Scary Poodle: Quickly Checking Websites for SSLv3

Weird looking poodle, right? *coughs* With the recent SSLv3 Poodle vulnerability being disclosed, there has been a rush to disable SSLv3. But if you manage quite a few web sites, how can you quickly check whether or not you are vulnerable? Better still, if you know you have vulnerable sites, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to check before and after your mitigation attempts in order to confirm that SSLv3 has indeed been disabled?

The consequences of disabling SSLv3 is another discussion entirely; let’s assume that I’ve decided it’s worth disabling.

So that was my problem, so here’s what I did about it.

Poodle Poop

What I did was to write a script. In Python.

Regular readers will recall that my “go to” language is Perl, so the fact that I chose to write the tool in Python says, well I don’t know exactly what, but I’m sure it says something. I am not by any means a Python programmer, but I believe I have the tool working, and it’s pleasantly fast. I suspect that the code it won’t look right to a Python programmer, and will look comfortingly uncomfortable to perl programmers. It’s pretty much my first “proper” program Continue reading

Goodbye Lync, Hello “Skype for Business”

Microsoft Lync, perhaps the most well known business communication and collaboration tools, is getting a new name in 2015. The next version of Microsoft Lync, according to the Lync Team on Microsoft’s Office Blog will be called “Skype for Business.” … Continue reading →

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Goodbye Lync, Hello “Skype for Business”

Microsoft Lync, perhaps the most well known business communication and collaboration tools, is getting a new name in 2015. The next version of Microsoft Lync, according to the Lync Team on Microsoft’s Office Blog will be called “Skype for Business.”

In other news, the next version of iTunes will be called “Napster for People With Credit Cards” and we’ll also hear from Cisco about the now-defunct plans they made five years ago to rebrand themselves as “Linksys Plus for Data Center.”

First, and most importantly, Microsoft’s Marketing Department is ahead of the game and producing videos that explain all you need to know about this new product.

Insert Emotive but Factually Lacking Video

So here it is; all you need to know:

I feel all warm and fuzzy about this new electronic communication paradigm optimizing and synergizing all the information flows in my business! Let’s check out those key changesimprovements:

“We’re really excited about how Skype for Business takes advantage of the strengths of both Skype and Lync. For example, as you can see in the screenshots, we’re adopting the familiar Skype icons for calling, adding video and ending a call.”

Icons. Icons are one of Skype’s Continue reading

Response: Cisco, Arista Disaggregating

Jim Duffy wrote an interesting article on Network World’s Cisco Connection blog called “Cisco, Arista Disaggregating?” in which he speculates that Cisco and Arista may make their network operating systems (NOS) available for use on bare metal switches. Is there … Continue reading →

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Response: Cisco, Arista Disaggregating

Jim Duffy wrote an interesting article on Network World’s Cisco Connection blog called “Cisco, Arista Disaggregating?” in which he speculates that Cisco and Arista may make their network operating systems (NOS) available for use on bare metal switches.

Is there any mileage in this idea?

Old News, New Timing

The idea of the big players selling their software for use on generic hardware has been floating around pretty much since SDN hit the news and the first bare metal switches came out, with Cisco for example looking like they were pretending that SDN wasn’t a thing, and their position was secure if they continued to do what they already did. To be honest, I think Cisco is still paying the price for initially lacking a strategy, then embracing SDN in such a confusing way. Nonetheless, the idea isn’t new, but has the market moved to a position where Cisco and Arista really need to do this? And what of Juniper; are they immune to being sucked into the bare metal market?

Special Sauce

In addition to being a good addition to awesome music of G. Love, for companies like Cisco Arista and Juniper, their “special sauce” these days Continue reading

Teambuilding. Whisky Tango Foxtrot? Check.

If you’ve ever done a network audit or a stock inventory check, you’ll know that it is possible one of the most boring activities you could possibly undertake, unless the stock you’re checking is particular salacious, I suppose. Certainly it’s … Continue reading →

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Secret Sunday: Microsoft’s Raymond Chen

Taking a little side-step from the normal networking-based Sunday hero worship, today’s Secret Sunday is a pointer to Microsoft’s Raymond Chen, sometimes referred to as “Microsoft’s Chuck Norris“. But John, you say, it’s Microsoft; why would you do that to … Continue reading →

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Anachronism In the UK (and elsewhere)

I’m a long way from being the first person to comment that some of the icons we use in our software are somewhat anachronistic. The example we hear most often is that of the Save icon in most software: It … Continue reading →

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SDN And More – Interop Roundtable Discussion

This September I was invited to come to New York for Interop New York 2014 and participate in a couple of technical sessions as part of a Tech Field Day Extra event. In addition to the presentations by HP Networking and … Continue reading →

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The Quanta LB4M – Cheap White Box Switching?

“Hey,” said my friend, “are you interested in buying an Ethernet switch? 48 1Gbps copper ports and two 10Gbps fiber uplinks. Very cheap. Layer 2 only, though.” A few minutes later, we were doing business out of the trunk of … Continue reading →

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The Quick Way to get f5 Viprion Serials

Ever been asked to list the serial numbers on an f5 Viprion? No? Well stay with me anyway – this is a quick one, and you never know when it will be helpful! Once upon a time, much of the … Continue reading →

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Wireshark is almost a Native Species on OSX

I must have been living under a deep sea rock or something because I have been running Wireshark for a while now on my Mac and since Mountain Lion was released, it has been necessary to install XQuartz so that … Continue reading →

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Cloudflare – An Awesome IPv6 Move – Thank you!

Recently Cloudflare made a pretty cool move, and made their IPv6 services available to all of their customers – even the free ones, like me! So first things first, huge kudos to Cloudflare for offering this up; it has offered … Continue reading →

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Secret Sunday – Jeff Fry

Today’s Secret Sunday is a shout out to the excellent Jeff Fry, aka @FryGuy_PA on Twitter. Jeff blogs at FryGuy.net where among other things he has previously broken the news on upcoming Cisco products a couple of times by close … Continue reading →

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Lync – This Still Blows My Mind

This stuff still totally blows my mind. I was at a restaurant for lunch recently with some colleagues. Service was slow, and as a result I was going to be late back to the office, and I had to join a … Continue reading →

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Junos Apply-Path – A Step Closer To Heaven

I have a list of things I mean to blog about, and the Junos Apply-Path feature has been on there for way too long without being actions. As I said when I kicked off the “30 Blogs in 30 Days” … Continue reading →

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Ruckus Wireless User? Here’s your OS X Yosemite Warning.

A quick post today. As you may recall, I run two Ruckus Wireless APs at home – a Zoneflex 7982 AP and a Zoneflex 7363 AP managed by a Zone Director 1106. The ZF7982 and ZD1106 were provided courtesy of Ruckus … Continue reading →

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f5 Health Monitors – More Surprises

Not content with digging into the A10 health monitors recently, I thought I should do the same for f5 LTM which has some slightly different setting and, it turns out, works really quite differently. I hate to say it again, … Continue reading →

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Juniper’s Day One: Junos Cup 2014 Book

Some fun today. Juniper recently ran a competition they called the Junos Cup 2014. It was modeled after a world cup of sorts, with each challenge involving a country in the name, four Tournament and then – because in the … Continue reading →

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ISC DHCP WLTM NTP. Really.

I’ve mentioned before I think that on my home network, DHCP service is provided by a pair of ubuntu servers running ISC DHCP servers in a redundant configuration. Part of the reason for this is pure nerdiness, and the rest … Continue reading →

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