As stated, why not go with OpenBSD which is a "FREE" system since their a non profit organization which should not be an excuse since even non-profits have some sort of funding and I'm sure it'd be a write off.
I've found tons of tools all free and better than commercially available ones so I don't understand your point.
If administrators kept on point checking out advisories as well as following forums such as securityfocus, etc. This wouldn't be a problem.
When someone has to go as far as detailing a document on recovering a cracked box you have to stop and wonder about the level of security this person knows about since their machine was "rooted" in the first place.
Sure you could moan and bitch about script kiddiots/crackers/e-vandals but a secure box isn't as far fetched as a clean install of OpenBSD or even running Titan on your clean install of Solaris.
Sorry to say but slackness is to blame when dealing with situations like this. Never... Wait no... NEVER have I had to worry about recovering a "cracked" box since it'd been secure from the get.
Someone root me so I can have fun creating my own docs...
Most of the issues mentioned involving hidden messages in various formats such as jpg's and audio files are not new news however I feel any information published is good to know from an educational perspective as well as a model for those paranoid types who are concerned with big brother based programs such as Echelon and Carnivore.
Applied Cryptography offered some nice information as did Information Security Management Handbook but for relevance as to the extent of big brother watching, some should go to the NSA's website and read up on their archives including Venona, and the Enigma machines to get a grasp of how deep government goes in to get their information and how you can address minimal measures on your own to avoid having your information snooped.
Last September I also wrote a quickie document on Circumventing Carnivore that mentions some of these methods to pass information off without it getting caught up on a steriod induced governmental sniffer. Sure it may not be Harvard type material but it should create interest to anyone not too familiar with encryption, ciphertext, algorithms, a simple how to.
As for the title disappearing crypto I hardly doubt it is disappearing in fact with all the hype surrounding PKI's, and the media's ever mentioning of `[H]ackers* I can see many more books, FAQ's, and companies rushing to release more information on crypto from all levels be it beginners to mathematicians based levels.
/me bounces to fatbrain to place an order with info obtained from creditcard.com crackers (of course I'm kidding)
IT Management is likely going to play a big role in the next year with all the now defunct companies that took a beating and made it to f*ckedcompany.com and it may be sort of a good thing.
What I see happening in certain instances are companies doing poorly in the long run due to bad management on all aspects of the business not only limited to the IT sector. With a proper foundation in place standards are kept and it becomes harder to become railroaded down the line when things are booming for a company. Once a certain criteria is established and standards are in order things in theory should only get better.
As for buying into some sort of consulting to do this, personally I think its a waste of money and management should be done from the inside since consultants in the long run will not have much to do with the company following their initial assessments, thereby leaving room for failure somewhere down the line.
See this is the kind of stuff I do for fun (bogus news) purposely. It's a crying shame reporters nowadays throw anything on without having a clue about the true situation... Somebody start paying me for this!@!$#@ I mean if I do it with intent it's only fair that I make some money for my stupidity.
hah...you know you have a point there... here's the deal my first nix based system was slackware cuz i saw that redhat at the time seemed to be kiddiesh from what i had heard... so i decided to get slackware I use it every here and there, but someone put me on to freeBSD and I loved it so I use it more frequently... Besides my site is BSD based (you know) Personally I feel there both good but for the most part I'm 50% BSD, 30% slackware 20% Windows (work and school).. ouch the dreaded em ess word.
I think a lot of people new to computing in a *nix environment get RedHat cause its an easier distro to install and use, personally I like slackware, never used any other distro but have heard mandrake is for posers who are to cowardly to get involved in their OS.
RedHat could become a strong force in the linux industry if people continue to think it is one of the best distro's around, which is not the case.
Redhat just seems to have gotten popular due to their website having enough information in a commercial fashion to gain the popularity.
Anyone ever see a SUSE, Debian, Slackware site more commercialized? Cause I sure haven't.
Apparently another sad report coming from a non-hacking source.
I would go into a full story but most people here and abroad know that hacker's are not at all dumb. Well the majority of "HACKERS" and not little wu-ftpd exploit script kiddies.
bunch of wealthy Gen X'ers out having a great time and getting wasted on the weekends. This is bad, how?
Lets just say when they drink & drive or are too stoned to drive and do so anyway forcing some sad mishap costing someone elses life... but hey their wealthy gen X'ers right? That comment was smart.
I personally don't do drugs, but I also don't give a damn whether anyone else does either, as long as they keep their drunken/stoned/whatever nonsense at a reasonable distance..
NIMBY response... Do you pay taxes? How about when these people are too cracked out to get a job and go on welfare? Or break into your home?
