Hi all!
I am diagnosed with ADHD, which also impacts my processing of reading, writing and numbers. I have been working as a Carer while studying, but on graduation I have started freelancing as an events planner and marketing consultant.
I applied to access to work to help combat the barriers I've found during the transition, and have my assessment on Friday (eeek!). Feeling a little nervous, but I have a good idea of what I want (largely thanks to previous replies to this thread) and would love if others could share their experiences and advice.
I will be asking for the following items -
Laptop - MacBook Air I know this is a point of contention with ATW, but I think I have a strong case. I currently have a desktop, which has no accessibility software. A MacBook would provide the same accessibility as a number of software often offered by ATW, including dictation, and time management controls across apps. Having a laptop also enables me the flexibility to work in cafes, Coworking spaces, etc which is beneficial for body doubling. The built in dictation would be useful for getting everything down as I struggle to type it all out. Additionally, I could use my current monitor as a second screen while working at home, which would be a massive help instead of having to switch tabs and windows. So I would be either be requesting a laptop, or body doubling membership, dictation software and training, plus a microphone or something, a second monitor and other software.
Wireless mouse - for the laptop, ease of use.
Remarkable - for physical note taking.
IdeaMapper Pro - mind mapping and planning.
Noise Canceling Headphones or Loops Helpful for focus, working in cafes etc
ADHD Coaching Learning how to better manage my ADHD in a professional setting. Coping mechanisms and better work habits, time management etc.
Personal Assistant Assisting with day to day admin tasks which I struggle with… Emails, scheduling, invoicing, etc. Proof reading to ensure no mistakes. Help with filing and managing records, to ensure tax returns are correct.
Transport Occasional taxi transport between clients/work meetings, as journeys with multiple changes make me anxious, especially as I've missed my stop a few times. (No more than £120 p/m)
Curious if anyone has other suggestions, or experience asking for any of these things? Or points I could add to help my case? Especially any of the Mac tools people have specifically found helpful for managing their ADHD. I want to make sure I make the most of this opportunity, as it's going to be a massive help!
Will post an update after the assessment as well... Thanks in advance :)

I recently faced the challenge of setting up multiple mailboxes under the same domain for a project I’m working on. After some trial and error, I thought I’d share the process here to help anyone else who might be in the same boat. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Choose Your Email Hosting Provider: First things first, you need to decide on an email hosting service. Some popular ones include Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Zoho Mail. Each of these services allows you to create multiple mailboxes under the same domain. I personally went with Google Workspace because of its seamless integration with other Google services.
   
2. Domain Verification: Once you’ve chosen your provider, you’ll need to verify your domain. This usually involves adding a TXT record to your domain’s DNS settings. Your email host will provide detailed instructions on how to do this. It might take a few minutes to a couple of hours for the changes to propagate.
   
3. Create User Accounts: After your domain is verified, you can start creating user accounts/mailboxes. In Google Workspace, this is done through the Admin Console. Go to “Users” and click “Add a user.” Fill in the necessary details like name, email address, and password. Repeat this process for each mailbox you need.
   
4. Configure DNS Settings: To ensure your emails are delivered correctly, you’ll need to configure your domain’s MX (Mail Exchange) records. Your email hosting provider will give you the specific MX records to add. These records tell other mail servers where to deliver emails sent to your domain. Again, this can take some time to propagate.
   
5. Set Up Email Clients: Once the mailboxes are created and the DNS settings are configured, you can set up your email clients (like Outlook, Thunderbird, or the native email apps on your devices) to access these mailboxes. You’ll need the incoming and outgoing server settings, which your email host will provide.
   
6. Add Aliases (Optional): If you want certain mailboxes to receive emails sent to different addresses (like info@yourdomain.com and support@yourdomain.com going to the same inbox), you can set up email aliases. This is usually done in the admin console of your email host.
   
7. Test Everything: Before you announce the new email addresses to the world, send test emails to and from each mailbox to ensure everything is working correctly. Check spam folders and ensure that emails are being delivered as expected.
   
8. Set Up Forwarding and Filters: Depending on your needs, you might want to set up email forwarding or filters. For example, you can forward emails from one mailbox to another or create filters to organize incoming emails automatically.
   

That’s pretty much it! It might seem a bit overwhelming at first, but once you go through the process, it’s pretty straightforward. If you run into any issues, most email hosting providers have comprehensive support documentation and customer service teams that can help you out.
What tools to use for your business? • email warmup: warmup inbox •automate customer support: Algomo • landing pages: leadpages • Publishing: Wordpress • Social Media Marketing - AdEspresso

Hi everyone, my team and I could use some help sorting out our business admin/ability to verify in Meta Business Suite, so we can correctly connect our socials to Adobe Express. Please forgive any incorrect terminology and wording, I'm not super familiar with Meta.
Some background We have a Facebook Page, Instagram, and Meta Business Suite for our company, but it seems the Meta wasn't set up correctly or something. It was done a while ago and whoever did it has since left. We're a small start-up and have had a few freelance team members come through since it was done, and my boss can't recall who it was.
The issue Whoever did it would have been the business admin, however they're no longer in our list of users and there isn't a badge indicating any user is business admin now. I presume this means it wasn't transferred to another team membeuser when they left (if that’s correct), and were then removed. Additionally, the Facebook page isn't linked/added, but from what I understand (I may be misunderstanding) when you set up a Meta Business Suite it has to have an associated FB page. We've added the page to Meta but it of course needs to be verified by the business admin, and we don't know where that email is going or who to contact. We've also tried to connect our IG but it's only partially connected. When we try to complete it we get the message to contact the business admin and doesn't say who it is.
We're yet to find a resolution. We tried changing the email for the page but it only changed the email that appears on the page. I tried to create a new Meta Business Suite but ran into the same issue as it still sends the verification for the FB page to the mystery business admin. We either need to find out where the email is going and see if we're able to access it/contact the person who it belongs to, change the email that they're going to, or add a new business admin. We've been looking everywhere and are just going around in circles. We could do with resolving this asap as we can't connect our socials to our scheduler correctly at the moment.
Does anyone know how we can resolve this?

Hi - I cancelled all of my Comcast services via support on this page several days ago. I got some confusing advice about my last bill. They told me autopay would not work and would be turned off. My updated last bill is available online, but it says autopay is on and it also won't let me access the page to turn it off. The payment date is today, but so far no charge has gone through; I'm not sure what I am supposed to do about this. I don't want to make a payment myself and then also have autopay go through. The web site also shows past due (I've been on autopay all this time, the new bill just came through, it is not possible that it is actually past due), but then shows an autopay date of today.
I also just got a text saying that it looks like I have to return some equipment. I have no equipment and haven't for over a year. I went to the web page it sent me to, and it shows two returned modems. It doesn't show the returned cable box, which I returned even longer ago, and it also doesn't show me having any current equipment, nor have I been charged for any equipment, so I don't know why I would have received a text saying I do. Please help! Thanks.

Okay so I have a questions about marriage , me and my wife are currently on our first play through of the Game (her second my first really) and I started to have questions about how marriage works. Currently I’m dating Harvey and wanted to marrry him but how does it work in game mechanics? Like will it show Harvey living at my house for my wife? Will she still be able to access heart events for him? And what happens when I’m not on the save file, does he stay at my house or does he just kinda leave back to his if I’m not logged in? Hoesntly I’m just curious how it all works because on the like heart page for the Villagers it still shows Harvey and I are still single for my wife, and vice versa once she started dating someone

I got so tired of looking for book references on the Internet on programming cryptography that I started writing my own.
If you are interested in learning how to program cryptography please feel free to check out the beta draft of just the Preface + Table of Contents.
I only wrote those just to see if people are interested.
You can access the draft here:
https://helpthisbook.com/fosres/program-cryptography-volume-1-math-for-classical-cryptography
You can leave comments on the draft directly on the book's web page. And if you read it thanks for reading!

