The Angry Bitter Rustbelt

So even Andrew Sullivan (about as big as an Obama fanboy as you can find) is somewhat critical of the Obama remarks about the "bitterness" working class whites. But I don't find much to disagree with in the spirt or the words themselves.

Three weeks ago we drove from Chicago to Frederick, Maryland and back. On the way East we took the Southern route down through Indianapolis (the Northern suburbs, where we stopped for dinner, seems surprisingly nicer, nicer than the Indianapolis I remember from 1980) and spent the night in Columbus, which wasn't too bad either. We drove through the old factory towns of Eastern Ohio. Down into Maryland through Cumberland, Hagerstown, then Frederick.

On the way back I accidently took the PA Turnpike (and was pleased to see my iPass worked) and it had a much different feel. Particularly around Pittsburgh, then heading North through Youngstown, then Akron, before spending the night in Cleveland. The decay was visceral. The rot. The feeling of places that have been but that no longer are. (I wish I could find a comparison between Texas and Ohio that I found somewhere, that came out during the primaries that illustrated the opposite path these two states were on, on a number of levels.)

A couple of years ago when we decided to move from Austin, were briefly considered Pittsburgh (I was entertaining the idea of trying to get a job CERT) but all the research my wife did, it seemed to be one of the most racist intolerant places in the country driven by pent up anger and bitterness (damn foreigners taking our American jobs away, since all the best jobs belong to Americans you know! We deserve factory jobs were folks make as much as MCSE's) Sure there was a haven around Universities and you could get some cool houses for relatively cheap in Squirrel Hill, but who would want to live there? Especially with an adopted Chinese daughter? Even the Episcopal Church is stuck in a time warp there.

Call me an elitist (or just nostalgic about the Great State of Texas) but these "blue collar" parts of Ohio or Pennsylvania seem scary in ways that parts of East Texas (or West Texas) are certainly not. Yes there is Jasper, but there is something different about the racism in a place that actually has minorities than what that doesn't. There is something different about states that are on a downward trajectory and those that have some life in them (the Sunbelt) with people on the move, with a horizon in front of them, people moving in, moving out, people that are not stuck between hills, along the rivers, in dying little downs with smokestacks

I think even think Illinois and the well-off North side of Chicagoland has a bit of that feel of death and rot that is hard to put a finger on unless you've lived somewhere else.

Layer 8 Stealth Firewall Switches

So here's a rule of thumb, if your knowledge of networking is based on what you can pick up at Buy Buy on that first trial credit card's they give you in college, you probably shouldn't be shooting your mouth off.

Read this fw-wiz thread to see what I'm talking about.

Happy Birthday Nessus!

Renaud has a nice Birthday writeup on Nessus over on the Tenable Blog.

I first used Nessus (and Ethereal, back when both were far less stable than they are now!) in the Summer/Fall of 1998 when I included it in "Network Attack & Defend," a five-day hands-on TCP/IP Security class I developed/taught down in San Antonio for Trident Data Systems. Lot of frequent flyer miles later, brain cells lost, grey hairs, since then....

(CAVEAT: I work for Tenable now)

Not Alerting on Scheduled Nessus Scans with Snort (Debian-style)

So my (Debian based) firewall routes traffic for the three subnets I have behind it, each which is front-ended by either a Cisco 851 or a Linksys AP. On one of the subnets I have a VM running Tenable Security Center which runs daily Nessus scans from two Nessus scanners.

The first scanner (on my Son's Ubuntu 7.10 Optiplex) scans the non-Linksys devices connected to the AP, both wired and wireless. (I exclude the traffic because even traffic through the APs hangs the WRT54G and sometimes the WET54G (bridge). The second scans its local subnet and the other Cisco-protected subnet. I will add a third Nessus scanner behind this subnet that scans back so that on the non-Linksys segments I have a perspective of scans both inside and outside the Firewall (meaning router ACLs)

But this obviously causes even the default Debian Snort ruleset to alert. So tweaking this knowledge base entry to the pecularities of a Debian (4.0) Snort install, I did the following:

1) Create an /etc/snort/excludes.conf that has BPF (not host scanner-ip) to ignore scans to/from that host

2) Modify the PARAMETERS variable in /etc/defaults/snort

# Parameters for the daemon
# Add any additional parameteres here.
PARAMS="-F /etc/snort/excludes.conf -m 027 -D -d "

3) Restart snort as usual
Simple, almost too simple to even blog about...

Luv Them Firewalls

I guess I'm one of those unsophisticated old fogies that block my kids access. Squid is down and 9-year old doesn't care that much and hasn't figured out he can just disable the proxy, but my 4 year old daughter's Internet addiction is is in full bloom on Mom's MacBook playing the Dora/Diego games and a year ago she ordered 2-3 seasons from iTunes before I figured out how to disable it.

The media, which all operate under direct or indirect state control, warn frequently about internet addiction when discussing technology's effects on youth. At the end of 2006, the media reported that the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League stated that more than 2 million children and teens were internet addicts. In 2008, the Xinhua news agency reported that 11% of youth ages 18 to 23 are addicted to the internet.

For God's sake for as long as she can remember she's see a laptop attached to her parents, so why shouldn't she be addicted too?

2nd Thoughts on Dell Laptops (based on Precision M65)

So I'm sort of a laptop snob. I don't care much for MacBook Pro's, let along their flimsier sibling. And Dell's well, I don't want to go there. But most of this experience is based on Latitude's and based on the Precision M65 I was issued this week, maybe I was overgeneralizing. First of all the [Nvidia] graphics are amazingly snappy and the display very crisp, but most importantly these guys are sturdy -- maybe even sturdier than my T-61. Plus, good port layout and even a real Serial port.

I didn't calculate the price difference (but I recently did between comparably equipped T-61's and a high end D-series Latitude, which was around 20% more than the Lenovo) but I'm guessing Thinkpad's provide better value.

BTW, although this box will remain XP only, I did boot up the Ubuntu Hardy Heron Beta and it worked great. Correct (1280x800) screen resolution and WPA worked like a champ on the Intel 3945 card.

So that is what "aspies" are?

I hadn't read Dailydave for a while but a reference to this craiglist entry has convinced me that I should read it more often...

I'm basically extremely lazy and I scope projects that take 4 hours of real work time for about 1-2 weeks since thats how long it takes to bring myself to work on whatever stupid project I'm assigned. I've been mudding against recently, I have to get the good eq. drops.

I work marginally well on teams. I dont have a problem with authority, I just dont view them as being authoritative. I am late to work constantly, but not _THAT_ late. I need at least $105k a year. I consistently order the most expensive drinks I possibly can get away with when the company card is down. I will even order drinks to then just pour out into the toilet or onto the carpet just to make the company tab higher.

I can program a variety of languages including but not limited to C, C++, a number of assembly languages, PERL, BASH, TCL and SPIN.

I cannot currently program ERLANG, SCHEME, PYTHON or RUBY but if required (which is highly likely if you think your company is a cool, hip and intelligent one), I can learn any of these languages in 2 days with fluent programmign ability with 2 weeks, as any real programmer can do with any language.

I'm an excellent programmer but many aspies (people with aspergers) can out-program me.

[snip boring stuff]

I have 10+ years in professional (PAID) computer security experience but the security industry is completely retarded now. So I don't want to secure your web apps, _AT ALL_.

