Apart from who the worm targets I think it's interesting who the worm is sparing. Any of the following domains gets spared:
avp syma icrosof msn. hotmail panda sopho borlan inpris example mydomai nodomai ruslis.gov gov..mil foo. berkeley unix math bsd mit.e gnu fsf. ibm.com google kernel linux fido usene t iana ietf rfc-ed sendmail arin. ripe. isi .e isc.o secur acketst pgp tanford.e utgers. ed mozilla
Borland, Microsoft?, packetstorm, securityfocus, stanford, rutgers, mit and the list goes on. Some are only partials and have to be figured out (eg acketst=packetstorm) but most are pretty obvious. the question is why they left these out. Hotmail would be a horrible vector to spread this worm, and the.mil and.gov addresses would most likely filter. Also if they didn't there would be a global manhunt till someone ended up in the military slaught^h^h^h^h^h^h^h tribunals of Camp Delta. DNS was also left out which is smart since this allows resolution to continue.
I hate SCO too for what they are doing to the linux movement. I also don't agree with dealing with them using a worm. But this rant isn't a polictical one, this rant is technical.
this worm is smarter then any I've seen before. It has a target, a date, and makes use of an exclusion list so as not to kill itself off. If this intellegence were in a 0day worm that didn't need the 'blended threat' model we'd all be in a lot of trouble.
The article points out that the system that was compromised didn't have ANY password to safeguard it's internals. Now this doesn't really mean anything as far as legality goes. If the system had a banner on the login stating "*** UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS IS PROHIBITED ***" then the democrats have something to work with. Chances are the system did have this type of warning banner so someone over in the GOP party is about to find him/herself in a lot of trouble.
With all the political connections these folks have it will probobly result in a slap on the wrist. This makes me sad. Consider other computer crackers (sic) have received far greater punishments for lesser crimes. then consider that this intrusion was based on political espionage and literally affected the political offices of this country.
Based on these facts I'd say the persons responsible should receive no less then 30 years in prison. But wait, the judges are literally on the GOP payroll so they won't get more then a sneer for being caught!
While I think this lawsuit is absolutely neccessary it's not really an anticompetitive move. The monopoly would become an ancillary benefit to be sure, but they really are just trying to curb pre sales piracy. This move does NOTHING to stop the massive flow of DVD-R images that flow after a movie is released. Why buy it at Best Buy when you can DL it and burn to a $1 disk?
If you don't grok why the indie makers are pissed think about how much it costs to make a movie. If any of the actors carries a SAG card they cost a fortune. It's like hiring out $75/hr union workers to hold a sign for you. Young budding directors don't have that type of money so they have to seek investments. Investors, as a rule, would like to see a return on their investment. ROI just like in the tech world. Awards provide a goal for the movie to reach. If they attain an award then they essentially get free marketing and a chance to actually profit off the film.
A friend of mine worked off a total shoe string budget and it still cost him $15k to make an independant film. 15k was barely enough and he had to do things like buy hard drives and return them after 25 days. Film makers like Robert Rodriguez went to human guniea pig labs like Pharmaco and took non FDA approved drugs to raise a few thousand for their films.
Since when did the word hacker become such a catch all of illict computer activity. Basically anyone is a hacker now if they do something that is considered naughty by netiquette rules. TYPING IN ALL CAPS MAKES YOU A HAX0R.
People not conisidered hackers: Warez kids and virii writers.
I actually submitted this when I first saw it (no I'm not bitter... yes i am..) but in my version I bring up two points. 1) Should/Will this man be compensated for his time in the pokey. How do you repay a man 16 months in prison? Granted I would have loved to have seen something on the books (e.g. precedent) to stick some real spammers in jail. Good thing this guy had a great attorney. 2) He had an excellent attorney. For those of you who don't know Jennifer Grannick she is one of the most knowledgable legal eagles out there. I see her every year at Blackhat and she's also known to have helped out on many of the most important pieces of Internet case law to date.
