religious person. But telling Gallup you’re a Christian that thinks religion is out of date is more than a little nonsensical.

Alright…So I’ve acquired a new beast!

For anyone who knows me, they would know that I’ve always been a proud Nikonian. This will forever stand true, however, one should never pass up a good deal. I purchased a “slightly” used Canon 5d mkII 3 days ago, and have been surprisingly satisfied. The resolution is proving to be better than I expected, and the overall image quality and colour is growing on me.

I didn’t expect to like a Canon as much as I do now, and am excited to get out there and get some new shots with it. I should have some up in the next few days, as I’ve rented a 16-35 lense to test out over christmas. I also purchased a 50mm 1.8 lens for 130 bucks, which, contrary to John or Lan’s opinion, is quite nice.

I will likely post some images within the next few days.

Alright, so after a reeeeally long time, I’ve managed to find a decent hosting company that I seem to get along with… Also one that hasn’t screwed me around. Thanks Bludomain! Hopefully they will love me for mentioning them…. but not likely..

Anyways, you can find me at www.electroultrastatic.com .

It’s a work in progress, and will have many more images updated as I manage to find more time…

December 15, 2009

thejakartaglobe

Yessar Rosendar

The Ministry for Communications and Information Technology said on Tuesday it was planning to investigate telecommunications companies involved in business deals with Israel, a day after the minister said a company would be dropped from a tender because it had an Israeli shareholder.

“We will investigate the involvement of Israel-affiliated companies in the telecommunications industry, and we will sanction [local companies] if we find there are violations of regulations,” Gatot S Dewa Broto, a ministry spokesman, told the Jakarta Globe.

On Monday, Communications and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring said US-based company Amdocs would be excluded from bidding to supply a billing service to PT Telkom Selular Indonesia because it had an Israeli shareholder.

Tifatul, a member of the conservative Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said excluding Amdocs was justified because Israel did not have diplomatic relations with Indonesia — something he claimed was required by a ministerial regulation on telecommunications.

Amdocs is headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri and has branches around the world. It has an office in Tel Aviv, but the Jakarta Globe could not confirm whether it had Israeli shareholders.

Asked about Tifatul’s statement, Gatot said there was nothing in the telecommunications regulations that specifically prohibited a partnership with a business from a country that did not have formal relations with Indonesia. However, he said Tifatul was probably referring to a 1999 regulation on telecommunications that stated that the public interest must be protected.

“It is not directly stated in the regulation, but we interpret this to mean that the banning comes from an effort to protect the people’s interests,” Gatot said.

“It’s not because the minister is from the PKS,” he added.

Meanwhile, Maswidyantoro, an analyst from consumer organization Masyarakat Telematika Indonesia (Mastel), called Tifatul’s use of ministerial regulations “irrelevant” and unwise.

According to Maswidyantoro, Israeli technology was commonly used in the information-technology sector because the country was a major producer of high-tech components.

Currently, 90 percent of the telecommunication parts used in the country were imported, he said. Many of these could be from Israeli manufacturers or come from companies with Israeli shareholders, he said.

“How about products from Taiwan? Many of our telecommunications products are from Taiwan — another country that does not have diplomatic relations with Indonesia,” Maswidyantoro said.

Eddie Kurnia, a spokesman from PT Telkomunikasi Indonesia, the parent company of Telkom Selular, a provider of cellphone services, said the company was still investigating the issue.

However, Telkom would support the government regulations, he said.

hello, my name is amanda

i started this wordpress page because i used to use wordpress a couple years ago, and it worked great for me. i was looking for cool blogs about pokemon, but most of them were only about a specific aspect of it or have not been maintained. this blog will be general (having posts about any/all pokemon related things i think of)

if you would like to contact me or offer suggestions, please email me at swinubnub@gmail.com

this information with be posted on the side (which i will refer to as the “doobli-doo” like how some people refer to the sidebars from youtube ^-^) ->

have a nice day,

-amanda

We may be seeing the beginning of a return to reason and responsibility.  Following on the heels of Climategate, Al Gore made a fool of himself and embarrassed the scienctific community with his foolish claim of an ice free Arctic within 7 years.  President Obama gave a good speech in Oslo, standing by American commitment to improving the human condition.  Joe Lieberman and company look to have killed the government-run health care plan.  And the radical liberal left have achieved a critical mass of shrillness.

I find these to be hopeful signs.  Reason cannot coexist with extremism.  When the extremists burn themselves out, it sets the stage for the return of dialog.  The less relevant that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and Al Gore make themselves, the sooner we can get back to addressing the real issues.   But now is not the time to relax or relent.  If anything, this is the critical moment to let our elected representatives know our concerns.

I will go forth today with an inner smile.  I wish each and every one of you all the best now and through the Holidays.  May God continue to bless America!

Today will not end well.

A month ago I posted claiming it was time to start a new chapter of my life. And what a dark chapter it’s been. Dark as in I’ve slept a lot and stayed up until… Hold on, checking the time… About 6 or 7am every day, including this one. Including nights where I have class the next day.

Here lies the great problem. There is no salvaging this last semester of college. There’s no way of swinging a home run, or even hitting the ball at all.

No. I am the boy who dropped the ball right at the finish line with everyone cheering for him. I’m the boy who started to fall apart at the last checkpoint, and although the crowd saw the boy staeting to faulter, there was nothing they could do but watch him fall face first into the hole he dug himself the night he gave up so many months ago.

Today will not end well because today is the day I must tell my mother this. That her son who was once on the honor roll, had perfect attendance, and what she looked at as a sign of hope, was now nothing more than a failure. I can only imagine now the draining expression she’ll have, how her voice will raise, how she’ll break into tears. And how I will finally, finally see what I am now. Something I never thought I was capable of being.