I think that if this article wanted to have any sort of impact on anyone, it maybe should have told the story of someone in the IT industry who, altho brilliant, is now manning some crap win95 phone desk somewhere because of a felony possession charge. Said person now gets to spend one day a month for the next, oh, 10 years peeing in a cup and telling her PO how much she likes her job.
Although I agree the article was a bit humorous and bullsh!t at most. Somehow people should start taking a more serious approach to these issues. I've worked in the ad industry and have seen people beyond incapacitated off of drugs, and it isn't a very pretty site, nor is it comfortable working with someone in that state. Who cares? I care if it means that somehow it will affect me and my work habits/routines.
And, never, ever, will she get a nice, comfy corporate desk job.
You should rethink this also... What happens when the person is an owner or CEO... Do you honestly believe he/she/heshe/herhim is going anywhere?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1521 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Mr. Stewart Bell, While I speak on behalf of myself, and maybe a few others I know I've decided to clarify a few things about your half baked story. Read on Tuesday, April 13, 1999 Computer hackers really are anti-social geeks: psychologist Stewart Bell National Post It may be a stereotype to describe computer hackers as anti-social geeks, but it is an accurate one -- at least for the best-known type of hacker, says a University of Manitoba psychologist. Now does this psychologist actually hack or know any hackers personally or is he just following JP'ish stupdity along with the rest of media whoreness by calling hackers anti-social? The average "cyberpunk'' is a white, middle-class male, aged 12 to 28, who lacks social skills and comes from a dysfunctional family, says Marc Rogers, who is studying hackers for his graduate thesis. Yet you refer to Hispahack which are Hispanick hackers, which also brings me to this point, how did he come to this conclusion? Were the subjects of his study hooked up to a webcam for him to see their colors? I', just curious being hispanic and knowing of a wide base of ethnic hackers worldwide. "They usually have not the best social skills. They tend to be the loners,'' the former Winnipeg police officer says. "They feel a lot more comfortable behind a computer system than in face-to-face interaction.'' Actually some hackers have extremely talented social skills. Enough sometimes to actually gain access to some systems by speaking via e-mail or phone calls to certain sites, based on human errors, not of their (hackers) own but that of the systems administrators some may tend to toy with. At a computer conference in California's Silicon Valley earlier this year, Mr. Rogers stirred controversy with his presentation, "Psychology of a hacker," in which he argued hackers tend to come from broken families. He said they may also have been subjected to physical or sexual abuse. Strange how every psychologist seems to throw these scenarios in, sexual molestation, family abuse. Actually personally I feel most people begin out of curiousity, out of a sense of learning, achievement, etc. Never have I been sexually molested although I dream of sexually explicit fantasies of Mariah Carey and Neve Campbell. Broken families? Again where do these people get these stats from? Hackers have broken into the Pentagon's highly classified computer system, shut down a Chinese government satellite, and tried to wreak havoc on the computers of Iraq. But just who are they? Crackers have intruded poorly configured military servers, which supposedly had no classified info, but due to certain branches of goverment needing funds, they saw it a way to get more money. Classified information that teenagers have gotten a hold of, which shows the lack of common sense on behalf of a so called Superpower. Chinese government satellite? First they said it was British...Go figure Mr. Rogers, after spending 12 years on the Winnipeg police force, including a stint as lead detective on the computer crime squad, has now turned his attention to finding out, in the hopes it will help safeguard against their intrusions. Here's a thought...hire Dr. Hamstuh P.H.D As part of his graduate thesis, Mr. Rogers developed a profile of cyberpunks -- hackers whose hobby has put them before the criminal courts. But he stresses they are just one type of hacker. Others include: What a rip off profile for a thesis. These terms are available on every single hacking page I've been too, I suggest his Professors thoroughly check his papers for plagurism. - "Newbies," or "script kiddies," his tags for young novices. - "Insiders," current or former disgruntled employees who use their knowledge to attack systems. - "Coders," who disseminate hacking methods but don't necessarily do it themselves. - "Professionals," the mercenaries of the computer-hacking world, who may work for criminal organizations. - "Cyber-terrorists," Mr. Rogers is also considering a new category he calls "hactivists," people who hack into systems to political aims. Do you guys just spit out whatever it is on your mind without actually knowing half of what's what? Or is it a rush to get some story out? Just what kind of news agency are you anyway? Now my site is dedicated to the humor of hacking where I purposely write garbage like this article. Being that I loved it so much would you like to write for me?j00rs trulyxp0rnstar http://www.antioffline.com sil@antioffline.com sil@macroshaft.org
Slashdot Mirror
As stated, why not go with OpenBSD which is a "FREE" system since their a non profit organization which should not be an excuse since even non-profits have some sort of funding and I'm sure it'd be a write off.