This seemed flawed in the explanation. If you have a 'master' key then breaking into the desk would make it so any door could be opened. Having a 'ring of keys' makes it more difficult after the theft as no single key will grant access to the kingdom. The breach of course was the inept lady who kept her ring of keys in a desk. Also the first port listed would be more accurate. IIS has always been the biggest flaw in their operating system. IIS6 will be exploited by the end of the year (my prediction.. well more of a highly informed guess:)
From: full-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.com [mailto:fu ll-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.com] On Behalf Of Jonathan A. Zdziarski Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 11:04 AM To: Schmehl, Paul L Cc: full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com Subject: RE: [Full-Disclosure] Student faces suit over key to CD locks
Does this mean they're going to attempt to sue Microsoft also, for publishing this feature in their Windows documentation? Or perhaps they'll take the RIAA's approach and sue anyone who uses the SHIFT key.
I did a search on google and found this page which has instructions on what to do if the DRM software didn't load.
At the bottom of this page they have this:
What should I do if the program does not automatically start when I place the CD in my computer?: Try removing the CD from the CD-Rom drive, and replacing it again to allow the application to start automatically. If the application still does not start by itself, PC users can double-click their "My Computer" icon on the desktop and then double-click on the drive letter containing the CD. If the application still does not launch, try double-clicking on the LaunchCD.exe file in the CD directory. The application should start.
So what Halderman did wasn't even close to a breach (duh +5). If he had attempted to circumvent the digital keys now THAT would have been something. I suppose this lawsuit is a way of preventing anyone from going further with "research". Halderman has my respect for what he's done, and what he's about to go through, but this wasn't exactly ground breaking. Technically I can put out another paper now saying I installed VMWare (which suggests turning off autorun) and this bypassed their DRM.
Really the DRM never even has a chance to come under scrutiny since it didn't get installed. Look back at that page and you'll see that the technology is around the Digital Keys and part of MS's new DRM.
Well apparently some "new sources" have revealed some information.. probobly some slashdotters.. The page now shows this "Several sources brought a flaw in this paper to my attention. I'm presently revising it to reflect this new information. -- J A Halderman"
While I'm not a fan of this action I think this is pretty much par for the course. Things to consider: 1) Dan Greer was the CTO. This means he is a director or officer and in business this means greater responsibility. This isn't the same as "@stake underling fired for bad mouthing Microsoft in IRC channel". He is a representative of the company and does speak/act on their behalf. He has the ability to sign documents on behalf of the company too.
2) @stake most likely didn't fire him, the Board of Directors did. BoD's are tough to deal with as they are usually more "investor" types. They see an action like this as a huge problem as MS probobly accounts for a large percentage of their biz revenue. Again I don't think this is right, but from a cold emotionless biz standpoint this makes a lot of sense. Please your revenue masters or go out of business.
3)Microsoft probobly didn't have any type of overt hand in this. It's likely the BoD was being proactive by firing them so MS didn't even have the opportunity to suggest firing him.
Every advisory sent by a company to the public would therefore be considered criminal. I've read the jokes about notepad, vi, etc and yes they are funny. But in my line of work we find security holes all the time. And we publish enough details that one who is intelligent enough could reconstruct our work. This kind of assinine law would essentially shut down all major security vendors (ISS, eEye, Foundstone, etc). This may be to Symantec's liking since they have been aching to get into that market (after purchasing a small company called SecurityFocus). Oh wait they might have forgotten about that purchase. Because bugtraq DOES distribute that info.
Let's start with iDefense. They are roughly as credible as my grandmother. Their business model revolves around purchasing exploits (no I won't sell you mine) and then disclosing information about their "0day" to others. Usually it's complete crap (oh no my obscure x11 game has a remote DoS.. grow up) but more then that if you've ever met them you'll know just how shady the whole operation is. Realistically everytime a remote M$ exploit is made public there is a chance for a worm. We (the world at large) just saw the first anti-worm during the blaster storm. The most frightening worm has not reared it's head however. The 0-day worm.... this would wreak more havoc then anything else out there. There would be no patches, no one would know till it was too late. Or maybe it has happened and no one knew.....
Another anonymous peer to peer system is being developed called 6/4. Many will recognize this as a tribute to the massacre at Tienamen Square and rightly so. It was not developed in order to thumb our noses at the **AA organizations but since they are attempting to inpinge on our rights why not use this tool against them as well. Download here Please note these restrictions: 1. You cannot download this software from us if you are a national of Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan or Syria. Sorry. That's the rule and we cannot let you copy it if you are a national of one of these countries.
