Saving The World, One __________ At A Time

Microsoft's new MyLiveBotNet might just work

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:32:43 GMT

Breaking news: "Microsoft asking users to install Botnet to go after malicious hackers". I can't believe nobody tweeted it, put it on their Facebook status, shared it on Google Reader or Buzz or Wave, or texted it to me. It only came to me from Matt, in my dream this morning. I hope the Onion picks up the story, but hopefully not Slashdot, I don't think my server could handle that kind of load.

So the story is that Microsoft has recently released its first Botnet project codename "iBotNet", which it will give away to all users of any version of Windows, "including all those running pirated copies in China", Microsoft correspondent Phil said. The project will be officially release as Microsoft MyLiveBotNet 2010 as part of the patch Tuesday set of updates, but "users will have an opt-in" said Phil (now on the OneNote project at Microsoft), specifically, the next time they visit a search engine they will receive a pop-up asking "Are you feeling lucky enough to help save the world from botnets and malware? (with a big red "click here" button across the bottom)". Variations, for other search engines include "Bing me, save the world! Yo." and "Don't be an evil Yahoo! save the world from malware".

Microsoft intends to use their new botnet software as a jumping off point to find and get rid of other real malicious botnets. Their command and control will be secure and only allow specific users to be able to connect to it. All the details have not been fully released, but Microsoft is confident that "it should work. We'll be cleaning up the botnet problem as soon as people start installing our MyLiveBotNet software".

Security companies across the world got early access to the software and have tried it out. They found that, not only will specific Microsoft employees have access to the command and control, but there is a recently released open source module (the module can be found on Microsoft's Codeplex open source software hosting site) that will allow former twitter users, now using StatusNet, to post special updates to send commands to the botnet master's command and control. Marty, from Sourcefire commented that the licensing provided by Microsoft isn't open enough for his taste, and that he won't be installing it on ALL of his computers, maybe just his laptop, so he'll have something fun to do on his plane trips.

Others with early beta access include many in the federal government. President Obama stated "my computer runs a lot faster now!", just after he had smoked a celebratory cigarette after signing the health care bill, this afternoon. The NSA had also had early access to the software, but they wondered why Microsoft didn't just go through the Windows Firewall, "it still has a lots of holes" said correspondents Jeff and Kathy, who pulled out their MIB-style memory erasers just after making that comment.

Apple, aka Steve Jobs, said that Apple already has this technology in iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and iPad. "We're not going to stand for this blatant copying of our intellectual property" stated Jobs. Although it is installed in those Apple products, it has not been enabled yet since, Mac OS doesn't have the botnet and malware problem that the PC does, since "I'm a Mac" stated Wozniak. Apple for its part has filed suit against Citrix, for including the MyLiveBotNet software in their XenDesktop product. Stephen, our Citrix correspondent, told reporters that "this is good for the community" and that he's working with Simon and Ian to get this included, in binary form, in their open source Xen.org project.

VMware signed a deal this morning to get a special version of Windows with the botnet pre-installed and included as a virtual appliance, which will run on all versions of VMware's suite of products. Microsoft's only clause was that the appliance must include a self-destruct mechanism for the case when the MyLiveBotNet is ever uninstalled. Paul had Steve and Kyle working on the code overnight to get the release out there. The virtual appliance had to include the latest in TPM and trusting computing technology to get the self-destruct option to work properly, however. Just after completing the special virtual appliance, Steve and Kyle went back to work at their normal jobs at VMware, trying to keep their heads out of the Internet Cloud.

The biggest complaints about MyLiveBotNet, however, are coming from the European Union. An EU representative said that this is just another Microsoft stunt to stifle competition. EU officials have copy and pasted from the browser choice law suit document and are editing it to include botnets as well. "We want users, in Europe at least, to have a choice on what botnet to install". A noble effort, most agree.

IBM, for their part, has received numerous complaints about distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks coming from Microsoft and other security companies, we were told by IBM correspondent Mike. In response, Mark Shuttleworth, from Ubuntu, and Eli worked on a open source package that is already available in the Ubuntu repositories that works just as good as Microsoft's MyLiveBotNet software.

Finally, Google said they had thought of this idea a long time ago and that they decided that it would be just too evil, so they only use this type of technology internally on their Googleplex Labs beta software site. Sergey said that Google won't just sit idle and watch Microsoft impose its will on the world, they decided this morning and have begun filtering all Google searches from Microsoft and its employees. On what seems to a possibly related note, many Bing.com search queries are returning either no results at all, 42, or "Guess you weren't feeling lucky on that one?". Steve Ballmer says "we'll kill Google", right after they figure out a way to get their MyLiveBotNet software running on the Microsoft Coffee Table, which runs the fancy Microsoft Surface software.

So there you have it, you heard it here first, go ahead, you know you want to tweet it (or buzz it) :)

The license below allows anybody to take this and modify it for their own use. Change the story, change the headlines, changed the names, have fun. You don't even need to say where you got it from. Have fun and if you happen to be running Windows, be on the look out for the botnet software update.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Information Appliances and Disruptive Technologies

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:22:01 GMT

I just finished reading a book called "The Invisible Computer". It's a really good book. Published in 1998 and still very relevant. The author, Donald Norman, seems very smart and seems to be somewhat of a visionary. The basic argument of the book goes something like: the Personal Computer (PC) is a general purpose device and since it tries to be everything to everyone, it fails at being usable. Further, the solution is to replace the PC with information appliances, or single purpose devices, such as digital cameras, printers, document writers, etc. that do one job and do it well. The idea is that special-purpose devices can be made to be much more usable. For a good analogy think of the comparison of information appliances to kitchen appliances, each have an individual function and can be made to do that specific function well. Information appliances together would then make up all the functions of the PC and the computer itself would become invisible (behind the scenes). Computers already play this role in part, but getting the computer industry to make the last big leap to a world of information appliances is a challenging one. The book goes into many aspects of the problem, from the market and business side of things to the complexities of large programming projects and operating systems. All at a very accessible and well-explained level with lots of good stories that help to make the points even more clear. The book is well written and I would except that it would be very accessible to non-technologists.

