Gettin’ hacked…

Matthew Heick Leave a comment

This server got hacked. It was used as a scanner for a couple days, attempting to break into other servers to test for vulnerabilities. I only discovered this because I attempted to access this server by the .onion domain that I have for it and it didn’t connect.

I’ve had a home server hacked before due to a user account with a I set up for my son with “an easy” password. I thought I learned that lesson. Apparently I did not with the server I have exposed to the interwebs.

Time to forensically breakdown the timeline of events.

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Knickknacks, Swag, & Pieces of Flair

Matthew Heick Leave a comment

October 2, 2024 was my last day at my job as a Principal Software Engineer for Cloud ID at Synacor. Originally hired on September 3, 2013 as a Web Operations Engineer I was culled in the “Synapocalypse” in March, 2014. After re-applying for a Configuration Engineer position I was rehired on April 14, 2014 and kept increasing my position until it was finally obsoleted.

Over the 10+ years of corporate work I acquired a hefty lot of company bling. This posting is to go over all the captured “shinies” and reminisce about how awesome and excessive some things can really be.

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Two of every set…

Matthew Heick Leave a comment

My youngest brother and I have birthdays with a difference of 18 months and 14 days. While that’s not a mathematical marvel in any way it’s been interesting in finding pairs of famous people that either share exactly or are close to our birthdays.

The birthday problem asks for the probability that, in a set of n randomly chosen people, at least two will share a birthday. The birthday paradox refers to the counterintuitive fact that only 23 people are needed for that probability to exceed 50%. This isn’t representative of anyone having my exact birthday which is 1 in 365, but also my brothers birthday which is also 1 in 365. Combining those odds (1 in 133,225) and finding a pair of people considered famous or well-known in some way makes the odds out of this world.

Except the odds seem to favor our pairing, and thus the following…

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