Jeff’s Blog

The Linux Cisco VPN client seems to try the first avalable interface to make a connection. In my case this was eth0 which is my wired port which isn’t connected to anything. In order to get it to work I had to down the interface with ifconfig eth- down then it would connect fine with my wireless interface eth1. I haven’t seen any documentation to see if there is a way to manually bind it to a specific interface, and there is no MAN page installed. At least –help gives some usage, which is heads and shoulders over the tsmc tivoli command line I was using today what a royal PITA. Just encase anyone needs it the command to restore a previous version of a file is “tsmc restore -todate=yyyy-mm-dd -inactive /path/to/file” the documentation gave the format for the date as mm/dd/yyyy and the command would just come back and say -todate not recognized. Not wrong date format no that would have saved Jeff an hour of goggling.

It is mind blowing how fast thing spread on the internet. Take this XKCD comic there were only 2 results in google when you searched for “died in a blogging accident” just yesterday. Now there are over 2,000 results and climbing every hour. “Died in a knitting accident isn’t so popular so only a rise to 107 results from 7. Also of note not many people read the title tag of the image since “Died in a snake charming accident” rose from 0 results to 10 and “Died in a haberdashery accident” also rose from 0 to 10 results. The sadist part of all of this is that when someone does die in a blogging accident we won’t be able to find it on google. Remember kids don’t walk around blogging on your iphone or you will end up dying in a blogging accident.

Finally the one feature I have been waiting for.  It looks like on Dec 4th the new dashboard update finally adds divx and xvid support to the 360.  No more trans coding!  Hopefully it will support full 5.1 sound.  I have a ton of movies that I ripped myself with no way of watching them on my big screen. I was looking at the sling catcher when it came out but this is free since I already have a 360.

Well it has been a while since I have posted anything.  I have been really busy this past month.  I was promoted to the  IT security  manager  at my current employer.   I am now dealing with IT security almost full time, they still need to fill my vacant position.  So I am much happier now not having to deal with a lot of the boring mundane task, and now instead get to do what I love, security. 

I was reading another blog security blog entry and it got me thinking.  Why do POS systems have to store credit card numbers?  There really is no rational reason that I can think of.  I have had quite a bit of experience with a POS POS system (note that isn’t a mistake only 1 POS means Point of Sales).   The way credit card transactions work is that the stores POS system calls a card processing system.  The stores computer then asks the card processors computer if this credit card has enough money to cover this purchase.  If it does then it “reserves” these funds for the store for some time period and gives the store a magic approval number, no actual money is taken at that time.  I don’t know exactly why they do this, my guess is that they reserve a slightly higher amount of money than is actually needed so that it can be adjusted down if the transaction needs to be modified, IE you give the waiter a tip or you decide you really don’t want to buy that Iphone.

The store will then within a day or two do a batch settlement transaction where the store goes back to the card processor and says yes all these transactions really did happen so send us money.

So the only point in that process where the store actually needs the credit card number is the first transaction to the card processor.  After that the store could just use the unique authorization number to identify the transaction.  So now a hacker could still get credit card numbers but only in real time sniffing all the transactions as they go instead of the cue de gra 18 months or more that they currently can get if they hack into a POS system.

I live in California where the Secretary of State Debra Bowen has allowed The University of California to test the E-Voting systems used in here in California.  What they found was that all of them are hackable. I find the preliminary findings very scary but not at all surprising.  The legislature of California are not Computer Security Experts but they should have consulted with and let Security Professionals verify that they were secure before Certifying the systems.  It is inexcusable to allow what is arguably the most important Computer System in the country to be so insecure.  These machines are what decide our election.  If you could modify the election results you could execute a bloodless coup and no one would be the wiser.   No one could prove that an election had been stolen if there is no paper trail.