Two key points that I would like to take away are the concepts of disruptive technologies and the process of technology maturity. Disruptive technologies are those technologies that change the game, disturb or break entire industries. Some well-known examples of such technologies include the automobile (displacing the horse and carriage industry), airplane travel (displacing train travel, for the most part at least). More subtle disruptive technologies include personal computers and hydraulic machines (such as the backhoe). The reason that these and other technologies are disruptive is that the current marketplace didn't see them as a threat. Often the disruptive technologies put the existing market leaders out of business before even the big companies that are selling the current technology even have time to realize or do anything about it.

Information appliances are becoming a disruptive technology and the reason lies in the second concept (technology maturity). When new technologies come out they are expensive and the only people who buy them are the technologists, or those that have a very specific niche use, those that are willing to pay higher costs and deal with some difficulties in use for the gain that they get from the technology. As the technology matures though, more people can afford it and the companies gain a market of people who are looking for ease of use, the companies, generally, then need to focus more on usability and less on features. With the PC, and other similar computing technologies, technologist, and therefore features, have driven the industry for quite a while. The PC is finally maturing in a way that will eventually lead to an evolution to the next stage of maturity and to information appliances.

A Christmas Card

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:12:59 GMT

To all my family and friends (and anyone else that reads this),

Merry Christmas!

May God bless you in this season. I know that not everyone believes in God. I pray that God reveals Himself to those that don't.

For you all, I pray that Jesus comes into your life in a meaningful way this year. That you may understand for the first time, or understand more deeply, the meaning of Christmas, the birth of God's one and only Son.

It was an incredible year for me. I married a true blessing, the most wonderful woman in my life, Patty. We were married on Valentine's day of this year. We spent our honeymoon in Martha's Vineyard (an island off the coast of Massachusetts). I am blessed each day that I get to spend with my wife. God is working in our lives, drawing us closer to Him and to each other. We have been through so much together. There were other weddings that we went to this year and more to come. We have been attending a weekly Monday night Bible study (with a recently added Facebook group). Through these experiences and through our daily lives we are learning so much. We have been strengthened in our never-ending pursuit of balancing spirit, mind, and body.

We took and were in a lot of pictures this year:
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/WeddingAlbum
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/Honeymoon
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/PostWedding
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/FishingTrip
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/Canoeing
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/Bubblemania
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/Ogdensburg
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/FishingTrip
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/PhillyNY
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/DeannaSWedding
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deshantm/sets/72157622050335244/ <-- Deanna's Wedding
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deshantm/sets/72157622510469240/ <-- Sugar Island
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deshantm/sets/72157622929303002/ <-- Ampersand Mountain
More still to come, Picasaweb is running low on space and Flickr has an monthly upload limit that we somehow always seem to hit :)

I even wrote a few blogs:
On the wedding
On looking back at high school after 10 years
On changing hearts vs. changing minds
On being nice
On Google Chrome OS
And also on other things and saved lots of links on my blog.

I am also trying to write more, including on my dissertation, and in a prayer journal. If you have any prayer requests, let me know.

Have a wonderful Christmas season and a Happy New Year!

With lots of love,
Todd

Why I am excited about Google Chrome OS and the Chromium OS project

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:24:25 GMT

In case you hadn't heard. Google released the source code for an operating system they are developing. The source code they released is for Chromium OS, an open source operating system based on various open source projects (such as Linux, Ubuntu, Chromium (the browser), and quite a few others). There is a distinction between Google Chrome OS and Chromium OS. Google Chrome OS is specifically will be officially Google branded and will have to meet various constraints decided by Google. Chromium OS is the open source project that Google will base its Google Chrome OS directly on. For now, Google Chrome OS is specifically targeting netbooks (small laptops) and Google is working with various partners to make official netbook devices available on the market in about a year.

So, why is this all so exciting? Lots of reasons.

Google is pushing open source and open standards, allowing more people to get involved and allowing other projects (such as browsers, messaging programs, and HTML5 applications) to be compatible. Google is also pushing cutting-edge web technologies to the mainstream. They are innovating on what computers can and should do today. Operating systems environments were originally developed when the Internet was not as pervasive as it is today. The usage model of most people has changed dramatically. Current browser and OS models are out-dated and lead to slower, less secure, and less user-friendly environments than are possible given the technology that is available.

Another really big reason this is exciting is that Google has really great brand recognition and has a legitimate chance of taking significant market share from Microsoft in the netbook space. Netbooks are just the start. Actually, smartphones (cell phones that have more advanced/rich functionality such as Internet access - Email, Facebook, Twitter etc.) were the actually start. Google released an open source mobile platform called Android (also based on Linux), which is running on various smartphones (for examples see: http://www.androphones.com/). Google taking market share is really exciting because they push open source and open standards. Having Linux-based devices available is a good thing. Sean Dague explains this general concept well in his Google Chrome OS post.

