speaking of pod casts, does anyone else watch/listen to pauldotcom or hak5?<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 10:44 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:atllinuxenthinfo@techstarship.com" target="_blank">atllinuxenthinfo@techstarship.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi all,<br>
<br>
The latest security now podcast had lots of good info I wanted to share. Some of you already know much of what they cover and some are above the level the podcast is aimed at. However, I find the info useful so I would just say use it for what it's worth to you.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm" target="_blank">http://www.grc.com/<u></u>securitynow.htm</a> - show web page<br>
<a href="http://twit.tv/sn" target="_blank">http://twit.tv/sn</a> - show web page on This Week In Tech network<br>
<br>
<a href="http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-387.mp3" target="_blank">http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-<u></u>387.mp3</a> - show audio<br>
<a href="http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-387.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-387.<u></u>pdf</a> - transcript<br>
<br>
I'll reference pages in the transcript for each item. Not sure of the exact position in the audio.<br>
<br>
* p2 - They spent a while discussing yet another of the seemingly endless zero day exploits in Java as well as disconnecting it from your browser while leaving it on the system, if you have to. - p2<br>
<br>
* p6 - They discussed the USB drives brings down power plant issue for a while. - p6<br>
<br>
* p7 - They discussed a flaw which allows someone to get root access to certain Linksys routers, hopefully only from within the LAN side of the device. This could affect 70,000,000 routers. Info here <a href="http://bit.ly/linksys0day" target="_blank">bit.ly/linksys0day</a> which links to <a href="http://www.defensecode.com/article/upcoming_cisco_linksys_remote_preauth_root_exploit-33" target="_blank">http://www.defensecode.com/<u></u>article/upcoming_cisco_<u></u>linksys_remote_preauth_root_<u></u>exploit-33</a> . According to Leo's and Steve's opinion, Cisco has been extremely negligent in patching flaws in the Linksys product line. There was also a fiasco recently where they tried to disable the control panel in their new routers and force users to log into a Cisco web account just to be able to administer their router. I don't think I'll be buying any Linksys products. - p7<br>
<br>
* p8 - A short discussion about an article comparing various USB chargers. Apparently some are much better and some are much worse. I haven't read it yet but it sounds cool. Info here <a href="http://bit.ly/usbcharge" target="_blank">bit.ly/usbcharge</a> which links to <a href="http://www.arcfn.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html" target="_blank">http://www.arcfn.com/2012/10/<u></u>a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-<u></u>apple-is.html</a> . This is a very detailed article. - p8<br>
<br>
* p10 - FIXING SSD's - A number of listeners have reported that A) their relatively new SSD's are failing to read properly, and B) you can sometimes fix them with SpinRite. This is important info. According to Steve, the economics of the SSD market are forcing producers to operate at the very bleeding edge of what is technically possible for the price they're selling the product at. Sometimes, they cross over to the wrong side of that fence. According to Steve, the units are JUST RELIABLE ENOUGH to sell them, just like HDD's.<br>
<br>
Imagine this, you have a microscopic storage tank for electrons, a capacitor, which is VERY microscopic. You stick a VERY small charge of electrons into the storage tank through a lid which is inherently leaky. The more you use it, the more leaky it gets. Not only that, you try to fill it either 1/4 1/2 3/4 or full, and then sense what state it's in to read back 2 bits of data. (MLC cells) The engineers know this won't work sometimes, so they rely on lots of ECC (error correction code) to make it work. Sometimes, even that fails, and you get "sectors" that won't read properly.<br>
<br>
