A note on netsec

Know your network and assets.
Gain situational awareness.
Quantify Value at Risk.
Risk is a factor of dependency.
Map transitive trust.
Zone assets and services.
Partition failure domains.
Assume compromise.
Fail well.
Maintain ability to replay traffic to high value assets.
Drill incident response.
Minimise abstraction layers.
Advocate loose coupling.

WebSummit 2015 Re-Imagined: A More Evenly Distributed Future

WebSummit is trapped between a rock and a hard place yet it need not be so! The very thing that makes WebSummit special, its 'secret sauce' if you will, is that of the host country and its zeitgeist (and more specifically that of Dublin itself). One of the primary ingredients of this sauce is the Irish welcome, openness, and indeed the intimacy that occurs in and around the edges of the conference.

Like any good conference, festival, or gathering, it's as much about the serendipity engine of coming together in large groups which then facilitates unexpected and novel interactions. More often than not the event's official content and schedule plays second fiddle to the more intimate clusters of conversation before, during, and after sessions. WebSummit, like any human get together, is about the people first and foremost, people whose interconnection is supported by the transport fabrics of the venue and host city. People come because of the promise of connection; connection to other people, to ideas, and to methods that facilitate their learning. Today, people expect to connect both digitally and physically, each a proxy to and serving the other.

Thus, event WiFi is one of today's crucial and ubiquitous service fabrics at technology events, and unfortunately it was indeed sub-standard and woefully underprovisioned at WebSummit. Notwithstanding the underlying politics, event Wifi is a three dimensional fabric that helps to distribute information to attendees, to connect them to the outside world during the proceedings (including connecting the outside world in) whilst catalysing human connections. The WebSummit WiFi did not seem to follow certain best practice patterns for high density deployments (which are documented freely and openly on the web) but more on this later, including some key points and recipes for anyone else thinking about high density WiFi at 'webscale' events! First, let's look at how one might potentially extricate WebSummit from the RDS (Royal Dublin Society) conference and exhibition centre without damaging the brand and buzz around the event itself.

WebSummit needs more leverage in this 'Mexican standoff' of sorts. It's trapped in the only event campus large enough to host its *current* numbers by an incumbent who have demonstrated they just don't get it. The irony is WebSummit can neither write the network technology requirements itself yet (and/or bake them in to contractual service level agreements for a range of reasons) nor is it permitted to take advantage of entities who actually know how to provide this type of elastic wired and wireless network due to the RDS's current stance. The RDS is unable to 'fail fast' and can only 'fail big' as there is no incentive nor room to rapidly iterate when your deployment cycle is once a year, involves actual physical hardware, and especially when you have a monopoly. WebSummit is unfortunately paying the RDS yearly to learn a little more about high density WiFi design and operation yet the RDS is still falling short and thus damaging both WebSummit and Ireland's national brand. The lack of quality and stability in this utility service is damaging the attendees experience, damaging WebSummit's intrinsic and global marketing channels, and also damaging the country's reputation by re-enforcing negative Irish stereotypes rather than the positive ones which attracted many of the people in the first place. I could go on here about how the Web itself uses encapsulation and abstraction models and how web startups only learn about 'web scale' (and thus the underlying OSI layers and network patterns) as they mature and gain traction, but I'd like to get back to the venue choice for a moment first...

The only leverage WebSummit has is to actually and fundamentally rethink using the RDS and find or create a local alternative for the event and 'festival' campus (so the RDS understands that moving location is not just a veiled threat but that a WebSummit straight flush beats an RDS full house!). Ireland as a host country and city has many constraints indeed but let's use them to get creative, to innovate, and to bootstrap the basics for a moment. WebSummit can *not* go abroad as it would lose its special powers and become just another technology/startup conference, i.e. bland and over-commercialised. If it left the capital city, Dublin and indeed Ireland would lose so much more than just revenue, it would be an admission of national failure and incompetence. External parties would lose confidence in Ireland's startup scene, in the existing technology base, and most impactful, in the potential and capability of the Irish to play at a global level whilst still at home.

WebSummit needs world class conference and trade show facilities within a stone's throw of the city centre's pubs, restaurants, hotels, transport infrastructure, and preferably all within walking distance of Grafton St. It needs all this with a nexus capable of hosting ~20,000 people at a keynote, but does it really? Intimacy is not a scale free network and it is scarcity that helps to determine perceived value. Let's suppose for a minute that WebSummit explicitly states that Dublin's nucleus is it's true 24/7 campus. Albeit there is no rival to the RDS in terms of 'one (giant) throat to choke', perhaps a new campus could be imagined as an intertwined web of smaller more intimate locations (just like the Night Summit itself!).

Consider if you will for a moment the docklands with a bit of vision?

Have a think about the above with a kind of a SXSW feel? Sure, it would take a master stroke of organisation and liaison with a range of parties but the Convention Centre Dublin has a 2,000 seater auditorium as does the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, and the 3 Arena has a 14,500 seat capacity (combined with taking over the Odeon Cinema and anything else they could get their hands on nearby!). Just a thought to bootstrap your thinking! I'm sure many Irish people would give you 20 reasons how something like this could fail all without any constructive criticism, ideas, or alternatives but.... what if...?

