Open Core Security and More Security Analysis, Routing Problems, and More Bugs

I once recall a conversation with a engineer from one particular security firm/vendor. They said that they were prohibited/dissuaded (by their country) from using solutions (even though one solution was considered world class) from another particular country because of philosophical/national security concerns. This is ridiculous. In a large number of cases, firms are having to open up their source code for analysis by national intelligence agencies and third party auditors. If the solution being provided is minimalistic, there is a common open source framework and Application Programming Interface (API) that the solution can plug into (and that can fit into popular devices) I don't see any reason (apart from commercial/political/philosophical) why we shouldn't be able to use the best possible solution/s even they may come from possibly questionable sources (I'll expand on this concept in 'Cloud and Internet Security' report. Currently, 820+ pages/214K+ words).

Tom Clancy's book, 'Threat Vector' actually provides a decent (though fictitious) example of how to carry out an integrated cyberwarfare/conventional warfare attack.

Richard J. Aldrich's, 'GCHQ' actually provides a good explanation of some of the activities of modern intelligence agencies. Certain decisions make sense but seem incredibly cynical.

In the past I've tried using open proxies and fiddling with MTU and other setting to get around certain networking problems. Sucess has been limited. The most elegant/useable solution that I've come across/found has been 'Tor'.

Interesting to see what the rest of the world is downloading via BitTorrent.
http://www.customer.scaneye.net/data

I remember developing and running small programs/games for the TI-83 platform. Amazing how far some graphic calculators have come...
http://hackaday.com/2012/11/12/linux-on-a-nspire-cas-cx-calculator/

Cool robot called 'iCub'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICub
http://www.icub.org/

Timestamping audio using power hum.
http://gizmodo.com/5968396/police-can-timestamp-any-audio-recording-from-background-interference-alone 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20629671

After my recent wireless experiments with EM/RF permeation of various materials (and the surprise at how even the thinnest/least dense materials have impacted significantly upon reflection/absorption) I'm curious to see how the NetGear AC6200 (USB wireless 802.11ac dongle) performs with a shell integrated adjustable antenna. Reviews so far have been mixed (though most problems feel like they are related to the frequency band in question as well as driver support under Windows 8)...

Bugs of the Week

Google Images
Not really a bug but a problem nonetheless. Certain websites can't be previewed in Google Images since they can not be opened in a frame and must be opened in a seperate window.

Microsoft's Windows Media Player 12
After ripping a few CD's recently at max bit rate of 320KB using MP3 format I've noticed a bug. When you go into the 'Library' you'll notice that the size is incorrectly listed as 'O KB'. Solution is to remove and re-add files to music library. Not sure if this is limited to my particular setup though. Bug doesn't seem to appear at other bit rates.

Sega's/Sports Interactive's Football Manager Series (most of these apply to 2009 but some apply to only earlier versions)
- clubs still silly enough to bid on a player even though he is approaching end of contract
- even if you give a company in a lower division a significant cash boost it doesn't seem to provide them with that much of a performance boost. The burn rate for clubs in lower divisions when given cash boost doesn't seem to make any sense as well. If a club can make it on a net worth of only a few million dollars how can it burn through millions of dollars over the space of a year and not make any significant performance jump?
- accept all offers option for players not honoured sometimes even when you have taken over another team
- transfers in next window option often doesn't work even though transfer fee to break clause has been met (unless there is something about my understanding of this is incorrect)

General Observation of eBook Readers
Often sub-par performance (performance and usability such as having a decent font size/zoom level) using PDF files on inexpensive eBook readers. Try to use native formats (MOBI, ePUB, etc...) where possible. Makes a big difference...

http://calibre-ebook.com/
http://www.lightreading.com/

- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
http://sites.google.com/site/dtbnguyen/
http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com.au/

Open Source Routing Research Notes

If you've ever used Vyatta before you've probably noticed its very Cisco-ish syntax even though it clearly has a Linux heritage. I've been working on a project that has required a better understanding of how this is ultimately achieved. Quagga, Bird and Xorp came into my sights after a preliminary search as well as a number of other 'younger' projects.