2. You cannot download this software from us if you are located in Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan or Syria (or you are located in an embassy, consulate, or other facility that belongs to one of these countries). Again, that's not our rule but it applies to us and we intend to obey it.
3. You cannot download this software from us if you are an entity on the "Denied Persons List" published by the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security. The Denied Persons List is published here or here [text file]. The most recent changes to the Denied Persons List are published here.
4. You must be a Certified Patriot! In our view, it is exceptionally patriotic to be a member of Hacktivismo and to advocate civil liberties all over the world. And we don't view people who agree with George Bush, John Poindexter, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, or Don Rumsfeld as very patriotic at all. It is patriotic to disagree with Mr. Bush and other friends of Big Oil. But neither we nor George Bush can decide unilaterally whether you are a Certified Patriot merely based on your politics or point of view. A "Certified Patriot" has come to mean anybody (even communists, militia members, muslim extremists, animal-rights activists, tree-huggers, vocal critics of John Ashcroft, and card-carrying members of the ACLU) not listed as a "Specially Designated National" or "Blocked Person" by the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"). The OFAC list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons [PDF] is located here [PDF] or here [text file]. The most recent changes [PDF] to the SDN and Blocked Persons List are published here [PDF]. IF YOU ARE NOT ON THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT LIST, THEN YOU, TOO, ARE A CERTIFIED PATRIOT! Congratulations!;-)
But really it just depends on what your studying. If your focusing on history then maybe you just need some good notepads and a fountain pen. More engineering based could probobly stand to have a laptop. Those laptops need fast processors for all the computation they will do. CS majors will obviously want a linux compatible unit. My GF is attending grad school this fall and is getting an IceCube (both compact and stylish) for her dorm room and just taking notes by hand in class. Since she is studying design she doesn't really feel the need for a laptop while in the class room. the question is just a wee bit too broad for my tastes... find out what the person is studying and then ask the question again.
Buy a Apex player for around $59.00. They are the least visually appealing but to date play the most formats I've ever witnessed. I even got mine to play raw MPEG's (they were encoded for VCD) that were burned to a DVD-R. (BTW to stay on post DVD-R is the best of the formats..read all the websites listed to find out why) You could fit a *lot* of video using such a fashion. Plus worse case you have to transcode in the future to comply with something else but VCD means you have all MPEG-1 encoded video and likely will have a ton of tools to help out. Don't forget that MPEG-2 is twice the resolution and thus twice the size. Unless you plan on doing some fancy menu work just stick with VCD and DVD-R. I'm rambling now... must need more tea.
What are the latest advances in fingerprinting networked devices that seem most promising to you? I have started reading papers on HTTP fingerprinting and such and wonder how these will figure into the NMAP architecture.
What are the most elusive OS's that aren't on the NMAP OS fingerprint database?
Good, they need to downsize. They are suffering from gout and it shows in the acts they promote. Stealing isn't good, but neither is fraud. You (entertainment industry) present these idols of music who have as much talent as a 5 year old loaf of bread. Why not sue the postal service? I can freely copy a song from the radio and then mail it to a friend. That friend can repeat the same action and on and on.
My biggest problem with the accusation of 'theft' is that you already allow for the flow of music. Radio and promos. In fact for an artist to flourish you would think that allowing everyone to hear the songs would be the best course of actioni. The more people that hear the music means the greater the chance someone has of WANTING to support the artist.
Your greed and lack of vision makes you think that the $$'s should roll in for every stop a song makes in the listeners ears. That's not how it works. I'm done with this conversation, find a new place to draw flames.
I find it interesting that those in charge of the network (admins) are often not those in charge of securing it. Those that secure it incidently aren't in charge of applying patches... what a fun little world. The point of that is the infoSec field seems to be picking up and lots of decent salaries out there for those that now their shit. It's not nearly as bloated as the dotcom bubble but it's interesting.
