The eye of the beholder

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.


So I found it, I found the result of what happens when you pay someone to make the university "Less Grey"

It becomes green. 

No actually, Creepy's graffiti comes in all different colours, that are much brighter than the grey they cover.

Covering two walls of the second level of the ECL main courtyard

The internal sides of the stairwell and random poles

It does indeed brighten the place up, together with fact that the area is now covered, people can sit and admire the pretty artwork while it's rainy and grey outside.

But graffiti of the week? Hmmmm... I dunno, don't get me wrong, the area is now a lot more pretty, and seeing it's the area I spend most of my time in between classes wait that's the ref where I walk between most of my IT classes (I have lectures in Education, Veterinary Science and Chiropractic, I believe this done on purpose by the university so students don't get bored of seeing the same areas all of the time. Granted, that is nice to see different areas, but Veterinary science still smells like animals have defecated in there on more than one occasion. But granted, the nearest toilets are miles away and have you ever tried to move a horse which needs to go? Not pretty.

I was told about this artwork early this year, being the one blogger who does cover the artistic form of vandalism (and the proof that students do occasionally bring pens to class.) I have been looking forward to see what you get when you pay a graffiti artist to, well, graffiti. It was described by Creepy (The artist, I've found that graffiti artist do love their tag names to be adjectives. Wish this trend was around during some other art eras. "Psychotic Destitute's Chair" has a certain ring to it.) that "the viewer may make their own interpretation of the story" (Which I've always used as "I can't be bothered to tell you the story over and over." or, the more arty "I just drew a bunch of lines, your brain can do whatever it wants with that.") 

I mean, this is good, Murdoch's suppose to be a place of free thinkers. 

But isn't our art suppose to represent a place of academia, and about the high quality of learning that takes place here?

And then I realised, that's exactly the point. Murdoch isn't trying to show itself a place of learning, but a place of creativity and unique thinking. By the time people decide to go to university they do have the means to form their own understanding, their own forms of learning. Sure at uni, you are still getting taught by people who know more than you (Please don't act otherwise, it ruins it for the people who are trying to learn. Please also don't pretend your funnier than the lecturer, it doesn't score you any additional marks. I've got 3 passes on my transcript to prove it. Just laugh at his poor jokes and he/she is more likely to help you when you get stuck.) but that doesn't mean you know nothing. When you go to uni, your here to mold your interpretation of the world in order to identify what you believe to be wrong change it for the better.

I hope all people reading this who are thinking about university next year begin to contemplate this. You are no longer a passenger, you have an opinion, and provided you back it up with reasoning (APA 6th, preferably, unless your tutor says otherwise.) you have the right to be listened to and add to discussion. Congratulations, you are beginning to be perceived as mature. Don't go crazy, and give your opinion about everything (Again, 3 passes on my transcript.) but if you believe it will add to the ideas of that school of thought, welcome to the place to share them.

Granted, if Murdoch really wanted to be the place to bring free thinkers together, I think they should of just given out cans of spray paint and told people to "Go for it." But then your probably would of got Education and Humanities looking really pretty done by all the arts students, the law building looking very arty, but having really no point (Look at the art in a law firm and you'll know what I'm talking about, or a post I write about the Law building already, a while ago.) and the guild looking like... I really don't wanna know.

So yes, sitting on level 2 of ECLIT now does look very pretty. Unfortunately, everywhere else in the uni is still predominantly grey, but it's a good start, and I'm guessing quite expensive for how big the murals are, but certainly better.  

So the covering, the art, and one more thing has been done to the courtyard, which, I do actually have the authority to talk about. 

Actually to tell you the truth I don't know what model it is or where it is, I just know it's a Cisco Aironet dumb access  point. This is just the model used in other areas of Murdoch.

So yes, this area can now be accompanied by the sound of people frantically typing, or the latest Barely Political remix of the latest meme (Quick lesson. Rhymes with cream, although I think it should actually be pronounced the other way as it sounds more classy.) that your grandma keeps posting to you. Antoine Dodson actually made that his ringtone.

