The Obama Administration issued another IPv6 directive

The Obama Administration has issued a directive requiring all US government agencies to upgrade their public-facing Web sites and services by 30 September, 2012 to operate on IPv6. Native IPv6 must be used as opposed to transition mechanisms.

Intutively, I have to ask myself what is the point of issuing such directive which is the second one in 5 years ? Back in 2005, the Bush
Administration established a deadline of June 2008 for all federal agencies to demonstrate IPv6 connectivity over their backbone networks. It seems clear to me that there is no penalty imposed on Federal agencies if they do not comply.

Would there be a third directive after the tenure of the Obama
Administration ? Only God knows !

HKCERT web outage

In the current issue of HKCERT newsletter, HKCERT stated the incident of its web outage happened on 4 August.

The web server and the firewall were working normally.  However, the firewall could not connect to the Trust Source to verify incoming IP addresses and as a result, all visiting IP addresses were untrustworthy.  Thus, the firewall denied all access to the web server.

I applaud the gust of HKCERT in releasing the sensitive information and let all readers learn from the incident.  If the same happens in bank or any other public organizations, I doubt whether such details can be made known to the public.

DNSSEC Visualization

Some friends asked me the URL of the website to visualize DNSSEC chain of trust in a graphical manner. The URL is at http://dnsviz.net/


I have a picture below of verifying the chain of trust for the domain isoc.org. This tool is invaluable for troubleshooting and understanding DNSSEC chain of trust.

ftp loop to test network throughput

I have crafted a script in Windows to test network throughput and performance.  Basically, it is a ftp loop in conjunction with wget.  To quit the loop, just press CTRL-C.

@echo off
:loop
echo Hi! This is a ftp loop!
wget ftp://username:password@server.net/test.wmv
del *.wmv* -y
goto loop

Big John problem

I have not seen such advice in public toilets in Hong Kong but I have to admit that there is the Big John problem everywhere.

It has nothing to do with the size of Big John.  Rather the problem is related to the thrust and firing angle of Big John.

WiFi on steroids

Just when we think there can hardly be further development on WiFi, then comes "WiFi on Steroids". The use of white space in TV band can boost coverage and better building penetration.

By the way, traditional WiFi in the 2.4 GHz band is sick in the sense that it has a poor coverage and insufficient building penetration. I therefore like the name "Wifi on steroids".

IPv6 global routing infrastructure

I just received a newsletter from Hurricane Electric and note that of the 35684 autonomous networks in the world running BGP, the number of IPv6 networks is increased to 2487. In other words, IPv6 now makes up 7 % of the global routing infrastructure.

IPv4 and IPv6 will co-exist for an ultra long time. It might take 30 - 40 years for the global routing infrastructure to become 100 % IPv6. By that time, I will be sleeping forever.

司馬文大比數勝出

南區選民投票精采呀，司馬文大比數勝出，建制派候選人一敗塗地。

以投票率計算，司馬文取得 59 %，力保泛民以往六成支持率。

泛民繼續努力呀！

保護根域

DNSSEC 實行後，為了保護根域 (root zone)，共有14位當家，7位謢法，分散保管加密鑰及隨時啟動後備鑰。當家和謢法個個德高望重，武功高強，現在缺小了一位武林盟主，應該是 Rod Beckstorm，我是否在談武俠小說呀！