Big Time Firefox3b4 and Google Apps Performance Increases

Up until now maybe spent an hour or so running Firefox 3, but since Ubuntu Hardy Heron (Beta) ships with Firefox 3 as its default, I've noticed huge improvements using Gmail and Google Reader, most likely due to the Javascript improvements.

Update
Vi movement keys don't work in Gmail though! Sort of annoying.

Hardy Heron Beta on T-61: First Impressions

So I just tried the LiveCD version of the beta and am pretty impressed. Since I need to start fresh in a few days (start with Tenable next week) and I've been getting some annoying reiserfs R/O inode errors, will probably do the deed real soon now. As is the case with any Ubuntu pre-release several 100 package updates in the works.

Two of three boots worked just fine (the one that failed I was messing with volume controls while GNOME was booting, coicidence?). Among the differences I noticed: Firefox 3.0b4, a new Encryption, Desktop Effects worked perfectly, didn't try WPA. Sound (and volume controls, that are more OSX like) worked perfectly. Codec finder worked on the second time and was able to fire up Radio Paradise and listen to a stream.

Update
Actual install and reboot went fine but after upgrading the packages, I ran into the same GNOME startup issue (hang). Basically you lose control over the keyboard (Caps Lock doesn't blink) but mouse is still active... weird. But rebooted and then went into the console and installed OpenBox, restarted gdm. This worked (non-GNOME) and then weirdly worked with Gnome, so perhaps this is a Nautilus/Metacity issue...

Funny and On Target But Still Depressed, Nonetheless

So I'm not ashamed to admit to voting for Dubya in 2004, mostly out of disgust for the Michael Moore and Moveon.org crowd, so based on this a strange logic, could I actually somehow vote for Hilary out of disgust for Hannity and Limbaugh?

It's conceivable.

First Strike: An Oldie But a Goodie

I know I saw this either in Basic Training or more likely in "Common Block" at Goodfellow AFB as motivation cross our zeros or slash our sevens or something..

My favorite line (From the young-ass 1LT in a missle silo), "so you gonna go out with me tonight... thought we'd check out the hacienda... maybe even let you treat?" Damn Zoomies always had it easy. Put their hands in their pockets. Of course Nerve agent or "Yellow Rain" (having grown up on Edgewood Arsenal and driven by all those barbed-wire encircled buildings with the funny smoke stacks) and the thought of wearing MOPP4 is a hell of a lot more frightening than instant incineration.

But the good thing about "the enemy" back in the day (if you buy this whole story) is everybody (or at least a few million) is a goner. Now it's like somebody pops a dirty bomb off in Alexandria or a suicide bomber visits the Las Vegas strip, you'll probably be fine, except your CSCO shares go back in the single digits or your 401k is toast.

I think I prefer MAD.

I wonder if kids these days even find this stuff compelling like I used to. Hell it scares me still. Certainly more than any 3 AM call.

My Gmail account is Experiencing Errros

Over the last month Gmail seems to have gotten slower (and slower and slower) and it is not just my Powerbook G4 and Firefox.

Having had to maintain Internet-facing devices under high loads (although certainly not at the level of Google Apps) things probably suck right now for Google Engineering. Pagers going off. Firing up the conference calls. Troubleshooting routers, switches, firewalls, load balances, web caches, databases -- all the fun that is involved in keeping a mess of webapps running. Well blogger and google talk work so all is not lost. God bless them.

Now its back, I guess 20 minute outage isn't that bad for Beta app :)

Easy CentoOS 4.6 Network Installation

With a few exceptions (having to use Cisco Enterprise Linux for a project or two, and few torrid affairs with SuSE) ever since about 2001, I've been mostly faithly to Debian-based distributions. One of the things that has bothered me about RPM distros is the network installs, or lack thereof. Sure you can do it (I did on an old-world PPC Mac using YellowDog Linux) but it is not as straightforward as Debian network installs.

For me the only reason you'd use and infererior RedHat-based distros is if you had commercial products that required RHEL. Well now im in that situation, so CentOS 4.6 it is, and its not as hard as I thought.

1. Find the boot.iso on one of the mirrors (it should be located in centos/4/os/i386/images/) I used http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/4/os/i386/images/boot.iso
2. Choose text linux at the boot loader
3. Select HTTP install
4. For the IP address enter the name of your mirror (I used isoredirect.centos.org) and the path (/centos/4/os/i386/) and it should find everything you need

That's it...

Moin 1.6.1 Goodness

Just saw on the Python Cheese Shop that MoinMoin 1.6.1 is out. A little dated (looks like it came out 2/4/08) but better late than never, so I gave it a spin.

The most obvious advantage of this latest version (or at least starting with 1.6.0) is that the portable (i.e. non-Apache requiring) DesktopEdition is now standard so that the wiki is as easy to start as "python moin.py"

I've actually used this portable version a lot over the past few years. As a consultant, when I did SCADA (or webapp) vulnerability assessments, I would create a new wiki instance for each asssement. I had a template based on our methodology so I could easily record test results or capture information from the client. I could add screen shots, file attachments, you name it. To solve the offline, distributed aspects of wikis, is as simple as rsync and it was easy enough to connect to other wiki instances saved on servers using SSH port forwarding.

Here is the full list of features, but for me this are the big ones:

• It is not not in PHP!
• It doesn't require a relational database
• It has a mature rich syntax
  
• It is portable
• Templates, templates, templates!
  

Basically the converse of these are why I hate Media Wiki (what is used by Wikipedia).

Once you get addicted to wikis it is hard to stop, so you start taking notes in wiki format with your text editor even if you don't use a wiki.

Full Circle?

Life is full of surprises.

Twenty-five years ago (in the last gasp of the Cold War) if you'd told me that in first months of the new Millennium, I would make footprints in the fresh February snow in one of Stalin's secret cities and enter the courthouse to adopt a Russian toddler (the thick iron door ominously slamming shut, as we entered) I would have have laughed at you. Likewise, if you told me I would someday lift off on a China Southern 737, bound for Guangzhou, from the city where Chairman Mao studied philosophy, with a scared 13-Month old Chinese daughter, looking forward to the comforts of the White Swan Hotel.

Twenty years ago (as I was close to graduating from high school, in a town I did not like, where I'd only lived for less than a year, where I couldn't wait to leave) if you had told me that I'd be back there in twenty years with three kids and I wife of almost 15 years, I would have said no way in hell would I ever move back. Why, oh why would I do that?

Ten years ago (fresh after the Smurf attacks of 98, after just embarking on my network security career as a junior *NIX instructor for a government contractor in San Antonio) if you had told me that ten years later I'd be doing network security training again four employer's (and almost same multiple of my salary) later, I would not have known what to say.

Five years ago, if you had had told me that I would someday be able to rattle of the names and dosages of commonly prescribed neuroleptics, and would have the seen first hand the effects (both good and bad) of stimulants, anti-depressants, and mood stabilizers on a child of mine, I would have said you were the one that was crazy.

A year ago, if you had told me that I would be blogging with my 3 month old asleep on my chest, his mouth open (having inherited my allergic genes, the humidifier droning on) I would ask what miracle brought this about?

* * *

Life is uncertain. The future is full of surprises. For all the apparent familiarities of time and space, with each turn around the labyrinth, it is not the same. You were not here before.

Life is a free fall. Immediate control is an illusion. At best, you alter the angle (if not the rate) of descent--or maybe your perspective on the horizon.

Simple choices have unforeseen consequences. Big decisions are unreal and awesome, impossible to comprehend.

* * *

In the coming months, we prepare to move East, to the land of the Chesapeake and the Catoctins -- a move which somehow feels unnatural, like turning back the clock, like flowing against against History.