I've found tons of tools all free and better than commercially available ones so I don't understand your point.
If administrators kept on point checking out advisories as well as following forums such as securityfocus, etc. This wouldn't be a problem.
When someone has to go as far as detailing a document on recovering a cracked box you have to stop and wonder about the level of security this person knows about since their machine was "rooted" in the first place.
Sure you could moan and bitch about script kiddiots/crackers/e-vandals but a secure box isn't as far fetched as a clean install of OpenBSD or even running Titan on your clean install of Solaris.
Sorry to say but slackness is to blame when dealing with situations like this. Never... Wait no... NEVER have I had to worry about recovering a "cracked" box since it'd been secure from the get.
Someone root me so I can have fun creating my own docs...
sil@deficiency.org www.deficiency.org
sil@antioffline.com www.antioffline.com
Long live cryptography!
Most of the issues mentioned involving hidden messages in various formats such as jpg's and audio files are not new news however I feel any information published is good to know from an educational perspective as well as a model for those paranoid types who are concerned with big brother based programs such as Echelon and Carnivore.
Applied Cryptography offered some nice information as did Information Security Management Handbook but for relevance as to the extent of big brother watching, some should go to the NSA's website and read up on their archives including Venona, and the Enigma machines to get a grasp of how deep government goes in to get their information and how you can address minimal measures on your own to avoid having your information snooped.
Last September I also wrote a quickie document on Circumventing Carnivore that mentions some of these methods to pass information off without it getting caught up on a steriod induced governmental sniffer. Sure it may not be Harvard type material but it should create interest to anyone not too familiar with encryption, ciphertext, algorithms, a simple how to.
As for the title disappearing crypto I hardly doubt it is disappearing in fact with all the hype surrounding PKI's, and the media's ever mentioning of `[H]ackers* I can see many more books, FAQ's, and companies rushing to release more information on crypto from all levels be it beginners to mathematicians based levels.
/me bounces to fatbrain to place an order with info obtained from creditcard.com crackers (of course I'm kidding)
Sexy Unix Chick
IT Management is likely going to play a big role in the next year with all the now defunct companies that took a beating and made it to f*ckedcompany.com and it may be sort of a good thing.
What I see happening in certain instances are companies doing poorly in the long run due to bad management on all aspects of the business not only limited to the IT sector. With a proper foundation in place standards are kept and it becomes harder to become railroaded down the line when things are booming for a company. Once a certain criteria is established and standards are in order things in theory should only get better.
As for buying into some sort of consulting to do this, personally I think its a waste of money and management should be done from the inside since consultants in the long run will not have much to do with the company following their initial assessments, thereby leaving room for failure somewhere down the line.
Windows2000 Spoof
See this is the kind of stuff I do for fun (bogus news) purposely. It's a crying shame reporters nowadays throw anything on without having a clue about the true situation... Somebody start paying me for this!@!$#@ I mean if I do it with intent it's only fair that I make some money for my stupidity.
www.AntiOffline.com -- Elite Hax0r Stories
hah...you know you have a point there...
here's the deal my first nix based system was
slackware cuz i saw that redhat at the time seemed to be kiddiesh from what i had heard... so i decided to get slackware I use it every here and there, but someone put me on to freeBSD and I loved it so I use it more frequently... Besides my site is BSD based (you know) Personally I feel there both good but for the most part I'm 50% BSD, 30% slackware 20% Windows (work and school).. ouch the dreaded em ess word.
I think a lot of people new to computing in a *nix environment get RedHat cause its an easier distro to install and use, personally I like slackware, never used any other distro but have heard mandrake is for posers who are to cowardly to get involved in their OS.
RedHat could become a strong force in the linux industry if people continue to think it is one of the best distro's around, which is not the case.
Redhat just seems to have gotten popular due to their website having enough information in a commercial fashion to gain the popularity.
Anyone ever see a SUSE, Debian, Slackware site more commercialized? Cause I sure haven't.
I'll stick to BSD
=P
Apparently another sad report coming from a non-hacking source.
I would go into a full story but most people here and abroad know that hacker's are not at all dumb. Well the majority of "HACKERS" and not little wu-ftpd exploit script kiddies.
bunch of wealthy Gen X'ers out having a great time and getting wasted on the weekends. This is bad, how?
+ +
Lets just say when they drink & drive or are too stoned to drive and do so anyway forcing some sad mishap costing someone elses life... but hey their wealthy gen X'ers right? That comment was smart.
I personally don't do drugs, but I also don't give a damn whether anyone else does either, as long as they keep their drunken/stoned/whatever nonsense at a reasonable distance..