Initially, Bird/Xorp configuration seems to be a lot less readable than Quagga but simpler in that it relies on only one file. Edge to Quagga, then Bird and finally Xorp. Research indicates that Xorp may have been the default open source routing engine prior to Quagga. Whitepapers suggest that open source routing software on commodity hardware is able to achieve similar or superior speeds/performance to that of proprietary solutions at a fraction of the cost. Learning curve is reduced by use of similar syntax of Cisco/JUNOS CLI and of course open nature of routing protocols. Documentation for all options seem to be reasonable.

http://www.quagga.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga_%28software%29

http://www.quagga.net/commercial.php

http://kellyherrell.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/intel-takes-vyatta-to-10gig/

http://www.vyatta.com/solutions/resourcelibrary

http://www.xorp.org/

http://xorp.run.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/latex2wiki/getting_started

http://xorp.run.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/latex2wiki/user_manual

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_Internet_routing_daemon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_routing_platforms

"zebra is an IP routing manager. It provides kernel routing table updates, interface lookups, and redistribution of routes between different routing protocols.", http://www.quagga.net/docs.php

# and ! used to mark comments in configuration files.

telnet direct to 2601 (telnet to higher ports to configure/monitor the other protocols) and configure/monitor using a Cisco like CLI interface. Like Cisco/JUNOS CLI interface, modes (enable, global config, interface, etc...), commands (show, no, router, etc...), and auto-completion of commands are also supported.

Most protocols major protocols catered for except for proprietary ones such as IGRP and EIGRP. For example, RIP (v1/v2), RIPng (handles IPv6),  OPSF (v2/v3 which handles IPv6), BGP, even ISIS is supported.

Cisco style access-list command and complete support for IPv6 available.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/crash-book.html#download

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=248761

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/kdump.html

If you're familiar with the Cisco CLI then you'll be completely at home with the Quagga interface. Commands are identitical in most cases. In fact, its a fairly good way of revising for CCNP BSCI, and other Cisco certification exams if you don't have access to actual equipment or simulation software.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IS-IS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Shortest_Path_First

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing_Information_Protocol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Interior_Gateway_Routing_Protocol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Gateway_Protocol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGRP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link-state_routing_protocol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance-vector_routing_protocol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIM_Sparse_Mode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_Independent_Multicast

Although I haven't attempted to use this apparently 'SMUX' allows you to reference information from the various Quagga services by providing a bridge between SNMP and Quagga. A more apt description would be that, "SMUX is the snmp multiplexing protocol (RFC 1227). It can be used by an snmp agent to query variables maintained by another user-level process."

http://www.net-snmp.org/docs/README.smux.html

While I was doing all this I decided to 'clean up' a number of other anomalies on my system. For example, 'kdump' was not starting on boot. Obvious solution would be to simply remove kdump package but I just wanted to make it work. Thought it was just a non-configuration issue. Went through the uncommenting of the default options but it still wasn't starting. Went through the relevant 'init' file. Noticed that it required a 'crashkernel' parameter (eg. crashkernel=128M@128M) in order for it to work (/proc/cmdline contains kernel boot parameters if you're curious. While other /proc files can be written to this file was not responsive to chmod and being written to even if you are root). Ultimately, only way to test is to modify kernel boot parameters via /boot/grub/menu.1st. However, then noticed that kernel wasn't configured with this option available. Hence, boot was not possible. Had to update kernel and kernel source (required for my work with other packages). Thereafter, kdump startup was now possible (if you're curious "echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq", "echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger" can be used to create a kernel crash situation if you're curious).

yum update kernel

yum update kernel-headers

yum update kernel-devel

Once again, noticed that performance when MTU is 1392 is much better than 1500 during download of packages via yum. Upgrade of kernel  'broke' my VirtualBox setup though. Obviously, suspected kernel module issues so went to /usr/src/vbox_host-* and had to re-run 'make' to re-recompile the relevant kernel modules and re-register relevant modules. Noticed later on that there was an option for the vboxdrv init file (setup) which was 'more correct' though. Used this and VirtualBox startup was all good again. It was a bit easier with VMWare Server though. Kernel modules are automatically re-compiled/re-registered and setup on startup.

Following is useful if you're interested in more about about kernel dump analysis,

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/crash-book.html

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.kernelnewbies/39353

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/OOPS-Root-privileges-under-Linux-1149758.html

While completing all of the above, I remembered previous work regarding PKI certificates to setup OpenVPN. Looked for mkcert.sh/CA.pl and found but also noticed tinyca2 and openvas-mkcert. tinyca2 is a very simple GUI based application for managing certificates while openvas-mkcert is CLI based. Haven't tried using these certificates with OpenVPN as yet though. Will experiment another time.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tcpdump-fu

http://wiki.openstack.org/StartingPage

http://itpro.webroot.com/featured/endpoint-protection-solutions-why-the-traditional-model-is-broken.html

http://itpro.webroot.com/featured/when-benefits-outweigh-the-fears-is-your-business-ready-for-the-cloud.html

http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_ldap_authentication

http://directory.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Howto:PAM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_Service_Switch

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913086

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTrace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open_source_software_packages

- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
http://sites.google.com/site/dtbnguyen/
http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com.au/