Headphones not muting the speakers with a Gigabyte motherboard
It had been months since I had an weired issue with the embedded audio controller of my Gigabyte motherboard. Plugin the headphones on the front panel of my box didn’t mute the output to the speakers, which nullified the purpose of having headphones. I long thought that it was some hardware issue that I would…
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Network virtualization and the DMZ paradigm
The virtualization buzz I have recently worked on network virtualization. Many people, especially the network guys, have been recently excited with the VMware Vswitch or Cisco Nexus stuff. It is something that I understand because virtualization is cool. It brings many convenient features that truly make the life easier. But what about the security? Convenience…
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How do you manage your passwords?
We all know that passwords sucks, that they are the nightmare of all administrators and security guys. So many hacks have been eased because the victims reused the same password everywhere : email account, forum, bank, critical systems… Sadly, so far, there is even not the beginning of a replacement solution. Passwords will be there…
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Disk wiping : Myth broken
There are many urban legends in the industry. I did believe in one of them : “wiping a disk to properly prevent data restore requires random writes and several passes”. At least until I found this very instructive article, “Disk Wiping – One pass is enough“. Don’t miss the second part which clarifies some points…
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Cloud in the security sky or should I see a psychologist?
The “cloud” is a buzz word that has been around for months. The marketing guys are pushing it so hard that every IT guy will hear of that at work soon or later. Taking a decision whether to use it or not requires some deep knowledge, because if its pros are clear – you can…
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