K.C.'s Garage

A couple of weeks ago I ran across this old "Seal & Stamp Company" factory while wandering the proposed Atlanta Beltline. The company made rubber stamps, embossing seals, and those painted metal license plates that say things like "I ♥ Atlanta" and stuff like that. They operated at this location from 1969 until December 2006, when it seems they realized that the land they were on was worth more to a developer than it was to them. I returned with fellow explorer tk0667 and some camera equipment. Enjoy! Flickr link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/phreakmonkey/sets/72157654999889046

My company recently de-installed and discarded dozens of these little Nortel Contivity 1010 VPN devices. I pulled one apart and discovered it's basically a tiny Intel Celeron PC with no keyboard/mouse interface, one serial console port, and two 10/100 Ethernet ports. I decided it would be fun to get Linux to run on one so I could play with it... maybe use it as a small firewall, router, or OpenVPN endpoint. I built a stripped-down install of Slackware-12.0 with Linux kernel 2.6.21.5. The install includes (amongst other things): OpenSSL OpenSSH OpenVPN iptables dnsmask dhcpcd For more information, and the distribution, see my project page at: http://cdn. phreakmonkey.com/projects/Slackware-c1010

Due East of downtown Atlanta on Ponce de Leon Ave sits the massive 2 million square foot complex that was once a Sears distribution center. Built in 1926 on the former site of Ponce de Leon Park, it is currently owned by the city of Atlanta and home to "City Hall East" and the Atlanta Police Department. The developer who is renovating and converting this massive structure into a much more usable and beneficial space was gracious enough to allow a group of us explorers a tour of the facility.