*Update- If anyone is looking for further proof of my point look at the comment section. Some of y'all need to hit the library. 😂
*If anyone takes the time to read and would like to share, feel free to repost and accept the credit, I don't have enough karma to share anywhere else relevant and could care less. All I ask is that you repost it in full and not cherry pick the information you agree or disagree with or whatever will get the most karma. I would like to avoid exactly what I'm describing in the post below. If any claims I make turn out to be false, I'll update and eat my words.*
(I obscured celebrity and influencer names to prevent fans from seeing the post and flagging it)
I saw someone posted an interview with (O *rlando Brow *n) from the channel Real life street Stars and wanted to put out a little PSA for this community. The channel has recently been growing in subscribers because of a 2020 interview with a 90's R&B artist named (J -aguar W r:ight ), who claims to have suffered abuse of all types that she during her time in the industry, and claims she was blacklisted for fighting back. Now she claims she's been on a mission for the last 20 years to bring down the vast networks of famous sex criminals she has firsthand knowledge of. In her first two interviews she speaks pretty eloquently and drops a lot of facts about the industry. Enough to get people sucked in. You'll see in her latest interviews the lady is clearly struggling heavily with some serious mental health and rumored substance issues.
I truly have empathy for her and (O rland,o B row-n,) because they are obvious examples of the Hollywood machine chewing up celebrities, especially with mental illness, and spitting them out. Both of them have publicly struggled for years, and around 2020, were both homeless and started doing YouTube interviews with obscure content creators where they were paid next to nothing to share their traumas with their viewers and creators who use these traumas to form false narratives and clickbait video titles that either are completely false or that are buried in an 8 hour live stream containing a thirty second audio clip that was stolen and reposted from another exploitative content creator's interview. Not only is it taking money out of their pockets, but also monetizing off their trauma, stealing their content and viewers, and harming their credibility even further due to them being blatantly false or misleading the viewers into thinking their all day live stream talking about the aforementioned video and accompanied by a slideshow is the primary source. One thing I've learned is most people will believe or immediately dismiss most information without even trying to read it. If you choose to go down this rabbit hole you should definitely start with their Insta pages and check out the last couple months. Without people majorly censoring and heavily editing their content, you can tell that they are doing this intentionally to hide the fact they are exploiting trauma survivors for petty cash. If you're still not wary, start with their latest interviews they're both total shit shows. Recently with the (Di +ddy stuff and Ka;tt William ,s) interview going viral, the channel "real life street stars" has blown up. Even more so in the last couple weeks with all the K- Anon stuff attracting people to their channels. If you choose to go down the rabbit hole I just beg you to please research ANY claims from ANY content creator and find a source before sharing. A lot of the time they are spitting celebrity fan fiction juxtaposed with occasional pieces of truth and (Jagua /r Wri /ght) was pretty damn convincing until about a year ago.
A lot of people get sucked in with ( Jag !uar W !right's ) first two interviews because she clearly had them prepared for a long time and was reading from a script. Now she's just exploiting the algorithm and spamming clickbait interviews with the craziest titles possible, thus contributing to the same exploitation she claims to be fighting against. This is not to say all her claims are bullshit, both most are recycled 90s and early 2000's gossip that is new to Gen z mixed with any breaking celebrity news or gossip that is big in the media. To make her stories sound more legit she'll Forrest Gump her way into every story and leading people into believing she was a big time celebrity, but these interviews and her instragram scamming are what she's most known for. The last interview she claims to have taken a boat to Epstein Island where she rescued two young girls who were trafficked and then talks about the Dark Web, "Red Rooms," that are pretty well known to be internet myths because if they were real they'd be invite only and require blackmail to access so no one is gonna talk about it even if they do exist. It amazed how many videos popped up overnight repeating her claims as facts and spreading the virus of media manipulation. If you're still thinking, "Hey, you never know!" She also claims these snuf. f videos and videos of celebrity orgies sell for 500 million dollars, which would be enough to build a whole chain of your own red rooms or throw your own Hollywood sex parties and join the fun. I know some people will probably still be curious, but just watch her 2020 interview the rest are trash, also anything with (O r.lando B,rown) is recycled lies mixed with more lies, with a couple buzzwords he's probably required to say so they can add trending topics to their video tags and get a lascivious title.
Another recent example of blatant manipulation is all the shit with (D j A ^kademics) the past couple days. His court records have been public for months with a vivid description of him and two friends drugging and raping a girl that was obviously premeditated and not his first rodeo. He is also now being sued for defamation because he pretty much told his fans she was drunk and asking for it then regretted it later and went on to say he didn't even know she was at the house until the next morning and blamed it on his friends. Meanwhile the court documents clearly show a rap with an e kit being administered and them finding his spermicide which was the same type found in the r word kit. They also describe video evidence of his two friends doing the same thing while she was unconscious, but he screenshotted a section and posted it in his defense saying clearly she was down. There are also identical allegations to the ones made against (D-rake) stating he has a history of hitting up sixteen year olds and grooming them until they turn eighteen and repeated history of similar drug related s. crimes. It took one post on his twitter and his fans started harassing the poor girl for months. The same thing happened to the lady who was a victim of (N$icki Min _aj's) husband who was doxxed by her fans for not dropping the charges. The next day AK was acting like it was all gravy and if anything gained even more followers. This is a brilliant example of why (Dra! ke's) line about being too famous to be a predator is so stupid. Almost as stupid as blatantly defaming the woman who appears to have more the enough evidence to beat him in a civil suit. Which is almost as stupid as he pretended to be during the (e- bony kin g) livestream where he was obviously ignoring the thousands of comments mentioning anything related to sexual crimes, while talking shit on the guy who successfully blackmailed his handler even after possibly being blackmailed himself on the same stream. This stupidity can only be surpassed by the millions of fans who are still watching his content instead of the news and continue regurgitating the lies of someone so fucking stupid who is most likely a s offender. These are the same ones who automatically dismissed the rumors and instantly believed the dog in the kennel story, the same who believed his alibi, and the same people who are the reason most survivors don't come forward and choose not to accept inconvenient truths right in front of their eyes.
Interestingly enough the portal.njcourts.gov site containing A.k's full court documents were offline for hours last night and a certain sight has banned reposting it for fear of doxxing, another great way to quell any dissent amongst the the ranks. Server's crashing often happens when there is a huge influx of web traffic or a site has been a victim of a DDOS attack, which is just an artificial version of the former that uses bots instead of people. I could talk forever about how fucked things are, but this is simply the world we live in. I really want to drive home the point that in order for any movement to retain credibility, everyone needs to stop sharing any type of info unless they're from a verified, reputable source and define the difference between facts and your opinions as clearly as possible. A couple million hits on youtube, twitter memes and tiktoks, and gossip blogs with broad information being deciphered by mostly idiots don't count as credible. Most of these influencers and blogs have been bought and paid for years ago and usually are biased toward certain celebrities based on the perception of whoever's sharing or whoever pays them the most. For a while now rumors have been circulating of influencers doing shady shit in Dubai for the ultra wealthy. Lot's of ties were made to Dra .ke, but have very little supporting evidence. The blind items containing the rumors also made it so anyone could decode the clues, and as soon as these posts made it on to the Kendric kl amar the moderator crew began the "conspiracy," crackdown. It took one mention of q-anon and the majority of the community jumped ship out of fear of association because "Q-anon bad, they're all scizophrenic." Overnight theories that once had been consensus were completely dismissed after being deemed conspiratorial. A couple of days later, the were forced to place a blanket ban on anything them deem, "conspiracies," regardless of it's validity due to their inability to moderate the amount of incoming posts which are almost always spammed at least ten times a day for the next week. This is the exact thing that was done with q, anon and pizzagat, e stuff back in the day. They'd find the nuttiest people to use as an example so they could paint the whole movement in the same light, then dismissed all related information, and completely censored any discussion on most major platforms. I don't subscribe to either, but they were undeniably on to something. The problem was the disinformation campaigns and general stupidity. One was quashed almost overnight because a crazy guy shot into the front window of a pizza shop and it somehow hit their computer and obliterate their hard drive containing possible evidence. The lessons is truth in every lie and it's not hard to find if you know where to look, it's what you do with it that defines who you are as a person. Some people can't handle the truth because it conflict's with their world view and those who do usually suffer because of it. If everyone does their part though, no one would have to die a martyr in its pursuit.
I've noticed a recent pattern of influencers proliferating the spread of false information especially in relation to any sa allegations. This trend really took off when (Kat -t Will/iams's) interview went viral and helped to revitalize his career and reputation. Since then many copycats have come out of the woodworks, hoping to cash in on the trend. Some other common media suppression trends and manipulation tactics to watch out for are synthetic smear campaigns dedicated to destroying the credibility of anyone with alternative beliefs, and it's gotten exponentially worse throughout the years. A great example is all the shit (Y,e). had to deal with through the years, even prior to his antisemitic remarks and all the other famous people who spoke up about their industries and were silenced. (D av+e Chapp? elle) used to talk a lot about the tactics used to humiliate and destroy many influential black men who dared to challenge the system. Another case that's similar to Ak's is the (T/or y La^ne z and M ,egan T (hee Stallio, n) trial. If you look at the court records, it's obvious the shooting was part of a larger altercation. He still might have shot her, but she at the least totally lied her ass off about the actual story to avoid incriminating friends while ensuring they could hit him with a ten year sentence. Not long after (Me ..gan THE" E S !tallion) won three Grammy's and was voted woman of the year, then disappeared off the face of the earth until her manager sued her a couple weeks ago for having sex in front of him and threatening his job over it. There are countless other celebrities and influencers who are clearly wiling to say anything for money, and those who aren't usually have some blackmail on them. There is such an abundance of glaringly obvious disinformation campaigns in the media and most are accepted as gospel without question or are suppressed if they reveal too much, raise too many questions, or start to sway public opinion. Another very common example of this phenomena is the mass release of information that paints a positive image of the celebrity while containing the same buzzwords related to controversies they don't want popping up on anywhere near the top of Google. This keeps any relevant information limited to the most recent AI generated bullshit that plays the algorithm game the best. While doing my investigation, it was unbelievably difficult finding any relevant information from before 2020, and often had to use Duckduckgo to filter out any articles written after 2023. Even then every search engine required extremely specific search terms, which would often still provide me with the exact same results. It got so bad I considered switching to Yandex.
Recently all the things I've discussed have seemingly been kicked into overdrive, especially over the last few weeks. This leads me to believe that a lot more is going down behind the scenes than most realize. I believe the day will come soon when everyone who actively fought to dismiss peoples opinions out of ignorance will be forced to accept these truths whether they like it or not I was a victim myself last week when I shared a detailed, neutral commentary on a rap feud and was shadow banned from a popular subreddit and ignored by it's moderators. This same subreddit is currently deleting any and all information related to the subject I covered. This is why I wanted to raise awareness if this doesn't get suppressed as well. Karma requirements and shadow bans that can sometimes circumvent the use of Vpn's on all connect devices, lead me to believe Reddit as a whole may also be at least partially compromised.
Chances are the same people who promote biased garbage and obvious lies are the same ones who will scroll right past any post containing more then three sentences and the ones who spread any lie they are told without question and accept everything at face value. My personal favorites are the ones who don't read past the title and clog up the comments while obscuring valuable information because they want the spark note version. This is all by design. They are the sheep the government count on to help them consolidate their wealth and power. More and more people are waking every day though. I encourage anyone new to conspiracies to really keep all this in mind going forward, especially with the proliferation of AI powered disinformation bots that dominate your front pages and control the majority of content. If you want to fight against this and keep your freedom of speech, this is a call to arms. To anyone who values the truth, the powers that be will do anything they can to try to censor any public dissidence. Remain steady in your search for truth, and learn how to effectively help other join you in lifting the veil. Stay strong in your convictions and don't allow other's to moderate your options, your beliefs, or your truth.
Thanks for Reading
-The Original Random Moniker