One reason for me, more personally, to be excited is being able to use Chromium OS as a very good browser virtual machine appliance. My research involves creating a more secure desktop experience for average users. It makes use of virtual machine technology (the ability to run more than one operating system simultaneously on the same computer). Chromium OS is just one great example of something that could run on our system in a locked down environment. The great thing about Chromium OS is that it is designed from the ground up to be fast and secure. They take a lot of security into account by default. We would just need to translate their rules to our system.

I've read up on Chromium OS quite a bit (the design documents etc.) and plan to use any of my (currently very limited) spare time to try to contribute to that project. It has some interesting parallels to my research.

If you have questions or comments about Chromium OS, feel free to bring them up here. I may likely need to refer you too the Chromium OS discussion group, but adding discussion specifically related to virtualization as comments to this post is greatly appreciated. For some of my thoughts see this discussion thread on a topic related to virtualization:

Being Nice is Contagious

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:51:13 GMT

What really changes? What stays the same?

Consider the statement "We live in interesting times". Is that true? But was that also true 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 100 years ago? 1000 years ago? you get the point. Do we really face harder challenges today than they faced 100 years ago? The challenges are different, but there are also so many commonalities. Let's consider first some of those commonalities that I think are too often ignored. We are so quick to notice the differences (in technology, etc.), but I think we don't put enough thought into the things that stay the same. First, and one of the most important things that are very common throughout history is people. People haven't really changed all that much. There has always been people that have tried to be helpful and people that have tried to hurt. Human nature is there, we all have strengths and weaknesses, and so it has been with the people that have gone before us. People need to interact with others; that hasn't changed. The types of interactions may change, but people still need to communicate with others in one way or another (If only simply to get food or other goods at the store).

We can make a difference in the world. Individually we make choices everyday that affect others, in positive or negative ways. If you keep an eye out, you will notice so many friendly people in the world. People that help others, that are polite to one another, that hold doors or simply caution others of possible dangers. Even if you don't keep an eye out, you will probably see people that don't seem so friendly, those that are angry with things, frustrated, in a rush, busy, and just not happy with the situation that they are in. They may just be having a bad day and are not reacting well to it. They may in general feel bad about there circumstances. You know what I mean. We are all like these people from time to time. Hopefully not all the time though. Both of these types of people affect the world.

Our surroundings change, technology advances, but people are not that much different than people thousands of years ago. We still all have a choice each day to positively or negatively affect those that we come in contact with. Both or contagious. Contagious like the cold or the flu :) We can pass friendliness to others and they may not catch it, but a lot of people will. And that alone can make the world a better place to live in.

These are my thoughts, but I draw inspiration from others that I come in contact with, things I read, and simply by living. I don't remember everything or everyone, but that doesn't mean that those things or person's didn't have an effect on me. Some things that come to mind related to this specific topic. Nathaniel LaGarry, who goes to my church, once gave a nice speech on society and specifically mentioned the concept of how we think we live in the hardest times, etc. and how that probably isn't necessarily true. I have read the blog of Bruce Schneier, a respected security professional, and I really think he makes some good points on people's perception of terrorism. For a good example of his opinions take a look at this article titled Beyond Security Theater. The basic idea is that terrorism has been very much made into movie plots and the actually reality of terrorism is much harder to accomplish than is perceived. And that simply taking away freedoms and acting different is not helpful compared to using old fashion investigation, emergency response, etc. My explanation is a very oversimplified, but hopefully enough to get you to want to read more. Finally, another story from the Bible comes to mind. The story of the first people born. God created Adam and Eve, but they had kids. Their first kid was Cain and there second kid was Able. Cain killed Able. The first man born was a murderer. Adam and Eve probably tried to be the best parents they could be. They (literally) talked to God. Cain and Able talked to God too. Able made an offering that was pleasing to God, but Cain's offering was not pleasing to God. Cain got upset and although he talked with Able, he ended up killing him. I think the reason that I am reminded of this story is that people are just people, doing the best they can with what they have. We all make mistakes and get angry with others. How we react to things really matters. Obviously we can see that Cain reacted very badly, but we can affect others just as much, both negatively and positively, simply with our words and our actions. I had a math teacher in high school that said "10% of life is what happens to you and 90% is how you react". There is a lot of truth in that. There's a song by John Lennon that has the words "Life is what happens to you when are busy making other plans".

Make the most of life. When life gives you lemons make lemonade. Being nice is contagious :)

Free as in salvation

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:59:27 GMT

In the software world the word free is confusing. Free software doesn't mean the same thing to everybody. Let me give you an example to help you understand what I mean. There are lots of programs that are freely downloadable from the Internet with no strings attached. Now many of you may read that and consider those programs to be free software. And in one sense (in terms of cost) you would be correct. However, there is another definition of free software that doesn't count all of these programs, but only counts software that is not only free to download, but also free to modify. The free software foundation uses the word free to refer to freedom and not to cost. They believe that software should be distributable in such a way that the source code that makes the program work is also available for those that are able to make changes to it and then redistribute those changes. Making the source code available has others benefits. For example, if more people are able to see how something works, they might be able to find ways for it to work better or find flaws or security vulnerabilities etc. Some of the best examples of free (as in freedom) software are Mozilla's Firefox web browser and the Linux operating system, which was created by Linus Tovalds. There are countless other fee software projects that have had very good success as well.

Quite some time ago I came up with another interesting personal analogy. Free software has some interesting analogies to Christianity. I wondered if other people had had the same thought, so I searched on Google and one of the things I found was a site called Linux for Christians with a motto "Free as in salvation" referencing the bible verse Ephesians 2:8-9, which says "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast." I thought it was really neat that someone had seen the same the analogy that I had. Just recently I had a conversation with Pat about technology and Christianity and I promised to write up an blog post on this topic in hopes of being included on his new website. We both agree that there is a lot of possibilities when combining technology and Christianity. For instance, we have been discussing the concept of cloud Christianity, which could be understood simply as using the cloud to spread Christianity.