[researcher finds vulnerability]->[notifys vendor]->[waits impatiently for a month or so]->[vendor releases patch in hotfix or service pack]
This case was completly different and demonstrates a disturbing trend in security research. NO ONE knew about this until it was discovered in the wild. Usually the script kiddies find out about the flaw the same day customers do and then it's an arms race to patch. This time the kids were armed with the exploit before even Microsoft knew about it. The trend of exploits staying secret has started to rear it's ugly head and this is the first major case where it's happened. Don't be suprised if this starts happening more and more. The good news is that MS was able to cough up a patch in a matter of days. The bad is that black hats are obviously keeping secrets about flaws they find. Gone are the days where each vulnerability found was shouted from the rooftops till someone noticed the researcher. Now they just root servers with unfettered access until someone figures out that it's a new vulnerability. EG they bypass all IDS and in this case most firewalls. For the record, it seems like this is a simple buffer overflow (when will they learn?) so tools like URLScan and SecureIIS stop these attacks. If your running an IIS server it would be a REALLY good idea to invest into either of these. Since they both stop all forms of buffer overflows (and various other types of attack) they don't require a patch to fend off these types of attacks.
I know the author of a similar book that hasn't quite finished up yet. He was concentrating on the SAN's aspect of it since NAS security is pretty much the same FAQ as 'how to setup a file server'.
Secure SANs was slated to come out last year but hasn't ever been more then a link on Amazon. It dealt with the ugliness of iSCSI and how the 'air gap' security that protected this data for so long is now gone and storage administrators are struggling to learn how the real world works.
Not to bash storage admins but they've relegated most of their 'security efforts' to LUN masking and other such techniques. Now that SCSI drive commands are traversing networks huge security vulnerabilities are opened up. I read an advanced chapter of the Secure SAN title and the best part was an executive from a prominent NAS company stating that he wasn't worried about the security of the products since "only a handful of ppl in the world could have this conversation".
Check out the recent efforts at Storage Networking Industry Association who have come as close to working miracles as I've personally seen. They have managed to create some various technial frameworks and security processes that make vendors work together.
One interesting note about the book featured here is that it also deals with NAS and DAS. NAS and SANS have been fighting it out as IDE and SCSI have. One is cheap and easy the other pricey and very difficult. DAS on the other hand is a joke to me. The ability for one computer to change bits in another's memory DIRECTLY does not sound like a good idea. Hackers have worked for decades to write shell code that allows the ability to change bits in memory and now the storage industry has created a way to get directly in there bypassing all OS security.... yea great idea
Symantec like most other 'security' companies (I quote here because they are a morph and not a real security company) are trying to cash in on the worm activity. Most security companies make windfalls of cash during high profile worm attacks (see code red).
Symmantec just bought a truckload of security properties and wishes to make it known that they are on top of things. Truth be known, eEye knew about the worm because of tips from product users and other contacts who became infected. Our researchers were called back from the bars to dissect the worm (which takes hours) and then provide a signature and scanner.
Looking back though, what would a few hours notice do for anyone? Haven't you seen Armageddon?::asteroid chunk falling towards asia on radar::
"Shouldn't we call someone"
"What and tell them to evacuate the entire pacific rim?"
This worm had no payload because it was about speed! I've seen these global maps with 'spread vectors' and it goes from 0 to 100 in about 10 seconds. The last thing I need as my servers are choking on residual SQL traffic is a phone call from my AV vendor stating "your screwed, servers are gonna go down".
If you want to whine about not having access to this type of information (eg caselaw etc) then you should gripe to the DOJ or some other.gov entity. They are the ones who have decided not to publish their information electronically. LN and WL have gone to considerable expense to put together rather large databases. Having put in some time with LN I know they personally have case law dating back to the civil war. Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to make a database that large??
LN also has information about everyone (where applicable) including DMV records, deed transfers, and motor vehicle registration. (the earlier comment about what you got on your pizza was a tad far fetched). They recently added Hoovers company database into their own services. You can get expirian credit reports on companies (probobly ppl too), their business is akin to the Stephenson Snow Crash novels idea of a dominant information clearing house.
I think Ms. Barr has some relevant issues to discuss. tax payers have paid for this information. I just think it's misdirected, ask the DOJ to put all their records online. OR start filing a ton of FOIA papers and start your own.