Now I'll try to reveal too much, all the information I'm about to tell you is avalible from the murdoch IT support website. But I thought I would help future/current students with one of the few things that I can actually aid students in understanding.

Okay, so the wireless network at Murdoch covers a bunch of places the IT group think students sit, and for the most part, it's pretty decent coverage and good speed. But a few questions get asked to geeks like me about the network, ir oder to understand and trouble shoot connecting, 

Firstly, why must I use a program to get a connection?

Well the truth is, you don't if you connect to the other network, whose SSID I will not reveal here, you should be able to just get through with your Murdoch username and password. However, it is discouraged, as it's not as encrypted and the IT group don't like people connecting through it, I haven't got a statement as to why, just, ignore what I just said, okay? I'll tell you a bit how it works, yes, it's going to get slightly geeky hear, just roll with it.

So, the application you are asked to use is the Cisco VPN client now the Virtual Private Network software connects to a server containing information about the VPN connection. The program asks you to provide a config file, which contains an encrypted group password. Murdoch uses IPSec (Is that revealing too much, serious Murdoch guys, email me and I'll happily remove any of this, I just believe the students should understand why it's complicated.) The configuration file you are required to have imported into the Cisco VPN client contains an encrypted password which is checked if you are allowed to connect to the server, once this is accepted, you are asked to provide your Murdoch account details.

In requiring this encrypted password and your credentials, crackers and geeks can't abuse our Wifi?

Is there a way to add my log on credentials to the Cisco VPN thingamy so I don't have enter them all the time?

Yes.


Are you going to tell me?


No.


What about if I sleep with you?


You just used the word "Thingamy", instead of client software. So, no. There is also a way to extract the encrypted password so you can use you operating systems native VPN client, but I won't tell you this either cause it's actually more of a hassle to configure, but it means I get access to the Murdoch WiFi on my phone.


I do not encourage or endorse finding out this information as it will be of no use or benefit to anyone. Except if you have a 64 bit operating system, as Cisco does not make a 64 version of their VPN client, however, programs like NCP are 64 bit compatible and allow the importing of the pcf file, but it does cost a little bit of money, but that's your own fault for using a 64 bit OS and not accepting that the world is still vastly 32 bit.


Except if you find a hack for that program and crack it.


MOVING ON. Before I get into more trouble, the university then requires a secure connection between your computer and the link  out to the internet.


Now for those of you wondering what exactly the internet is, it a number of computers hosting web pages each with a unique IP address, and a number of other computers that turn the humanly nice "daulmurdoch.blogspot.com" into 66.102.11.191, obtain the number 66.220.153.11 out of Facebook.com, and 64.202.189.170 when a person requests pornographic materials. An IP address is a lot nicer for a computer to interpret. 


Although if you type 66.102.11.191 into your browser bar, you'll just go to the Google homepage, as this blog is owned by blogger, owned by Google, your browser knows to go to this blog page cause it's awesome, and wonders why you should want to visit any other page. 


Speaking of this blogs IP address:

FUCK YEAH!!! NOW YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE!! 


Speaking of excuses to visit this website, Blogger are now keeping stats from blogs, and I'd just like to share a few with you now.


From May 2010 to Today September 15th 2010, 


I have had: 

• 1,091 unique visits
• 391 visits over August alone,
• 9 visits yesterday
• My most popular post has been this one, the placeholder
• The most popular website that had lead people to this blog has been the endorsed bloggers page
• Search phrases through Google which have lead people to this site have included "tiny" "I told you she was taken" "lachlan harris" "the number right" "boob magic" "girl boobs roller coaster" "lachlan murdoch house" last night cramming" and, last but not least "LG KS660" I phone which I have never owned, but find interesting. and "girl boob rollercoaster"?? You put one soft porn image on a webpage and you get all sorts of weirdos... 5 to be exact
• 62% of visitors view this page in Internet Explorer (Shakes head with shame.)
• Although most of my traffic is from Australia, I had my second top visitors from the US, and 121 visitors from the Netherlands (Legal pot apparently makes this blog quite viewable.)
• 40 views from Ukraine
• More readers in Russian than in the UK
• If you total all the readers in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Luxemburg you get a higher number than the total people enrolled in all of my units this semester.
• There's even a dedicated reader who requires this page to be translated into Portuguese 

And you thought statistics weren't interesting. To all you readers, and to all you bots and trolls abusing this address in DoS attacks, thank you.