So, on to the WiFi... and known good patterns. Well, here is what WebSummit could do or have another entity do...

High Level Design / Basic Requirements

Client Requirements:

- One to three devices per attendee (all manner of smartphones and laptops)

- 2.4 GHz and 5GHz support

- Minimum RSSI -67dBm / SNR 25dB in coverage areas

- Minimum 5/5Mbps throughput to maximum 20/20mbps

- Application traffic types primarily miscellaneous web browsing

- HD video conferencing and voice should be available and prioritised

- Sub 5ms response from default gateway

- Sub 5ms response from cached DNS entries

- Multicast and local client to client connectivity not supported except in smaller spaces

- Limited wired connections of 100/100Mbps for all speakers and those wanting to do live demos.

WiFi Related:

- MCA(Multi-Channel Architecture) which rules out Meru!

- Distributed WiFi micro-cell architecture (rules out Xirrus!)

- Overhead directional 'patch' antennas

- 2.4GHz 'event-legacy' and 5GHz 'event' ESSIDs (throughout main hall)
- ESSID's anchored to major spaces (named accordingly vs. full site roaming)
- Limited layer 2 roaming

- 20MHz only channel widths for maximum spectrum re-use and clean air

- 802.11g/n only (802.11ac in some locations but not required!)

- Basic (i.e. mandatory) 18Mbps data rates and above only

- Predictive modelling/full survey but mandatory post-validation survey

- SNR to 25dB in all expected coverage areas

- Full WIPS+ Spectrum Analyzer capable and dedicated radios/APs.

- 802.11k (and/or proprietary load balancing in mini-radio clusters in super dense client areas)
- Careful use of RX-SOP (if available ;)

Wired Backbone and Event Services:

- Minimum dual active/active 10Gbps ISP transit links via disparate vendors/metro rings (with ability for vendors/exhibitors to terminate their own feeds)

- Minimum 40Gbps+ capable edge routing/firewalling

- 10Gbps dual redundant access edge uplinks to distribution

- Full 20-40Gbps or more primary campus backbone/infrastructure to the CORE

- N+1 redundant architecture throughout as far as the access/edge and APs

- Well architected L3 domains (to partition and minimise L2 failure domains)

- Routers should route and firewalls should firewall, thus DNS and DHCP should be provided for via dedicated servers or appliances 

- Software caches and/or major CDN edges onsite

- Local redundant / Anycast DNS resolvers and/or caches (i.e. not performed on routers/FWs)

- Dedicated physical links and paths (where possible) for exhibitors/vendors and/ or workshops or labs.

- L7 Application Visibility / DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) and associated shaping/throttling or queuing to a scavenger class for known bandwidth hogs

- Optional per-client SRC IP bi-directional rate limiting

NetOps/SecOps and Customer Service:

- A full NoC (Network Operations Centre) that also engaged attendees via locally hosted status pages and other social media channels i.e. Twitter etc..

- All digital signage giving informative and constant network info/updates

- Constant and distributed monitoring via humans/sensors/APs to adjust for a growing noise floor and to track down any 'evil twin' APs or strong rogues

- Full Network Management, Capacity Management, Alerting etc.

- Technically qualified roaming volunteers to assist attendees get connected including at event hubs and booths

Note: This is just a mixed flavour of some high and low level critical design elements (of course more explicit requirements should be created and customised with respect to WebSummit's specific functional and non-functional requirements including proper design documentation etc.). But there is no escape however from doing simple maths with respect to the number of supported CAM table and ARP entries per infrastructure device and factoring things like the TCP set up per second and concurrent NAT sessions at layer 3 boundaries... also.. know your clients i.e. do some capacity planning in advance + wouldn't it be lovely to use all Public IPs for clients at events ;)

Disclaimer: I was not at #WebSummit but was watching live from Berlin whilst talking to some people who were (and am now back home in Dublin for a short stint!).

If anyone wants to leave constructive comments, spots errors/omissions, or would like to follow up please do so or ping me on twitter @irldexter and in case anyone is wondering my background is here @podomere

OSX Wifi

A quick and dirty script to put in your crontab to see what the hell is going on! MacBook Airs act funny with power management and their SNR. Also, with the RSSI and noise floor you can just subtract the noise to get the SNR. At the end of the day though it's the SINR that counts + proper tools are required to diagnose non-802.11 interference, CCI, ACI, throughput and retries....

## Then put the below in your crontab for every minute (with your own path of course)…
* * * * * /Users/useraccount/wifitest/wifi.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

One liners

So I've always been a fan of the unix philosophy with a passion for trying to do most things in one line of/with Bash rather than a full script or program. I am by no means adept but battle through with sed, awk, paste, cut, tr, sort etc... So when one can potentially use curl on a RESTful service, and stay on the command line rather than logging in to a web app, I'll give it a go.