Slashdot Mirror
Any of the following domains gets spared:
avp
syma
icrosof
msn.
hotmail
panda
sopho
borlan
inpris
example
mydomai
nodomai
rusli
gov.
foo.
berkeley
unix
math
bsd
mit.e
gnu
fsf.
ibm.com
google
kernel
linux
fido
usen
iana
ietf
rfc-ed
sendmail
arin.
ripe.
is
isc.o
secur
acketst
pgp
tanford.e
utgers
mozilla
Borland, Microsoft?, packetstorm, securityfocus, stanford, rutgers, mit and the list goes on. Some are only partials and have to be figured out (eg acketst=packetstorm) but most are pretty obvious.
the question is why they left these out. Hotmail would be a horrible vector to spread this worm, and the
I hate SCO too for what they are doing to the linux movement. I also don't agree with dealing with them using a worm. But this rant isn't a polictical one, this rant is technical.
this worm is smarter then any I've seen before. It has a target, a date, and makes use of an exclusion list so as not to kill itself off. If this intellegence were in a 0day worm that didn't need the 'blended threat' model we'd all be in a lot of trouble.
The article points out that the system that was compromised didn't have ANY password to safeguard it's internals. Now this doesn't really mean anything as far as legality goes. If the system had a banner on the login stating "*** UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS IS PROHIBITED ***" then the democrats have something to work with. Chances are the system did have this type of warning banner so someone over in the GOP party is about to find him/herself in a lot of trouble.
With all the political connections these folks have it will probobly result in a slap on the wrist. This makes me sad. Consider other computer crackers (sic) have received far greater punishments for lesser crimes. then consider that this intrusion was based on political espionage and literally affected the political offices of this country.
Based on these facts I'd say the persons responsible should receive no less then 30 years in prison. But wait, the judges are literally on the GOP payroll so they won't get more then a sneer for being caught!
From page 4 of the article:
The Player, as stated before, is based on N64 Hardware and assembled on very small place using nano technology on a single chip.
does this mean it can make new games out of materials it consumes?
While I think this lawsuit is absolutely neccessary it's not really an anticompetitive move. The monopoly would become an ancillary benefit to be sure, but they really are just trying to curb pre sales piracy. This move does NOTHING to stop the massive flow of DVD-R images that flow after a movie is released. Why buy it at Best Buy when you can DL it and burn to a $1 disk?
If you don't grok why the indie makers are pissed think about how much it costs to make a movie. If any of the actors carries a SAG card they cost a fortune. It's like hiring out $75/hr union workers to hold a sign for you. Young budding directors don't have that type of money so they have to seek investments. Investors, as a rule, would like to see a return on their investment. ROI just like in the tech world. Awards provide a goal for the movie to reach. If they attain an award then they essentially get free marketing and a chance to actually profit off the film.
A friend of mine worked off a total shoe string budget and it still cost him $15k to make an independant film. 15k was barely enough and he had to do things like buy hard drives and return them after 25 days. Film makers like Robert Rodriguez went to human guniea pig labs like Pharmaco and took non FDA approved drugs to raise a few thousand for their films.
Since when did the word hacker become such a catch all of illict computer activity. Basically anyone is a hacker now if they do something that is considered naughty by netiquette rules.
TYPING IN ALL CAPS MAKES YOU A HAX0R.
People not conisidered hackers: Warez kids and virii writers.
I actually submitted this when I first saw it (no I'm not bitter... yes i am..) but in my version I bring up two points.
1) Should/Will this man be compensated for his time in the pokey. How do you repay a man 16 months in prison? Granted I would have loved to have seen something on the books (e.g. precedent) to stick some real spammers in jail. Good thing this guy had a great attorney.
2) He had an excellent attorney. For those of you who don't know Jennifer Grannick she is one of the most knowledgable legal eagles out there. I see her every year at Blackhat and she's also known to have helped out on many of the most important pieces of Internet case law to date.
This seemed flawed in the explanation. If you have a 'master' key then breaking into the desk would make it so any door could be opened. Having a 'ring of keys' makes it more difficult after the theft as no single key will grant access to the kingdom. The breach of course was the inept lady who kept her ring of keys in a desk. :)
Also the first port listed would be more accurate. IIS has always been the biggest flaw in their operating system. IIS6 will be exploited by the end of the year (my prediction.. well more of a highly informed guess
From: full-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.comu ll-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.com] On Behalf Of Jonathan A.