However, I could get more visits. Murdoch, look you've been posting other peoples' blogs on your twitter feed. And I know we haven't gotten on the best, but could you post mine. Look I provided all this invaluable information to students about the graffiti and about wireless, so, come on, look, would it help if I did the URL shortning? http://bit.ly/cnHNGG  Please?? PLEASE??

So anyway, to get to the outlet to the internet at Murdoch you need to create a tunnel to that computer using secure shell, now Windows does not have a program to do this, so you need something like puTTY in order to create this connection. Unfortunately there is no way to circumvent these security procedures if your wanting an eassier system, but just think about how encrypted the connection is! The packet must be encrypted firstly by the tunnel, then by the VPN connection - trust me, these is probably the most secure, unleachable and untappable connection possible. Murdoch network designers... You did good at this bit. But your group password choice is a bit weird.. Seriously? That? I guess you weren't planning on entering it very often. For all those wondering, No, you wouldn't guess it if you tried, even if you had an attack running, the programs I've got estimate it would take about 3 years of brute force (about the time it has taken me to get to this point in my degree.) with the laptop I'm using currently, so, it's not worth it.


Why do they make you pay for quota to use the internet?


Well, it so people just don't endlessly download and abuse the privilege with torrents, etc.


You can get a torrent through the SSH?


I am not at liberty to say. Also, no, they have blocked it.


Isn't it true that Murdoch has the most expensive internet out of  all the WA universities?


I believe so, but we have the best refund policy - I put $5 on my Internet quota during my first semester at Murdoch and currently have $47 of quota. I believe IT students get a pretty big chuck as there is the believe we need it for our studies the most. Which is true, but WoW and porn cost significantly enough without the added expense of paying for quota


I was disappointed to find 64.202.189.170 did not contain pornographic material


Oh yeah, cause I'm really gonna post a porn site on my blog, I'm not that low brow. I don't even pay for porn, I'm all class.


Cause not paying for porn makes it so much more high brow.


Yes it does. I believe I have time for two last questions before I have to wrap this up.


Is there going to be a graffiti of the week this week?


I showed you Creepy's work. That stuff was paid for. Go enjoy it. One more...


Is there any reason why the university doesn't just set up a WPA2-Enterprise setup, that way students would only have to enter in their credentials once, the computer could then be issued an encrypted digital certificate, and the user would not need to enter their passwords in again. Any traffic outside WAIX could be monitored and still paid for using quota and sent through a HTTPS session authenticated via the same digital certificate.


I'm sure there's a good reason that it would mean they'd need to restructure their current infrastructure and by only using WPA2 encryption, it means once that standard is broken, then their whole network would be vulnerable. May I ask you a question?


I guess so


Would you sleep with me?


You said that when multiple websites hosted on one IP address, the computer knows which one to go to "because it's awesome." So, no.


Well played. 


For more information on the artwork see here. 


For more information on how you can set up your computer for the wireless, see here. 


To check if a website is free or not check it here. 


To check your own quota level, click here, now you will have to click through a warning that the certificate has expired, you are free to ignore this, it means they don't want to waste money on a website that no one uses now that quota is displayed next to the battery icon in MyMurdoch. 


To see this website in Portuguese, click here


For the Murdoch Twitter feed, see here. 


For the website not containing the pornographic material, click here.


One last thing, Murdoch IT Services, could you PLEASE get EndNote X4, I'm using Office 2010 now. Oh, and if it's not too much trouble can you make it that I can download it off the internet, every time I need it it's about 2 in the morning and I don't wanna bother the IT staff and sign another form.


Until I get banned for disclosing too much about the Murdoch network, Good bye.