We use Saasu for our back-end invoicing and reconciliation and they provide access to their API via a secret key (tied to configurable users). I decided I wanted to see what we were owed and owing via the command line so with the help of some other simple tools I came up with the below. It's still a work in progress and I'm open to all the help and any suggestions I can get ;)

First you may need to ensure you have 'xmlstarlet', 'dialog', and 'cURL' installed on your *nix system via ports, apt, or otherwise. Ensure they are happily found in your $PATH. Then replace the below with your Saasu secret/access key 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX' (preferably from a read only user account) and the file ID 'YYYYY' of your desired Saasu account. You can find out how to enable the web services API from Saasu here.

Note: I actually ended up putting the below one liners in respective files and calling them (but you can alias it just as easily... I just didn't want to have to keep sourcing it while testing/editing)... and bingo you have a command (you can call whatever you like).

Owed (the following is one single line):
dialog --title "Company Accounts Receivable" --msgbox "`echo -e "\r\n\r\n" && curl -s "https://secure.saasu.com/webservices/rest/r1/invoicelist?wsaccesskey=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&FileUid=YYYYY&&transactiontype=s&PaidStatus=unpaid"  | xmlstarlet sel -t -m //invoiceListItem -o "Invoice #" -v invoiceNumber -o " is/was due by " -v dueDate -o " for " -v amountOwed -o " " -v ccy -o " by " -v contactOrganisationName -n | sort -n -k2 && echo -e "\r\n\r\n"`" 60 100 ; clear

Owing (the following is one single line):
dialog --title "Company Accounts Payable" --msgbox "`echo -e "\r\n\r\n" && curl -s "https://secure.saasu.com/webservices/rest/r1/invoicelist?wsaccesskey=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&FileUid=YYYYY&&transactiontype=p&PaidStatus=unpaid"  | xmlstarlet sel -t -m //invoiceListItem -o "Invoice #" -v invoiceNumber -o " is/was due by " -v dueDate -o " for " -v amountOwed -o " " -v ccy -o " to " -v contactOrganisationName -n | sort -n -k2 && echo -e "\r\n\r\n"`" 60 100 ; clear

So now I just type 'owed' or 'owing' on the command line to get:

I know there's a lot more that could be done, tweaked, improved, and extended... so let me know what you're thinking via @irldexter on twitter if you want to get in touch!

Changing Masks

So a customer reckons a quick subnet mask change on their router will increase their available host range on their management network.. just like that... :(

Problem: Why increasing a subnet mask (even when you can keep the same gateway) breaks things if you don't update all the associated nodes masks (and additional assets that reference that new increased subnet)... can you help with, add to, or validate the list of issues below?

Example / Details :

• Router is a Cisco 5548 running NX-OS 5.0(3)N1(1c) 
• Original network: 10.4.66/24 Router gateway: 10.4.66.1 Router mask updated: to /23 i.e. 255.255.254.0 (The 10.4.67/24 is free for use).
• Updated network: 10.4.66/23 Router gateway remains: 10.4.66.1 
• Existing endpoints not updated and remain with original /24 mask. 
• Only new endpoints in the higher portion of the habitable range and the router now have /23 mask. 
• VLAN ID stays the same. 
• Network consists mainly of management servers and infrastructure devices management interfaces. 

  a) If a host A with its old /24 mask tries to talk to a new host B in the higher portion of the router updated /23 (i.e. 10.0.67.x ) it can not do so directly via ARP. It assumes the other host is on a remote subnet after checking its own host A mask. The A host (thinking it's still on a /24) then sends all traffic to the default gateway rather than via local means to host B. The router has to then process the frame/packet, do a lookup, and forward to host B essentially doubly handling a frame and packet rather than a conversation which could have remained fully on the local switched fabric.

b) Any hosts with static routes configured for the initial /24 will follow their default gateways to reach the new /23 higher portion without having their static routes updated. This may affect multihomed hosts with multiple egress interfaces that require the non-default gateway to communicate to remote management networks for example.

c) The new network will have to be confirmed as being advertised in all required infrastructure routers routing tables, VRFs, and associated statics. (Equally this may affect VPN concentrators, layer 3 switches, or any devices that perform either dynamic or static routing).

d) Any NAT rules will have to be updated to allow for the new /23 and associated pool sizes and mappings.

e) Any firewall objects/network objects will have to be updated to reflect the new network size.

f) For any hosts that use the IP broadcast address to communicate (as opposed to the layer 2 all hosts broadcast address of ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff ), the /24 broadcast address is 10.4.66.255 whereas the /23 broadcast address is 10.4.67.255… (albeit 255.255.255.255 will always reach either) thus all endpoints/hosts should be updated.

g) Methods that use proxy ARP or (potentially gratuitous ARP) from the /24 range may fail to update the router and/or hosts if the IP is not deemed to be from the correct subnet.

h) any infrastructure/router ACL(Access Control Lists) that reference a /24 mask will now have to be updated to reflect the /23 mask or connectivity/reachability may suffer.

i) any infrastructure/router prefix lists, policy maps, or traffic engineering that references these subnets or utilises the ACL's above may fail without being correctly updated.

j) if one was to update required endpoints/servers with the updated /23 mask many devices may cache the old mask and/or require a networking restart or route flush before performing.