In conclusion, it is fun to apply different parts of your life together in order to find interesting analogies and you never know what you will come up with. You may also be surprised that others have had the same thought. In Ecclesiastes 1:9, it says "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." I think it is important not to take such statements out of context however. The author of Ecclesiastes is king Solomon (I wrote about this king before), who was given much wisdom from God and in this book he is trying to share some of those ideas. I don't think it should be read that you can't think of new ideas, but more in the sense that God already knows everything and we can't think up something new that he doesn't already know about. New to us, sure. That is my understanding anyway. Feel free to give your thoughts on it.

Changing Hearts vs. Changing Minds

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:22:17 GMT

I wonder if too much emphasis is placed on the idea of changing people to think just like we do or to get people to stop doing the things that they do or the way that they do them. Trying to change people in this way is probably not a good idea. Instead, I think we should focus on changing hearts. How? Through our actions. For example, by loving, or caring, or listening. I don't think that everyone should have to agree on everything and things shouldn't be forced on people. Maybe people forget about the importance of the freedoms that we have, especially here in the United States. Having the freedom of speech, freedom of religion (or lack of religion, if we so choose) should be protected. Even if you agree with some policy of the government, doesn't mean that it needs to be forced on others.

Let's consider a specific example. Should "In God We Trust" be printed on all of our money? Does that really matter that much? If individually we trust in God shouldn't that simply show itself in our actions? Conversely, if we don't trust in God that could also show. Does it send a false message to both the world and also to (potential/hypothetical) future generations that might dig up the remains of our civilization and find it on our money? I think it is much more important to live a God-trusting life than to try to force others to even when they choose not to. Arguing close-mindedly against ever removing the phrase from our money probably hurts theism and Christianity more that it helps. Stopping to understand, stopping to think critically, and stopping to be open-minded is bad practice.

The concept of changing hearts doesn't simply have to apply to politics or religion or the like. Changing hearts can also apply to our lives in a general sense, regardless of our goals, mission, vision, or causes. If we simply argue based on ideals and don't actually live up to them or have a character that supports the types of things we support, then we won't be likely to change hearts or minds. People need to see something different before they can ever think about changing their mind on something. Even if they never change their mind on something, they may be able to have a change of heart toward specific situations. Persistence is one key to success. Let's take an example from the Bible. In Luke 18, verses 1 through 8, we find the parable of persistent widow. It reads:

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' " And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

So, even though the judge didn't fear God or care about men, he appeased the women so that she would stop bothering him. Being persistence in our love or actions can make a much bigger impact than simply stating a case for something (and then not even bothering to live it out).

Wedding Photo Album

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:53:03 GMT

The wedding photos are online:
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/WeddingAlbum

Wedding Album

I commented on most of the photos.

For my earlier reaction to the wedding see:
http://deshantm.livejournal.com/36750.html

and in case you missed them, the honeymoon pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/deshantm/Honeymoon

Honeymoon

Prime numbers and age correlation

Tue, 19 May 2009 04:37:09 GMT

So, I can't find any other people claiming this, so I thought I would throw it out there (for fun and for discussion).

It seems that prime numbers very much correlate with ages of prime. Prime ages, for different things of course.

Some examples:

2 is a prime age (anybody that has met most 2-year olds knows why this is true)
3 is still prime age to be a little kid
5 is a prime age to start school
7 is a prime age, 7 is a great time to be in second grade, 7 is also a lucky number and good second grade teachers are most common.
11 is prime time to get good at math and memorize multiplication tables.
13 is a prime age to become a teenager.
[Notice nothing prime between 13 and 17]
17 is prime age to be in high school, hanging out.
19 is a prime age to play sports (athletic prime), be in college, and all that goes with that.
23 is a prime age to go to grad school or finish college and get a job.
[Notice again nothing prime between 23 and 29]
29 is a prime age to be married.

I'll stop here for now. I am not yet 29 even, but my wife is.

Notice that interestingly enough 16, 18 and 21 are not prime, I bet a lot of people would consider these key/prime ages...

Ok, so as far as I know (I couldn't find anything with a google.com or searchme.com search), you heard it here first - prime numbers seem to very much correlate with prime ages. Your mileage may vary of course and as always, feel free to comment, disagree, or give your personal experiences.

Brainstorming: Virtualization and Security in the Cloud

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:59:07 GMT

Not being on the computer and doing brain dumps can be very useful and productive. I have started a notebook for ideas and work in progress. I was thinking about how the cloud fits into my research area (Virtualizaiton+Security), you might say I had my head in the clouds, but thinking about hot topics, even if they are just buzzwords and may or may not turn into anything, can be very fun and insightful.

Before I get started, let me first give a rough definition of "the Cloud", some people like to call it software as a service (SaaS), others simply refer to anything that is on the web/Internet (i.e. the Internet Cloud), and some think of it as a cluster. All can be true, the cloud to me is simply a place where things can exist, run, happen, and it is not managed/maintained by me.

So, back to my question, How do virtualization and and security fit into the cloud?

One of the first things that comes to mind is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) also called Desktop Virtualization. I don't really care for the later term, but that seems to be what we are stuck with. VDI seems to simply be thin clients that have a virtualization server at the back end (Citrix XenDesktop, VMware View, SUN VDI etc.).