[mailto:f
Zdziarski
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 11:04 AM
To: Schmehl, Paul L
Cc: full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com
Subject: RE: [Full-Disclosure] Student faces suit over key to CD locks
Does this mean they're going to attempt to sue Microsoft also, for publishing this feature in their Windows documentation? Or perhaps
they'll take the RIAA's approach and sue anyone who uses the SHIFT key.
and just for grins
SunnComm.com Privacy
SunnComm, Inc.
668 44th Street Suite 248
Phoenix, Arizona, USA 80058
I did a search on google and found this page which has instructions on what to do if the DRM software didn't load.
At the bottom of this page they have this:
What should I do if the program does not automatically start when I place the CD in my computer?:
Try removing the CD from the CD-Rom drive, and replacing it again to allow the application to start automatically. If the application still does not start by itself, PC users can double-click their "My Computer" icon on the desktop and then double-click on the drive letter containing the CD. If the application still does not launch, try double-clicking on the LaunchCD.exe file in the CD directory. The application should start.
So what Halderman did wasn't even close to a breach (duh +5). If he had attempted to circumvent the digital keys now THAT would have been something. I suppose this lawsuit is a way of preventing anyone from going further with "research". Halderman has my respect for what he's done, and what he's about to go through, but this wasn't exactly ground breaking.
Technically I can put out another paper now saying I installed VMWare (which suggests turning off autorun) and this bypassed their DRM.
Really the DRM never even has a chance to come under scrutiny since it didn't get installed. Look back at that page and you'll see that the technology is around the Digital Keys and part of MS's new DRM.
Well apparently some "new sources" have revealed some information.. probobly some slashdotters..
The page now shows this "Several sources brought a flaw in this paper to my attention. I'm presently revising it to reflect this new information. -- J A Halderman"
While I'm not a fan of this action I think this is pretty much par for the course. Things to consider:
1) Dan Greer was the CTO. This means he is a director or officer and in business this means greater responsibility. This isn't the same as "@stake underling fired for bad mouthing Microsoft in IRC channel". He is a representative of the company and does speak/act on their behalf. He has the ability to sign documents on behalf of the company too.
2) @stake most likely didn't fire him, the Board of Directors did. BoD's are tough to deal with as they are usually more "investor" types. They see an action like this as a huge problem as MS probobly accounts for a large percentage of their biz revenue. Again I don't think this is right, but from a cold emotionless biz standpoint this makes a lot of sense. Please your revenue masters or go out of business.
3)Microsoft probobly didn't have any type of overt hand in this. It's likely the BoD was being proactive by firing them so MS didn't even have the opportunity to suggest firing him.
Every advisory sent by a company to the public would therefore be considered criminal. I've read the jokes about notepad, vi, etc and yes they are funny. But in my line of work we find security holes all the time. And we publish enough details that one who is intelligent enough could reconstruct our work.
This kind of assinine law would essentially shut down all major security vendors (ISS, eEye, Foundstone, etc).
This may be to Symantec's liking since they have been aching to get into that market (after purchasing a small company called SecurityFocus). Oh wait they might have forgotten about that purchase. Because bugtraq DOES distribute that info.
Be wary, if Russ Cooper has his way you will be fined for each "violation". Where violation means you were infected.
see this for more details
Let's start with iDefense. They are roughly as credible as my grandmother. Their business model revolves around purchasing exploits (no I won't sell you mine) and then disclosing information about their "0day" to others. Usually it's complete crap (oh no my obscure x11 game has a remote DoS.. grow up)
but more then that if you've ever met them you'll know just how shady the whole operation is.
Realistically everytime a remote M$ exploit is made public there is a chance for a worm.
We (the world at large) just saw the first anti-worm during the blaster storm. The most frightening worm has not reared it's head however. The 0-day worm.... this would wreak more havoc then anything else out there. There would be no patches, no one would know till it was too late. Or maybe it has happened and no one knew.....
Another anonymous peer to peer system is being developed called 6/4. Many will recognize this as a tribute to the massacre at Tienamen Square and rightly so. It was not developed in order to thumb our noses at the **AA organizations but since they are attempting to inpinge on our rights why not use this tool against them as well.