Working Patterns

Problem statement: María is on online Spanish teacher and she was trying to figure out the best weekly schedule to be available for her European students including when she could happily block out personal time (without losing valuable business). She had a gut feel about her busy times of the week but had done no objective analysis up until now. With a few years of data in her work Google Calendar we set about looking for plugins that would let us visualise her working patterns but to no avail.

If you use Google Calendar for your work appointments there's a quick hack below to get a distribution of your busiest times of the week we have come up with. It's not fully automated or too fine grained but hey... we'd welcome any suggestions/improvements.. (there's probably tonnes of prettier, faster, shorter and more accurate programmatic ways to do this!).

Step 1. Download your private "ICAL" .ics file via clicking your private calendar ICAL icon under calendar settings/details and then right click the URL to save the .ics file locally on your machine.

Step 2. Run this bash one liner below on a linux box (as you need to use the coreutils date for the arguments used):

grep "DTSTART:" yourcalendar_file.ics | cut -d ':' -f2 | awk '{print substr($0,1,4)"-"substr($0,5,2)"-"substr($0,7,2)" "substr($0,10,2)":"substr($0,12,2)":00"}'|while read line; do date --date="$line" "+%a %H"; done | sort | uniq -c | sort -k2,2 -k3 > results.txt

Step 3.  Manually enter the results in https://infogr.am/ using a stacked column chart to achieve the graph below!

Maria Hours Analysis | Create Infographics

On Networks

A brief collection of some interesting and engaging talks on 'networkism' which happens to fit my worldview as a network engineer and zen buddhist informed permie! This was a list I put together on request from someone who was interested in delving deeper in to the burgeoning synthetic superorganism we are building (as opposed to perhaps the existing one!). These talks were chosen for their entertainment value yet deeply profound implications...  (albeit not elevating my own talk to this level, hope you enjoy the collection ;)

RSA animate: The Power of Networks : 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJmGrNdJ5Gw

Nicholas Christakis : Ted : The Hidden Influence of Social Networks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U-tOghblfE

Kevin Kelly : LinuxConf : The Technium : 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0fkrJgmQxs

Alexander Bard : Tedx : From Relativisim to Networkism : 2013

http://youtu.be/CLPAdYcqoK4

My beginnings of a synthesis : ZIP : (prep for a talk I gave) : 2009

http://vimeo.com/3929442

Codified

In my experience, there's an inherent problem with having to codify any anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, or general conduct policies. It's not just the inherent challenges of any form of whitelisting or blacklisting but rather having to do so in the first place is already and unfortunately an admission of failure. From here on in one must take a deep and hard look at the problem, its roots, and all the subtleties and sophistication needed to tackle it. If the issue has already arisen due to a discrepancy in shared expectations, morals, or values - then retrospective corrective action in of itself is not enough. Ambiguous and generalised signposts are not enough. Some hard hitting explicit and clear action is required as somehow society and the community has bred this cancer already. The sample space is that of complicated and confused free radicals (i.e. humans), and in this case it seems... not very enlightened, mature, or disciplined individuals and tribes.

And when the bar has fallen too low it must be reset with painstaking detail, clarity, and at an extremely high level to ensure the laggards have no shadows left to intentionally or unintentionally lurk in.

There will always be outliers, some bad behaviour, or even crimes committed in any sufficiently large gathering of people yet an abnormal statistical frequency or growing stereotype is indicative of a much deeper problem. This also highlights that existing laws, conventions, or protocols are either not well known, adhered to, or not sufficiently and deeply realised... for if they were, there would already be an operating Minimal Viable Behaviour that is self-policed (and in many cases there is). Here judgement is implied and the capability for self-judgement and self-doubt is crucial. Additionally, this faculty must remain active and unimpaired at all times to ensure correct engagement with oneself and others. In some cases people just don't care about their bad behaviour nor can they recognise it - and as such they must be reprimanded, potentially excluded, and indeed educated.

Policies serve many purposes, including but not limited to, providing a signpost, a guide in setting shared expectations, an implied agreement that can be retrospectively held aloft to demonstrate an explicit breach of protocol (after the fact)... however policies are worthless if they can not be enforced, can be easily gamed or invalidated, or are not believed to be applicable to the parties they are actually intended for... and herein lies one of the fundamental problems.

Many may argue for concepts of common sense or basic morality however I believe such things not to exist. There are reasons for altruistic and non-violent behaviour - for example; in supporting social cohesion and basic survival, however when there is aggressive or violent speech or action (and for true progress to be made), the root cause must be addressed and not solely corrected in a reactive manner. There are a multitude of life trajectories that individuals experience and many paths are indeed partially or collectively shared, yet the intersections are not actually and in any way universal (other than perhaps birth, death, hunger, cold, and most physical sensations etc). Subsequent higher order cognisant overlaps are in fact rarer than one might think especially when ones unique consciousness and relationship with meaning or understanding is considered. In the same way that it is difficult to guarantee anything but a tiny common vocabulary to begin with - meanings, subtleties of expression, experiences, and shared understanding of concepts can thus vary widely. It is in this vein that I submit there is no universally shared secular morals, ethics, or commonly accepted and subsequently codified set of acceptable and readily understood behaviours. One exception may be that of a tiny common framework of concepts such as 'thou shalt not kill' or the Golden or Silver Rules of which they themselves are dependent upon self-referential interpretations and subjective application. In this context, and explicitly at an individual and universal level, there is no equivalent of the UNDHR(United Nations Declaration of Human Rights) other than some corpus of local laws that are not in themselves obvious or easily recounted.