First / Previous
Back on the job, my eyes kept going to the camera that was on enclosure one. Andrew told me its real name, but I think that’d be a step too far, putting that out on the internet. I’d just stick with ‘Steve the bear’. Whatever it was, I just knew I’d have a nightmare about it eventually. Last night I slept fitfully but okay. But I know my brain, and I’d already had a nightmare about Yui stabbing me with one of her legs (they are not needle-sharp in real life, this was dream logic) and walking around, having not noticed I was a Ripley-kebab on her leg. I kept trying to get her attention but for some reason I’d been worried about sounding rude.
On my third walk around the zoo, at about 12 a.m. I saw Leila again, who I’d been noticing more and more often. She never looked interested in talking, only walking through the enclosures, and by that I meant any and all of them. She didn’t seem to have a favorite. I assume that however much of her mind that was left over from being alive still gravitated toward looking at the animals, since getting too close was what killed her in the first place.
Then, in enclosure eight, I saw a new creature and stopped abruptly. This one looked chill, but I wasn’t about to make any assumptions. It looked unique in a strange way, shaped like a giant lizard but built like a big cat of some sort. It had an uncanny valley human face, green hair for a mane, and also a horn like a unicorn. It felt like something drawn by an imaginative five-year-old brought to life, but was still somehow oddly endearing.
“Hello,” she spoke, noticing me noticing her. Her voice was distinctly female and oddly deep.
“Hello,” I responded with false cheer.
She pushed herself to her feet and I took an instinctive step back, but she seem to notice, much less take offense. “You’re the guard here?”
“Yup. That’s me.”
“Thank you.”
I blinked, taken aback. “Ah…you’re welcome. For what?”
She cocked her head. “For guarding me.”
That was different. Most of the impressions I had gotten from the animals so far were that they wanted to eat me. And the idea that this one was thankful for me doing my job was refreshing, don’t get me wrong, but made me wary. Call me a cynic, I guess.
“My name is tàiyang. You can call me Sun,” she told me.
“Hi, Sun. I’m Ripley.”
Then she looked toward the sky. “It’s going to rain tonight.”
After a thoughtful moment, I asked, “Does that make you sad?”
“Why would it make you sad?”
I smiled. “Because your name is Sun.”
She paused and then said, “I don’t understand.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, telling a pun to one of the animals. “Never mind.” I glanced up at the sky. “I thought the rain is supposed to stay away from here. Are the ones who told me that wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s good to know,” I murmured to myself, thinking of my raincoat hanging in the security office closet. It wasn’t that surprising, honestly. Sometimes I felt like the meteorologists in Arkansas try to read the entrails of goats to figure out the weather. It’s all a mess and it’s all made up.
At that, the animal looked to the sky and fell silent. She appeared to be the most uneventful introduction I’d had so far, and I was incredibly grateful for it. Except then the animal kept talking. “He’s under a spell.”
I blinked. “What?”
She looked back to me. “Andrew. He’s under a spell. He’s very unhappy.”
I had no idea how to react to that. For a second I just stared. The sudden jolt of being told my boss was currently being afflicted by magic left me floundering. “He… What?” I finally asked. “Where is he?”
“In his office.”
Oh shit. My eyes instinctively darted in the direction of the main office. I always just entered through the door on the west side of the building, of course, since it led to the security room. It was unnecessary for me to go through the door that first led into the lobby-slash-office Andrew worked out of. Sometimes he even left early, so it was locked anyway. I had the key, but again, it was unnecessary.
Whatever had happened, assuming this animal wasn’t joking around (she seemed completely serious), I needed to establish whether she was right. Leaving the enclosure of the animal I’d just met, I quickly walked back to the small building.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked loudly. “Andrew, are you in there?”
The only reply was silence. I stood there until enough time had passed that it was obvious that no one was coming to answer the door. Taking out my phone, I dialed his cell number and wait as it rang. Then I grimaced when I heard it ringing inside.
Hanging up and shoving the phone back in my pocket, I stared at the closed door.
Trying the doorknob, I found that it was unlocked, and my heart skipped a beat. Andrew always locked his office before leaving. Opening the door slowly, the lights were off in the room, leaving only the faint red glow of the lights outside peeking around his curtains, so I turned on a light. Then my heart plummeted into my stomach, because there was Andrew, splayed limply on the ground, his eyes only half open.
I bolted to him and dropped to his side as he let out a whimper.
“Andrew,” I said, putting two fingers to the side of his neck. He remained silent, and despite his relaxed, wilted appearance, his heart was racing, and I wondered if he was in pain. The room smelled, and it was clear to me that he’d lost control of his bowels. I couldn’t believe I’d been working here for hours without knowing he was in the next room like this.
“Fucking hell. I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you. Can you hear me? What happened?” He made a small sound, unfocused eyes attempting to meet mine, but it was as if he were severely deprived of sleep or something, unable to focus. His mouth opened and he tried to say something, but he couldn’t speak. All I got was halting words mushed into each other. I felt for him; he must’ve been mortified by his condition. I would’ve been, at least.
The obvious solution would be to get Suzanne’s number from Andrew’s phone, so I searched him for it and found it in his right jacket pocket. I pressed the button the iPhone, swiped, and let out a sigh of frustration. He was security conscious enough to lock his phone with a code, of course.
“Can you… You can’t tell me the code,” I said knowing. He grunted quietly.
“What happened?”
I shrieked and jumped to my feet. Leila stood in the doorway, staring in shock at Andrew’s body. “You scared the bejesus out of me,” I exclaimed. I stopped myself before asking if she could make some noise when she moved or if I could put a bell on her. “What does it look like happened? Someone put a spell on him.” Abruptly, my stance changed, standing up straight. “Wait. Do you know how to get in touch with…anyone?” I asked desperately.
“I know Ms. Cooper’s phone number,” she said frankly.
My eyes widened. “Seriously? How?”
“Andrew gave it to me after I worked here for three months.”
That stopped my brain dead in its tracks. “You…used to work here?” I whispered. I remembered Andrew telling me that one of the night shift managers had been killed, but he hadn’t told me it was Leila. Whether it was for her own privacy or her dignity or some other reason, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I could call Suzanne.
“I worked here for three months,” Leila confirmed as I took out my own phone.
“Okay…what’s her number?” I asked, ready to dial. She rattled off the number and dialed it.
The phone rang twice times before someone answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Suzanne?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
She had a British accent like Andrew did. I took a deep breath and said, “It’s Ripley Mason. I got your number from Leila. I’m here in Andrew’s office and he’s in really bad shape. Someone cast a spell on him and it’s like he’s lost control of the part of his brain that lets him move around and speak.”
“What?” she snapped. “What happened?”
“I-I don’t know,” I said, glancing back to Andrew. He actually looked calmer now, and I hoped that was because he knew Suzanne could fix this. “I was doing my rounds and I met Sun; she’s the one that told me and that’s why I came into his office. I don’t- Who would do this? What do I do?”
“It’s okay, Ripley. I’ll leaving now and will be there soon,” she told me. I heard rustling in the background, the sounds of getting out of a chair and footsteps. “Did you check the security cameras?”
My eyes shut in irritation against my stupidity. It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I’m sorry. Of course, I’ll do that right away.” Proof positive that I was completely out of it. Some security guard I was, not even able to keep my head in an emergency.
“Don’t apologize, Ripley, you’re quite within your rights to be discombobulated at the moment,” she said. “And I’d like you stay with Andrew, but I would prefer to know what happened. Leave his side just for a second to check the footage.
“Okay.” I crouched down to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.” His eyes flicked to me, but he didn’t make a sound. Getting back to my feet and walking over to the security room door, I went in and sat at my desk, putting the phone on speaker so I could more easily navigate the footage.
After fidgeting around with the unfamiliar aspect of the program, since I’d never needed to look back before and Andrew only showed me how to do it once, I finally went back to the point where the spell had been cast. “Okay, he walked into his office with two men at…4:08 p.m. and it looks like he was fine with it. He wasn’t under duress, from what I can see.”
“That’s likely Michael Wise and Eric Henry,” Suzanne told me. “They were allegedly making a donation, a herd of Bagot goats.”
“Allegedly?”
“Well, I’m operating under the assumption that they lied if Andrew is spelled.”
I grimaced. That was a good point. Watching them have a conversation, I saw Andrew tense, and then turn to dart toward his desk, but he only made it two steps before one of the men raised what looked like a wand, snapping it in my late boss’s direction, speaking something. As I saw Andrew’s body seize like he’d been hit with a taser and collapse, I hissed in a sharp breath. “Cripes.”
“What is it?”
“One of them had a wand,” I managed. “He-He did something with it.”
“I’m here, Ripley. Come back to the office.”
My eyes widened and I did as I was told, stunned to see her opening the front door. “How did you get here so fast?” I asked.
The woman gave me a small smile, rendered grim by the situation. “Call it a trick of the trade.”
“Oh. Gotcha.”
Suzanne was all hard edges, her pin-straight blond hair cut at an angle just below her ears, and she wore a smart blue pants suit with matching pumps. But then she looked to Andrew and her face softened, despair and fury flashing across it as she quickly walked to him and knelt at his side, taking his weak hand in hers.
“Oh, Andrew,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. You’ll be okay. I already texted a healer and asked her to come by. A friend of mine named Janine.”
I looked back to Andrew’s face, his eyes open and his expression one of exhaustion, but then quickly looked to Suzanne. “Why would someone do this?” I asked.
“I have a feeling at least one of our animals is missing,” she told me, her voice low and hard.