Some of the major companies that come to mind are Microsoft, VMware, Cisco and the like that seem to be the traditional proprietary companies that want to at least talk open standards and open source so that they don't lose their savvy customers. On the other hand, the open source and open standards-based players are likely to be IBM, RedHat, Xen, KVM. There are also so other companies, both startups and specialty companies and even smaller companies like Sun, Oracle, Vyatta, etc. that could potentially play a role (being bought or merging with other companies or the like).

Other interesting things that I was thinking about include: CloudAV (a paper I haven't read yet), Amazon EC2/S3, etc., Dell, HP, Acadmics/Research, startups like Neocleus. Bios players like Phoenix, slashtop, Intel+Citrix offerings.

Then I thought to myself, who else should be in this space?

How come Google doesn't come to mind?

How does social networking facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, hulu, etc. fit in?

There does seem to be a blurring of desktop and web, but how far can it and will it go and how does that fit back into Virtualization+Security?

What about Yahoo!? Could they play a role?

I am also wondering how the server and desktop can play together, can they be more blurred together or should they try to remain distinct? Are we moving back to the concept of a single big server that serves many people (think big mainframes)? Privacy concerns?

How do browsers such as Chrome, Mozilla, IE, Safari, Opera play a role? Similarly what other research browsers exist, how do things like Google gears, Mozilla Weave and the like play in? Can JavaScript on the desktop (like Sean had mentioned something about before) really take off?

What does the market want/need? I guess that depends on the market are we talking about end users that just check email and surf the internet or enginners, office workers, education/academics, gamers, technology hackers and enthusiasts, graphic designers, art, video etc.?

Finally, I'd like to leave you with a word cloud that I built on Wordle with the theme of "The Culture of the World will Also Play a Role":

Will Wordle exist long enough into the cloud era for this to still be here? :)

10 Year High School Reunion

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:08:03 GMT

It is hard to believe that it has already been 10 years since I graduated high school. They have a survey that they want me to fill out for it, so I will post it here on my blog for those that are interested.

Name: Todd Deshane

Address: Potsdam

Email Address: deshantm@gmail.com

Occupation: Student

Spouse or Significant other: Patty (wife)

Spouse or Significant other’s occupation: Student

Children: Not yet

Hobbies: My hobbies have changed over the years. I used to be into fishing and playing/watching sports a lot more. At some point I will get back into that more. Lately my leisure time fun is watching movies, traveling, spending time with my wife, and reading (I really like the classics, currently reading Moby Dick and the last book I read was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). I also like studying the bible and occasionally I will read other Christian books. Things that I would like to have more time to do include cooking (I cook some now, but hope that someday I will have more time to devote to it), playing the guitar (I've always wanted to learn), and trying and learning other new things (I have a amateur radio license, but haven't made use of it yet).

College(s) attended: Clarkson University - Bachelors in Software Engineering, Masters in Computer Science, and I am now working on a PhD in Engineering Science (major area: Computer Science.) And yes that is all at Clarkson, I just can't leave I guess ;)

Proudest accomplishment since high school: Other than getting married, I would have to say being a co-author on a book called "Running Xen: A Hands-on Guide to the Art of Virtualization" (http://runningxen.com)

On a Friday night, you could probably find me: That's an easy one. I spend a lot of my time working on my research at Clarkson. Friday's are one of the best times to get things done since no one is around. That's not to say that I don't have fun or go out to a dinner and/or the movies or relax on different days of the week.

The thing about me that has changed the most since high school: I was always so quiet, more unsure of everything, naive you might say, but now I have a better sense of what I like and, although I still am quiet to some extent, I am at least more outgoing and comfortable around friends and colleagues.

Places I’ve lived since high school: The Potsdam area: Clarkson, then rented from two other places in the Potsdam area, the second of which I am still at.

Words I like to live by: Take time for things that are important. Love more, complain less. Trust God. Work on things that you are passionate about. Make a positive difference when you can. Do things that count. Change the world.

Three words that describe me: Lucky, Easy-going, Loved.

Most interesting things I’ve done since high school: Virgina Beach vacation, Winning a trip to San Francisco and Linux World, London for a friends wedding, Presented research at technical conference and developer summit, Trips to Boston and New York City, Trip to Atlanta, Getting Married, Honeymoon at Martha's Vineyard.

My favorite high-school memories: Playing sports, well, being on sports teams and playing when we were up by a lot or down by a lot ;), Doing well in classes without studying much and getting awards for them. Working at the school store, Field trips, fun classes (substitute teachers or laid back teachers), and hanging out or playing sports, etc. with people.

I am happiest when I’m: Relaxing with my wife or helping people or working on really interesting projects.

Most interesting place I’ve been since high school: I would have to say San Francisco (Atlanta, NYC, and London all close second)

Where do you see yourself in ten year’s: With my wife (and hopefully kids) living in a small town in New York state. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the local area (Potsdam or the like) or somewhere like Ithaca, NY.

Feel free to include any other information about yourself here:
If you want to find out more details about me, take a look at my website: http://todddeshane.net

Honeymoon pics

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:54:47 GMT

Honeymoon

At Last

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:08:43 GMT

Eight and a half years after we first met it is now official that Patty and I are married (Facebook says so! ;))

Having a wedding is a really neat experience (a lot of work, yes, but very much worth it). Probably the neatest part for me (as the groom), that you wouldn't necessarily think of being the neatest part, is looking out before the ceremony and seeing all the guests and thinking: "hey it's so and so, Oh! and there is so and so, and doing this a few times and realizing, oh yeah, it is my wedding and I know all these people since they are all friends and family :)". It's funny how during the ceremony how I forgot what was going to happen next, but I guess that made it that much more exciting (what's going to happen next?).

