schrödinger's dog

socks

Every time I turn around it seems that there are new wonderful things that ssh can do. I just discovered the -D flag. This allows you to have all your HTTP traffic routed securely via SOCKS, with no additional configuration. All you need is an ssh server that you have access to.

Say you're sitting in a non-national-chain coffee shop, surfing the web. Ordinarily all your web traffic is visible to anyone sniffing the coffee shop network. If you have access to an ssh server, simply enter the following on your laptop:
ssh -N -D8080 your_ssh_server_address
then set up your web browser to use localhost:8080 as your proxy. Now all your web traffic is routed securely to your ssh server. It then is routed insecurely to the final web site, but hopefully this is via a reasonably secure wired network.

Jim on 02.26.07 @ 10:22 AM ET [link]

Medieval Help Desk

Update: The original YouTube video was taken down, so I have updated the link with another one. This new link has even better subtitles.

Hilarious YouTube video of a Medieval help desk. A Monk's book works differently from his beloved scrolls. With English subtitles.
Jim on 02.18.07 @ 02:28 PM ET [link]

regex

I ran across this nice article on regular expression implementations: "Regular Expression Matching Can Be Simple And Fast". It clarifies the difference between the NFA and DFA approaches that has somehow eluded me before. I guess I didn't have the proper grounding in my computer science classes.

It also sheds new light on the dumbed-down regex implementation discussions in the otherwise fine book Mastering Regular Expressions.
Jim on 02.17.07 @ 12:05 PM ET [link]