Anger flared up in me. “What?” I asked tersely. I glanced back in the direction of the cameras. “Should we check the cameras to see which enclosure they went to? Do we- Are there cops you can call for this? What do we do?”
Suzanne’s face slowly faded to sadness. “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “You’re accurate in that I do have a different police I’ll call about this. But there’s a good chance we won’t get the animal back.”
“Wait, why? Come on, there’s got to be magic you could do, right?” I asked anxiously.
“The animal will have been warded and sold to someone immediately,” she explained. “They would’ve had a buyer set up, and gone straight there to reduce the risk of being caught with it. Anyone who is buying an animal like this is extremely powerful, which means that even if we catch the men who stole it, they’d go to prison, but they wouldn’t risk angering the buyer. They won’t tell the authorities who it was, even for a lesser sentence. Losing an animal to robbery has only happened twice in the zoo’s history, this is the third time, but that’s how it played out both times. Actually, in the first instance, the police didn’t even catch the people who took it, since they were wearing masks.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and Suzanne pushed herself to her feet, walking over and opening it without hesitation. “He’s in here.” I took the opportunity to open the windows and turned down the thermostat so it would start displacing the smelly air.
A woman walked in, Janine presumably. “Oh, goodness,” she breathed, going quickly to Andrew. She took his pulse with one hand as she pulled a wand out from her purse with the other. “It’s good he’s staying calm. Redire orior can be terrifying to be subjected to.”
“He wasn’t calm when I got here,” I told her quietly. “I’ve been here for hours and didn’t know he was here until just a few minutes ago.”
Janine swore softly. “All right. Let me get started.”
I didn’t know what that meant, so I turned to Suzanne. “What did she call this?”
“The spell is ‘redire orior’. It’s a regression of part of the mind, basically all the way back to when we were first born,” she said tightly, anger flickering across her face. “He has no more control over his body than he did when he was a newborn baby.”
I grimaced, looking back to him. “Oh my god,” I whispered. It meant exactly what it had looked like when I’d walked in: Andrew had been rendered completely helpless. Rage welled up inside me, despising the men who’d done this and wishing desperately that Suzanne had been more confident in finding them.
Suzanne took the opportunity to walk into the security office and I heard her sit in my chair. Janine put down her wand to have both hands free and told Andrew, “Just relax, concentrate on breathing slowly,” she said, carefully pulling both of his legs out and rolling him onto his back. She then put his arms at his sides and, picking up her wand, pointed it at his forehead.
I took in a sharp breath of surprise as I saw a faint glow coming from the wand, through the top of it and then to Andrew’s forehead. She held that position for a while, muttering under her breath.
A few minutes later, Suzanne came out and took her phone from her pocket, saying, “I don’t recognize either of the men in the footage. But they seemed distressed, particularly the one that didn’t hurt Andrew. I don’t think that’s what was meant to happen.”
“Meant to or not, it happened,” I muttered through clenched teeth. I’d already decided that my new to-do list every day included first checking the office cameras.
“Andrew,” Janine said, letting the glow fade. “Can you speak?”
“I…yeah,” he whispered.
Suzanne came over to my side. “Thank goodness. How are you feeling? How’s the vertigo?”
“Pretty much gone,” he said, closing his eyes for a long moment, though he didn’t try to stand up.
“Andrew, I pulled up the cameras in the office and listened to the audio,” she told him. “I know what happened.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “The cameras have audio?”
“It’s under admin privileges, but yes. Andrew, you should have known better,” she said softly, looking back to him. “The gun in one of the desk drawers? I presume that’s what you were lunging for, because those two men had just made it clear they were here for an animal.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I just…” He looked distraught.
“They told you to just let them get what they came for,” Suzanne said. “Why didn’t you?” My lips parted in shock.
“The last time this happened, I cooperated, but…I regretted it,” he growled. “We never saw Harriet again. I couldn’t just stand here and let them do whatever they wanted. Not again.” I assumed Harriet was one of their animals, but I didn’t ask.
“Don’t ever do something so foolish again,” she told him, on the verge of being upset, her emotions likely tempered by his condition. “I want to make it clear to you that this job, these animals, they’re immensely important, but they are not worth your life. He could have killed you. If someone gains access to the zoo again to steal an animal I want you to cooperate fully. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Andrew muttered.
The idea that Andrew had tried to bring a gun to a wand fight was staggering. Something heavy curled in my stomach at the thought. It was clear he cared about the wellbeing of the animals to a degree I hadn’t comprehended.
Janine took one of the small pillows from the couch and tucked it under Andrew’s head as Suzanne continued. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll go through the footage to determine what they stole and then call the authorities to report the theft. Janine, can you continue to treat him?”
I wasn’t sure what that entailed, but Janine apparently did, since she nodded and knelt back down as Suzanne went back into the security office. Janine did the same thing that she’d done before, that soft glow channeling light into Andrew’s head. Obviously, I wanted to ask what she was doing, but I knew better than to think I’d get an answer. Instead, I sat in one of the loveseats in front of Andrew’s desk, turning it to face them.
I heard Suzanne’s voice faintly speaking to someone on the phone and the minutes ticked by. Eventually, Suzanne came back out again and she stood next to me for a long moment, watching the healing process before turning to me.
“Andrew told me you were attempting to create some enrichment activities for the animals?” asked my boss.
“Oh, uh…yeah, I am,” I answered. I assumed she was trying to make small talk to distract me from the current situation, and I appreciated it. “The first one went well. Spike loves artichokes, pecans, and hazelnuts. I went with things that made it a challenge to eat, like it’s a challenge to pull out fingernails of its prey.”
Suzanne’s expression brightened just enough for me to notice. “Ripley, that’s wonderful. Very clever.” She let out a breath. “It’s becoming more and more obvious to me that Andrew chose well in hiring you.” I gave her a small smile. “Listen, I’m going to hire someone else to be here with you on duty,” Suzanne told me, “and by that, I mean someone from my neck of the woods. Andrew explained that to you, correct?”
“Not much. Just that you’re not from Earth.”
Suzanne smiled. “That makes me sound like an alien, but yes, I’m not from this dimension. I can hire someone who has similar abilities to mine, who can check in every few hours, make sure everything’s all right, but generally make themselves scarce unless there’s an emergency. He wouldn’t have been able to do much if he’d already been here, but he’d have known what was going on. Andrew would have received assistance immediately.”
I was curious of what those abilities were, aside from being able to see the animals, but I wasn’t bold enough to ask. Also, I was curious about who this new ‘employee’ would be, but presumably I’d find out sooner or later. “That would make me feel a little better,” I said, nodding. “Knowing there was someone else here.”
She nodded once. “It’s as good as done, then. As for Andrew, he’ll need to take a few days off to recover. Would you be willing to give the tours until he’s back in ship-shape?”
My eyes bugged out of my skull. “Wait, what? I can’t even see all the animals!”
Suzanne chuckled at my expression and shook her head. “I can enchant a pair of specs for you to wear,” she told me. “It’ll give you a bit of a headache, but you’ll be able to see all of the animals. Also, I’ll give you the background for each of them, because you’ll be speaking about them to the tourists.”
I blinked, thinking of how awesome it would be to finally know all about them all. And it was flattering, the fact that she had such confidence in me that, without hesitation, she asked if I could take over for Andrew. The best thing for me to do, of course, was to be confident and assure her that I could take any temporary promotion in stride. “I’m…I’m not great with people,” I managed.
Yup. Nailed it.
“You can be a little harsh with them if you need to,” she said with a small, knowing smile. “I assumed that signing up for a job where you interact with a screen of cameras the whole time means you aren’t great with people. And Andrew did brief me on you when he hired you. How good are you at couching your insults in polite talk? The British are quite skilled, but I know Americans aren’t too bad at it.”
I smirked, remembering how a coworker friend of mine once told a customer, “Oh, bless your heart,” in her thick southern accent and it sounded like the worst insult. “I can manage that, I think.”
A buzz from the gate that went to the panel on the wall drew our attention and Suzanne walked over to let the visitors in. It was three people, a man and two women, with a gurney.
Walking over to Andrew, I folded my arms with a small smile as Janine released his head from the glow the wand was emitting. “Hey. Sorry you had to lay on the floor for so long knowing I was cluelessly reading a book in the next room.”
“Eh, not the end of the world,” he whispered. “I’ll be back on my feet soon. So, no parties while I’m gone.”
I snorted and my smile widened, and he returned it.
Going back into the security room, I pulled the system back to the multi-camera exterior view, and I sat there and listened to Suzanne talk to one of the medics, explaining everything that had happened in detail. Once she’d done that and they brought Andrew outside on the gurney, presumably to a waiting ambulance, I gave my statement, and then…it was back to work.
Obviously going back to work like nothing had changed felt weird, but Suzanne stayed, letting me know that she would get some work done at Andrew’s desk until my shift was over. It was likely the opposite of necessary, the robbers were gone, but it did make me feel a tiny bit better knowing that she was in the next room with her wand.
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***
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MS-ISAC CYBERSECURITY ADVISORY
MS-ISAC ADVISORY NUMBER: 2024-056
DATE(S) ISSUED: 05/14/2024
SUBJECT: Multiple Vulnerabilities in Mozilla Products Could Allow for Arbitrary Code Execution
OVERVIEW: Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in Mozilla Products, the most severe of which could allow for arbitrary code execution.