East? It was always the West where you thought you would end up.

After all, who returns home without good reason?

Vote for Irony

As opposed to creepy stuff like choir thing or other parodies.

Air America Caves on Wright Controversy

I don't think it was just because of all the stand-in (Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller are all off the air) but, yesterday, I was amazed at the condemnation of Pastor Wright's remarks by all these Lefties.

Some of this may only be pragmatic (Air America radio hosts are generally pro-Obama and they don't want their guy to lose) but Randi Rhodes talking about the need for "separation of church and state." Don't mix politics and religion? What planet are they on? Obviously, these folks have never stepped in the doors of mainline/Liberal Christian denomination with any focus on social justice, where politics does show up in sermons. While the Episcopal Church is my primary (and most recent) data point, I believe this also applies to Liberal (i.e Reform/Reconstructionist) Judiasm as well based on our experience of briefly attending a couple of Reform Temples in Austin and San Antonio.

I really don't see why everybody is hyperventilating. Critique of American hubris or blind support of Israel/sympathy with the Palestinian cause, examination of consequences for short-sighted American foreign policy, etc. is fairly common fare in Liberal churches. Engagement with politics and culture is not (and should not) be taboo in the Church. Spritual growth is not (and should not be) about telling you what you want to hear. It should challenge and interrogate your faith. Otherwise what is the point?

With Supporters Like This...

Say isn't that guy on the left (the one with the white Tee and stocking cap) in 30 Rock?



I'll just say its a stroke of genius to be able to come up with videos like this that somehow seem to be parodies of themselves.

Pen Test Sins (Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa)

DaveG goes to confession. I'm not Catholic but close enough.

What I've been guilty of:

1) Time Management - most of effort is in the first and last 20% of the project, the terrible middle 60%

4) Over-Automation - spending half the project writing new tools (more fun writing fuzzers than running them!)

5) Sloth - let the junior guy do the boring work

6) Stagnation - Cisco, anyone?

Are you a contractor?

From a Wire episode I haven't seen yet. My wife sure knows how to find the best YouTube videos.

Debian Moin Updates Out, Still Waiting on Ubuntu LTS

Looks like the Etch updates have made it out. I've been too busy/lazy to update my VPS box since the Moin vulns were disclosed and was thinking about migrating away from the built in package on my VPS box but I'll wait another week to see if these show up in Ubuntu LTS.

Best Omar Caper So Far

So we finally started on Season 3 (switched back to Netflix from Blockbuster Online, yes there is a reason Blockbuster is in trouble) of The Wire and its always a pleasure to watch how Omar and crew trick various drug dealers. In this episode one of his ladies (dressed like a nurse) wheels (as in chair) Omar into one of Avon's stash houses pretending to be a "brother Earl" from a VA hospital..

- Yo, all due respect, but this right here is a Barksdale joint, man.
- Do tell,

It is pretty simple

I'm not so sure of the generational consequences if the Clintons manage to scuttle Obama in the coming weeks and months

If this promise is eclipsed because the old political system conspires to strangle it at birth, the reaction from the new influx of voters will be severe. The Clintons will all but guarantee they will lose a hefty amount of it in the fall, as they richly deserve to. Some will gravitate to McCain; others will be so disillusioned they will withdraw from politics for another generation. If the Clintons grind up and kill the most promising young leader since Kennedy, and if they do it not on the strength of their arguments, but by the kind of politics we have seen them deploy, the backlash will be deep and severe and long. As it should be.

but I do know that voting for McCain (no matter how much he contorts himself it all that he was not in the 2000 campaign and while an underdog) or, more likely, another year skipping out on the election (like 1992, 1996, 2000) is no sweat for me. And the same goes for the dream team (the arrogance of the Clintons, on this is too much to take) for if Obama were to VP (pick Hillary as VP) all his hope & change will have indeed turned out to be hot air.

However, the amusing thing is the number of folks on the Left (my data being the shows on Air America I listen to during my commute or when shuttling between data centers during the day) that are absolutely pissed about the Clintons.

Must be a lot of Obama calls to Texas

So I entertained the idea of calling Texas for Obama but the link is unresponsive. Must be a lot going on down there. Yet another reason it would be good to be back in Texas.

Talent, Retention, and the 18 Month Window

As I was catching up on my business feeds like Tom Peters when I ran across A Focus on Talent

I found it interesting that the majority of senior leaders (92%) rank hiring the right talent as important. I totally agree that hiring the right people is critical to the essence of business, but I also believe that there is a gap when it comes to retaining the people that are hired. Equal attention must be given to existing staff.

Can you recall how excited you were your first day on the job and how exhilarating you thought things would be? Do you still feel that way now? Are you doing work that truly engages you, are you sufficiently challenged to tap into all your talents, and do you feel that your opinions and ideas are valued?

The culture that organizations create has everything to do with how people feel in the organization. Time, money, and effort can be spent hiring the right person, but if the same amount of energy is not put into creating and sustain the right culture, it is like playing a slot machine—you waste a lot of money trying to get a few wins.

I was chatting with a friend of mine who I worked with at Cisco earlier in the week, who left about the same time I did. He has been through another largish hardware vendor, a startup, and is now back in a different BU. We were joking about the "18th Month" magic window after which that "new job smell" is thoroughly extinguished. And I though it was just me.

While "tragedy" is probably too strong a word, it must certainly be frustrating for 1st level managers to be on the front lines seeing the impact of choices made by their bosses or other factors outside of their control.

The Sweet Heresy of GNU/kFreeBSD

mfranz@gutsy61:~$ ssh root@192.168.1.105
root@192.168.1.105's password:
Last login: Sat Mar 1 13:30:50 2008 from 192.168.1.107
GNU/kFreeBSD debian 6.3-1-486 #0 Fri Feb 15 22:53:48 CET 2008 i686

The programs included with the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/kFreeBSD comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
debian:~# uname -a
GNU/kFreeBSD debian 6.3-1-486 #0 Fri Feb 15 22:53:48 CET 2008 i686 i386 Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2140 @ 1.60GHz GNU/kFreeBSD

425kpps it is for the DL385G2 (on FreeBSD 6.2)

So for a while this afternoon, I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to generate enough traffic using Click Router on a Compaq DL-145G3 to flatten (meaning, cause packets to drop/stop being forwarded, cause the CPU Interrupt Utilization was around 30%) its big brother/sister.

But if you were always wondered what it took to bring on an interrupt storm on a Compaq DL-385G2 (Opteron with 4 Cores + Quad Intel PCIe NIC) it is around 425 kpps UDP (using 60 byte packets)

Tomorrow I find out what it takes on the Intel counterpart (DL380G5)

Java6 on Nexenta

Anyone have any luck?

