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Tue, 31 May 2005

Another trip 31 May
Please excuse the interruption in blogging. I'm on yet another trip, this time to Baltimore. I'll get back to posting shortly.

joat: 20:00:00 31 May 2005


Mon, 30 May 2005

ZombieMeter 30 May
(via Blackhat.info and ZDNet) CipherTrust has used some of the data gathered from their mail filtering appliances to produce the ZombieMeter.

joat: 12:00:00 30 May 2005


Sun, 29 May 2005

Phishing 29 May

joat: 12:00:00 29 May 2005


Sat, 28 May 2005

Del.iciou.us 28 May
I've finally "got" Del.icio.us. You can see my bookmarks here. The RSS feed for it is here.

joat: 12:00:00 28 May 2005


Fri, 27 May 2005

Note to self 27 May
Keep an eye on what comes out of the Recon.

joat: 12:00:00 27 May 2005


Thu, 26 May 2005

State Taxes 26 May
Unless you work with the data, you never know when you'll need odd sources of data so, for my benefit, here is a site that lists the tax rates of all 50 states.

joat: 12:00:00 26 May 2005


Wed, 25 May 2005

Autorun 25 May
Here's a website mostly devoted to a tool that builds AutoRun files but has other AutoRun info.

joat: 12:00:00 25 May 2005


Tue, 24 May 2005

MAIDS 24 May
One of the problems with being on the road for two weeks out of a month is that I don't get to do the usual amount of research, so I have to rely on my backlog for source material. In any case...

Here's a site with a collections of papers related to "Mining Alarming Incidents in Data Streams" (MAIDS). (No, not the NT file system.)

joat: 12:00:00 24 May 2005


Mon, 23 May 2005

More on spammers 23 May
It's a bit from the mutual-appreciation-society but it's more about tracing the spammers (from awhile ago). Ann Elisabeth has performed a lot more research and has gotten a lot farther than I did. She also took advantage of a server crash.

joat: 12:00:00 23 May 2005


Sun, 22 May 2005

Spring Cleaning 22 May
Please bear with the site for a bit. I'm doing a bit of spring cleaning and some things may not work properly for a short while.

joat: 20:00:00 22 May 2005


XTen 22 May
LinuxElectrons has an article about XTen soft phones being available for Linux. They're a bit of overkill for my setup but I'll probably "grow into them". Worth taking a look at.

joat: 12:00:00 22 May 2005


Sat, 21 May 2005

Anyone know? 21 May
Any truth to the rumor that AirJack is being updated to the 2.6 kernel?

joat: 15:00:00 21 May 2005


Legal? 21 May
I've disliked CircleID articles before, I'll probably continue to do so in the future.

Not to break existing practice, I have issue with Darren Miller's article, "Road Warrior at Risk: The Dangers of Ad-Hoc Wireless Networking". While it's a pretty good article on the dangers of ad-hoc wireless, I find the authors attitude about sniffing wireless to be a bit too cavalier.

In the wired world, port scanning is not deemed as trepass. It's considered an annoyance. However, sniffing traffic and accessing systems without permission is a definite no-no. Why should it be any different in the wireless realm? Is it any different? This is an issue that will probably need to be decided in court.

While tools like AirFart will probably considered to be amongst the benign category, tools like Kismet carry the possibility of landing a war-driver in court. "But Kismet is a passive tool," you say? True, but it's passive in the same manner that any wired sniffer is. Don't forget that Kismet does create pcap-compatible packet dumps. Accessing those capture files is probably the legal equivalent of accessing the network(s) that the traffic came from.

So...

If you're a traveler, you should consider encrypting all of your traffic as it leaves your computer (use a VPN) or only access generic sites that do not require login or interaction. (Visit CNN, read /., etc.)

If you're a journalist in search of a story (or anyone else armed with a sniffer), stay off of other people's computers and don't capture their traffic. If you're caught doing it, you may end up in cuffs.

joat: 12:00:00 21 May 2005


Fri, 20 May 2005

Kismet 20 May
Here's a HERT interview with Kismet developer Mike Kershaw, aka Dragorn.

joat: 12:00:00 20 May 2005


Thu, 19 May 2005

Mal Code 19 May
You can view the presentations from the 2004 DoD Malicious Code Conference here.

joat: 21:30:00 19 May 2005


Bonehead 19 May
To make it simple for the jerk at 66.246.72.112: the comments are manually reviewed. Stop trying to spam from your porn site.

joat: 19:00:00 19 May 2005


Wed, 18 May 2005

PSP 18 May
Here is an iHacked article on the browser built into the PSP handheld. I'm fascinated by them. At last week's course, one classmate had one (and used it to find a hidden AP), another classmate won one of the three given away in drawings.