Everyone told us that it would all go really fast and to enjoy it. It did go fast and I think we both really enjoyed it a lot.

I can't help but think that me getting married is likely to set a bit of a trend. One of my sisters is getting married in August. Patty's youngest sister is getting married this summer too. I wonder who else will be next?

Just a bit about the honeymoon at Martha's Vineyard... It was a great time of year to visit there, very quiet and peaceful. Martha's vineyard is mostly dry (most places don't sell alcohol), only recently did a couple of the towns start allowing alcohol to be sold. There is only one winery on the Vineyard. Another (more known) fact about Martha's vineyard is that there are quite a few famous people that have places on the island. Some of the ones we went by during our tour include: Meg Ryan (has her own small island off of the island), Bob Vila, Spike Lee, The Kennedy's (most people know about them), etc.. Celebrities like it there since the locals don't bother them. The paparazzi isn't welcome there either, so celebrities can just chill, walk around town and not be bothered.

Finally, I leave you with the speech I gave during the reception, just before the cake cutting.

I am truly blessed
with a beautiful wife, a loving, supportive family and great friends.
I ask myself what did I do to deserve all this?
And then I realize, again, as if for the first time, the meaning of grace.
Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.
God showed this grace when he sent his son to die for us.
I always say that I am lucky, and I would rather be lucky than good any day.
This is the most beautiful wedding that I have ever been in,
down to the very last detail.
But even it is not as beautiful as this amazing young lady, my wife,
I love you Patty, forever.

Inspired to write...

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 01:17:58 GMT

I really think that a blog post is way over due. I have been inspired by the posts of Eli and also agree to stick to my committment of reading and rating technical papers as much as possible.

I have a few blogs posts queued up that I don't have all of the information in front of me to write and/or don't have the current energy to grab it.

I did want to point out that there was a really nice article that Eli was a co-author of that discusses many of the issues involved with virtualization and high availabilty (HA). You can find it here: http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/474/loveland.pdf

I don't remember all of the details of the article, but I remember learning and thinking about some virtualization HA tricks in a different way. One thing that stands out in my mind about the idea that virtual machines on the same box can actually provide some HA, How? I don't fully remember. It is an article that I hope to re-visit at some point after the first rapid recovery system release is out, adding HA support to it should be one of the many next most logical steps.

Today was very productive and fun in terms of meeting with some people to finalizes plans for the wedding and also having some fun discussion with them and also (separately) talking with my grandparents.

Wedding Planning and Virtual Machine Benchmarking (Something for everybody?!)

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:40:22 GMT

So, things have been interesting and busy and fun to say the least. :)

In less than two months, I will be Mr. Todd Deshane, as in the married one ;)
See http://toddandpatty.googlepages.com/

Wedding planning is both stressful and fun. It is really hard as a guy to help out since we are (in general) not as good as the gals at the general area of wedding planning. Especially me, attention to details, and what looks good, and what should happen when, etc. has never really been my thing. So, in spite of that I have asked Patty to keep me involved so that I can help out. Looking up stuff, calling places, designing maps, driving her around, etc. are things I can do. And if it stresses her out less, than we are both happier. The biggest and most time consuming part of the planning process, at least so far, were the invitations, which we finished up on Sunday and sent out on Monday (6-8 weeks before the wedding as planned). It is a lot of work and a lot of details go into in and then people still have questions. Not everybody is happy about every detail, but it is our day and we designed it specifically how we wanted it. We just ask our friends and family to be there if they can and support us and be a part of our day, enjoy what we have prepared, and take it in for what it is worth.

Whilst doing the wedding planning on the side I am also continuing to take a long hard look at both Xen and KVM. Going back to the summer and a bit before I and others have been involved in benchmarking virtual machine systems and in particular there has been a heavy focus on Xen and KVM. Most recently and interestingly I have been testing out an alpha version of the pv_ops Dom0 kernel that is slowly making its way into the mainline Linux kernel. I have it booting on a VT and VT-d system and I am able to make an HVM guest. Support for networking is still missing, but otherwise it is quite functional. It is also very fast moving at this point and is not an easy target to test as changes require re-compiling a Linux kernel.

Looking forward for me, more of the same, but I am also looking forward to Christmas time with family.

As I don't blog nearly enough, you can keep track of what I up to on twitter http://twitter.com/deshantm

For the less technical saavy, twitter is micro blog system, which translated into english means small updates of things that could go in a blog like this, but are much shorter and expected more often. Twitter, and services like it are catching on quite nicely. For the medium tech saavy, think of it as Facebook status updates.

The other type of KVM (keyboard video mouse)

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:36:27 GMT

A really interesting use case of of PCI passthrough provided by the IOMMU support (found in Intel VT-d and the like) would be the ability to switch between running guest (for example one running Windows and one running Linux) and at the same time switch the local keyboard, video, and mouse. I had mentioned this idea to at least a couple people around the labs and they thought it should be possible too. The ability to allow the devices to be passed through is possible, but massaging the process to allow switching between guest probably needs some work. The other part of the equation is a software KVM. Just the other day, I found (and Matt also found) a project, that has actually been around for awhile, that might be able to help pull this off. The project is called Synergy. It is definitely worth taking a look into.

I'll try to get some more VT-d related info up here as I have time. Until then check out the VTdHowto on the Xen wiki.

Getting grub into a disk image (Xen/KVM for example)

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:29:23 GMT

Nice HOWTO that I found buried in a Debian mailing list.
http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Debian/2008-07/msg00539.html

It shows a nice trick to get GRUB installed on a disk image.