I will give you one scenario.  All the electronic voting machines are stored in some medium security warehouse with a few guards and 1 or 2 cameras.  A disgruntled technician from company XYZ that makes $20,000 a year maintains voting machines is payed some large sum to hack the companies voting machines.  He is admitted entry into the facility do do “maintenance” He turns them all on and one by one inserts a USB thumb drive that installs a virus on each machine.  He also updates the BIOS and changes the checksum check that is used to verify that the operating system is certified, just like he has to do when he installs any patch.  This virus will change the vote on 41% of the votes in the favor of candidate FOO.  Thus virtually insuring victory.  This virus then removes all traces of itself and restores the correct checksum back into the BIOS at 7:55PM on election day.  With the current systems that have no paper trail and no one would find out unless someone starts looking at the technicians large bank account.

I am not saying to go back to all paper ballets, to me this is even more error prone and hackable than E-voting.  Just make up some ballet boxes and switch them in transit to the registrars office.  No to me the problem is fairly trivial technologically speaking.  The solution is 3 fold.  First and most simple a paper copy must be printed out and verified correct by the voter.  Thus ensuring a backup in case the electronic version is lost or tampered with.

The second part of my proposed solution is PKI (Public Key Infrastructure).  Each voter should be assigned a private key, a 3D bar code would work nicely.  This key should be assigned completely at random and only good for 1 election so that voting patterns couldn’t be data mined and somehow connect to an individual, there should also be no record kept of the voters private key only their public key should be kept.  This private key should be encrypted with a master public key so that there is no way a voters private key and identity could be obtained by coping it in transit unless the person also had the master private key.  The voter then would then scan their bar code and the voting machine would verify that it is a legitimate key by decrypting the key with the master private key.  The voter would then vote and the results would be signed with the users private key, and also be printed out.  If the results were tampered with the signature would not match and it would be obvious that the results were tampered with.  If two different votes were signed with the same private key you would also know that the user voted twice and to trow out all other votes signed with the same signature.   The  public keys and paper copies should be escrowed so that recounts could be done for some defined time.

The last and most important is both the physical security and openness of the system.  The inputs should be protected with 3DES encryption so that only certified devices could be plugged in.  No uncertified devices should be allowed on the system.  No one should be able to plug a key board in.  The case should be wielded shut and painted with a heat sensitive paint so any attempted tampering would be apparent.  The system should be completely open source from the OS to the voting software so that all code can be freely audited.  It someone did manage to hack the system the paper backup should throw up the red flag that the system was compromised.  The system should also be on an encrypted EEPROM so that even if you get into the case you can’t modify the EEPROM with out the key.  The key should be on a physically separate  dongle that is  locked up  separate from the voting machine and must be present when booting the machine and removed thereafter.  If any dongle is lost then all the dongles will have to be replaced and the EEPROM reprogrammed so it is very important that they don’t go missing.  The systems should never be plugged into an open network.  The system that collects the votes should also have a certificate assigned to it and stored on the voting machines so that the voting machines don’t disclose voting results to an unauthorized system.

All of this technology is common and in use today.  We need to reform the voting system so that we implement this as soon as possible.  If we don’t we may soon find our country not in our control anymore.  I don’t go into all the details about the system but I would love feedback, what are the weaknesses in the system I described.  If done correct E-Voting is both more efficient and more secure than paper based voting alone.

I just got the email I passed the CISSP exam that I took July 7th.  I just have to get my endorsement letter signed by my boss and send in my resume to ISC2.  I am glad I passed especially since it cost $500.00 of my own money.  Hopefully this will open up some doors professionally. I studied off and on for 2 months and crammed like crazy the last week.  I used the official ISC2 CISP book to do most of my studying but also took some practice tests that I found, and reviewed Shon Harris’s CISSP All in one Exam Guide book for some of my weaker areas.

This is a little diversion from my usual technology related postings. I reviewed Pharaohs lost Kingdom last year on Yelp. I nailed it, I said in the review that they would be out of business within a year.  It hasn’t been a year yet and it looks like I have been proven correct. Proving that the evil don’t always prosper.  I worked there for 2 years while I was in college and it was by far the worse job I ever had.  The managers treated the employees like dirt and it showed.  Moral was non existent and employees were rude and dismissive to the customers.  They shaved as many corners as possible and safety and customer service suffered.  I found out that  a man fell off the same Ferris wheel I used to operate due to operator and maintenance neglect. Pharaohs paid out a lot on that one.  Just think if they had paid their employees better, been nicer to their employees, and had real certified mechanics they probably would still be in business today.  I hope the park stays closed and because a Urban ruin not only as a reminder of what greed gets you but also because I like to take pictures of Urban Decay.

