Mac OS X hacked in less than 30 minutes

“Gaining root access to a Mac is ‘easy pickings,’ according to an individual who in less than 30 minutes won an OS X hacking challenge last month by gaining root control of a machine using an unpublished security vulnerability.”
I’m sure this is going to spread like wildfire across the Internets today, but let me take [...]

System Administrator Truths

What are your top ten system administrator truths? Here are a few of mine:

Be very pessimistic
Start from a known state of the system (switch off - switch on).
Make sure you can leave the system exactly like it was before you touched it.
Dont fix what isn’t broken.
Even if you are genius, follow the manual/RTFM.
Dont reinvent the [...]

A Wee Bit Anal Over Strong Passwords?

I’d just like to say that as a sysadmin, I’m all for strong passwords and enforcement thereof, but this is a guaranteed way to have your users use sticky notes cheat-sheets:

* The password must contain at least one (1) UPPER CASE letter.
* The password must contain at least one (1) LOWER CASE letter.
* The password must contain at least one (1) numeric digit: (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9).
* The password cannot contain any four (4) consecutive characters of your username
* The password must be at least eight (8) characters long.
* The password cannot be changed to any of your three (3) previous passwords.
* The minimum user-defined password life is one (1) day.
* The password cannot contain any dictionary word greater than or equal to four (4) characters.
* The password will expire annually.

The System Administrator Song

Current Song: STP - Sex Type Thing

I’d just like to say that July 29th is System Administrator Appreciation Day. I am a sysadmin and I will be expecting presents. In honor of this glorious event, I’ll leave you with the System Administrator Song:

There’s a guy who works in another room, or on another floor,
He’s the one you call, when your document ain’t there no more
he’s probably a boy, but he might be a girl, or something in between
he’s the only one in the office who knows what “PC Load Letter” means

He’s your system administrator
he’s probably into comic books
and you tremble in fear when you have to hear