It is pasted below:
********************************************************************
Here is a complete
sequence of commands that
- creates a harddisk image
- install multiboot specification compliant kernel to it
- install grub to the harddisk image
--------------------------------------------------
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=disk.img bs=1024 count=1048576
sudo parted disk.img mklabel msdos
sudo parted disk.img mkpart primary ext2 0 954
sudo parted disk.img mkpart extended 954 1069
sudo parted disk.img mkpart logical linux-swap 954 1069
sudo parted disk.img set 1 boot on
sudo parted disk.img mkfs 1 ext2
sudo mount -o loop,offset=16384 -t ext2 disk.img mnt
sudo mkdir mnt/grub
sudo cp /boot/grub/stage1 mnt/grub
sudo cp /boot/grub/stage2 mnt/grub
sudo cp /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 mnt/grub
# The contents of the `menu.lst' file should be:
#
# timeout 0
# default 0
# title minimal-kernel
# kernel (hd0,0)/minimal-kernel
#
sudo cp menu.lst mnt/grub
# The contents of the `grub.input' file should be:
#
# device (hd0) disk.img
# root (hd0,0)
# setup (hd0)
# quit
#
sudo grub --device-map=/dev/null < grub.input
# We finally copy a multiboot specification compliant kernel
# to our disk image. You can get the one I have tried here:
#
# http://altair.sk/uploads/minimal-kernel
#
# Its homepage :)
#
# http://altair.sk/mediawiki/index.php/Minimal_Kernel
#
sudo cp minimal-kernel mnt
sudo umount mnt
# And you can boot it ...
qemu -m 100 -hda disk.img -boot c -no-kqemu
--------------------------------------------------

charteo.us web site down?

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:57:00 GMT

UPDATE 2: Found a possible replacement http://www.rankforest.com/ It requires signup, but has an RSS feed option. Also, it only lets you track one book for free, but I only have one book so that is OK. (my book ---> http://runningxen.com ;))

UPDATE: Seems to be up now.

Is the charteo.us website (the one that tracks amazon sales) down?

Or is it just rebooting

I couldn't find anybody else complaining about it, I guess they know how their book sales are doing already or they don't know about that particular website.

Quick Update

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:50:52 GMT

So, I want to give a quick update before I become non-existent for the next couple weeks while I run lots of benchmarks and do lots of analysis of the results of comparing KVM and Xen.

I have some really interesting paths for the rapid recovery project, which is now known as rapidrs, and has a project space on google code which will have code, scripts, examples, etc as I make them available. stay tuned.

For those of you that didn't get to talk to me recently, I had an amazing summer.

I spent a week at USENIX in Boston, which was co-located with Xen Summit, I got to do Xen training and present at Xen summit (all of this I blogged about previously).

I also spent a week in Pennsylvania at Vantage Technologies (vantage.com) doing consulting on Xen. Vantage is a really neat company that was a real pioneer in the field of online accessment, and has some really neat research in that and related fields. The particular piece of their infrastructure that I had the opportunity to work with was very well setup to be able to work on Xen and virtualization. It was a really good time, and it was really awesome to see people use the things that I have learned so much about in theory, seeing them work in practice, and work really well was such a good experience for me. I learned a lot from the Vantage guys as well and I think we all had a good time with it.

I also got to meet with a very interesting company called ATC-NY, located in Ithaca, NY. They are a research lab, focusing on information assurance, reliable computing, and information management, in short all the things I am interested in or have been interested in in the past. They do a lot of interesting security and virtualization work that I got to hear more about. They also let me give a short talk on my research, which was really neat too. They had good feedback and were very nice people to work with. I had a good time meeting and talking with them all.

I am now finally back in Potsdam at Clarkson and settled in to work on my next research paper, before really digging into my research en route to completing my PhD dissertation. I may also be making a trip to IBM next month to meet my IBM PhD Fellowship mentor, maybe give a talk, meet other IBM research peeps, hopefully see Eli and Sean, etc. No exact details on the trip yet though.

Hope you all are still enjoying our xen book

Firefox 3 World Record

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:20:06 GMT

I helped set the world record for the most software downloads in a day!

Exciting Times for the Xen Project

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:25:31 GMT

Despite some critics and interesting press, the Xen project is very much as strong, interesting, and as exciting as ever. (I keep saying how I am again as excited now about Xen as when I first heard about it). I first heard about Xen after the SOSP paper in 2003. I was soon after part of a team at Clarkson that repeated the performance numbers of the Xen team, which we published at the USENIX Annual Technical Conference in 2004. There has been quite a few interesting projects involving Xen at Clarkson, one of the most interesting, useful, and rewarding being a book that we wrote called "Running Xen: A Hands-on Guide to the Art of Virtualization."

Last week, I had the privilege to attend both USENIX and Xen Summit, which were co-located in Boston. At USENIX I gave a day long Xen Training session with Pat Wilbur. At Xen Summit I presented a "Quantitative Comparison of Xen and KVM". The highlights at Xen summit for me were related to the Xen Client Initiative. Samsung has ported Xen to the ARM processor (released the code open source) and showed a neat migration demo at Xen summit. Neocleus showed Windows running "natively" on top of Xen using some PCI passthrough tricks, they are in the process of releasing their code open source as well.