So I challenge all sexes in the technology industry; it's time to step up our game, refine the problem statement, and actually push things forward whilst earning our innovation moniker. I'd also like to stress that sometimes what's innovative is actually going back to basics and making a list of actionable items:

a) over and above ambiguous 'catch-all' policies - define the most common breaches of human protocol at gatherings with examples. This is not for the 99 but the 1% of offenders who don't understand what behaviour is unacceptable, borderline, or sadly lack the self-referential judgement and empathy required. Some lack the ability to contextualise the impact of even their most 'innocuous' actions. If it's time to be more explicit (which it already is), BE MORE EXPLICIT whilst keeping your lists and catch-all terms like 'including but not limited to'.
b) make explicit opening statements at the main events and keynotes rather than just 'darkweb' documentation
c) put up signs and warnings (yes, akin to McDonalds 'Contents are hot' which is already a societal fail for most because we're also past that point already, time to wake up and smell it)..
d) consult and solicit feedback from known victims
e) give victims both an anonymous and attribution based feedback mechanism
f) pay more attention to how your policies can be gamed and defend against such
g) consider eliminating whole classes of problems until the situation improves across the board (it's already desperate times, desperate measures may serve temporarily to highlight the problems)
h) consider having attendees accept Terms and Conditions or Acceptable Attendee Behaviour when signing up (if it's good enough for software, it's good enough for humans)
i) reinforce that illegal behaviour is not tolerated and will be reported to the authorities whereupon the organisation will also seek prosecutions
j) look to other industries who are making strides in the problem space

Unfortunately many do not understand what it's like to actually be a victim until you have actually been a victim (whether of bullying, abuse, or violence etc.) so err on the side of caution. Accept the problem is already a serious deficit of 'good' judgement regarding what's acceptable, respectful, and legal. Spare a moment to consider that the leaders of the community drafting the policies are probably the least likely to personally experience abuse or attacks, the least likely to inhabit a consciousness that commits abusive acts, and perhaps the least likely to want to believe their community is even capable of such acts.

I posit 3 fundamental and supplementary 'back to basics' guidelines or simple rules/protocols:
1. Respect and don't breach anyone's personal space ( minimum > 0.5m )
  1.1 Touch is the ultimate breach of personal space. No touching.
2. No individual or group insults, slurs, hate speech or derogatory comments related but not limited to race, religion, gender, or appearance.
3. Practice non-aggression, non-violence, and harm minimisation with regards to all thoughts, speech, and action whether directed externally or internally.

Sakura

Physically she's far away but hiding inside.
A bud and flower in one, a power laying consciously dormant yet blooming unconscious in flow,
An edge of introspection and sharp wit,
A row boat adrift with ample oars,
Willing, able, capable,
Smart, sexy, funny,
Deep, quiet, restrained,
Ready,
Not just to find a new voice, but to roar because…

ThirdSpace

Both a bridger and a builder,
Straddling the system of Mu.
Layers in all directions,
Intersections and interfaces hold volume.
Longest not shortest path first,
No need for a salesman to travel.

WattSec

Sustainability begins at home.

From the 23rd September 2011 to the 18th May 2012 I cancelled my electricity and was off the grid in the hope of learning more about energy, dependence, and behaviour change. In that time I learned a lot about myself and others, but most importantly (both in my mind and heart) I began another new journey in earnest. From my previous rural zen retreats in the mountains outside of Kyoto and San Francisco - to river valleys in northern NSW(New South Wales) Australia, I've been learning about, experiencing, and deliberately practicing non-violent ways of co-existing with mother earth.

Albeit I still currently live in the metro region of Melbourne (where I'm privileged with proximity and access to many types of markets) I decided to explore what I could learn about certain types of energy dependence, production, storage, and consumption. This is just the beginning and admittedly one could highlight deficits with my current lifestyle in regards to sustainability and toxicity, yet that is no excuse to maintain the status quo or remain complicit in the demise of our shared global commons.

Solar Tree v1

I have begun with electricity (as it lends itself to my techie disposition) and will focus more upon food security (another form of energy) over time. For example: I'm attending a 12 day hands-on Permaculture Design Certificate course next week (January 2013).

Solar load (previous series+parallel design was ~31VDC but now all parallel on ~16VDC)

For now, this post is being facilitated by electrons harvested via a new homemade solar tree and portable energy pod. It can be hard to be 'green' in rental apartments/properties due to limited sunlight, roof access, and inability to modify or augment the structure.

Wiring Diagram (high level view)

Above is the wiring diagram and here http://s.nodecity.com/rig is more info regarding parts, costs, evolution etc. but suffice to say the ADSL modem/router is next on the list and I haven't figured out hot water and cooking yet.