;-)
Download here
Please note these restrictions:
1. You cannot download this software from us if you are a national of Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan or Syria. Sorry. That's the rule and we cannot let you copy it if you are a national of one of these countries.
2. You cannot download this software from us if you are located in Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan or Syria (or you are located in an embassy, consulate, or other facility that belongs to one of these countries). Again, that's not our rule but it applies to us and we intend to obey it.
3. You cannot download this software from us if you are an entity on the "Denied Persons List" published by the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security. The Denied Persons List is published here or here [text file]. The most recent changes to the Denied Persons List are published here.
4. You must be a Certified Patriot! In our view, it is exceptionally patriotic to be a member of Hacktivismo and to advocate civil liberties all over the world. And we don't view people who agree with George Bush, John Poindexter, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, or Don Rumsfeld as very patriotic at all. It is patriotic to disagree with Mr. Bush and other friends of Big Oil. But neither we nor George Bush can decide unilaterally whether you are a Certified Patriot merely based on your politics or point of view. A "Certified Patriot" has come to mean anybody (even communists, militia members, muslim extremists, animal-rights activists, tree-huggers, vocal critics of John Ashcroft, and card-carrying members of the ACLU) not listed as a "Specially Designated National" or "Blocked Person" by the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"). The OFAC list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons [PDF] is located here [PDF] or here [text file]. The most recent changes [PDF] to the SDN and Blocked Persons List are published here [PDF]. IF YOU ARE NOT ON THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT LIST, THEN YOU, TOO, ARE A CERTIFIED PATRIOT! Congratulations!
But really it just depends on what your studying. If your focusing on history then maybe you just need some good notepads and a fountain pen. More engineering based could probobly stand to have a laptop. Those laptops need fast processors for all the computation they will do. CS majors will obviously want a linux compatible unit.
My GF is attending grad school this fall and is getting an IceCube (both compact and stylish) for her dorm room and just taking notes by hand in class. Since she is studying design she doesn't really feel the need for a laptop while in the class room.
the question is just a wee bit too broad for my tastes... find out what the person is studying and then ask the question again.
Buy a Apex player for around $59.00. They are the least visually appealing but to date play the most formats I've ever witnessed. I even got mine to play raw MPEG's (they were encoded for VCD) that were burned to a DVD-R. (BTW to stay on post DVD-R is the best of the formats..read all the websites listed to find out why) You could fit a *lot* of video using such a fashion. Plus worse case you have to transcode in the future to comply with something else but VCD means you have all MPEG-1 encoded video and likely will have a ton of tools to help out. Don't forget that MPEG-2 is twice the resolution and thus twice the size. Unless you plan on doing some fancy menu work just stick with VCD and DVD-R. I'm rambling now... must need more tea.
What are the latest advances in fingerprinting networked devices that seem most promising to you?
I have started reading papers on HTTP fingerprinting and such and wonder how these will figure into the NMAP architecture.
What are the most elusive OS's that aren't on the NMAP OS fingerprint database?
Good, they need to downsize. They are suffering from gout and it shows in the acts they promote. Stealing isn't good, but neither is fraud. You (entertainment industry) present these idols of music who have as much talent as a 5 year old loaf of bread. Why not sue the postal service? I can freely copy a song from the radio and then mail it to a friend. That friend can repeat the same action and on and on.
My biggest problem with the accusation of 'theft' is that you already allow for the flow of music. Radio and promos. In fact for an artist to flourish you would think that allowing everyone to hear the songs would be the best course of actioni. The more people that hear the music means the greater the chance someone has of WANTING to support the artist.
Your greed and lack of vision makes you think that the $$'s should roll in for every stop a song makes in the listeners ears. That's not how it works.
I'm done with this conversation, find a new place to draw flames.
I find it interesting that those in charge of the network (admins) are often not those in charge of securing it. Those that secure it incidently aren't in charge of applying patches... what a fun little world. The point of that is the infoSec field seems to be picking up and lots of decent salaries out there for those that now their shit. It's not nearly as bloated as the dotcom bubble but it's interesting.