Some more technical highlights were PV-GRUB, progress on pv_ops, memory overcommit support in Xen, and lots of neat security and cloud computing work. You can read and watch for yourself at http://www.xen.org/xensummit/xensummit_summer_2008.html

Xen + Ubuntu 8.04 Howto

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:30:59 GMT

NOTE: This is a work in progress

For details that I might be missing a good resource is:
http://howtoforge.com/ubuntu-8.04-server-install-xen-from-ubuntu-repositories

Another useful link related to HVM and Solaris/OpenSolaris:
http://blogs.sun.com/breakdown/entry/ubuntu_8_04_and_xen

I will clean this up and do more testing when I have time

Any problems, questions leave a comment or post to the xen-users mailing list

Also, this is just proof of concept, in production I would recommend things like
LVM and network storage solutions like AoE, iSCSI, and DRDB.

Another NOTE: this is for amd64, there are also packages for i368

sudo apt-get remove network-manager
sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

sudo /etc/init.d/network restart
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-xen-server
wget http://downloads.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_8.04_server_xen_from_repositories/linux-headers-2.6.24-16-xen_2.6.24-16.30zng1_amd64.deb
wget http://downloads.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_8.04_server_xen_from_repositories/linux-image-2.6.24-16-xen_2.6.24-16.30zng1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.24-16-xen_2.6.24-16.30zng1_amd64.deb linux-image-2.6.24-16-xen_2.6.24-16.30zng1_amd64.deb

Restart into Xen

sudo xm list
Name ID Mem VCPUs State Time(s)
Domain-0 0 3888 2 r----- 57.7

sudo mkdir -p /xen/images
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/xen/images/para.partition bs=1M seek=10240 count=1
ls -lh /xen/images/
sudo mkfs.ext3 -F /xen/images/para.partition
sudo mkdir /mnt/para
sudo mount -o loop /xen/images/para.partition /mnt/para
sudo debootstrap hardy /mnt/para
sudo cp -a /lib/modules/`uname -r` /mnt/para/lib/modules/
echo para | sudo tee /mnt/para/etc/hostname

fix /etc/hosts, /etc/fstab, /etc/network/interfaces etc.

sudo umount /mnt/para
sudo gedit /etc/xen/para

kernel="/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-xen"
ramdisk="/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-xen"
disk=['tap:aio:/xen/images/para.partition,xvda1,w']
memory=512
vif=['']
root="/dev/xvda1"
extra='xencons=tty'

sudo xm create -c para

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/xen/images/hvm.disk bs=1M seek=10240 count=1
sudo gedit /etc/xen/hvm

kernel="/usr/lib64/xen/boot/hvmloader"
builder="hvm"
device_model = "/usr/lib64/xen/bin/qemu-dm"
disk=['tap:aio:/xen/images/hvm.disk,hda,w','phy:/dev/<cdrom device>,hdc:cdrom,r']
#disk=['tap:aio:/xen/images/hvm.disk,hda,w','phy:/dev/loop0,hdc:cdrom,r']
sdl=1
boot="dc"
memory=512
vif=['type=ioemu,bridge=eth0']

Note that it if you want to use an ISO, just run the command:
sudo losetup `sudo losetup -f` The_ISO_file.iso

sudo xm create hvm

after the hvm install, you can do:

kernel="/usr/lib64/xen/boot/hvmloader"
builder="hvm"
device_model = "/usr/lib64/xen/bin/qemu-dm"
#disk=['tap:aio:/xen/images/hvm.disk,hda,w','phy:/dev/dvdrw1,hdc:cdrom,r']
#disk=['tap:aio:/xen/images/hvm.disk,hda,w','phy:/dev/loop0,hdc:cdrom,r']
disk=['phy:/xen/images/hvm.disk,hda,w']
sdl=1
boot="dc"
memory=512
vif=['type=ioemu,bridge=eth0']
#stdvga=1

NOTES:
UPDATE 1: add sudo in front of `losetup -f` so not it reads `sudo losetup -f`
UPDATE 2: change phy: to tap:aio: in the cases referring to image files (in the HVM config file examples)
UPDATE 3: added note at the top to state specific to amd64, but that i386 packages are available.
UPDATE 4: add another link towards the beginning related to HVM and Solaris/OpenSolaris

Running Xen: a Hands-On guide to the Art of Virtualization

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:25:49 GMT

Book Review: Running Xen is an easy read. Easy in that it can actually be read cover to cover without becoming tired of mundane drivel. However it is not a glossy overview of Xen with its 500 plus pages covering everything from using prebuilt images that can be downloaded from jailtime.org, rpath, virtualappliances.net as well as other resources.

read more | digg story

Focus on the positive

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:19:40 GMT

It's easy to find problems with this world, easy to find faults with people, places, and things. I think instead we should spend more time focusing on the positive. You don't have too look far to find your own example of this...

I have a lot to be thankful for and I'll just highlight a few things of these, since if they are not emphasized, they should be.

God sent his son to die for my sins so that I could have eternal life. He loved me so much that he was willing to sacrifice his only son for me.

Patty and I found each other and we love each other, I am very grateful for her.

God gave me a lot of talent and interest in learning, especially in the area of technology and computing.

Finally, I'll close with some links to what has been keeping me busy lately:

my website

running xen

Xen training session at USENIX

P.S.

One of the chapters from the Xen book was posted online for free by Prentice Hall, you can find it here: http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1187966

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 3-18-2008

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:23:24 GMT

HOWTO undelete removed files and directories on an ext3 file system

(tags: linux ext3 recovery undelete filesystem howto sysadmin opensource)

A UserÃ¢â„¢s Guide to Fabulous Friendships | Zen Habits

(tags: friends friendship)

*THE* classic Unix horror story | WSU Linux Users Group

(tags: unix recovery history story)