But… There is hope. In all of this failure is something beautiful, wonderful, and so damn amazing. It’s really the only reason I get out of bed at 3pm. I love her. My irrelevant world seems complete because of her.

…and put them in the closet. It hurts to say this, but our girl Jenny from the block is no longer the “Fly Girl” that she once was. Jennifer Lopez’s 7th studio album, Love?, is set for release in February 2010. Her promo has started up this fall with the release of her single “Louboutins”. You would think that with her level of fame, combined with a performance on the AMAs and Ellen, and the fact that the song is produced by The-Dream (who produced hits such as “Single Ladies” and “Umbrella”), that the song would be an immediate success. “Louboutins” has still failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.

But she’s an international celebrity!

But she’s J. LO!

But she fell at the AMAs! SHE FELL! That’s a formula for immediate success!

nope.

And the thing is, the song isn’t even wack. If it were a new up-and-coming singer, it would have taken off. Shit, The-Dream should have given it to his wife (I still gag at the thought that Christina Milian married his squishy bear ass) so she could have a comeback from irrelevancy while she’s still young enough to pull it off. The problem with the song isn’t the song itself (even though the targeted audience shops at Payless and can only dream of Louboutins). It’s J. Lo.

It’s a shame. J. Lo was never the best singer, but she’s had great songs in the past, not to mention that she’s a crazy good dancer and actress. I loved “Jenny From The Block”, “I’m Real”, and “Get Right”. I also loved Selena, Enough, and Monster-in-Law. Yes, I loved Monster-in-Law. I would love to see Jennifer Lopez focus more on her acting rather than singing. Many of her recent films have been critically acclaimed, so she should run with that. Because as popular as her songs once were back when J. Lo and Ja Rule (HA!) ruled the charts, there’s just no room for Jennifer Lopez in a music industry based on youth and who’s hot right now anymore.

I have now read this book and have found my earlier thoughts sadly confirmed. My first comments on this book on this Blog at:

http://atthebookshelf.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/calvin-for-armchair-theologians-by-christopher-elwood/

So I not only agree with my earlier thoughts on the book, but have even more to say about it. The illustrations (cartoons) I found to be completely inappropriate and the attempts by the author to justify them as irrelevant. There is just no place for the comical depictions of God given in the book.

The treatment of Calvin’s life is disappointing, with not enough detail given to it and some of the important events/incidents in his life are not treated or merely glossed over. It would have been better to have settled on the summary of the Institutes or do a full biography of John Calvin.

I also found the conclusions toward the end of the book disappointing and would suspect Calvin to be turning in the grave as a result of them.

The summary of the Institutes was probably not too bad, but I would have been better served to have read the Institutes rather than this book.

In summary – a very disappointing book that I would not recommend to anyone else to read.

Two of my most fluent 8th grade students came in to my classroom to interview me about 2 weeks ago for the student newspaper. The article came out today. They had insisted on doing the interview in English (though for the record I REALLY TRIED  to convince them to do it in Korean) and recorded the entire thing so at the time I wasn’t worried about how the article would turn out. Well, I probably should have worried.

In the intro to the article the call me (in Korean) “energetic and funny” which as I took as a compliment until I read the rest of the sentence and  realized they use these adjectives to directly compare me to the “not strict” former Canadian teacher they had (meaning I’m strict! Oh no. My co-teacher assures me it’s a compliment, though).

Anyway, maybe something was lost in translation? If I were one of these kids’ parents and I saw that the person in the interview below was teaching my kids English I’d probably be up-in-arms, so hopefully no one reads this thing. (Again I emphasize that these are two of my best students and this article is totally validating my English teaching abilities.) Here it is, in all its ESL glory:

Q1: What do you value at class?
Melanie: My class’s purpose is “Try to be a good man’. Because studnets always try to be a good person and good behavior. In addition “Who you are,” “follow one way,” “Being happy” are my class’s purpose too.

Q2: How do you feel about korean student?
Melanie: It just interesting. They are different from American students. For example American students are not sleep in the class. So When I saw students slept in the class, I was shocked. But they are good hard worker.

Q3: What is the strong point and weakness of Korean students?
Melanie: I think Korean student’s strong point is curious. They ask many kind of question. But the other side, they have not any weakness.

Q4: How was our first class at Sangdo middle school?
Melanie: I feel very nervous at first time. But I feel got easier than before.

Q5: It’s very light question. What’s your hobby and special ability?
Melanie: I like listening music, especially K-pop. Also traveling and reading the book.

Oh, also, the title is “Melanie Duke Teacher.” And here is a picture.

So the other significant contributing factor to my *sabbatical* from blogging is the birth of my daughter Ilse Mae in September. Cute huh? She’s upstairs screaming like a banshee right now so I’ll have to make this quick.

I shot this about a week ago on my crappy BlackBerry Pearl (which, by the way, crashed this afternoon and is refusing to reboot. w00t!). It’s pretty much the first time I’d ever seen Ilse smile, and it kinda burns my ass that the footage is so grainy. They say the camera you use is the camera you have, so now I don’t go anywhere without my Flip Mino HD. Watch your ass, Scorsese!

This is something I’ve been meaning to post for a while, a collection of old home movies I had digitised a couple of years ago and then forgot about. Highlights include my parents’ wedding, what I hope was my first beer, and – most surprising – footage of my uncle’s old Austin Cambridge in motion.

Lawrie’s dirty old Cambridge rotted in my grandmother’s driveway for over a decade, and until I got my hands on this footage I think I’d forgotten that rusty piece of shit actually used to be a car. That started. And went places. Fun places. Almost makes me regret that time I [redacted]. Almost.