NIMBY response... Do you pay taxes? How about when these people are too cracked out to get a job and go on welfare? Or break into your home?
I think that if this article wanted to have any sort of impact on anyone, it maybe should have told the story of someone in the IT industry who, altho brilliant, is now manning some crap win95 phone desk somewhere because of a felony possession charge. Said person now gets to spend one day a month for the next, oh, 10 years peeing in a cup and telling her PO how much she likes her job.
Although I agree the article was a bit humorous and bullsh!t at most. Somehow people should start taking a more serious approach to these issues. I've worked in the ad industry and have seen people beyond incapacitated off of drugs, and it isn't a very pretty site, nor is it comfortable working with someone in that state. Who cares? I care if it means that somehow it will affect me and my work habits/routines.
And, never, ever, will she get a nice, comfy corporate desk job.
You should rethink this also... What happens when the person is an owner or CEO... Do you honestly believe he/she/heshe/herhim is going anywhere?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed
from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1521
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Mr. Stewart Bell, While I speak on behalf of myself, and maybe a few others I know I've decided to clarify a few things about your half baked story. Read on Tuesday, April 13, 1999 Computer hackers really are anti-social geeks: psychologist Stewart Bell National Post It may be a stereotype to describe computer hackers as anti-social geeks, but it is an accurate one -- at least for the best-known type of hacker, says a University of Manitoba psychologist. Now does this psychologist actually hack or know any hackers personally or is he just following JP'ish stupdity along with the rest of media whoreness by calling hackers anti-social? The average "cyberpunk'' is a white, middle-class male, aged 12 to 28, who lacks social skills and comes from a dysfunctional family, says Marc Rogers, who is studying hackers for his graduate thesis. Yet you refer to Hispahack which are Hispanick hackers, which also brings me to this point, how did he come to this conclusion? Were the subjects of his study hooked up to a webcam for him to see their colors? I', just curious being hispanic and knowing of a wide base of ethnic hackers worldwide. "They usually have not the best social skills. They tend to be the loners,'' the former Winnipeg police officer says. "They feel a lot more comfortable behind a computer system than in face-to-face interaction.'' Actually some hackers have extremely talented social skills. Enough sometimes to actually gain access to some systems by speaking via e-mail or phone calls to certain sites, based on human errors, not of their (hackers) own but that of the systems administrators some may tend to toy with. At a computer conference in California's Silicon Valley earlier this year, Mr. Rogers stirred controversy with his presentation, "Psychology of a hacker," in which he argued hackers tend to come from broken families. He said they may also have been subjected to physical or sexual abuse. Strange how every psychologist seems to throw these scenarios in, sexual molestation, family abuse. Actually personally I feel most people begin out of curiousity, out of a sense of learning, achievement, etc. Never have I been sexually molested although I dream of sexually explicit fantasies of Mariah Carey and Neve Campbell. Broken families? Again where do these people get these stats from? Hackers have broken into the Pentagon's highly classified computer system, shut down a Chinese government satellite, and tried to wreak havoc on the computers of Iraq. But just who are they? Crackers have intruded poorly configured military servers, which supposedly had no classified info, but due to certain branches of goverment needing funds, they saw it a way to get more money. Classified information that teenagers have gotten a hold of, which shows the lack of common sense on behalf of a so called Superpower. Chinese government satellite? First they said it was British...Go figure Mr. Rogers, after spending 12 years on the Winnipeg police force, including a stint as lead detective on the computer crime squad, has now turned his attention to finding out, in the hopes it will help safeguard against their intrusions. Here's a thought...hire Dr. Hamstuh P.H.D As part of his graduate thesis, Mr. Rogers developed a profile of cyberpunks -- hackers whose hobby has put them before the criminal courts. But he stresses they are just one type of hacker. Others include: What a rip off profile for a thesis. These terms are available on every single hacking page I've been too, I suggest his Professors thoroughly check his papers for plagurism. - "Newbies," or "script kiddies," his tags for young novices. - "Insiders," current or former disgruntled employees who use their knowledge to attack systems. - "Coders," who disseminate hacking methods but don't necessarily do it themselves. - "Professionals," the mercenaries of the computer-hacking world, who may work for criminal organizations. - "Cyber-terrorists," Mr. Rogers is also considering a new category he calls "hactivists," people who hack into systems to political aims. Do you guys just spit out whatever it is on your mind without actually knowing half of what's what? Or is it a rush to get some story out? Just what kind of news agency are you anyway? Now my site is dedicated to the humor of hacking where I purposely write garbage like this article. Being that I loved it so much would you like to write for me? j00rs truly xp0rnstar http://www.antioffline.com sil@antioffline.com sil@macroshaft.org