The x86 .sh installer script failed for me -- said it was corrupt

And pkgadding the .Z started out promising enough

root@myhost:~# pkgadd -d . SUNWj6cfg                  
sunwj6cfg_04-1_solaris-i386.deb generated
sunwj6dev_04-1_solaris-i386.deb generated
sunwj6dmo_04-1_solaris-i386.deb generated
sunwj6jmp_04-1_solaris-i386.deb generated
sunwj6man_04-1_solaris-i386.deb generated
[snip]
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up sunwjavadb-common (1.0-1) ...
Setting up sunwjavadb-core (1.0-1) ...
Setting up sunwjavadb-demo (1.0-1) ...
Setting up sunwjavadb-docs (1.0-1) ...
Setting up sunwjavadb-javadoc (1.0-1) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of sunwj6jmp:
 sunwj6jmp depends on sunwj6man; however:
  Package sunwj6man is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing sunwj6jmp (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up sunwjavadb-client (1.0-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:

but ended in .deb dependency hell

and then

root@myhost:~# apt-get install -f   
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  sunwj6jmp sunwj6man sunwj6rt sunwj6cfg sunwj6dev sunwj6dmo
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  sunwj6cfg sunwj6dev sunwj6dmo sunwj6jmp sunwj6man sunwj6rt
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 6 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
6 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 82.4MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
(Reading database ... 37360 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing sunwj6cfg ...
Removing sunwj6dev ...
Removing sunwj6dmo ...
Removing sunwj6jmp ...
Removing sunwj6man ...
Removing sunwj6rt ...

Intro to Solaris Zones: Part I

The Intro to Solaris Zones chapter isn't actually that bad and helped filled in some gaps in my knowledge regarding these virtualization features I've been hearing about (but never actually used) and there are detailed instructions so detailed in fact after working pretty much everday since last Sunday and getting back from the data center again early in the moring, it is putting me to sleep. Yeah, whine! whine! Not much good it will do you.

Nexenta: It's Solaris Except Sort Of Usable

I was amazed a functional Solaris box in less than 30 minutes. Must be a world record. And perusing through dpkg -l I found lots of cool stuff: WPA/wireless tools, xen, Solaris Zone utilities, Python, Perl, ipfilter (of course, but not ipfmeta), gcc, sqlite, iSCSI/FCIP junk, wireless driver for 4965AGN (what the...) Package repositories seem sort of light. What kind of lame distro dosen't have precompiled versions of nmap or ngrep? Also tried to apt-get install openbox but no love. Definitely lose points for that. But all in all I'm impressed and it will give me a chance to play around with some cool Solaris-only stuff (like ZFS and these zones/container things I've been hearing about) without the headache of a real install.

Here's some juicy bits

root@myhost:/# df -k
Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
syspool/rootfs-nmu-000
                     7676928  880835 6781991    12%    /
/devices                   0       0       0     0%    /devices
/dev                       0       0       0     0%    /dev
ctfs                       0       0       0     0%    /system/contract
proc                       0       0       0     0%    /proc
mnttab                     0       0       0     0%    /etc/mnttab
swap                  631648     704  630944     1%    /etc/svc/volatile
objfs                      0       0       0     0%    /system/object
sharefs                    0       0       0     0%    /etc/dfs/sharetab
/usr/lib/libc/libc_hwcap1.so.1
                     7662826  880835 6781991    12%    /lib/libc.so.1
fd                         0       0       0     0%    /dev/fd
swap                  630952       8  630944     1%    /tmp
swap                  630976      32  630944     1%    /var/run
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s2     421636  421636       0   100%    /media/Elatte_InstallCD


root@myhost:/var/adm# mount
/ on syspool/rootfs-nmu-000 read/write/setuid/devices/nonbmand/exec/xattr/atime/dev=2d90002 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:58 2008
/devices on /devices read/write/setuid/devices/dev=4bc0000 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:35 2008
/dev on /dev read/write/setuid/devices/dev=4c00000 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:35 2008
/system/contract on ctfs read/write/setuid/devices/dev=4c80001 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:35 2008
/proc on proc read/write/setuid/devices/dev=4cc0000 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:35 2008
/etc/mnttab on mnttab read/write/setuid/devices/dev=4d00001 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:35 2008
/etc/svc/volatile on swap read/write/setuid/devices/xattr/dev=4d40001 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:35 2008
/system/object on objfs read/write/setuid/devices/dev=4d80001 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:35 2008
/etc/dfs/sharetab on sharefs read/write/setuid/devices/dev=4dc0001 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:35 2008
/lib/libc.so.1 on /usr/lib/libc/libc_hwcap1.so.1 read/write/setuid/devices/dev=2d90002 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:56 2008
/dev/fd on fd read/write/setuid/devices/dev=4f00001 on Sun Feb 24 19:47:58 2008
/tmp on swap read/write/setuid/devices/xattr/dev=4d40002 on Sun Feb 24 19:48:04 2008
/var/run on swap read/write/setuid/devices/xattr/dev=4d40003 on Sun Feb 24 19:48:04 2008
/media/Elatte_InstallCD on /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s2 read only/nosetuid/nodevices/noglobal/maplcase/rr/traildot/dev=3580002 on Sun Feb 24 19:48:25 2008

Starting Nmap 4.20 ( http://insecure.org ) at 2008-02-24 19:50 CST
Interesting ports on 192.168.1.113:
Not shown: 1693 closed ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
21/tcp   open  ftp
22/tcp   open  ssh
111/tcp  open  rpcbind
4045/tcp open  lockd
MAC Address: 00:1D:09:28:B9:85 (Unknown)
Device type: general purpose
Running: Sun Solaris 9|10
OS details: Sun Solaris 9 or 10
Uptime: 0.005 days (since Sun Feb 24 19:43:04 2008)
Network Distance: 1 hop

root@myhost:/usr/local/bin# irb
irb(main):001:0> puts RUBY_PLATFORM
i386-pc-solaris2.11
=> nil
irb(main):002:0> 

Nexenta Core 1.0 Release

Just to prove that I'm not a Linux bigot, I'll admit that I've played around with some of the OpenSolaris distributions over the past few years but a couple of things have always pissed me: 1) the same god-awful (blue and red colored) x86 installer I first used back in 90s 2) they were huge, bloated, and desktop focused.

I'm only about 10 minutes into the install
Nexenta Core seems to addressed seems to have addressed both of these concerns:


List of the changes and highlights
======================

# OpenSolaris b82 based (x86, 32bit and 64bit, non-debug)
# Ubuntu/Dapper based
# Project integration: NWS, AVS, COMSTAR, in-kernel CIFS client
# apt-clone: ZFS-integrated safe upgrade via remote APT repository
# Support for in-place (live) and safe upgrades
# Installer: multiple improvements; installs from USB
# Small memory requirement: 256MB
# Nexenta Zones: multiple improvements; integrated automatic Zone upgrades
# CIFS client included in the default installation
# Xen DomU and Xen Dom0 (32bit, [2])
# GRUB-integrated memory test
# Nexenta ISO Builder ([3])
# APT repository - status complete. Stable repository (elate-stable)
ready for usage.

About Nexenta Core Platform (NexentaCore)
=============================

Nexenta Operating System is a free and open source operating system
combining the OpenSolaris kernel with GNU application userland. Nexenta
Operating System runs on Intel/AMD 32/64bit hardware and is distributed
as a single installable CD. NexentaCore is a minimal (core) foundation
that can be used to quickly build servers, desktops, and custom
distributions tailored for specialized applications. The latest and
previous NexentaCore releases are available at [4]. With the power of
Debian tools behind it, NexentaCore could be customized for any vertical
application or distribution: KDE, GNOME, XFCE centric Desktops, LAMP
servers, Xen Dom0 ZFS-powered servers, and more. Unlike NexentaOS
desktop distribution, NexentaCore does not aim to provide a complete
desktop. The overriding objective for NexentaCore is....

