Posts

Showing posts from 2025

Don't Get Hooked! Why Phishing is More Mind Game Than Tech Wizardry

Image
Hey everyone! Long time no see, right? So, I've been asked to talk about phishing again, and honestly, I used to think only the most gullible folks fell for these scams. Like, "Who actually clicks those links?" But boy, was I wrong! It turns out there's a whole ocean of unsuspecting people out there, and the phishers are having a field day. So, let's dive into this mess, shall we? Table of Contents What is Phishing, Anyway? (And a Little History Lesson) Why Do We Keep Falling for It? The Psychology of the Scam Even My Household Isn't Safe (A Personal Tale) The New Frontier: Phishing Beyond MFA Let's Build a Phishing Simulation (For Educational Purposes, Of Course!) How to Dodge the Digital Hooks: Preventing Phishing Attacks If You've Been Hooked: How to Recover It's Not Telegram's Fault (Mostly!) Conclusion: Stay Sharp, Stay Safe What is Phishing, Anyway? (And a Little History Lesson) At its core, phishing is l...
Read more

Automating Aruba Instant On 1930 Switch Backups (So Joe Can Have a Life)

Image
👥 The Team In my team of three—composed of two senior engineers (myself included) and one junior— Joe Biden is the most junior member. No, not the President. Our Joe Biden is fresh out of college, eager to learn, and unfortunately for him, he got assigned one of the most painfully manual tasks in our Preventive Maintenance Program: Backing up switch configurations. Quarterly. For over 100 switches. Manually. Through a browser. Let me paint you a picture. 🌐 The Network Environment We manage a Layer 3 network where the edge layer consists of over 100+ Aruba Instant On 1930 switches . These are solid entry-level switches, but their management interface leaves much to be desired when it comes to automation: ❌ No SSH ❌ No real API ✅ Just a Web GUI So, every quarter, Joe would spend days logging into each switch's web interface, navigating to the config page, and downloading the current config manually. Multiply that by 100+ switches and… yeah. Pain. 🧠 The Programme...
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

Turning a Joke into Innovation: AI Integration in our Daily Task Manager

Image
Recently, I developed a ticket management system to streamline day-to-day operations at my workplace. The system is as simple as you’d expect: users can create tickets with tentative completion dates, and team members can post updates on those tickets. However, today I’m not here to discuss how I built the system. Instead, I want to highlight how I integrated AI to help users generate updates with prompts or even summarize the updates they wish to post. It all started as a joke. In today’s world, we rely heavily on AI tools like ChatGPT, BART, and Deep.ai to rephrase our writing and ensure grammatical accuracy. It’s no secret that many of us use grammar tools, whether AI-powered or not. At our workplace, quite a few users do the same. This is nothing to be ashamed of, and no one should be concerned about it. In fact, I believe it’s essential to present ourselves and our ideas clearly and polished. After all, while English may be our primary workplace language, it’s not our mother tong...
Read more

Zapping Through Multicast Madness: A Fun Python Script to Keep Your IPTV Streams Rocking!

Image
Hey there, stream wranglers! If you’re in the wild world of IPTV —think hotels, cruise ships, or sports bars blasting live channels to a gazillion screens—you know multicast UDP streams are the unsung heroes of efficient video delivery. But UDP is like that carefree friend who doesn’t check in, leaving you wondering, "Is this stream even alive?"   In this post, we’re looking at a Python script I built to help a friend whose streams randomly drop. It checks both multicast and unicast UDP streams, and if one goes down, it can (optionally) send a heads-up via Telegram. It’s got retries, scheduling, and just enough socket magic to keep things running smooth. Let’s take a look under the hood!  Table of Contents What’s the Deal with Multicast UDP Streams? What’s This Script All About? The Code: A Party of Sockets and Streams Breaking Down the Dance Moves Real-World Applications Improvements to Spice It Up Watch Out for These Gotchas Final Curtain Call 🧙‍♂️ What’s t...
Read more