I set up Synergy at work.  I now have 4 monitors and 3 computers all using 1 keyboard and mouse. Synergy lets you move the mouse off the edge of one screen and it shows up on the screen of the next computer.  Synergy also lets you copy and past between the systems. I have 1 mac, 1 vista dual screen, and my Ubuntu Fiesty linux laptop.  I am using Vista as the synergy server.  It was fairly painless to install.  The only hitch was installing openSSH server on vista via Cygwin.  By default everything is sent in the clear over the wire in synergy, so you have to port forward though SSH to secure the channel.  I am using RSA keys with no pass phrases so I can easily script the port forwarding and the start of synergy client on Linux and the mac.  The only problem with my set up is Compiz Fusion doesn’t run all that great.  When you spin the cube it is little jerky and unresponsive, I uped the speed and that helped a little. I can live with that though, I usually just use the keyboard short cuts any ways.

I signed up for the pownce beta and just got accepted.  I have some invites if anyone is interested leave a comment with your email address.

This weekend I was at the South Coast Plaza and stopped off at the Apple store to check out the much hyped Iphone.  This was Sunday afternoon mind you and they had the phone in stock, so there was no need to wait hours for this thing Friday afternoon.  They had a half dozen demo units and I had to wait and 20 seconds to get my turn at one.

The interface I must say is amazing.  It is the best I have ever seen for a smart phone.  Everything flows fluidly and there is hardly any noticeable lag when switching between applications.  The web browser is great, you can zoom in by double clicking and use your finger to drag around the page.  The orientation changes from portrait to landscape automatically as you flip the phone down or up.  I did notice that it got a little confused when I switched between the modes quickly 5 or 6 times, but it did recover in a few seconds without crashing.

The picture mode was equally as good, with much the same interface.  You had albums and you use your finger to flip between the pictures.  The next picture flows onto the screen as the old picture flows off of the screen as if you were looking through a negative roll.  The built in camera was alright; it was more responsive than most camera phones and the image quality was about on par as others.  There is however no video mode.

I checked out the Ipod mode and it continued the trend, but I must admit I didn’t try it out all that much.  I watched a short section of Lost and it looked fantastic and filled the entire wide screen.

Now onto the negatives of this phone.  Number one is the price $600 for the 8 gig model and $500 for the 4 gig model. You also have to sign up for a 2 year AT&T contract.  Considering that the phone is unsubsidized, as far as I can tell, this is ridiculous price.   Also the storage size is way too small for me.  I have a 30 gig 5G Ipod and it is too small for all of my music.  Considering this is the first Ipod I would consider watching videos on that 8 gigs would go real fast.  Also there is no memory card slot so you can’t add any memory.  The sim card is also hidden in the guts of the phone, so if one wanted to sell their Iphone it would be a royal pain to switch the SIM out.

The on screen key board was also a royle pain.  I have large fingers and I had lots of trouble typing.  The data is also EDGE or 802.11 WI-FI.  That is a real oversight as far as I am concerned.  I know the 3G HSDPA network isn’t as large as the existing edge network but the speed difference is huge. Instead of focusing efforts on improving their EDGE network they should have rolled out for HSDPA coverage and included it instead of EDGE.  The lack of A2DP is also a major oversight.  I want a wireless stereo head set with my $600 Iphone, but no dice for the first generation Iphone.  Also they should have throw in a car charger considering the battery life on these things and the insane price.  The biggest downside though is that it is a closed environment with no way to install 3rd party applications.  There are certain applications I need like a SSH client. It would also be nice to use Skype or some other SIP client to save some plan minutes.

So I will not be picking one of these up as I am a poor poor network admin, but even if I were rich I would wait until the phone is revised to have HSDPA support and support for third party applications even if those applications had to be apple approved.  I hold high hopes for Openmoko the Linux based open smart phone, but we will see how it fairs when it is released in October. I can’t seeing it being completive given the equally ridiculous price of $600.00.  It does have the advantage of being unencumbered and not locked to 1 carrier.