Welcome Back Daily Dish

Here are the highlights, but definitely check out The Clinton's Last Stand:

Clinton is a terrible manager of people. Coming into a campaign she had been planning for, what, two decades, she was so not ready on Day One, or even Day 300. Her White House, if we can glean anything from the campaign, would be a secretive nest of well-fed yes-people, an uncontrollable egomaniac spouse able and willing to bigfoot anyone if he wants to, a phalanx of flunkies who cannot tell the boss when things are wrong, and a drizzle of dreary hacks like Mark Penn. Her only genuine skill is pivoting off the Limbaugh machine (which is now as played out as its enemies). Her new weapon is apparently bursting into tears. I mean: really.

and

How did they come this close to losing this? They had all the money, all the contacts, all the machine levers, the entire establishment, the biggest Democratic name in decades, and they've been forced into a humiliating death-match by a first-term black liberal with a funny name. It seems obvious to me that the Clintons blew this because they never for a second imagined they could. So they never planned to fight it. Once put in a fair contest, they turned out to be terrible campaigners, terrible politicians, bad managers, useless executives, wooden public speakers. If you're a Democrat, that's good to know, isn't it? All that bullshit about Day One and experience? In retrospect: laughable.

Of course some this argument hinges on the assumption that well-run campaigns (which seems to be the case for Obama?) have a higher probability of producing well-run executive branches and competent presidencies. I wasn't nearly as obsessed with '04 or '00 to know whether Dubya's/Rove's campaigns were as disciplined and competent but the White House tenure has obviously been far from that...

MoinMoin Vulns

Courtesy of a Secunia Feed I ran across the vulns in MoinMoin -- which I my wiki of choice for work or play. I don't allow any authenticated users to edit pages or upload files (apart from me) but I was paranoid enough to take my wiki down for a bit until I've had a chance to understand the issues more or until Ubuntu releases a package.

Update
franz-g4:~ mdfranz$ python hackmoin.py
MoinMoin host: i.e: http://127.0.0.1:8000/
MoinMoin host ( include http and /): http://www.threatmind.net/secwiki/
Ok, the file: README was created, and you can logging setting the cookie MOIN_ID='README' in your browser.


Yeah the exploit does indeed create (overwrite?) a README file in your data/user directory that looks like this:

aliasname=ilikecolombianpeople
css_url=
date_fmt=
datetime_fmt=
disabled=0
edit_on_doubleclick=0
edit_rows=20
editor_default=text
editor_ui=freechoice
email=just@nonrootuser.co
enc_password={SHA}hzAn1bupZwrTEQuFWlZA3TsEcVc=
language=
last_saved=1203553839.72
mailto_author=0
name=nonroot
quicklinks=podriamos-insertar-codigo-php-aqui-verdad-que-si
remember_last_visit=0
remember_me=1
show_fancy_diff=1
show_nonexist_qm=0
show_page_trail=1
show_toolbar=1
show_topbottom=0
subscribed_pages=
theme_name=modern
tz_offset=0
want_trivial=0
wikiname_add_spaces=0

So the question is, so what? Can this be used to erase/reset the password of the Admin user? Not sure. But I did discover a shitload of user preference files in my wiki, yikes! I'm sure they are harmless... I guess the key issue is whether this exploit would allow you to overwrite an existing admin users (through the web UI you can't create a new user for one that already exists, IIRC).

It would definitely appear that if you can guess the time based filename etime.time.anothertime you could.

And here is what the exploit looks like in your logs:

stinkmonkey.cable.rcn.com - - [21/Feb/2008:00:29:47 +0000] "POST /secwikiUserPreferences/ HTTP/1.1" 404 229 "-" "Python-urllib/2.4" "-"
stinkmonkey.cable.rcn.com - - [21/Feb/2008:00:30:10 +0000] "POST /secwikiUserPreferences/ HTTP/1.1" 404 229 "-" "Python-urllib/2.4" "-"
stinkmonkey.cable.rcn.com - - [21/Feb/2008:00:30:39 +0000] "POST /secwiki/UserPreferences/ HTTP/1.1" 200 23341 "-" "Python-urllib/2.4" "-

And yeah it took me 3 times because I kept forgetting the slash (as you can see) and because I'm a "jackass" (to use tqbf's favorite expletive

Winter Bedtime Snack

What are blogs for if not showing off your kids and wearing funny hats

Deb of the Day: conntrack

So I was trying (unsuccessfully) to get pyctd installed and was looking doing the dselect dependency dance (yeah, I'm old school) and I ran across conntrack

Being spoiled with PF (or pfctl actually) I always wondered how you could do this in Linux.

# conntrack -E
[UPDATE] tcp 6 30 LAST_ACK src=192.168.2.170 dst=72.14.205.83 sport=52241 dport=80 packets=9 bytes=2262 src=72.14.205.83 dst=24.136.2.99 sport=80 dport=52241 packets=7 bytes=606
[UPDATE] tcp 6 120 TIME_WAIT src=192.168.2.170 dst=72.14.205.83 sport=52241 dport=80 packets=9 bytes=2262 src=72.14.205.83 dst=24.136.2.99 sport=80 dport=52241 packets=8 bytes=658
[NEW] tcp 6 120 SYN_SENT src=192.168.2.170 dst=72.14.205.83 sport=52242 dport=80 packets=1 bytes=64 [UNREPLIED] src=72.14.205.83 dst=24.136.2.99 sport=80 dport=52242 packets=0 bytes=0
[UPDATE] tcp 6 60 SYN_RECV src=192.168.2.170 dst=72.14.205.83 sport=52242 dport=80 packets=1 bytes=64 src=72.14.205.83 dst=24.136.2.99 sport=80 dport=52242 packets=1 bytes=60
[UPDATE] tcp 6 432000 ESTABLISHED src=192.168.2.170 dst=72.14.205.83 sport=52242 dport=80 packets=2 bytes=116 src=72.14.205.83 dst=24.136.2.99 sport=80 dport=52242 packets=1 bytes=60 [ASSURED]
[NEW] udp 17 30 src=192.168.100.25 dst=216.106.191.180 sport=123 dport=123 packets=1 bytes=76 [UNREPLIED] src=216.106.191.180 dst=24.136.2.99 sport=123 dport=123 packets=0 bytes=0
[UPDATE] udp 17 30 src=192.168.100.25 dst=216.106.191.180 sport=123 dport=123 packets=1 bytes=76 src=216.106.191.180 dst=24.136.2.99 sport=123 dport=123 packets=1 bytes=76
# conntrack -L | wc -l
41

"Against" Globalization and Other Laws of Nature

So the Wisconsin Exit Pools show Dems are "against globalization." What the hell does that even mean? I supposed these clowns are against gravity, death, getting pregnant if you don't use contraception, seasons, what else? Maybe they'll vote for Hillary, too.

YouTube and SCADA: Even Better

Yeah I really need to get some sleep, but out of diapers.

No More SCADA Lists for Me!

At least when I'm irritable from lack of sleep caused by high availability fun. Rad's post on fuzzing was the final straw and bridge began to creak and buckle with SCADA-Drug-Dealer-Gate. Waste of time. Raises blood pressure too much. See ya. Zero tolerance for this... Long story short, not only is L2 fuzzing with SPIKE *not* a topic worth following, has nothing to do with SCADA.

Industrial Defender and "The Wire"

I've been wanting to blog about Season 2 of The Wire (and Omar, one of the best characters, who is supposedly Obama's favorite character, on his favorite show) for a while, but an amusing email forward on the SCADA mailing list from Full Disclosure, called SCADA Security Corruption gives me the opportunity to blog about SCADA and my favorite TV show.