• Mozilla Firefox is a web browser used to access the Internet.
• Mozilla Firefox ESR is a version of the web browser intended to be deployed in large organizations.
• Mozilla Thunderbird is an email client.

Successful exploitation of the most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow for arbitrary code execution in the context of the logged on user. Depending on the privileges associated with the user, an attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than those who operate with administrative user rights.
THREAT INTELLIGENCE: There are no reports that these vulnerabilities are being exploited in the wild
SYSTEMS AFFECTED:

• Firefox ESR versions prior to 115.11
• Thunderbird versions prior to 115.11
• Firefox versions prior to 126

RISK: Government:

• Large and medium government entities: High
• Small government entities: High

Businesses:

• Large and medium business entities: High
• Small business entities: High

Home users: Low
TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in Mozilla Products, the most severe of which could allow for arbitrary code execution. Details of the most critical vulnerabilities are as follows:
Tactic: Initial Access (TA0001):
Technique: Drive-by Compromise (T1189):

• Multiple WebRTC threads could have claimed a newly connected audio input leading to use-after-free. (CVE-2024-4764)
• A type check was missing when handling fonts in PDF.js, which would allow arbitrary JavaScript execution in the PDF.js context. (CVE-2024-4367)
• Web application manifests were stored by using an insecure MD5 hash which allowed for a hash collision to overwrite another application's manifest. This could have been exploited to run arbitrary code in another application's context. This issue only affects Firefox for Android. Other versions of Firefox are unaffected. (CVE-2024-4765)
• Different techniques existed to obscure the fullscreen notification in Firefox for Android. These could have lead to potential user confusion and spoofing attacks. This bug only affects Firefox for Android. Other versions of Firefox are unaffected. (CVE-2024-4766)
• If the browser.privatebrowsing.autostart preference is enabled, IndexedDB files were not properly deleted when the window was closed. This preference is disabled by default in Firefox and Thunderbird. (CVE-2024-4767)
• A bug in popup notifications' interaction with WebAuthn made it easier for an attacker to trick a user into granting permissions. (CVE-2024-4768)
• When importing resources using Web Workers, error messages would distinguish the difference between application/javascript responses and non-script responses. This could have been abused to learn information cross-origin. (CVE-2024-4769)
• When saving a page to PDF, certain font styles could have led to a potential use-after-free crash. (CVE-2024-4770)
• A memory allocation check was missing which would lead to a use-after-free if the allocation failed. This could have triggered a crash or potentially be leveraged to achieve code execution. (CVE-2024-4771)
• Memory safety bugs present in Firefox 125, Firefox ESR 115.10, and Thunderbird 115.10. Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption and we presume that with enough effort some of these could have been exploited to run arbitrary code. (CVE-2024-4777)

Additional lower severity vulnerabilities include:

• An HTTP digest authentication nonce value was generated using rand() which could lead to predictable values. (CVE-2024-4772)
• When a network error occurred during page load, the prior content could have remained in view with a blank URL bar. This could have been used to obfuscate a spoofed web site. (CVE-2024-4773)
• The ShmemCharMapHashEntry() code was susceptible to potentially undefined behavior by bypassing the move semantics for one of its data members. (CVE-2024-4774)
• An iterator stop condition was missing when handling WASM code in the built-in profiler, potentially leading to invalid memory access and undefined behavior. Note: This issue only affects the application when the profiler is running. (CVE-2024-4775)
• A file dialog shown while in full-screen mode could have resulted in the window remaining disabled. (CVE-2024-4776)
• Memory safety bugs present in Firefox 125. Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption and we presume that with enough effort some of these could have been exploited to run arbitrary code. (CVE-2024-4778)

Successful exploitation of the most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow for arbitrary code execution in the context of the logged on user. Depending on the privileges associated with the user, an attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than those who operate with administrative user rights.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
We recommend the following actions be taken:

• Apply the stable channel update provided by Mozilla to vulnerable systems immediately after appropriate testing. (M1051: Update Software)
  • Safeguard 7.1 : Establish and Maintain a Vulnerability Management Process: Establish and maintain a documented vulnerability management process for enterprise assets. Review and update documentation annually, or when significant enterprise changes occur that could impact this Safeguard.
  • Safeguard 7.4: Perform Automated Application Patch Management: Perform application updates on enterprise assets through automated patch management on a monthly, or more frequent, basis.
  • Safeguard 7.5 : Perform Automated Vulnerability Scans of Internal Enterprise Assets: Perform automated vulnerability scans of internal enterprise assets on a quarterly, or more frequent, basis. Conduct both authenticated and unauthenticated scans, using a SCAP-compliant vulnerability scanning tool.
• Apply the Principle of Least Privilege to all systems and services. Run all software as a non-privileged user (one without administrative privileges) to diminish the effects of a successful attack. (M1026: Privileged Account Management)
  • Safeguard 4.7: Manage Default Accounts on Enterprise Assets and Software: Manage default accounts on enterprise assets and software, such as root, administrator, and other pre-configured vendor accounts. Example implementations can include: disabling default accounts or making them unusable.
  • Safeguard 5.4: Restrict Administrator Privileges to Dedicated Administrator Accounts: Restrict administrator privileges to dedicated administrator accounts on enterprise assets. Conduct general computing activities, such as internet browsing, email, and productivity suite use, from the user’s primary, non-privileged account.
• Use capabilities to detect and block conditions that may lead to or be indicative of a software exploit occurring. (M1050: Exploit Protection)
  • Safeguard 10.5: Enable Anti-Exploitation Features: Enable anti-exploitation features on enterprise assets and software, where possible, such as Microsoft® Data Execution Prevention (DEP), Windows® Defender Exploit Guard (WDEG), or Apple® System Integrity Protection (SIP) and Gatekeeper™.
• Restrict use of certain websites, block downloads/attachments, block JavaScript, restrict browser extensions, etc. (M1021: Restrict Web-Based Content)
  • Safeguard 9.2: Use DNS Filtering Services: Use DNS filtering services on all enterprise assets to block access to known malicious domains.
  • Safeguard 9.3: Maintain and Enforce Network-Based URL Filters: Enforce and update network-based URL filters to limit an enterprise asset from connecting to potentially malicious or unapproved websites. Example implementations include category-based filtering, reputation-based filtering, or through the use of block lists. Enforce filters for all enterprise assets.
  • Safeguard 9.6: Block Unnecessary File Types: Block unnecessary file types attempting to enter the enterprise’s email gateway.
• Block execution of code on a system through application control, and/or script blocking. (M1038: Execution Prevention)
  • Safeguard 2.5 : Allowlist Authorized Software: Use technical controls, such as application allowlisting, to ensure that only authorized software can execute or be accessed. Reassess bi-annually, or more frequently.
  • Safeguard 2.6 : Allowlist Authorized Libraries: Use technical controls to ensure that only authorized software libraries, such as specific .dll, .ocx, .so, etc., files, are allowed to load into a system process. Block unauthorized libraries from loading into a system process. Reassess bi-annually, or more frequently.
  • Safeguard 2.7 : Allowlist Authorized Scripts: Use technical controls, such as digital signatures and version control, to ensure that only authorized scripts, such as specific .ps1, .py, etc., files, are allowed to execute. Block unauthorized scripts from executing. Reassess bi-annually, or more frequently.
• Use capabilities to prevent suspicious behavior patterns from occurring on endpoint systems. This could include suspicious process, file, API call, etc. behavior. (M1040: Behavior Prevention on Endpoint)
  • Safeguard 13.2 : Deploy a Host-Based Intrusion Detection Solution: Deploy a host-based intrusion detection solution on enterprise assets, where appropriate and/or supported.
  • Safeguard 13.7 : Deploy a Host-Based Intrusion Prevention Solution: Deploy a host-based intrusion prevention solution on enterprise assets, where appropriate and/or supported. Example implementations include use of an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) client or host-based IPS agent.
• Inform and educate users regarding the threats posed by hypertext links contained in emails or attachments especially from un-trusted sources. Remind users not to visit un-trusted websites or follow links provided by unknown or un-trusted sources. (M1017: User Training)
  • Safeguard 14.1: Establish and Maintain a Security Awareness Program: Establish and maintain a security awareness program. The purpose of a security awareness program is to educate the enterprise’s workforce on how to interact with enterprise assets and data in a secure manner. Conduct training at hire and, at a minimum, annually. Review and update content annually, or when significant enterprise changes occur that could impact this Safeguard.
  • Safeguard 14.2: Train Workforce Members to Recognize Social Engineering Attacks: Train workforce members to recognize social engineering attacks, such as phishing, pre-texting, and tailgating.

