THWACK [Mini] Mission: Kiwi Syslog Server

[yumdarling]

Our five-year mission through deep space includes all we could ever want: adventure, trials, tragedies, and triumphs. The journey and discoveries along the way are replicated food for our soul. But sometimes all you want to do is dump the crew off at Risa, so you can have some peace and quiet. While everyone's on shore leave, you can finish researching a fascinating rediscovery: Kiwi Syslog Server.

Finally, with the crew away, you have the time to breathe and brush up on some new skills, so you can step into the captain's ready room with confidence. Pull up a screen, sit back, and grab one of those blue beverages—you know the ones. Remember, the doctor said it's not prohibited if it's used for medicinal purposes.

SEPTEMBER MINI MISSION

Use the mission’s resources to complete the tasks and answer the questions for a chance to win!

Correctly answer each question during the week and you'll be entered for a chance to win the weekly prize.

Correctly answer all 10 questions over the course of the month and you'll be entered for a chance to win the grand prize.

150 points are being awarded for each correctly answered question. There are 10 questions, which means you can earn a maximum of 1,500 points for this mission.

PRIZES

Weekly Prizes & Drawing Dates:

September 28, 2020: Oak Creek Camping Hammock and Accessories

October 5, 2020: Star Trek Catan and Wireless charging station


Grand Prize:
October 5, 2020: Bose SoundLink Revolve+ Portable & Long-Lasting Bluetooth 360 Speaker

MISSION RULES

A new question will open every day (Monday - Friday) starting on September 21, 2020. Once a question has opened, it will remain open until October 4, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. CT. Check the schedule below for exact open/close times.

MISSION SHORTCUT

Complete the mission shortcut between September 21, 2020 and October 4, 2020 to be entered to win a YETI Hopper Flip Portable Cooler!

Shortcut Steps:

1. Download a Free Trial of Kiwi Syslog Server
2. Install Kiwi Syslog Server (either as a Service or an Application)
3. Create at least one test message with code yellow (color-coded message with yellow background) that will be displayed in your Kiwi Syslog Server console:
   1. Go to File--> Setup
   2. Under Rules --> Default --> Actions and select the Display default action
   3. Here at the bottom you can send a test message – you will need to adjust Syslog level in the Test message Setup to send a test message with needed color code!

Hint: you can check View --> Highlighting options to check what Syslog Level you need to select in the Test message Setup

4. Take a snapshot of the screen showing the console with your test message with yellow background
5. Submit your screenshots

START FREE TRIAL  SUBMIT SCREENSHOTS

Mini Mission Terms & Conditions: US, UK, and Canada  | Germany  | Australia 

Mini Mission Shortcut Terms & Conditions: US, UK, and Canada  | Germany  | Australia 

[jcrhoten]

Ah yes, the shield frequency is a common plot device and those sneaky Duras sisters technically breached the shield. They didn't drop the shield. Thanks for the leniency. 

[jasonstak2079]

I chose yes... and also agree with @rschroeder 

The obligatory troll comment...

[jfaldmo]

I went with "Yes," but I I was hoping for a "maybe" option to select from.  If the Enterprise tracked who accessed sensitive information, then Kiwi could have alerted that sensitive information was accessed and an investigation could have been started. If it would have helped or not would depend on how good the Red Shirts were in their investigation, but at least they would have had a chance to discover they had a serious security breach and take immediate action. 

[mjperkins]

Alerting on shield disablement would not have saved the 1701-D. It's shields were not disabled, so the alert would not have ever triggered. The malware in Geordi's VISOR provided the means to defeat them even though they were up.

[tomiannelli]

Unless there were outside the shield sensors that did not filter out energy modulation of the shields and sent it back to the ship, there would not be a way to detect the incoming missile. In order for the shields to be transparent to ship sensors they would have to be able to filter the modulation out. So not only would the missile make the shields useless, many of the ship sensors would not see the incoming energy weapon.

Orbiting sensor arrays, outside the shields, need to have shields themselves with unique modulation sequences. Then they could provide total situation awareness of the battle space.

But hey, am am just a mere earthling with limited knowledge of space weaponry and battle tactics.

Guide Entry: Planet Earth

by Katie Jarvis

Originally thought mostly harmless, the people of earth are now known to be completely harmless – except to each other. Various life-forms have considered destroying mankind, but the indigenous peoples are doing the job so well themselves, these aliens left, depressed by the lack of challenge.

Earthlings are divided into two categories: those with no food, and those with so much they become cuboid and unable to move. The cubes spend their time inventing devices to do their work for them, then spend their days – and money – trying to counteract the mind-numbing lethargy that ensues from this idleness.

So impressed are earthlings with the beauty of their planet, they’ve created various modes of transport to enable them to visit every picturesque corner. Thus they travel to rainforests, where they cut down the trees to create paper for travel documents; to fauna-rich swamps, which they drain in the hope of finding new fuel sources for their vehicles; and to flower-filled meadows, ideal for motorways to allow them to return to where the rainforests once were.