Several years back JP and I spoke at some "security day" at Rockwell Automation in Cleveland, afterwards we got lost on the way to the airport (my driving, no doubt) in some pretty scary areas that looked like The Wire. Based on that experience I don't think JP or any members of Industrial Defender are involved in any sort of illegal activity I've seen on Season 2 of The Wire including customs violations, murder, or sex slavery.

But then again, what is more accurate, google search results or HBO shows? I guess we'll never know. Maybe there is a vast conspiracy of SCADA Security Consultants, Vendors, and Researchers all plotting to not only to annihilate critical infrastructive in a single decisive blow (ordered from abroad, no doubt) and sell drugs.

This reminds me of the time I saw a message thinking that I was the one who stole the IOS source code back in 2005, after all my name was Franz, too.

Ruby vs. Python (.NET Style)

If Ruby has the lead on the JVM it appears the opposite is true for Python, as Iron Python is miles ahead on .NET (or should I say .DLR/.CLR?). Still trying to build Iron Ruby it about 3-4 CPU-hours in. Of course slow ass Thinkpad-IO which is killing VMWare isn't helping, and the bloat of Visual C# Express 2008 which itself took an hour or two to install over the network.

If you have to ask?

12,008

I actually think McCain is right on Iraq (there was an interesting piece on NPR yesterday with a LTC who is retiring, how the average low-intensity conflict last 10 years and only 40% of insurgencies are successful) but this is pretty damn funny.

No Thanks I Make...

If you haven't seen this from Season 2 from the BBC Office it is a must watch. How many computer security professionals does this bloke resemble?

SCADA Superheroes!

Continuing on a theme I obviously lack the self discipline that Dale has when it comes to IT vs. SCADA debates as I've been rehashing impossible issues with the SCADA Security Comic Book Crowd over on the new SCADASEC mailing list. Of course it is difficult (if not impossible, but entertaining nonetheless) to have a dialogue with folks that have no idea what you are talking about and are not interested in technical discussions and whose "hearts are hardened" (to get Biblical for a moment) but its been fun to blow off steam (while waiting for the Obama landslide) and sharpen my email skills which have been sort of languishing since I left Cisco. Ah for those happy days of arguing with PSIRT about the dangers of releasing tools that would bring down the Internet.

I did learn that Walt doesn't want me to be involved in securing the refinery "down the street" from where he lives. Well that makes two of us. But of course Jake get's the best line and is once again at least rational.

Matt, I think this point is sort of like asking whether Superman or Batman would win if they got in to a fight. There is no point in asking the question because neither character is real.

See in the upside down of the control systems security not only is CERT arming attackers when they release advisories but the most dangerous enemy is an IT security consultant that has not drunk down the SCADA Kool Aid (patch-free) down in long draughts!

Any security expert who has not carefully internalized these significant differences between enterprise IT security requirements and plant and SCADA security requirements can actually be an active danger to the plant or SCADA implementation-- as dangerous as an uncontrolled attacker.

And kudos to Leif Erickson for being a good sport!

S.M.A.R.T. on Gutsy T-61

After my my dismal report on my T-61's SATA performance I've been wondering about whether I have everything tweaked right and I tonight I ran across an entry on Thinkwiki about SMART.

Basically if you install the smartmontools package you get a utility called smartctl that allows you to do stuff like

root@gutsy61:~# smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.37 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     ST9120822AS
Serial Number:    5LZ1Q720
Firmware Version: 3.CLF
User Capacity:    120,034,123,776 bytes
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   7
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Sun Feb 10 19:49:22 2008 CST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                                        was never started.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                        without error or no self-test has ever 
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection:                 ( 426) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x53) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        No Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time:        (   1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (  57) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   100   067   034    Pre-fail  Always       -       196651010
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   099   099   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       822
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   059   055   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       111693386018
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       149348897784391
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   034    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       902
187 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
189 Unknown_Attribute       0x003a   048   048   000    Old_age   Always       -       52
190 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   062   052   045    Old_age   Always       -       656801830
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       26
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       4294967291
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0022   026   026   000    Old_age   Always       -       148448
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x001a   038   048   000    Old_age   Always       -       38 (Lifetime Min/Max 0/16)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x0012   070   042   000    Old_age   Always       -       196651010
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0010   099   099   000    Old_age   Offline      -       157255932577023
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x003e   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
202 TA_Increase_Count       0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Here is an article that explains all this junk and smartmontools and this runs on FreeBSD too so this is something to consider on that front, too.

Nothing more to say about California

It will be interesting to see how these look in the morning.

And how the delegates get awarded.

I imagine Texas should be closer.

4 Speeches Tonight (and Kansas!)

What's up with these Home Depot's up here closing at 9:30? So I had the misfortune of catching Romney's speech on NPR on the way back. The usual Pre-Globalism cliches that might have worked in the 80s. Make America Great Again, because some country in Asia (where kids still starve and need our vegetables) might surpass us by the end of the 21st century.

Countries (or continents) that have the education level or the fortitude (my 2 weeks in China back in 2004, when we adopted my daughter, convinced me the place was on fire and a force to be reckoned with) deserve to take our jobs away, whether manufacturing or software engineering.

Deal with it! Read some Tom Peters! Go PSF!

McCain's speech was gracious and classy but expectedly mediocre.

I'm so sick of his "my friends" schtick.

No comments on Hillary (except the yellow has to go, Blondes should not wear yellow), but Obama's was amazing. He nailed it. Among the best I heard so far.

If my wife is any indication of change in traditional Democratic voters (vs. fed up Independent Republicans like myself who voted in a Democratic primary for the first time in their lives today) over the last months, the tide has turned.

Around Thanksgiving she liked the idea of Obama (and had actually read his book) but didn't think he had a chance and saw Hillary as the safe choice. And saw defeating the Republicans as the #1 goal.

But with 73% of Kansas (where I was born, actually, but hardly ever lived) for Obama?

And the national unity message continously being refined (along with softly sticking it to the Clintons).

Truly Amazing.

If California no more than a 5 point spread, how can this not be seen as an Obama victory?

Snowdog!

Please don't cancel school again tomorrow!

Waiting for Super Obama Ad?

So I'm guess Obama's Supposed Superbowl Ad: Join isn't going to show in IL, but look where some of the footage for this ad is shot? Yeah, that's Zilker Park. And that's the Hyatt there on the right, where I presented at in 2000 for some SBC seminar about the February DDOS attacks. That's where we (back when it was just three of us) saw Lucinda on a hot September. I'm guessing there are quite a few Obama bumperstickers in my old neighborhood. And I'm not a huge football fan but I'm pleased with the first half and of course I'm rooting for the Giants.

After watching the ad 3-4 times, what is interesting is the sense of momentum (and of a growing movement?) that it conveys in just 30 seconds. I hope this is real. There isn't that much substance to it, but for someone who is approaching 40 (and more a child of Reagan than Nixon) and only saw videos of protest marches from the 1960s, it seems to have a "60s feel" to it. And In a good way. I wonder how boomers view this ad? Do they resent Obama co-opting this imagery? Although it is upbeat, I like the deft swipe near the end:

We want something new. We want to turn the page. The world as it is, is not the world that it has to be.

Much like his platform, I do not agree with everything in the ad, but I like it anyway. This doesn't mesh with my favorite John Chambers quote from the tech crash in 2001 ("deal with the world the way it is, not the way you like it to be") but I like it anyway. I certainly do not care for the the burned out HMMV juxtaposed against privileged college kids who have not and will never don a uniform, but it is better than the sanctimonious alternative.

