* * * * *
                                        
                          All I want to do is log in …
                                        
Gah! Computer security is annoying! 

Due to some recent attacks [1], we've implemented some ad-hoc changes to
network security until we can get something better into place. Right now,
we're filtering all ssh [2] traffic on our routers, as well as on some
individual servers, in addition to single packet authentication [3] on one of
our servers. 

And I don't know what's more annoying—the script kiddies or our ad-hoc
security measures. 

I wasted today just trying to get this “single packet authentication” thingy
working (since I need to work on “Project: Leaflet [4]” and it would make my
life a whole lot easier if I could log in directly) only to have it fail. 

Miserably. (How miserably? I turned off the filtering on the router, the
firewall on the physical server, the actual single packet authentication
daemon, allowed anyone to log in via ssh, and I still wasn't getting through.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!) 

[1] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2009/02/13.1
[2] http://www.openssh.org/
[3] http://cipherdyne.org/fwknop/
[4] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2008/08/07.1

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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