Note: The choice to use modular parts was in the hopes of scaling more easily via lessons learned for bigger rigs (inlcuding maximising surface area in a small vertical space).

annica

Many things come to mind. Less to body.

"Consciousness contemplating consciousness through consciousness" is the recurring theme.

Footfalls.

Mindfalls.

Communication.

Signals.

Hesitance. Reluctance. Projections. Stories.

Food security and energy security, other reoccurring themes. Solutions sought. Problems provided.

Bananas. Monkeys. Pigs. Rats. Dogs. Ants. Humans.

Energy. Flows.

Webtech creates a slipstream which, when combined with coffee and attention seeking squirrel genes, results in an anxiety predator, compounding twitchy turnkey solutions with no longevity nor real costs.

Carbon ephemera.

Universal dust.

Synthetic connectedness with elements of natural messages metamorphosing silicon. Radio commons and light privacy. Multiplexing.

Analogous aliens exploring inside and out.

De-salt the meat and the kids.

Prep' em?

Doomed repetition. No compound intrinsic knowledge and experience.. yet…

Genes, memes, and dreams.

Didjeridoos, frogs, and roos. Throat chakras. Speak fool. Silent wizards manifesting.

Playtime, anytime.

Protectors. Defenders. The power of nightmares. 

If you can imagine the worst, can you imagine the best? Which to fear?

Safety not in numbers. Belief in the power of one, belief in many. Malleable. Passive. Pain. Plan. Perceive. Promote.

Circles. Ellipses. Orbits. Dots. Nodes.

Drowsy dragons. Flying feet. Hearts on the line.

Loops

I can feel it,
I can taste it,
I can track it.

It arose,
I can identify each linked thought,
I can see the seed of each,
I can surveil the physical discomfort,
As each thought manifests,
As the anger, joy, desire is triggered,
And plays me like an instrument.

Which came first?
The image, the motion, the experience, the pattern,
Matched.
The conversation builds in my head.
An ease to the words that facilitate my anger, my joy, my desire.
Ephemeral.
Hunger is a trigger.
Shapes are triggers.
Sounds are triggers.
Touch triggers.
Sense gates.
'I' is a trigger.
When the quality of consciousness surveils itself.
There is hope.

Jungle Ducks

Jungle ducks,
Peppered with iridescent eyes,
Waterproof to fifty metres,
Hunting in packs,
Preying on predators,
Snuggling like bunnies.

Cloud and Moral Engineering

[nominal delivery draft, SOURCE Boston 18 April 2012]

Criticality, Rejectionists, Risk Tolerance - Daniel E. Geer, Jr. http://geer.tinho.net/geer.sourceboston.18iv12.txt

[excerpt] Summing up so far, risk is a consequence of dependence. Because of shared dependence, aggregate societal dependence on the Internet is not estimable. If dependencies are not estimable, they will be underestimated. If they are underestimated, they will not be made secure over the long run, only over the short. As the risks become increasingly unlikely to appear, the interval between events will grow longer. As the latency between events grows, the assumption that safety has been achieved will also grow, thus fueling increased dependence in what is now a positive feedback loop.

In the language of statistics, common mode failure comes from under-appreciated mutual dependence. Quoting from NIST's section on redundancy in their "High Integrity Software System Assurance" documentation[6] *public link permission revoked on previous link*:

[R]edundancy is the provision of functional capabilities that
would be unnecessary in a fault-free environment. Redundancy
is necessary, but not sufficient for fault tolerance. ... System
failures occur when faults propagate to the outer boundary of
the system. The goal of fault tolerance is to intercept the
propagation of faults so that failure does not occur, usually
by substituting redundant functions for functions affected by a
particular fault. Occasionally, a fault may affect enough
redundant functions that it is not possible to reliably select
a non-faulty result, and the system will sustain a common-mode
failure. A common-mode failure results from a single fault (or
fault set). Computer systems are vulnerable to common-mode
resource failures if they rely on a single source of power,
cooling, or I/O. A more insidious source of common-mode failures
is a design fault that causes redundant copies of the same
software process to fail under identical conditions.

That last part -- that "A more insidious source of common-mode failures is a design fault that causes redundant copies of the same software process to fail under identical conditions" -- is exactly that which can be masked by complexity precisely because complexity ensures under-appreciated mutual dependence.....[excerpt]

On Common Ground

Where is the common ground but the human condition?

There is a lot to be said of 'choice architectures', surrounding oneself with elements of positivity, energy, and potentiality... but also in re-engaging one's roots and meeting the current reality with as much neutrality and equanimity as one can muster.

To be intimate with and embrace ephemeral feelings, to transcend and include, yet engage the impermanent… to be human?

Collaborative solitude. Borne of a box.

Where is the balance of focus to be found? In lessening attachments to facilitate action and mastery where are the fundamental lines drawn?

Deepening and widening: Inextricably linked, yet too fast in either direction and the other suffers.
Distracting and numbing: So much energy wasted in pursuit and attainment of escapism from the unbearable lightness of being.

