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Bruce Schneier on Certificate Authorities

“The CA system is broken, but it works because broken systems tend to be better for society, which needs fluidity in the face of complicated social constructs,” Schneier said. “Systems that are broken but work are very common in the real world: Front door locks are surprisingly pickable. Think of faxed signatures, for example. It’s […]

December 31, 2008

2008 roundup

The blog is reaching the end of its third year online.  I wrote my 2007 roundup at about this time last year and now its time to take a look at what happened in 2008. Visitor Growth In 2007 I was relying on Awstats provided by my web host for visitor statistics.  Those stats showed […]

December 30, 2008

Spam quarantine features in Exchange Server 2007

With the right configuration and ongoing tuning the built in Exchange Server 2007 anti-spam features can be effective in many environments.  One thing I’m not a fan of though is the quarantine feature.  You can read more about it in my latest post to AllSpammedUp.com here. Link: Managing spam quarantine for Exchange Server 2007

December 27, 2008

How to save yourself from getting fired

I’ve been working on a post about the current economic client and how best to handle it as an IT professional.  I’ve scrapped and re-drafted so many times and it just hasn’t come together in any coherent and useful manner. Today I stumbled across this post on Mashable from a couple of weeks ago and […]

December 24, 2008

What it takes to be an MVP

J. Peter Bruzzese from Exclusively Exchange writes about what he has discovered about Microsoft MVPs. Bharat explained that all of the things I’m doing are for personal gain. The core spirit of the MVP program is that of sharing freely, giving back to the community, and helping others without gain.

December 11, 2008

NASA upgrades to Exchange Server 2007

NASA is kicking off a four month project to migrate their messaging systems to Exchange Server 2007. NASA’s Operational Messaging and Directory (NOMAD), an Agency-wide messaging and collaboration system, provides Email, Calendaring, Webmail (Outlook Web Access – OWA), Instant Messaging (IM), BlackBerry, Treo and Windows Mobile Devices for approximately 50,000 users across the Agency. Starting […]

December 11, 2008

Exchange Server 2007 and Directory Harvesting Attacks

Over at AllSpammedUp.com I’ve written an article about protecting Exchange Server 2007 from Directory Harvesting Attacks. In many Exchange Server 2007 environments incoming email is received directly by an internet-facing Hub Transport server. By default the transport server will use recipient lookups to notify the connecting host whether an email address is valid or not. […]

December 10, 2008

Well-designed security systems fail gracefully, SonicWALL does not

To quote Bruce Schneier, “well-designed security systems fail gracefully”.  This means for example when the ISA firewall service fails it closes off network connectivity entirely (ie retains security) instead of opening your entire network up (ie decreases security). This week SonicWALL’s license servers suffered a glitch rendering thousands of customer units useless and leaving the […]

December 6, 2008

Which Exchange certification should you pursue?

I often get asked which is the better Exchange certification to pursue for someone who wants to work as an Exchange administrator or consultant.  The natural inclination is to the latest version, and in many cases this would be fine because learning the latest version of a Microsoft product teachs you many things about previous […]

December 5, 2008

Event ID 9554 and Backup Exec 11d backup failures for Exchange Server 2007 Mailbox Servers

You may encounter an issue with Backup Exec 11d performing backups of Exchange Server 2007 Mailbox Servers using Granular Restore Technology (GRT) when the backup job is targeted at tape media. The backup job fails with the following error: Backup- \SERVER.domain.localMicrosoft Information StoreFirst Storage Group V-79-57344-33928 – Access Denied. Cannot backup directory Mailbox Database and […]

December 2, 2008