Two forms of government are favoured: dictatorship, where the leader rides roughshod over the people; and democracy, where the leader asks the people if they’d mind first, before riding roughshod over them.

They have countless religions, though it’s considered kinder not to let them know they were created as a Yr 13 project by a student of the Universal Vocational Skills College, now sited on Stultus B. He failed.

Aliens’ favourite joke: What would you get if you crossed mankind with an intelligent life-form? Answer: an intelligent life-form.

Conclusion: mostly stupid.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/competition12.shtml

[rschroeder]

@tomiannelli 

I like your analysis.  May I offer some divergence?

The shields of the enterprise do allow input from outside-to-inside (e.g.: the crew can use sensors to determine the weapons and shields status of other ships or planets, they can detect incoming storms, even use visual tools like the view screen).

The way the shields keep the bad stuff out while simultaneously allowing incoming electromagnetic (and other) to pass through them is beyond me.  But I can imagine that setting the shield harmonics/frequencies/etc. could automatically create the equivalent of firewall port holes for outbound traffic using specific ports (to be all networky in my terminology).  In this case, setting shields to rating 99BX5 (or whatever randomly rotating pattern is desired) automatically sets them to reconfigure internal sensors to be sent out through the shields without being filtered.  And responses to those sensor probes are recognized and allowed back in through the shields--but nothing else is allowed through.

When Lursa and B'etor discovered the shield frequency and harmonics settings by spanning Geordi's incoming sensor data to their ship, they set their missile to be recognized by the Enterprises' shields and allowed in through them.

It's only a hypothesis.

In the end, the sensors and crew of the Enterprise were aware of the incoming missile before it passed through their shields.  A great subroutine would have used Solarwinds products to automatically not recognize the inbound missile, and to keep it out.

Or, did I completely miss the mark?

Rick

[rschroeder]

Regarding 9/29's clue & answer, rather than seeing what they want to see, let us use Solarwinds to see reality.

[jasonstak2079]

For question 8... A small hint.. Not a useful hint, but the question immediately brought up my memories of watching DBZ.

Super easy question BTW.

[tomiannelli]

@rschroeder 

Without truly understanding the details of the shields it is just speculation. As a simple observer of the technology and not one who has dove deeply into all the supplemental material. The shields absorb and dissipate the energy the capture. They act as a solid object to certain things. Their surface boundary becomes visible, like the event horizon of a black hole, not because we actually see them but because the energy of the weapon is dispersed and generates visible light in the process.

I am sure it is all some magnificent quantum physics technology and nobody really understand that now do they.

[melonizame]

I am still learning about KSS.  I see a list mentioning some actions on the release notes page but nothing definitively.  I then look at the other pages and found Rule Actions with a whole list.

I am probably reading into this morning as always but wanted to know if anyone else is having these thoughts this morning.

Melon

[xbod]

@melonizame I didn't answer yet, but I was keying on the word new in the question.  And in the list provided in the hint link, a couple of the items had wording like "Users now have the option..." or "can now..." vs "now supports...".  I'm taking that now having the option to is a new action and now supports is an updated feature.

For example:

Kiwi Syslog Server now has the option to generate multiple test messages in the Setup window, isn't a new action, just an enhancement of an action that already exists.

Users can now forward logs from Kiwi Syslog Server to Loggly, is something totally new you can do.

I don't know, I may be putting too much thought into it as well.

Edit:

After rethinking some more, if you filter out items in the list that have to do with the program/software, what remains is a list of items that have been added and/or enhanced.  That number does match a possible answer.

[schneiderstev]

it definitely is just keying off a specific word in the question, if you look at the hint and focus on the one word, you will get the question correct, do not over think.  Focus grasshopper on the one word following the word new.....

and you shall "Live Long and Prosper"

[laurin.beckhusen]

yep focus on the keyword.. I waited for the coffee to kick in and boom. answer became clear as mud.

[jjohnson35]

I, unfortunately, failed to correctly differentiate NEW from IMPROVED correctly, and got the big red X

[jokerfest]

@jjohnson35 

I too focused on new actions and excluded adding an option to a previous action.  😞

[sturdyerde]

Definitely a tricky question, and to be honest, part of me was still is wondering about the point that @jokerfest made above.

[sturdyerde]

When all is said and done, I'd love to know what from the list of "New features and improvements" is being counted as a "new action," because I only count [spoiler] phrases that sound anything like a "new" action versus an "enhancement" of an existing action.

[kaos4life]

Should have went with my first thought, but alas a red X for me

[manicbass]

I wonder if the coder responsible for the creation of the "enhancement" is cool with their work not being considered "new"???

[silverbacksays]

Another great mission! Oct 1st was a tough one, but it was fun 🙂

Live long, and prosper, Thwacksters!