joat: 12:00:00 18 May 2005


Tue, 17 May 2005

Laser Audio 17 May
For my own benefit, for whenever I get some free time (yeah, like that'll happen): Transmit Audio with a Laser Pen.

joat: 12:00:00 17 May 2005


Mon, 16 May 2005

Botnet Tracking 16 May
Know Your Enemy: Tracking Botnets is a paper from The Honeynet Project that gives the basic theory behind botnets and how to track them.

joat: 12:00:00 16 May 2005


Sun, 15 May 2005

Back home 15 May
I'm back home now. The course in Denver was a blast. Not only did we learn new things, we entertained ourselves (catching the wardriver was hilarious) (Note to the Denver financial district: you really should keep an eye on who's sitting at the curb).

Short version of the course? Don't put anything on wireless that you're not willing to lose or publicly disclose. This applies if you're using WEP, WPA or even WPA2. Some protections are inherently faulty, others are secure only until someone fat-fingers a config file.

joat: 21:30:00 15 May 2005


Common Failures in Internet Applications 15 May
If anybody has time to view "Common Failures in Internet Applications", please let me know what you think of the lecture(s).

joat: 21:00:00 15 May 2005


Sat, 14 May 2005

Hacker Jailed 14 May
BlackHat.Info has an pointer to an article that tells of the sentencing of a member of Thr34t Krew to 21 months of jail-time. I'm a bit amazed that it was that short of a sentence as this group has been around awhile. Other than the usual "hacker arrested" stories, I'm able to find:

Oh, and Sophos says the group is responsible for the TKBot.

joat: 21:00:00 14 May 2005


Fri, 13 May 2005

D'oh! 13 May
What happens when a wireless security class discovers a wardriver, just outside the window? (heh)

How about, the SSID of the AP in the classroom gets changed to "we-see-you-in-the-car" and a ping storm is sent through the AP so that it "sticks out" in whatever listing his tool has. Then get a half dozen or so in the class to stand in the window and wave/point.

Okay, we're having too much fun.

joat: 16:43:36 13 May 2005


ISC 13 May
Johannes Ulrich talked at last night's BOF (Birds Of a Feather) about the Internet Storm Center (ISC) and DShield (the organization that the ISC depends on for data). Salient points include:
  • DShield is interested in the home user. Logs from your routers give them a much broader view of what's going on than logs from a large organization.
  • When you turn in your logs, please sanitize them. Replace the first octet with "10".
  • The INFOCon alert status is available as an RSS feed (I still have to find it).
  • The ISC site can be viewed without any browser-side scripting (no Java, no JavaScript, no VBS, etc.).

The BOF was very interesting. I came away from it with a couple ideas to work on. One of those is coming up with a script, to run on those modified 54G's that many of us have, so that the router logs can be turned in once per hour (as Johannes requested). Another is to investigate how the black hats are employing IPv6 as a covert channel.

Should keep me busy for awhile....

joat: 15:21:31 13 May 2005


Wireless Tools 13 May
Here is a large listing of wireless tools.

joat: 12:00:00 13 May 2005


Thu, 12 May 2005

SANS 12 May
I'm at the SANS conference in Denver this week, having a good time in the Assessing Wireless Network Security class. I won an iPod Shuffle yesterday (like I needed another?). Anyone want to trade for one of those PSP's (what I was hoping to win)?

joat: 19:55:59 12 May 2005


Mobile IPv6 12 May
I've been learning about the ins and outs of Mobile IP. Here's a paper on the IPv6 version.

joat: 12:00:00 12 May 2005


Wed, 11 May 2005

Cinema 11 May
CINEMA (Columbia InterNet Extensible Multimedia Architecture) is a set of server for creating an enterprise telephony and multimedia system. Remember SIP is intended for more than just VoIP.

joat: 12:00:00 11 May 2005


It ain't getting any better 11 May
I've loved Zyxel modems for many years. However, they've lost points with me for thinking that undocumented or hidden equates to secure. What's that old line about repeating history? [*sigh*]

joat: 12:00:00 11 May 2005


Tue, 10 May 2005

Dotslash 10 May
Dotslash is a project that aims to be the antidote to the Slashdot Effect.

joat: 12:00:00 10 May 2005


Mon, 09 May 2005

CarolinaCon 09 May
For those that are interested in attending Cons, the CarolinaCon is in Raliegh, NC on June 10-12 this year. The schedule looks interesting.

joat: 12:30:00 9 May 2005


Black Hat Archives 09 May
This isn't new but it's a good idea to check the Black Hat Media Archives now and then.