Stupid T-61 vs Dell Optiplex 330 Gutsy Shootout

So I was wondering graphics performance on my son's new workstation is so much worse than on my Thinkpad. In particular bzflag, because I thought they both had the same Intel graphics card, when I bought it. And I was sure it wasn't the CPU? Well it turned out I was wrong and my little benchmark to unzip the Thoughtpolice FreeBSD 6.2 VM had some suprising results. Yeah I know I should get some real benchmarking software but I didn't feel like it.


-rw-r--r-- 1 mfranz mfranz 230671277 2008-02-02 18:08 freebsd-6.3-i386.zip

Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2140 @ 1.60GHz (1GB)
82G33/G31 Express Integrated Graphics Controller
real 0m22.276s
user 0m10.480s
sys 0m1.540s


Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7300 @ 2.00GHz (1.5 GB)
Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller

real 0m45.863s
user 0m10.669s
sys 0m1.492s

Just as I suspected (after finding how fast is your disk it is the IO that is killing my Thinkpad.

root@nikplex330:~/vms# hdparm -t /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 278 MB in 3.02 seconds = 92.13 MB/sec

root@gutsy61:~/torrents# hdparm -t /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 120 MB in 3.04 seconds = 39.44 MB/sec

Of course I'm also using reiserfs on my laptop (out of habit and b/c I've never had any issues) but doubt there should be double.

No wonder my VM's lag so bad some times.

CIO Magazine: What Decade is This?

I ran acrosss an absurd article called You Used Perl to Write WHAT? on one of my Java feeds.

Perl is the granddaddy of the open-source scripting languages, with the 1.0 release seeing the light of day way back in 1987. By comparison, PHP wasn't released until 1994, and Python didn't have its 0.9 release until 1991—only the Unix shells themselves have an older pedigree.

While there are no doubt some pretty intense apps written in Perl, it's time has passed. There are some rare but unfortunate situations when writing shell scripts is justified (*UNIX startup scripts for one), there is no excuse for initiating any new Perl projects in the 21st century.

Perl is not a wise elder. Perl is on life support and it is time to remove the feeding tube or call in Dr. Kevorkian.

What's is it with the seniors and the newer Compaq ILOs?

It's been a crazy/busy week (hence no blogs) and all I will say is that the newer lights out management boards in HP DL-145G3's and DL-380G5's are on "my list!" I'm watching you! You piece of $*%&#! Although most of it is Java hell, to be honest.

But enough of that, the South Carolina exit polls again showed how the over 60 crowd (traditional Democrats, yuck, probably folks that liked Mondale or Dukakis) tilt for Billary. On the one hand it sort of makes me queasy to hear the Billary on the attack, but its pretty funny how on several of the Air America radio shows I listen to in traffic (Stephanie Miller) or shuttling back in forth between various buildings (Ed Shultz) are going off on the Clintons.

If these Bush-haters are so down on the Clintons, it really does seem the Democratic Party is on edge of screwing themselves over again! Only a patronizing knucklehead like Kerry or a sighing windbag like Gore could lose to Bush. It is not just the genius of Rove, but lack of creative thinking on the damn parties.

Eee PC for President!

Continuing on a theme I made it by the CDW showroom in Vernon Hills yesterday during lunch and stumbled across a black Asus Eee PC on display.

I spent about 15 minutes unsucesfully trying to find the X-Term (it is there through a key sequence I later found it) and trying out various apps (sans Internet one's because there weren't any open hotspots) are the highlights/impressions:

• The OS was pretty responsive. OpenOffice 2.x loaded slightly faster than on my T-61
• Keyboard is really small and difficult to type on initially, but one could get use to it
  
• Feels cheap but not flimsy
• Screen is decent
  
• Speakers (and web cam) seemed surprisingly good
• Startup/shutdown was was within a matter of seconds
• It appeared to be Kwin + ICEWM
• The trackpad button was really hard to click, took a surprising amount of effort
  

One downside was the offical ASUS web sites on the product are awful. I couldn't find any decent manuals but I did find the GPL source. Pretty much everthing requires flash but the EeeUser Wiki had lots of good stuff.

Pretty appealing as a portable Linux platform especially if you consider that the 2G versions are around the same price as an Ipod Touch.

"This" close to wiping XP from my T-61

Slow bootup time, flaky WPA with Linksys box at home, and (the last straw, this morning) problems with the Sprint Mobile Broadband connection manager, plus I need the partition. Yeah about time.

MacBook Air Wins Michigan!

I'm not sure who the creepy guy (who I sort of resemble If I'd get a haircut) standing next to Romney, but I bet he's not thinking about the the new MacBook Air he just pre-ordered.

Of course neither am I, since I believe in ultraportables that weigh nearly 5 pounds.

But of course they are seductive, although if they are really the same footprint as the MacBooks that is just too big, no matter how thin.

But watching the guided tour was a hell of lot more interesting than the way things have been going in the campaign for the last week and the prospect of a Hillary vs. Mitt matchup is so depressing I won't even go there.

The only comfort is the knowing that we get what we deserve.

BinData for Ruby Fuzzers

Not that I'm into fuzzing binary protocols/file formats anymore. But if I still wasted my time on that sort of nonsense BinData looks useful enough for that sort of thang:

= BinData is a declarative way to read and write structured binary data.

This is a performance release. Execution speed has been doubled and memory usage has been decreased by about 25%.

== What is BinData?

Do you ever find yourself writing code like this?

io = File.open(...)
len = io.read(2).unpack("v")
name = io.read(len)
width, height = io.read(8).unpack("VV")
puts "Rectangle #{name} is #{width} x #{height}"

It's ugly, violates DRY and feels like you're writing Perl, not Ruby.

Here's how you'd write the above using BinData.

class Rectangle < BinData::Struct
. endian :little
. uint16 :len
. string :name, :read_length => :len
. uint32 :width
. uint32 :height
end

io = File.open(...)
r = Rectangle.read(io)
puts "Rectangle #{r.name} is #{r.width} x #{r.height}"

BinData supports signed/unsigned integers, strings, null terminated strings, arrays, choices and user defined structures.

HBO's The Wire, Ubuntu DVD Playback, and the best low cost Linux PC for Kids

So the older PIII/Celeron-class boxes I've built for my son are too slow for bzflag so that I'm considering building/getting him a new PC. I'm not wild about it, but he's been using my highest end box at home (an Optiplex GX-620 Pentium D). A Mac Mini would be perfect, but they are just too damn expensive. The price difference between a comparably equipped Dell-n-Optiplex Desktop is probably $300-400. Not worth it.

I've priced out the following at $462: OptiPlex 330 Desktop Intel® Pentium® Dual Core Processor E2160 (1.80GHz, 1M, 800MHz FS, 1GB, 250GB SATA, 3 Year Warranty, Intel X3100, with DVD-ROM.

This is obviously overkill and I could probably skimp and cut $75-100, but since he actually won't be using it that much (although it will be in his room) I can use another VMWare server Box.

So it needs wireless, but since I've had marginal luck with with USB/PCI 802.11 cards under Linux, I'm leaning towards getting a Linksys bridge just so I don't have to mess with it.

He also needs to be able to play music and he's comfortable with the GNOME music tools.

The last considerations was DVD playback. I remember compiling xine, dvdcss and friends from source 5-6 years ago on my T-22 at Cisco but I haven't played a DVD on Linux since then.