Yet in novelty, adventure, and social interaction new patterns are found/formed… patterns perhaps so unlike the previous ones that higher order states are attained which include a freedom from foundational patterns. There is another pathless path, one of omission, abstinence.. which leads to a different asymptotic purity.

There will always be background noise. There should always be background noise whether internal or external.

This entropy in emptiness is where creation lives.

Ahimsa

I don’t smush snails or spiders and such...
I avoid ants.
A while ago I think I woke up!
This week I learned of Russian wolves, nature or nurture,
More plastic communities breeding sterile foxes and rabid rabbits,
There are many layers ingesting each other.
Sometimes I maintain silence and omit others, maybe for their good or mine,
Whether my heart beats with ectropy or entropy, patterns emerge...
Two things, or is it three, that let me see from a multitude of angles,
The hornets nest inside is nearly empty,
Room for novelty or commitment?
I think something is living in my beard,
Another new home.

When Nature Conspires For You

Dave picked us up in Byron Bay (minus his female companion who originally was supposed to come on this research trip) and we proceeded to drop Wade (another Buddhist networker) at Ballina airport. Luckily the Chilean volcano’s ash cloud had only slighlty affected his flight departure home. After a brief local supermarket trip we hit the road in earnest; me with my busted knee and him with his 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser. I had just spent 3 full days at a computer camp at Lake Ainsworth, Lennox Heads. There had been a confluence of our Australian ‘tech brethern’ of 150 strong Ruby on Rails(RoR) programmers and assorted digital makers who had met for some serious fun, learning and collaboration (unfortunately there was a pronounced lack of ‘tech sisters’).

There was intentionally no Internet at camp and albeit I didn’t write any new code, I did make plenty of new connections and learned a helluva’ lot (including some barrista skills) all while my Ruby robot continually nudged the rest of the sangha in cyberspace. The camp was an eclectic environment which supported and welcomed ‘n00b’s (also known as newbies or anyone new to a discipline or topic) which was great as I am a huge supporter of the concept and practice of both ‘beginners mind’ and peer learning in all walks of life. This ‘shoshin’ or beginners mind would also be applied to the next part of the trip as our mission was to delve deeper in to self-sufficiency, permaculture and alternative community models. Our goal was to be achieved by doing and interacting (rather than just reading about), and the destination was a little farm just west of Bellingen, New South Wales.



It was Monday around 9pm and decidedly dark on Darkwood Road when we finally arrived at the property. Having just snuck in across Hobart’s bridge, which was only a few centimetres below water at the time, we realised we were now trapped by the Bellinger river on a 4km strip of beautiful fertile valley. It was inadvertently perfect for a technical ‘cold turkey’ and some surreptitious solitude... though not an intentional goal, neither packets nor humans were coming or going for the next few days. A research trip begun with a reminder by Nature that she was always in control seemed fitting, as did an emphasis on food and energy security. Human and machine redundancy and preparedness, it seems, is crucial (especially when not suckling from a centralised supply chain).

After 36 hours solid rainfall there was a brief respite into which we ventured forth to see the extent of the flooding. The bridge was indeed deep under a torrent of water thus we took the opportunity to call on the neighbours for an informal chat and were taken on an impromptu tour of their garlic farm and homesteading efforts. It also turned out that we were around the corner from the infamous ‘Homelands’ commune (and others such as ‘Patanga’ and ‘Khandahar’) where only recently land divisions which were previously sub-divided and designated as multiple occupancy(MO) are done so no more, and all the land has been classed as environmentally protected.

Two days in and apart from some internal cleaning and sweeping, not much outdoor activity had taken place yet... so when the sky cleared on the morning of the third day it was out with the petrol ‘whipper snipper’s, chainsaw, rakes, gloves and buggy. At the end of the fourth day we dropped tools and headed in to town as the waters had finally receeded enough to get back over the bridge and have a poke around the main street in Bellingen. It remains to be seen how to engage fully with commune and collective members other than that of fostering more connections while volunteering locally or embedding oneself for a longer period of time. Intimate and direct experience of a thing is the only way to truly know something and as only fools rush in, we will tread lightly, cultivate our karma, and continue to do our practical and theoretical homework. Big thanks to @bmatt.

A mixture of brought and local reading material kept the neurons firing during the evenings and rainy days:

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide, John Seymour : ISBN: 978-0-7894-9332-3
Building Green: A Complete How-to Guide To Alternative Building Method: Clarke Snell & Tim Callahan: ISBN 978-1-60059-534-9
Walden and Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau: ISBN 978-0-14-039044-5
Ramana Maharshi and The Path of Self-Knowledge, A biography by Arthur Osbourne: ISBN 0-87728-071-1
You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment, Thich Nhat Hanh: ISBN 978-1-59030-838-7

Chrome Yellow, Aldous Huxley: ISBN 0-14-000041-0
Grace and Grit, Ken Wilbur: ISBN 0-7171-3234-X
The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hesse: ISBN 0-14-003438-2
Eyeless in Gaza, Aldous Huxley: ISBN 0-14-001050-5
Who is the Buddha?, Sangharakshita: ISBN 1-899579-51-6
What is the Dharma?, Sangharakshita: ISBN 1-899579-01-X
What is the Sangha?, Sangharakshita: ISBN 1-899579-31-1
Be Love Now, Ram Dass: ISBN 978-1-84604-291-1