joat: 12:00:00 9 May 2005


Sun, 08 May 2005

Fear 08 May
If you're reading this within 6-8 hours of my posting it, have sympathy for me. I'm on my way to Denver and I'll be a nervous wreck for the entirety of the trip.

joat: 14:00:00 8 May 2005


VoP Security Forum 08 May
Here's the link for the Voice over Packet Security Forum. The forums (there's a link in the left-hand menu) are a bit light in content at the moment but hopefully the site will gain popularity.

joat: 12:00:00 8 May 2005


Sat, 07 May 2005

Spam clustering 07 May
Don't know the value of it, but it looks interesting: The Math Club has has a piece on spam clustering.

joat: 12:00:00 7 May 2005


Fri, 06 May 2005

Hacker Trespasser Exception 06 May
LinuxElectrons has an pointer to Congressional testimony concerning The Hacker Trespasser Exception. It's an interesting read. I just wish that lawmakers would refrain from using slang terms (such as hacker) when writing laws. That sort of thing always requires rewriting of the law after years of judicial interpretation of what the use of the slang term actually meant and the intent of the law that's wrapped around it.

joat: 12:00:00 6 May 2005


Thu, 05 May 2005

MS adds a black box 05 May
This sort of thing gives CIO's nightmares as the error reports often include the documents/programs that were open at the time. On the up side, Microsoft sells an in-house version of the error-reporting server so that you don't have to expose your corporate secrets directly to Microsoft.

joat: 12:00:00 5 May 2005


Wed, 04 May 2005

Packet analysis 04 May
I still wish I could get Cox to do this: look at their network at the packet level. Three years later, I'm still attached to what amounts to the network boonies (on the back edge of their infrastructure) and I still suffer from massive ARP storms. When your management traffic becomes so extreme that your customer traffic suffers, something is definitely wrong.

I've received everything from the "I'm the help desk, the problem is in your computer" treatment to having to talk to security because someone was upset the I supplied the help desk with a packet capture of what's pounding on the outer interface of my router.

There's little else I can do except live with it. They're the only game in this area of town at the moment (short of dial-up).

joat: 12:30:00 4 May 2005


Clickjacking 04 May
Here's LURHQ's analysis of pay-per-click hijacking.

joat: 12:00:00 4 May 2005


Tue, 03 May 2005

Pending analysis 03 May
One thing that I didn't mention during the last month was that I was archiving comment spam. I now have a bit over 800 spam entries that I will analyze over the next couple weeks.

I may be biasing the results a bit but I expect that a majority of entries will be posted from broad number of source IP's (zombie machines?) but will involve domains from a certain registrar. I'll keep you posted.

joat: 12:30:00 3 May 2005


Skype protocol 03 May
Here is a paper from Columbia University entitled "An Analysis of the Skype Peer-to- Peer Internet Telephony Protocol".

joat: 12:00:00 3 May 2005


Mon, 02 May 2005

Cutting edge? 02 May
Someone want to donate a clue to Microsoft? Some of us are already on the IPv6 backbone via a tunnel set up with a Linksys router.

Although I occasionally have to log in to my tunnel broker and reset the tunnel (due to my ISP changing my external IP), I don't have to make any configuration changes to my laptop. It auto-configures thanks to the radvd daemon. Just boot and go.

It should be noted that the firmware that I use on the Linksys is almost a year old. The newer versions include QoS and better network management tools.

joat: 12:30:00 2 May 2005


Anti-Forensics 02 May
I've been chided for talking about "evil" theory but it is something that you need to know about, otherwise the blackhats have yet another advantage.

Here is the article that The Grugq wrote just before he was fired from @stake, exposing various flaws in specific forensic tools. It's valuable info, both for the blackhats AND the whitehats (so that they know it when they see it).

joat: 12:00:00 2 May 2005


Sun, 01 May 2005

Sveasoft 01 May
For those that missed it, the public release of the final version of Sveasoft's Alchemy firmware hit the streets just about two weeks ago. You can get the public release here.

joat: 13:00:00 1 May 2005


Dumb 01 May
eDave has a pointer to "The six dumbest ways to secure a wireless LAN" over on ZDNet. I agree with eDave. We can probably come up with more than six though but the George Ou's post is a good read.

Add this to the wish list: someone needs to author a good article on using wireless intrusion detection systems and how a wired IDS is almost useless for monitoring wireless network extensions.

joat: 12:30:00 1 May 2005


BCS Asia Presentations 01 May
Here's the presentations from the Bellua Cyber Security Asia 2005 conference.

joat: 12:00:00 1 May 2005


robtex