Well Linux has come a long way since then and it was a snap on Gutsy was a simple as adding the mediubuntu repository and installing totem-xine. Oh and the other great thing about medibuntu is the dvdrip works great. Kids are hard on DVD's (meaning food and scratches) it only makes sense to rip them so they can watch them over and over.

Oh and you must watch The Wire (which is is supposedly Barack Obama's favorite show) and I do like Omar, as well.

Not SCADA, But Close Enough

While I previously bemoaned Hoff's comments on SCADA his post on train control system hacking is on target. And arguing whether something is SCADA is pointless potato/patato exercise unless you are Joe Weiss (or in the UK, where it does rhyme with patato.)

For me this issue is whether some non-physical-layer electronic attack (I consider jamming a physical-layer attack) against COTS components can effectively used to alter some physical system.

That could be a building control system, that could be rail control system, that could be IP video surveillance and card readers, that could be hacking a food manufacturer to stamp to incorrect expiration date on a bottle of beer.

It's all good. It's all in scope for the FUD game.

Wow A Ruby Modbus Implementation

Since we know all the cool kids use Ruby (but the smart kids use Python) so cool kids that want to "play SCADA" can now use RModbus to bring down the power grid!

I didn't play around with this because I think the best Open Source Modbus implementation (for SCADA hacking) is Jamod which I previously with Jython but would now probably use JRuby since I'm no longer smart anymore.

My middle name might be Austin but I'm up here for a while

At least "Mac is Back"

Even if Obama can come from behind (still stuck at 36-39 now, damnitt!) this is a victory for Hillary. But least Romney (and Huckabee and Rudy) were defeated tonight. After all I'm just one of those goofy conservative leaning Independents are smitten by Obama and line up much more ideologically and practically (particularly in terms of Iraq) with McCain. And a party that picked Gore and Kerry (just like a party that picked W) deserves what they get.

Some of these daily dish reader responses nail it:

It's times like this when I remember that political parties, not the American public, choose the nomines. The Democrats turned out for Hillary. If they want her, they can have her. Just please God, give me McCain as the alternative. Otherwise, I'm out.

and

As a lifelong Democrat, come February 6th, I am rerolling (as the kids with their fancy computer games like to say) Independent. This party would rather brawl with, and lose to, the Republicans out in the schoolyard than try to come together and achieve anything loftier than keeping Roe v. Wade as good law.

Someone get me a McCain '08 sticker ... These current Dems would have nominated Adlai Stevenson over Kennedy in 1960

Although I have no idea which party affiliation I filled out a year ago when I got my driver's license up here, but I'm guessing it wasn't Dem.

Wow exploitable MSFT TCP/IP Vulns! Is it 1998 or 2008?

While I'd expect this kind of shit from Cisco (don't ask me what that even means and it definitely has nothing to do with anyone from Finland or the fact I've drinking horribly strong Nordic beer lately) but I was shocked to see MS08-001. Very cool. Maybe I do remember looking at IGMPv3 back in the day and thinking what a mess, so maybe this isn't such a suprise. Nonetheless, seems very old school and maybe there is some attack surface below HTTP.

A denial of service vulnerability exists in TCP/IP due to the way that Windows Kernel processes fragmented router advertisement ICMP queries. ICMP Router Discovery Protocol (RDP) is not enabled by default and is required in order to exploit this vulnerability. However, on Windows 2003 Server and on Windows XP, RDP can be turned on by a setting in DHCP or by a setting in the registry. On Windows 2000, RDP can be turned on by a setting in the registry. An anonymous attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending specially crafted ICMP packets to a computer over the network. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could cause the computer to stop responding and automatically restart.

and

A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the Windows kernel due to the way that the Windows kernel handles TCP/IP structures storing the state of IGMPv3 and MLDv2 queries. Supported editions of Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista all support IGMPv3. In addition to IGMPv3, Windows Vista supports MDLv2, which adds multicast support for IPv6 networks. An anonymous attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending specially crafted IGMPv3 and MLDv2 packets to a computer over the network. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

Yuppie Elites for Obama!

Whether or not I'm a yuppie elite, count me in!

As Hillary Clinton looks to rebound in New Hampshire, it appears one part of her strategy will be to cast Barack Obama as the favorite of yuppie elites who aren't looking for experienced leadership so much as they are wanting to ride a trend or indulge a sentiment.

I would like to not feel ill when I hear the Commander in Chief (I was enlisted) on the radio the way I did during Clinton and Bush II. If that is indulging a sentiment, sue me.

I've always wanted to know if I'm a member of the cherished Middle Class politicians alway talk about and pander to? These Middle Class folks I keep hearing about, can they be software engineers or have ever cashed in stock options or worked for Bay Area companies?

I might have been a yuppie elite when I lived in laid back Central Austin neighborhood with lots of 40-something hippie-artistic types (oh the scent of Cannabis wafting across Burnet road), but up here in Skokie on a single income, struggling to pay for overpriced housing, expensive [public] pre-schools, with a few grand in unpaid mental health bills, where I'm afraid to even drive in these old-money North Shore neighborhoods in our brand new Honda minivan. Is that "Middle Class" enough? Maybe Hill is my gal? Forgot about manufacturing, will Edwards should fight to keep my high paying security job from being outsourced to an MSSP? No, I don't want a damn thing. I just want government (and the executive branch, because Congress is a lost cause) to have the appearance of being civil and competent. That's all I ask.

Could be a long evening (NOT!)

So the Real Time Stats pretty cool, if maddening. God help the Democrats if "Mr. I'll fight for you" so we can have the best jobs. After all we deserve it because just because we are Americans, damnitt!

Update: An hour later, Obama up by 7% with Hillary in 3rd!!!!

And this is a decent explanation which jives with my experience with Obama: following the urging of Radio Paradise (back in June) I wrote to all my representatives about the increased royalities that Internet Radio stations were about to pay. I received a response in less than a day from Senator Obama (I assume a staffer, I hope!) 3 months later from Durban's office and whoever the Representative from Skokie/Evanston: Never.

21st Century Ethernet, False Prophets, and other Absurdities

Once again the SCADA Mailing list provides lots of heat but little light. The thread started out mysteriously enough with myrcurial's assertion that in '08 SCADA was just but too lame to bother hacking (on a related note check out Dale's recap of Ralph Langners view on CCC Hacking SCADA) degraded into the usual whining. Much like the Obama vs. Clinton, a lot of the argument falls out based on age and experience, with some of the more senior folks having some crazy ideas not based in reality. I swear I heard the dumbest Hillary supporter on All Things Considered this afternoon, you know the one that wanted Hillary right after Bill.

As much as I tried,there is nothing to say here except to ponder each of this and their ironic potential, especially when taken out of context:

"we have met the enemy and it is Ethernet."

More and more, thanks to very clever marketing departments, customers are ever more eager to convert their "old" industrial control networks to Ethernet. Perfectly adequate systems that are running isolated and safe.

Whuy? Well, Ethernet is just so cool, so 21st century. Web browser interface, etc... What could be cooler? Techs and engineers want to work with the latest technology, it improves the resume, makes one more marketable, right?

What results from this rush to Ethernet?

Well, for one thing, there is clearly a lack of decent IT talent to maintain that many critical SCADA systems (many existing personnel can barely understand serial networks - believe me, 25+ years in the business - I know.)

Ethernet invites connection to company LANs through firewalls.

Firewalls get penetrated due to the same lack of IT talent to maintain their robustness.

Joe Weiss speaks the truth. The you-know-what is going to hit the fan, it's just a question of time.