A number of listeners to the podcast have reported that they've used SpinRite to fix SSD's which are giving failures to read. SpinRite has various operational levels. It is now apparent that there is value in forcing an SSD controller to periodically read all of the "disk" in the same way it's useful to do this to a hard drive. In the case of an SSD, it forces the controller to acknowledge weak storage cells and either refresh the data (electrical charge) or relocate it. The user that contacted the show was having problems with a balky SSD running on a Mac. He moved the SSD to a pc and ran SpinRite on it at Level 1 - read only and don't try to recover data. He got a number of unrecoverable sector errors. Upon Steve's advice, he ran SpinRite on Level 2. This is also read only, but invokes a massive statistical analysis routine to try to recover unreadable sectors by reading the raw data up to 2000 times. On a HDD, SpinRite would fly the heads in to the sector from many different locations to account for mechanical variances in the read mechanism. On an SSD, this does not apply. However, the statistical data analysis on bad sectors is still valid. Note that something like badblocks can exercise the drive's controller. However, it cannot do the extensive data recovery on unreadable sectors that SpinRite can. In any case, once the user had run the SpinRite level 2 process on the drive, the unreadable sectors had been recovered sufficiently to put the drive in the Mac and it worked fine.<br>
<br>
To give you an idea of how Steve feels about the reliability (or lack of it) of SSD's, he is using some in a server, but for him to feel safe, they had to be:<br>
- OWC premium brand<br>
- Single Level Cell memory rather than Multi Level Cell (very expensive)<br>
- Massively overprovisioned with spare sectors<br>
- Configured in fully redundant RAID such that any two drives can fail and the server still works<br>
<br>
- p10 in the transcript<br>
<br>
* p15 - They talk about using Java apps, like CrashPlan or MineCraft, without allowing Java to be active in the web browser. - p15<br>
<br>
* p17 - They talk about new technology involving filling HDD's with helium, which allows higher platter speed and higher aerial density. - p17<br>
<br>
* p19 - They talk about how to configure a PS3 for UPNP using a DMZ without endangering your network.<br>
Glossary - PS3 - Play Station 3<br>
- UPNP - Universal Plug and Play<br>
- Demilitarized Zone (in the router) - p19<br>
<br>
For those that don't know, UPNP is a potentially dangerous technology that allows an application to open ports in your router's firewall, for games to work, etc., without your knowledge or permission. In many cases, you cannot even tell what's been opened. If something malicious does get inside your firewall, either through a web page or an application, it can swing the doors of your firewall open wide and let all it's malware friends in. The best idea is to disable it unless you need it.<br>
<br>
* p19 - They discuss The Quite Canine project - An ongoing (very cool) design for a simple high frequency sound blaster that can be used to convince barking and / or aggressive dogs that you encounter to shut up and leave without harming them. - p19<br>
<br>
* p24 - Reminder by a listener of a year old problem in a large number of Linksys routers of a flaw in the WPS security system which allows the WPA password to be cracked in less than 10 hours by sniffing the traffic. Apparently, yet again, Cisco has dropped the ball an not fixed it. The moral of the story is, disable WPS on your router, if you even can. Apparently, on some of the Linksys routers, the disable function doesn't work. - p24<br>
<br>
I found these links:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://lifehacker.com/5873407/how-to-crack-a-wi+fi-networks-wpa-password-with-reaver" target="_blank">http://lifehacker.com/5873407/<u></u>how-to-crack-a-wi+fi-networks-<u></u>wpa-password-with-reaver</a><br>
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2011/12/researchers-publish-open-source-tool-for-hacking-wifi-protected-setup/" target="_blank">http://arstechnica.com/<u></u>business/2011/12/researchers-<u></u>publish-open-source-tool-for-<u></u>hacking-wifi-protected-setup/</a><br>
<br>
I hope you find this info helpful and useful. There appears to be a never ending supply of security problems to talk about.<br>
<br>
Sincerely,<br>
<br>
Ron<br>
<br>
-- <br>
<br>
(To whom it may concern. My email address has changed. Replying to former<br>
messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong<br>
address. Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)<br>
<br>
(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to<br>
call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy<br>
mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)<br>
<br>
Ron Frazier<br>
<a href="tel:770-205-9422" value="+17702059422" target="_blank">770-205-9422</a> (O) Leave a message.<br>
linuxdude AT <a href="http://techstarship.com" target="_blank">techstarship.com</a><br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>SimonTek<br>912-398-6704<br>