In Through The Out Door

News: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far:Last week when I was testing the latest version of RootkitRevealer (RKR) I ran a scan on one of my systems and was shocked to see evidence of a rootkit. Rootkits are cloaking technologies that hide files, Registry keys, and other system objects from diagnostic and security software, and they are usually employed by malware attempting to keep their implementation hidden (see my Unearthing Rootkits article from the June issue of Windows IT Pro Magazine for more information on rootkits).

mysqlsniffer v1.1 released:mysqlsniffer (a tcpdump clone for watching MySQL traffic on a network) v1.1 has been released.

Ajax Tutorial: Ajax What Is It Good For?:This is an extensive article talking about AJAX and other related things. And the interface is very cool. Check it out even if your not going to read all 37 pages. (They are pretty small pages don’t worry)“Recently Garret Smith of Adaptive Path made a good case for using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and coined the acronym ”AJAX“ to represent that notion.

Searching For Ways to Use WiMax: According to some who attended last week’s WiMax World event, the development of wireless mesh networks for municipalities is drawing a lot of attention of the technology’s supporters. As a result, issues such as direct connect, backhaul, and the all-important licensed spectrum space are what providers and potential end-users are focusing on, with cost always lurking about. Besides municipal networks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering the use of WiMax in order to move large data files from image processing computers to farm equipment. Of course, we’ll know if this will be a viable option after we know the results of the upcoming WiMax field trials taking place in the next few months.

HONK IF YOU LOVE PEACE AND QUIET.9 REMEMBER, HALF THE PEOPLE YOU KNOW ARE BELOW AVERAGE.10…. THE EARLY BIRD MAY GET THE WORM, BUT THE SECOND MOUSE GETS THE CHEESE.13…. EAGLES MAY SOAR, BUT WEASELS DO NOT GET SUCKED INTO JET ENGINES.32…. JUST REMEMBER - IF THE WORLD DID NOT SUCK, WE WOULD ALL FALL OFF.38. LIGHT TRAVELS FASTER THAN SOUND, WHICH IS WHY SOME PEOPLE APPEAR BRIGHT UNTIL YOU HEAR THEM SPEAK.

But on Oct. 26, Defense News quoted Ryan Henry, deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, saying the QDR would instead focus on how to adapt traditional weapons to nontraditional warfare like that in Iraq. Henry cited the now-cliche example of B-52s dropping satellite-guided bombs over Afghanistan.Henry’s statement is interesting in light of recent reports from Air Force Times that the EB-52 modification program is on the QDR chopping block…. While standoff jamming is definitely a mission for the kind of high-intensity warfare the Pentagon has been de-emphasizing of late, jammers like the EA-6B have proved adaptable to low-intensity warfare. This year, Prowlers began flying missions over Iraq to jam the signals that detonate IEDs.There’s more at stake in the EB-52 program than its relevance to both high-and low-intensity warfare…. That means the West depends almost entirely on a small number of U.S. jamming aircraft to suppress air defenses in coalition air campaigns like those over Kosovo and Iraq.

VT and Mac OS X (28 Oct 2005):Forget windows, I want to run Mac OS X and Linux on the same machine at the same time. That would rock!“First off I guess I should rewind for those who didn’t read my old articles…… VT is basically the current public name for Intel’s Vanderpool and AMD’s Pacifica technologies. It’s a hardware level virtualization layer for x86/AMD64/emt64 processors. In essence this is like VMWare or VPC at the hardware level.

Journyx and open source software:Journyx is a closed-source, proprietary software vendor with a business model that embraces — albeit at arm’s length — open source. How can that be? The paradox results from a unique business model that attempts to provide a free-as-in-beer product for the majority of users, support and use open source software projects, and still turn a profit. I recently spoke to Journyx founder and CEO Curt Finch to learn more about that business model, and about TimeSheet, the software Journyx produces and (mostly) gives away.

Network monitoring with Cacti:GNU/Linux is without doubt a brilliant server OS, but monitoring your Linux server can be a challenge. There are a few powerful tools available, such as MRTG, the Multi Router Traffic Grapher, but setting them up can be an exercise in frustration for first-time users. By contrast, Cacti, a graphing program for network statistics, is designed to be easy for relatively inexperienced systems administrators to use, while at the same time being powerful enough to be used in complex networks.

You can trace every packet on your network from source to destination, if you really want to. Having all of this information is useless unless you can actually find what you need to know. Netflow not only helps record traffic information but also can help you report on just the types of packets you want. Michael W. Lucas demonstrates.

News: U.S. makes securing SCADA systems a priority:Amongst worries that the nation’s power systems and utility networks are at risk, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security spins out new initiatives to help companies lock down their control systems.

Cell Phone Surveillance:Missouri will track people’s movements through their cell phones.

DMCA Review:The Copyright Office of the U.S. Library of Congress is conducting its required regular review of the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Comments can be submitted over the Internet, and are due December 1st. Good information on the DMCA can be found here, here, and here.

News: Net users told to get safe online:Widespread ignorance about basic computer security is putting millions of people at risk from net-savvy criminals, a study suggests.It found 83% of 1,000 people questioned were not doing enough to protect themselves online, with 53% saying they did not know how to improve security.Some 42% relied on family and friends for advice, the survey revealed.It coincides with a Get Safe Online campaign backed by the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit and the government.

RFID in passports: bad idea:The US State Department tries to patch up a poorly conceived application of technology which is inappropriate for the task.

Sprint to Announce EV-DO Network Monday: Monday will mark the day that Sprint Nextel will launch its high-speed wireless network based on EV-DO technology, which has been catching on in the marketplace over the last few months. The company said that along with the network they will debut the “Sprint Music Store” offering music downloads for $2.50 each. Although pricier than other music services, Sprint says the purchase entitles users to download a copy of the same song to a computer as well their phone/wireless device. I’m sure Sprint will be touting their music store the same way Verizon Wireless has been marketing their V Cast service. I wonder what will appear more to the masses—video or music on your cellphone?

How The NSA Secures Computers:An Anonymous Reader wrote to mention an NSA site covering secure configuration guidelines for a number of operating systems. From the site: “NSA initiatives in enhancing software security cover both proprietary and open source software, and we have successfully used both proprietary and open source models in our research activities. NSA’s work to enhance the security of software is motivated by one simple consideration: use our resources as efficiently as possible to give NSA’s customers the best possible security options in the most widely employed products.”

Linux Wireless Abstraction Layer Boosted in Kernel 2.6.14:HP-sponsored wireless tools are revved to version 19 in latest Linux kernel: The Linux Wireless Extension and Wireless Tools are driven by HP project leader Jean Tourrilhes, who has a long and generous history in wireless driver work for Linux…. Tourrilhes downplays this specific release, but notes that the 802.11 stack now includes HostAP and a set of Centrino drivers that required separate installation. HostAP allows a system to have the majority of features specific to infrastructure access point instead of the more typical ad hoc features available to computers with adapters. Abstraction has always aided the ease of writing applications on top of drivers by reducing system-specific issues to code that addresses input/output and other housekeeping as a class. An application writer that can access an abstraction layer for any given feature in a driver, such as the improvement in statistics in this release, has less monkeying around to make their programs work with a wider array of hardware.

Brief: U.S. passports get RFID chips:Despite security concerns, the U.S. has now committed to putting RFID chips in all passports of U.S. citizens.

DoD Buying Sprint’s iDEN Network:Rumored deal could be huge for cable industry. User Comcast_Loke sends in this PCS Intel Blog story that indicates the Department of Defense will be buying Sprint’s iDEN network as “the first phase of a national overhaul of its security framework in regards to communication.” The gist is that th..