REFERENCES:

Mozilla: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2024-21/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2024-22/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2024-23/

CVE: https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4367 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4764 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4765 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4766 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4767 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4768 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4769 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4770 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4771 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4772 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4773 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4774 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4775 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4776 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4777 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4778

Ensuring Data Integrity in Web Forms

In the world of web development, ensuring the accuracy and uniqueness of user input is paramount, particularly when it comes to email addresses. Email addresses serve not only as a primary method of communication but also as a unique identifier for users across various platforms. As such, validating the format of an email address and verifying its uniqueness against a database becomes a critical task for developers. This task ensures that the data collected is not only formatted correctly but also unique, preventing issues such as duplicate accounts or incorrect user data.
jQuery, a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library, offers an efficient way to perform these validations on the client side, improving user experience by providing immediate feedback. However, the challenge doesn't stop at client-side validation. Developers must also implement server-side checks to ensure data integrity and uniqueness across their databases. This dual-layer approach to validation ensures a robust and error-free user registration process, laying the foundation for a secure and user-friendly web application.

Command/Function	Description
$.ajax()	Sends asynchronous HTTP requests to the server.
emailRegex.test(email)	Tests if the email string matches the specified regex pattern for emails.

Deep Dive into Email Validation Techniques

Email validation is a critical component of modern web development, ensuring that user input is both correct and useful. The process involves two major steps: format validation and uniqueness verification. Format validation is typically achieved using regular expressions (regex), which are patterns designed to match character combinations in strings. In the context of email validation, a regex pattern verifies that the email address entered by the user adheres to a standard format, such as including an "@" symbol and a domain name. This step is crucial as it helps prevent users from accidentally entering incorrect information, such as missing the "@" symbol, which is a common mistake.
However, format validation alone is not sufficient to ensure the quality of data. Uniqueness verification steps in as the second layer of validation, ensuring that the email address has not been used to register another account in the system. This is typically achieved through a server-side check against a database. Implementing both levels of validation requires careful consideration of user experience and system performance. For instance, performing an asynchronous request to check for email uniqueness can provide immediate feedback to the user without requiring a page reload. This enhances the user experience by providing instant validation results, making the registration process smoother and more efficient.

Email Validation in jQuery

jQuery & JavaScript

const emailRegex = /^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,4}$/; $("#email").on("blur", function() { var email = $(this).val(); if(emailRegex.test(email)) { // Proceed with uniqueness check $.ajax({ url: "/check-email", data: { email: email }, type: "POST", success: function(data) { if(data.isUnique) { alert("Email is unique and valid."); } else { alert("Email already exists."); } } }); } else { alert("Invalid email format."); } }); 

Enhancing Web Forms with jQuery

Email validation and uniqueness check are crucial components of web development that ensure user data integrity and prevent common issues like duplicate registrations. Validating an email involves checking whether the input matches a pattern that resembles email addresses, a process typically achieved using regular expressions. This client-side validation improves the user experience by providing immediate feedback, helping users correct errors before submitting the form. However, client-side validation alone is not foolproof since it can be bypassed, emphasizing the importance of server-side validation for security and data integrity.
On the other hand, checking the uniqueness of an email address against a database is a server-side operation. It ensures that each registered email is unique within the application, preventing multiple accounts from being associated with the same email address. This check is particularly important in applications where the email address acts as a primary identifier for users. Implementing both email validation and uniqueness check requires a combination of client-side and server-side programming, with jQuery being a popular choice for the former due to its simplicity and efficiency in handling DOM elements and Ajax requests.

Frequently Asked Questions About jQuery Email Validation

1. Question: Why is email validation important in web forms?
2. Answer: Email validation ensures that users enter information that follows the correct format, improving data quality and communication efficiency.
3. Question: Can jQuery be used for server-side email uniqueness checks?
4. Answer: jQuery is primarily used for client-side scripting. Server-side checks require a server-side language like PHP, Python, or Node.js in combination with jQuery for Ajax requests.
5. Question: How does client-side validation improve user experience?
6. Answer: It provides immediate feedback, allowing users to correct errors before submitting the form, reducing frustration and unnecessary server requests.
7. Question: What is the best practice for email validation and uniqueness check?
8. Answer: The best practice involves combining client-side validation for immediate feedback and server-side validation for security and data integrity.
9. Question: How do you handle false positives in email validation?
10. Answer: Implementing a more comprehensive regex pattern and allowing users to correct their input based on specific error messages can reduce false positives.

Wrapping Up Our Insights

Implementing robust validation mechanisms for email addresses in web applications is not just about enhancing the user interface or experience; it's a fundamental aspect of securing and maintaining the integrity of the system's data. Through the use of jQuery for client-side validation and the incorporation of server-side verification, developers can ensure that an email is not only formatted correctly but is also unique within their system. This dual-layered approach minimizes potential security risks, such as unauthorized access or data breaches, and operational issues, like duplicate records or miscommunications with users. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of a thorough understanding of both client and server-side scripting among developers, empowering them to create more reliable, secure, and user-friendly web applications. As we've explored, the combination of immediate feedback on the client side and definitive verification on the server side constitutes best practices in modern web development, ensuring that user data is both valid and unique.
https://www.tempmail.us.com/en/jquery/implementing-email-validation-and-uniqueness-check-with-jquery

A web developer is a skilled professional tasked with constructing applications and websites that are accessible on the internet. They often work closely with graphic designers or product managers to bring their ideas to life and translate programming logic and design ideas into web-compatible code.
A web developer ensures websites meet user expectations by guaranteeing aesthetics, seamless operation, and quick loading times without errors.
They are accountable for a website’s code, design, and layout, SEO Services, emphasizing user experience and functionality. Continuous upkeep and maintenance of websites are also part of their duties.

Key Skill Requirements for Web Developers in 2024

Web developers in 2022 need a blend of technical skills, creativity, and adaptability. Proficiency in programming languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and others is essential. Additionally, familiarity with modern frameworks and libraries, real estate marketing website and such as React.js, Angular, and Vue.js is increasingly valuable.
Moreover, an understanding of responsive design principles, SEO best practices, and version control systems like Git are crucial for staying competitive in the field.

Web Developer Salary Trends in 2024

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Three years ago I was messaged by a stranger on a social app. I remember checking their profile, because it was public, and saw photos of someone my age, with their friends and family, doing hobbies and stuff. Nothing strange, just a normal person, really. They told me that they are giving away their Steam account, and asked me if I wanted it.
They showed me that they had some games, more than ten, one or two had almost 1000 hours. I said that I wanted it, thinking they were trolling and, for my surprise, they weren't: they gave me their nickname, and password.
I was very surprised to say the least. I asked them why didn't they sell the account, they said that they had already enough money. I also asked why didn't they give their account to a friend or something, they said that their friends are 'assholes', so I kinda laughed it off because they literally were giving their account to me. My account was public back then and you could see me and all my photos, but still I was a total stranger for them, like what the hell. I said that when my pc will be repaired, I will access the account and text them, they said it's alright and at that time, I thought nothing more of it.
When the pc arrived, I never texted them because I forgot and they never texted me again too. However, this week I saw a video about people's stories of receiving strange messages and things of stranger accounts on social apps, and then I remembered my story, this one.
I checked the app in order to find their profile. I found our conversation, however the profile... doesn't exist anymore because it is a 'disabled account' on Instagram. I told this story to my friend, and I think we thought the same thing... and I don't like it. I need to know that this person is doing okay and the reason they were gifting personal belongings and accounts to random people wasn't the one that we think it is.
I tried logging into their steam account too. The account still does exist, but I need the code sent by steam to their gmail, which I don't have. The thing is: I know their irl name, and I know the username to login on Steam and password of the account and I know the games they played, nothing more. How do I find them? I really need to know if they are doing okay, even if it was a scam or something I need to know.
I tried finding their steam profile with steam id finders pages, to see if at least the account is active nowadays but there are like 12 different results on one page, and I don't know which one is the correct (or if there even is a correct one) and some of them are totally private. I hope the person is doing fine and the account is active nowadays, in that case they will see that someone tried to log in recently and then they will change the password. In case the password isn't changed soon, that would mean that the account is not active anymore, which would be very bad news.
I don't know and can't explain why do I care so much for a stranger, but I really need to know that they are okay.
Is there any possibility of me finding this person or someone they knew?

... and feel like a complete idiot, it's easy to see after the fact how they got me.
Figured I should post here as a PSA, maybe there's a chance to out the scammer to the public a bit, but also give you folks a chance to chuckle at my expense.
I don't use twitter much, never was a fan of it, but recently RoaringKitty aka DeepFuckingValue of GameStop 2021 fame made some meme posts and the GME shares I was keeping as a souvenir from that event pumped in a big way. So I get on twitter to see what's up, and did not realise this comment, underneath a real post on the same page, was an impersonator. The fine print account name being TheRoafingKitty rather than TheRoaringKitty:
https://twitter.com/TheRoafingKitty/status/1790150385979789373
So I joined the discord, where it said new users must be verified to access the main channels, and gave several methods to verify by connecting a crypto wallet, OK, that's immediately a bit sus but not completely out of the ordinary for some financial channels, but hey I trust DFV, so it's all good. Was given a QR code to attach a crypto wallet, scanning that QR code from within the wallet put my wallet software into a loop where it requested signature access with a warning, I say no, it request again, over and over, making the wallet software unusable, but at the same time I DO trust Roaring Kitty, and haven't yet realised it was a fake post, so after clicking no about 20 times I finally click OK, and within a minute, the 0.99 ETH I had in that wallet was gone.
This is the first time I've ever fallen for any kind of scam, I'm usually extremely skeptical, but I guess I really just wanted it to be true, it wasn't as though it were offering free coins or whatever, just access to a discord channel where fake DFV would be doing an AMA later.
I don't hold any hope of getting the ETH back, and I'm assuming that I should make a new wallet and transfer everything out of the compromised one, even if they cant access the other coins, that ETH address is cooked, but I guess the real reason for posting this is that in all of this the thing I find most surprising is the absolute lack of support on either Twitter or Discord for dealing with this sort of thing.
Something like this should happen to one person, once, before the channel and twitter account is promptly shut down. Maybe I was that one person, but now after doing everything I could to contact and report the scammer on both platforms, the accounts are still active and I have got only automated responses, so I am not holding my breath. The Twitter account has been active since 2009, and the discord since Jan 2023.