Most discovery to patch timelines go like this:
[researcher finds vulnerability]->[notifys vendor]->[waits impatiently for a month or so]->[vendor releases patch in hotfix or service pack]
This case was completly different and demonstrates a disturbing trend in security research. NO ONE knew about this until it was discovered in the wild. Usually the script kiddies find out about the flaw the same day customers do and then it's an arms race to patch. This time the kids were armed with the exploit before even Microsoft knew about it. The trend of exploits staying secret has started to rear it's ugly head and this is the first major case where it's happened. Don't be suprised if this starts happening more and more. The good news is that MS was able to cough up a patch in a matter of days. The bad is that black hats are obviously keeping secrets about flaws they find.
Gone are the days where each vulnerability found was shouted from the rooftops till someone noticed the researcher. Now they just root servers with unfettered access until someone figures out that it's a new vulnerability. EG they bypass all IDS and in this case most firewalls.
For the record, it seems like this is a simple buffer overflow (when will they learn?) so tools like URLScan and SecureIIS stop these attacks. If your running an IIS server it would be a REALLY good idea to invest into either of these. Since they both stop all forms of buffer overflows (and various other types of attack) they don't require a patch to fend off these types of attacks.
I know the author of a similar book that hasn't quite finished up yet. He was concentrating on the SAN's aspect of it since NAS security is pretty much the same FAQ as 'how to setup a file server'.
Secure SANs was slated to come out last year but hasn't ever been more then a link on Amazon. It dealt with the ugliness of iSCSI and how the 'air gap' security that protected this data for so long is now gone and storage administrators are struggling to learn how the real world works.
Not to bash storage admins but they've relegated most of their 'security efforts' to LUN masking and other such techniques. Now that SCSI drive commands are traversing networks huge security vulnerabilities are opened up. I read an advanced chapter of the Secure SAN title and the best part was an executive from a prominent NAS company stating that he wasn't worried about the security of the products since "only a handful of ppl in the world could have this conversation".
Check out the recent efforts at Storage Networking Industry Association who have come as close to working miracles as I've personally seen. They have managed to create some various technial frameworks and security processes that make vendors work together.
One interesting note about the book featured here is that it also deals with NAS and DAS. NAS and SANS have been fighting it out as IDE and SCSI have. One is cheap and easy the other pricey and very difficult. DAS on the other hand is a joke to me. The ability for one computer to change bits in another's memory DIRECTLY does not sound like a good idea. Hackers have worked for decades to write shell code that allows the ability to change bits in memory and now the storage industry has created a way to get directly in there bypassing all OS security.... yea great idea
Symantec like most other 'security' companies (I quote here because they are a morph and not a real security company) are trying to cash in on the worm activity. Most security companies make windfalls of cash during high profile worm attacks (see code red).
::asteroid chunk falling towards asia on radar::
Symmantec just bought a truckload of security properties and wishes to make it known that they are on top of things. Truth be known, eEye knew about the worm because of tips from product users and other contacts who became infected. Our researchers were called back from the bars to dissect the worm (which takes hours) and then provide a signature and scanner.
Looking back though, what would a few hours notice do for anyone? Haven't you seen Armageddon?
"Shouldn't we call someone"
"What and tell them to evacuate the entire pacific rim?"
This worm had no payload because it was about speed! I've seen these global maps with 'spread vectors' and it goes from 0 to 100 in about 10 seconds. The last thing I need as my servers are choking on residual SQL traffic is a phone call from my AV vendor stating "your screwed, servers are gonna go down".
If you want to whine about not having access to this type of information (eg caselaw etc) then you should gripe to the DOJ or some other .gov entity. They are the ones who have decided not to publish their information electronically. LN and WL have gone to considerable expense to put together rather large databases. Having put in some time with LN I know they personally have case law dating back to the civil war. Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to make a database that large??
LN also has information about everyone (where applicable) including DMV records, deed transfers, and motor vehicle registration. (the earlier comment about what you got on your pizza was a tad far fetched). They recently added Hoovers company database into their own services. You can get expirian credit reports on companies (probobly ppl too), their business is akin to the Stephenson Snow Crash novels idea of a dominant information clearing house.
I think Ms. Barr has some relevant issues to discuss. tax payers have paid for this information. I just think it's misdirected, ask the DOJ to put all their records online. OR start filing a ton of FOIA papers and start your own.