Newer bluelock posted

I have posted a new version of BlueLock and the updates are available at github. This update fixes a few stability issues and some of the UI bugs related to the enable/disable on/off buttons staying in sync. A brief summary of the feedback so far/things I am planning to add:

  • Visual indication of the device being connected.
  • Checkbox in preferences to start the application at startup.
  • Possibly look at using growl if it is available to provide an indication that the screen was locked because the device went away.
  • TextField for entering seconds/linked to slider, units conversion logarithm or different scaling property.

If you have any suggestions gwk@gwk.ca

Blue Lock

Blue Lock Application

Introducing Blue Lock a simple utility to start the Mac OS X screen saver if a paired bluetooth device is not detected as being present and the user is inactive. The code is available at github and you can download the application here.

Update April 26th, 2011 Newer version posted tonight with fewer show stopper bugs, still beta of course.

Undocumented ichat server 10.6 OD/SASL issue

Posting this here as the relevant discussions in the apple forums are archived, and this is a vague problem to solve.
If you see messages such as this in your logs from jabberd:
ODKVerifyClientRequestFixed: Unable to authenticate
when clients (either ichat or third party such as adium) attempt to connect with valid usernames and passwords
and it results in a permission denied message. In addition to the things mentioned in this thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2608181?start=0&tstart=0 (e.g. check DNS) there

OnlyVPN: My that is a stylish tinfoil hat you have!

This question over on superuser is a good one http://superuser.com/questions/206400/os-x-10-6-disallow-non-vpn-connect... , it boils down to this: how do you block all outbound connections on an OS X machine not made over a VPN connection on unfamiliar networks, my solution is included below.

OS X Verification Redux

This is still a work in progress but adds some additional tests and a few new tricks.
First among them its possible to specify alternate locations for the data directory using -d.
The second addition is the ability to sign the data files with a private key making it slightly more complicated to subvert the checks.

Quick and dirty system integrity checking on OS X

These scripts are *really* rough they were created with great haste and not much care for want of any good way to check the integrity of an OS X system (why can't apple include anything better than a simple checksum in the package receipts?). These script make use of the mtree(8) utility on an OS X machine.

The future of processor power management in OpenBSD

future of proc power mgmt.001.thumbnail.jpg
Slides from my presentation "The Future of processor power management in OpenBSD" at BSDCAN 09.

Talk: The future of processor power management in OpenBSD

I am giving a talk about The future of processor power management in OpenBSD at the BSDCan 2009 conference held at the University of Ottawa on May 9th at 1:30PM. I don't know yet where I will actually be speaking on the campus.

Web Insecurity Talk at Campus Computing 2009

I am giving a talk about web security for the Campus Computing conference this year, its at 1:45pm on April 28th in room E1-007 of the ETLC building.