(Thanks to SpacePaladin for creating NOP)
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Memory Transcription Subject: Elder Researcher Slira of the Vyr Exploration Initiative
Date [standardised Vyr time]: Day 102/321, Year 110
I remembered when they drilled to the top of Rime.I had been studying to be a computer engineer at the time, only a single course away from graduating. My home city of Frozen Perch had been chosen for the project, something that no local really paid any mind to. Almost no one believed there was anything to find within Rime’s depths, for she didn’t have any of the gifts her Sisters did. There was no ore or soil like Stone had, no warmth or light like Glow’s magma. Even Abyss held corrupted treasures of Tide’s life which members of her Second and Third Church used with enthusiasm to survive and thrive in places were the very water would crush you to nothing.
We all knew they’d give up after drilling up for a few kilometres and Vyrkind would be content that nothing lay above our heads up Rime’s endless ice, that reality was only so big and that we had explored almost everything that exists besides for some patches within the dark deeps.
I admit, I didn’t have much passion for my career of choice. I’d likely end up as a system admin somewhere, managing networks and improving what we already had, never creating anything new because we already built everything we needed.Born too late to explore the world…
When the engineers working on the drill reported that the ice was thinning, that they were getting faint signals from beyond… curiosity and passion ignited in my soul, in the soul of nearly every vyr that lived and breathed.The drilling project went from a boring little science project only a choice few geologists and industrialists held any hope for to a global event which caught the eye of all vyrkind.
I remember lying in my nest, surrounded by pillows and swaddled in blankets while my eyes were glued to a livestream of drill’s progress. My tail was playing with a tassel of a stuffed toy, which if I remembered rightly was modelled after my first pet, a grumpy but sweet crab named Admiral Cookpot.I remember the smell of burnt squid, because my father had been cooking a meal at the time and got distracted by world events, same as me. The only sound in my room was the tideheater’s propeller whirring softly.
I was too scared to breathe, worried that if I was too loud I’d scare away the most interesting thing that had ever happened in my entire life.And when the drill finally pierced the top layer of Rime I and every Vyr caught our first sight of a world beyond our little planet. The sky a black void so unlike that of Abyss, my eyes filled with the light of thousands, millions of…
Stars.
A luminous field as beautiful as any glittering reef or magma vent, uncountable jewels and embers. I stared at them for over an hour, until the blazing personification of Glow herself arose from beneath the horizon, which I’d later learn… no, discover was our own personal star.
I knew what I’d dedicate my life to then and there. My life’s mission would be to uncover the secrets of this strange new realm beyond Rime, which scientists named and priests baptised as Space.
-][-
It has been many rotations around our star (now named Beacon) since I was a young college student. I got a degree in physics and with my computer simulations I managed to not only chart the movement of celestial bodies, but predict their movements as surely as the currents. I hadn’t intended to become one of the founding mothers of the field of Astrophysics but I was more than happy to lead the charge, to explore this new frontier as thoroughly as possible.
Now I was being invited to a meeting of some of the most important people in my country, perhaps of vyrkind. Sure, I had spoken to some of them before, but only over text or video chat. Only ever about theories and possibilities.
Now it would be in a physical location, all in one big room, still about theories but now much more tangible, life altering things. And I wasn’t going to be an advisor or a consultant. Just as some people were seen as leaders of armies, planners of cities or managing agricultural regions, I was being invited as our foremost expert on… Space.
It was funny and terrifying how one can wake up one morning and suddenly realise you are a world leader, responsible for guiding the fates of every creature you or anyone else had ever met.
As scared and nervous as I was, this was no time for imposter syndrome. I was one of the oldest, most experienced astrophysicists on the planet. Of course I was, I helped invent it dammit! I was still as passionate about Space as the day I started, because it was the first time we realised what a day was. I had worked with members of fields related to mine for so long I was practically an expert at those too, including engineering.There is no one more qualified to do this than I, Elder Researcher Slira! Vyrkind needed me!
…
Great, now I also feel nervous about being too arrogant. Still, I managed to clear some of my self-doubt and packed my bags. I had an elevator to catch.
-][-
Castle Yarshu was absolutely filled with people, busier than I’ve ever seen it before. Normally it’s just a museum, filled with old relics from the time of the last Forge Lords. Technically it’s owned by the Ka’lai Militia though and their leader has made sure to keep it well renovated. It is that very leader, General Taraksus, that has invited us all to the Castle’s massive Roundhall, filled with trophies and spoils of conquests that exist only in memory.The hall’s centre stage was covered in posts, perches and seats for the over one hundred representatives the General had invited, with boxy camera drones jetting here and there to capture the discussion for all to see.Around the hall Vyr crowded and swarmed to get a look at us, even clinging to the pillars and ceiling to see the “action”. The castle and our meeting was open to the public after all, and anyone could enter as long as occupancy allowed and they brought nothing dangerous with them besides their claws and fangs.
From my perch I spy Taraksus sitting atop the old Forge Lord’s throne, on its headrest to be precise, discussing something with a fellow general curled up on the armrest and an aide lying at the foot. The seat itself was filled with a sponge-stuffed dummy dressed to fit any monarch, albeit with a sign around its neck with a slur word written on it in a language few speak anymore.
Taraksus themself wasn’t too impressive a sight, well below the size average for females and decently above it for males. Their only ornamentation was a black stripe painted over his head to create a striking contrast as it went over their eyes, and a chain which held a few dozen metal strips, each with the name of a fallen comrade written on it. Or so I hear.
Taraksus ends his conversation and takes up a spear from a guard, the rear of which he uses to stamp the ground.
“Pipe down you lot! I’m calling this meeting to order!” Their voice pierced through the cacophony with a clarity that surprised me.
“As ridiculous as it feels to say, we’ve been contacted by aliens. You all saw the translation broadcasted live from our friends over at the VEI. Suffice to say the contents of their message to us is… concerning. I’ve already forwarded recommendations to our R&D sectors to start working on designs for military spacecraft. Certainly not something I or most anyone else here thought or hoped would ever be needed. I’m hoping that the consensus we reach here will keep that true. Before any of that however I call upon one of the most prominent members of the aforementioned VEI, Elder Slira, to clue us in on the nature of what we face and go over her team’s conclusions.”
I quickly check the notes on my portable computer which my assistant Neeran had so kindly organised for me before erecting myself on my perch.
I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, coupled with the near oppressive silence. I took a steady breath, trying to gather my courage. “You can do it Slira!” echoed a voice from the back of the hall. The chuckles that followed was evidence enough that I hadn’t imagined it, and I felt some of my fears dissipate.
“Greetings, vyr from across the world. I’ll jump right to the meat of the issue and start with an analysis of the ‘Sivkit’ that spoke to us. One of the most startling discoveries we uncovered in our investigation was the incredibly high possibility of them breathing… gas.”
I spotted the ears of more than a few vyr shoot up in shock, including those of the stout administrator of the Vrental Commune’s heartlands, Ireni.
“Gasbreathers? Surely such a thing is not possible?”
“The footage clearly indicates a lack of liquid, and the sivkit’s chest is clearly contracting and expanding in a manner that indicates breathing. We could be wrong, but likely we are looking at an organism that defies our current understanding of how complex life can develop.”
I typed away at my computer, bringing up my second point.
“Next we have their next statement, something about us being Arxur…”
A delegate I do not recognise raises a claw.
“Do we know who these Arxur are? The Sivkit seemed ready to bolt at the idea of them.”
“We currently have no information on the Arxur. All we can extrapolate is that they are another sapient alien species, that we resemble them somewhat except for our eyes and that they represent a clear threat to the Sivkit. Also, for whatever reason, the sivkit mistook us for a prey species because our eyes are on the side of our heads…”
…
“That’s… no, I don't have a way to soften that, that’s stupid as shit.”
“It’s… not scientifically correct, no. But it made them mistake us for fellow kindred among the stars, their captain even going so far to gift us translator technology.”
“Was it a mistake?” Taraksus asks, seemingly in thought. “I mean clearly they mistook us for something we are not, but is it impossible for us to be kindred?”
I understood his question, and sadly had no real answer.
“I don’t know General. The kind of friendship you describe is a two-way street, and if they are not willing then there is nothing we can do. But that does not mean we can’t do anything about it. Diplomat Zhara, your turn.”
A vyr across the stage from me straightens herself. Her body is wrapped in colourful fabrics and her various bits of jewellery show a clear love of ornamentation and precious stones.
“Thank you Elder. The Sivkit Captain promised to return at a time less than [3 weeks] away. Irrelevant of any bigger picture, he seems to care mostly about establishing relations with us and getting access to the deposits on our planetary neighbour Turqo. Whether for personal wealth or aiding his kin, who’s to say. He seems to assume we are part of a larger civilisation, likely unable to sense us underneath all the ice and mistaking our surface city for some kind of local outpost. Whatever the case may be, our diplomatic strategy is simple: lie through our fangs and trade metal.”
An uneasy murmur fills the hall.
“I know, lying may come back to bite us. But we need to be cautious, we know nothing about these aliens and if pretending to be a larger civilisation of peaceful herbivores will put them at ease then so be it. In addition my friends in the industrial sector tell me we don’t have any need for such a vast amount of heavy metals, so mining the deposit and trading the resources to the Sivkit for what they have in abundance seems good business. It will also help further the ‘small mining outpost’ facade and aid us in getting more information about who these ‘meat-eating humans’ are.”
“Excellent! We’re right on time!”
A gasp passes through the crowd. My eyes dart around and my ears swivel every which way, trying to identify the source of the shout. The crowd of onlookers to my left were making way, clearly shocked at… some new arrivals? What under Rime…?
Two vyr had entered the hall.
The first was a small male, their body wiry and covered in scars. Even the tip of their flat tale had a V-shaped chunk cut out of it. A sash of black cloth covered in white pictograms was wrapped around his chest, and attached to the sash was a broad, bladed weapon almost comically large for him. The second was a rather average female, still almost twice the size of the male. Black robes and a hood hid her form, though I noticed a pair of silver reading glasses sitting on her snout and a… by Glow, was that a fucking tome? An actual book, with thick kelp-fibre pages and bound in Nesis bark.
My brain almost refused to recognise the two, but finally sense overruled logic. The male was Krattron, and the female was Kahltrak. The highest authorities of the Second and Third Churches of the Abyss respectively.
Krattron swam up to the stage, eyes brimming with what I could only describe as maniacal glee.
“Greetings, children of Vyrkind! When do we set out to hunt the demons of Void?”
Kahltrak follows shortly behind. I would have been able to hear her sigh from the surface.
“Hello delegates. We’ve come to pledge our aid, and to discuss how we shall be dealing with our enemies.”
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Hi u/PaloCommunity,
I've just finished writing my Discussion Post in the PaloAlto Networks Live Community. I'm copying the content (unformated) below. If you want to view it formated, go to following link: https://live.paloaltonetworks.com/t5/next-generation-firewall/guide-quot-how-to-replace-firewalls-with-minimal-changes-quot/m-p/586777
~Foreword~
Last weekend we changed from old Firewall Hardware to new one.
On our Productionsite we switched from "PA-3250" to "PA-1410".
In our Datacenter, we switched from "PA-5250" to "PA-5410".