Proximity

Why is proximity important? More so, why is human proximity important for pods, tribes and long term social cohesion? In my mind nothing can yet replace the smörgåsbord of signals seen and unseen, felt and unfelt that are transmitted between entities when they are physically close especially when they directly and voluntarily interact with one another. From the primary sense gates there is an influx of information via sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. These primary inputs reach us and are perceived as energy vibrations, particles bumping up against us or even passing through us. I breathe your stardust when I am close. Your mass attracts me and your energy can do the same too. There are other senses but we’ll save them for later or subsequent debate.



For any form of information exchange to take place there must be a medium (even a vacuum or the quantum foam) and some energy. Energy moves. Proximity is important because of attenuation (signal degradation) in most mediums. Proximity is important because it allows one to observe and learn about another with less attenuation. Proximity is important because more signals can generally be sent in a shorter space of time between two entities. This promotes understanding, empathy and entrainment between two or more beings.

There are vibrations made by each entity in the act of thinking, breathing, moving or just being. Air is exchanged. Energy is given, drawn or shared. Gravity exists between any two things with mass. With proximity to another there is no substitute for full spectrum engagement enhanced further by presence and awareness.

Technology is a wonderful bridge however... the smell of your hair in the morning, the taste of your skin, the specific momentary look of insecurity followed by a rush of endorphins that cause your nostrils to flare and the hair to stand up on your neck and arms, the timbre of your voice in the quiet of the night and the oneness of form when interlocked in the throes of passion... this all degrades with distance and the co-evolution fades further away irrespective of the initial strength of the connection. Proximity is mindshare and heartshare whether you like it or not. Trajectories must converge regularly enough to enable long term cohesion. From the smallest cluster of two to the largest cohesive tribes, we share signals and synchronise... the strongest signals literally come from the closest.

If one was to introduce quantum holism/non-separability and the spiritual realm in to the debate I would not disagree but would point out that the cultivation of personal depth and the subtlety required to access these mediums are not readily accessible to everyone though we may feel the effects or notice them at different times in our lives.

Soul Islands

The mundane motel served its purpose well, too well perhaps... it was nothing like the cabin.

The cabin was surrounded by dense forest and nestled on the edge of a huge canyon. That night there was a new moon and between bouts of deep sleep I had awoken repeatedly from dreams of past, present and future. There was fresh water, a fire, logs, fresh herbs and comfortable furnishings. The dappled sunlight drew many contrasts and the latent energies and stories left by visitors formed part of the fabric of the space and time.



How I arrived there was not by chance, there was karma in it, there was intent in it and there was peace in it. The peace was as much cultivated and brought as it was a reflection and enhancement of the environment.

It’s more apparent to me each day that the energy, focus and attention I bring to my body, heart and mind, the better things become for those I interact with and also for myself. As I dropped one of my Dharma brothers off at the Blackheath Vipassana centre to serve again, I was reminded of the reticence by many in their daily lives to stop and investigate deeply that which they are. It is perhaps a luxury, though some would say a necessity to take time to be fully present within oneself. Presence may be cultivated through direct experience and investigation of oneself. This process benefits from a reduction and preferably a temporary cessation of external stimuli. Many of us numb reality and gravitate towards information rich and stimulating environments all the while ignorant of the subtle and even gross effects on our bodies, hearts and minds. As we stream experience in to our consciousness we also ingest air, water and food which constitute our being. It is not until we fast or shift large portions of these many diets that we have the ability to experientially compare and contrast different states of being.

There is indeed a certain dualism and test driven mentality that leads to a more holistic physical, mental and spiritual approach to life - but unfortunately not many have the awareness, will, time nor resources to indulge in such experimentation. Some continue seeking elsewhere or get trapped in the seeking itself (all the while believing something better is just around the next corner). Some never realise that a process of 'selective watering' is available to them internally at any moment. A process which does not require external journeying to elicit calmness, contentedness, tranquility, empathy or compassion. Once the choice is made to explore the inner world and not exclusively the outer world, a profound shift entails. The inward journey has no destination and is founded upon a constant arriving in the present e.g. the here and now. A new awareness is born and the life stream is never the same again.

Our relationships with people and things are predicated upon and evolve based upon our perceptions, emotions, consciousness and form. We find ourselves in certain environments, clusters of people or events due to complex yet simple connections and the conscious or unconscious choices we make every second. For the most part, that which we sow we reap. On each persons journey there may be fear of loss or that of a void, however the void is not empty, it is full of potential and there are many islands if required. These islands are those of other people and communities also on the path (sometimes encountered in the most unexpected of spaces).

As a liquid lifeform some of the most important things beyond basic survival may be:
- realising the control and potential you have to shape your own substance and that of others
- how you relate to, interact with and affect other entities and your environment
- which environments and entities to share and grow your energies with