About
My name is Ryan. I'm interested in all aspects related to computing; especially networking and TCP/IP, protocols, intergration/deployment, programming for infrastructure, disposable architectures, algorithms or anything that makes me go ooooohh.
Current Blog Posts
Papers & Essays
Frequency analysis of second-level domain names and detection of pseudo-random domain generation Jun 2010
This paper will analyse the letter distribution found in second level domains for the .net, .com and .org top level domains. This distribution will be compared with the letter distribution of pseudo-randomly generated domains found in malware.
Image-based CAPTCHA with JACI Sep 2008
This paper proposes JACI (Just Another CAPTCHA Implementation). JACI is an image-based CAPTCHA technology that requires users to match like images with their partner image in order to pass the test. JACI is not dependant on keyboard interaction which aids some forms of accessibility and does not require internationalisation. Interaction is controlled with a pointing device such as a mouse; as each image is dragged and dropped over the other partner image, generating an overall rich user experience.
Distributed Bootstrapping of Peer-to-Peer Networks Aug 2008
A completely distributed, fault-tolerant peer-to-peer network also requires a bootstrapping mechanism that is equally distributed and fault-tolerant. This paper aims to investigate alternative bootstrapping mechanisms than those seen in common peer-to-peer networks of the current day.
Software & Development
Various bits of software
- MiniCloud - A cloud-computing toolkit built on OpenVZ. It provides a set of CLI tools like the Amazon EC2 tools to create, manage and destroy compute instances.
- DNS Utils - Some specific utilities used for parsing Windows DNS log files. These programs were written for research purposes. Results of their findings will be posted at a later date.
- JACI - Just Another Captcha Implementation. JACI is an image based CAPTCHA concept. It uses the idea of matching images based on their content to verify a human is submitting the results of the test. Images are sourced from Google Image Search.
- SMTPman is a MANual SMTP server. Although it works well and technically supports RFC 821/2821, it is more of a gimmick.
- Squawker - A basic twitter clone to teach PHP/MySQL.
- Exetel SMS PHP Class - A PHP class to use the Exetel SMS service. Only supports sending SMS's and not retrieving them.
- Informan - A simple information manager coded in C# for Windows smartphones. The program isn't very useful except as a learning aid.
Projects
- WTFTime.net - My work sees me needing to know the times of locations around the world. All the online time zone converter tools are simply too bloated so I wrote this.
- Public NTP Service - I run a stratum 1 public NTP service that is syncronised off a GPS receiver. Click the link for statistics and connection information.
- RPM Packages - I package a selection of software into RPMs for RHEL/CentOS 5 that I could not find in the distributions repositories or in other common repositories such as RPM Forge. Some are repackaged RPMs from existing SRPMs and some are written from scratch with no existing spec file. If you need to install a package, I suggest installing my repo using the following RPM.
Keys and Certificates
- My CA - If you trust me, you can install the CA certificate that I use to sign x509 certificates for my websites.
Contact
You can contact me at rd@ryandoyle.net
Updated 22nd October 2011