I am writing this article in case someone needs an easy way to replace old Hardware.
I wasnt able to find an article/discussion on this topic directly, so I'm writing one.

The Discussion/Article will consist of the following Points:

1. Foreword
2. General Information
3. Our approach
4. "How To" (TLDR)
5. How to replace a Firewall with "Device States"-Export (In Detail)
6. "Nice to know" Information

~General Information~
Some Information about our envrionment:
-We use Panorama to manage our Firewalls
-We use "Active/Passive" on all "HA"-Sites

Initial Situation:
-We wanted to do a "1:1" replacement/swap,
This means we wanted to:
-Use the same "Mgmt Ips"
-Use the Same Hostname
-Use similar Interfaces
-Use the same Ruleset
-Same Objects, NAT Rules, VPNs, etc…
-We wanted to have minimal Downtime during the swap


~Our approach~
We asked ourself: "What is the best approach for a replacement like this"
We thought "If we have the whole config in place on the new device, including Ips, Interfaces, Ruleset, etc., we should be able to "Unplug" the old Devices and just have the new one "Active" running".

After defining our way to go, we started searching on "How to export Config, including Ruleset etc"
Thats where we stumbled upon the "Device State*"
-What is "Device State"?
-Device State is essentially the config, including Ruleset, thats been pushed from panorama. (The device state contains ALL information pushed from the Panorama + the "running config". NAT-Rules, Interfaces etc. will also be included in this .xml)

Once we had this information we started on the replacement (TLDR follows, to save you time in case that verison is not feasible for you)


~"How To" (TLDR)~
(TLDR) Quick Rundown:

• Export Original Device State
• Setup new Firewall (Mgmt IP and Password)
  • Export "Device State" of new Device
  • Replace "Admin"-User in "Original-Device-State" with the "Admin"-User of the "New-Device-State"
• Import Edited, Original-Device-State to new Hardware
• "Validate commit"
  • CleanUp "Commit-Errors" in imported Config
• Commit
• Finished

~How to replace a Firewall with "Device States"-Export~

1. Export Original Device State

"How to export a Device State of old Hardware?"
● Go to "Device -> Setup -> Operations -> "Export device state""
Save the Device State with a proper name, youll need it later (PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz")

1. Setup new Firewall

You'll need to perform the initial Setup for your new Firewall. (CLI)
● Setup Password AND COMMIT
● Setup Mgmt IP (So you can access the Web-UI)
Example: set deviceconfig system ip-address 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.0.0

1. Export "Device State" of new Device

After successfully setting up "Mgmt-IP" and "Password" for the new Firewall, export the Device State of the new Firewall (WebUI)
● Go to "Device -> Setup -> Operations -> "Export device state""
Save the Device State with a proper name (PA01001_NewHardware.tgz")

1. Replace "Admin"-User in "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" with the "Admin"-User of the "PA01001_NewHardware.tgz"

You have to replace the Adminuser, in the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" with the Adminuser, of the "PA01001_NewHardware.tgz" because passwords are hashed by the device.
!The hashed password of the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" will not work on the new device!
To replace the Admin user you have to do the following:
● Open "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" and "PA01001_NewHardware.tgz" in "7zip"
● Search for "running-config.xml" in both device states and open it by hiting "Edit"
● In the "PA01001_NewHardware.tgz" Search for and copy it
Copy the whole block:

59193ioasdo%93osaPASSWORDHASH


yes



● In the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" running-config, search for and replace this user with the just copied user from above
● Save the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz"

1. Import Edited, "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" to new Hardware

Now, after you edited the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" to have the new user, you can start importing the device state to the new Firewall.
● Log on to WebUI of the new Firewall
● Go to "Device -> Setup -> Operations -> "Import device state""
● Select the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" file and hit "Ok"
You might have to reload the page (and maybe give yourself another IP) because the Mgmt-IP has now been swapped to the Mgmt-IP of the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz"

1. "Validate commit"

Now, once youve uploaded the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" you can hit "Vallidate Commit"
During this step you might see some errors that you have to clean up in your "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz"
Example of errors during the Vallidate:
deviceconfig -> setting -> management -> quota-settings -> chassis-quota unexpected here
deviceconfig -> setting -> management -> quota-settings is invalid
deviceconfig -> setting -> management is invalid
deviceconfig -> setting is invalid
deviceconfig is invalid
rulebase -> security -> rules -> Block_TorAddresses -> source 'panw-torexit-ip-list' is not an allowed keyword
rulebase -> security -> rules -> Block_TorAddresses -> source panw-torexit-ip-list is an invalid ipv4/v6 address
rulebase -> security -> rules -> Block_TorAddresses -> source panw-torexit-ip-list invalid range start IP
rulebase -> security -> rules -> Block_TorAddresses -> source 'panw-torexit-ip-list' is not a valid reference
rulebase -> security -> rules -> Block_TorAddresses -> source is invalid
rulebase -> security -> rules is invalid
rulebase -> security is invalid
rulebase is invalid
vsys is invalid
devices is invalid
log-settings -> correlation unexpected here
log-settings is invalid
shared is invalid

Example on "How to clean up "chassis-quota unexpected here""
● Open "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" and search for "running-config.xml"
● Search for
● Delete the whole block from the Device State:



16
32
5
2
2
2
20
20



● Save the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" again
● Upload the Updated "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz" and hit "Validate Commit" again.
● If there are still errors, you have to clean up those errors as well (might also be settings in "template-config.xml" for example)
● Repeat those steps until there are no errors left


7. Commit
After you cleaned up the commit errors, and "Vallidate Commit" does not display any more errors, you are ready to hit "Commit"
Once you've hit "Commit", you are done and ready to use the new Firewall

We had literally no downtime. The worst downtime with this method was 6 ping losses in our Datacenter.
It was my first replacement I've ever performed so I was kinda nervours at the beginning, but after the replacement of the first HA-Pair the way to go was pretty clear and I was calm for the following replacements.





~"Nice to know" Information~

• I disabled "ZTP" (ZeroTouchProvisioning) immediately after first boot of the new Firewall
• Remember to commit after changing the password via CLI!
• To have the smoothes transition of old hardware to new one, I recommend activating "Trial" Licenses for the new Hardware.
  • With trial licenses you are able to download content updates, EDLs, etc…
• Make sure the Interface speed of the new Hardware matches the interface speed of the old hardware
  • If Interface Speed differs, you have to swap interfaces (GUI or CLI) after successfully importing the "PA01001_OriginalHardware.tgz"
• If your setting up a new "HA-Pair" you have to export/import the HA Key of both new devices

If I'd had to replace Firewalls next week, I would use the same method. Once you get used to interpreting the Error Messages during "Validate Commit", its smooth sailing.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and imma try to get back to you asap.