Don’t mistake masturbation for insight [NOT SAFE FOR WORK]
Stroking prejudices isn't insight. I mention this because people keep sending me this Oatmeal cartoon that does nothing but furiously stroke its supporters until they ejaculate all over the screen.
The comic claims NetNeutrality is a bipartisan issue. By bipartisan it means that Democrats and the Green Party overwhelming support it. The comic is certainly not referring to Republicans, who overwhelming oppose NetNeutrality, as any googling of "republican net neutrality" would demonstrate. I suspect the problem here is that Oatmeal readers are in a filter-bubble (a technical term for "sitting in a circle jerking each other off") and therefore don't seriously believe Republicans exist.
The comic seriously says this: support for NetNeutrality is bipartisan, but opposition is partisan. I suspect they like words like "shit smear" because they are so accustomed to having their heads up their own asses.
The Oatmeal claims NetNeutrality won't mean the feds can dictate how much your ISP charges. I suspect that's because the comic's fingering of his own ass distracts him from reading. Obama's proposal today is to reclassify the Internet as a common-carrier under section II of the Telecommunication's Act. Luckily, we have something called the "Internet" were we can Continue reading
The Oatmeal claims NetNeutrality won't mean the feds can dictate how much your ISP charges. I suspect that's because the comic's fingering of his own ass distracts him from reading. Obama's proposal today is to reclassify the Internet as a common-carrier under section II of the Telecommunication's Act. Luckily, we have something called the "Internet" were we can Continue reading
This Vox NetNeutrality article is wrong
There is no reasoned debate over NetNeutrality because the press is so biased. An example is this article by Timothy B. Lee at Vox "explaining" NetNeutrality. It doesn't explain, it advocates.1. Fast Lanes
Fast-lanes have been an integral part of the Internet since the beginning. Whenever somebody was unhappy with their speeds, they paid money to fix the problem. Most importantly, Facebook pays for fast-lanes, contrary to the example provided.
One prominent example of fast-lanes is "channels" in the local ISP network to avoid congestion. This allows them to provide VoIP and streaming video over their own private TCP/IP network that won't be impacted by the congestion that everything else experiences. That's why during prime-time (7pm to 10pm), your NetFlix streams are low-def (to reduce bandwidth), while your cable TV video-on-demand are hi-def.
Historically, these channels were all "MPEG-TS", transport streams based on the MPEG video standard. Even your Internet packets would be contained inside the MPEG streams on channels.
Today, the situation is usually reversed. New fiber-optic services have TCP/IP network everywhere, putting MPEG streams on top of TCP/IP. They just separate the channels into their private TCP/IP network that doesn't suffer congestion (for voice and video-on-demand), and Continue reading
Andrisoft Wanguard: Cost-Effective Network Visibility
Andrisoft Wansight and Wanguard are tools for network traffic monitoring, visibility, anomaly detection and response. I’ve used them, and think that they do a good job, for a reasonable price.
Wanguard Overview
There are two flavours to what Andrisoft does: Wansight for network traffic monitoring, and Wanguard for monitoring and response. They both use the same underlying components, the main difference is that Wanguard can actively respond to anomalies (DDoS, etc).
Andrisoft monitors traffic in several ways – it can do flow monitoring using NetFlow/sFlow/IPFIX, or it can work in inline mode, and do full packet inspection. Once everything is setup, all configuration and reporting is done from a console. This can be on the same server as you’re using for flow collection, or you can use a distributed setup.
The software is released as packages that can run on pretty much any mainstream Linux distro. It can run on a VM or on physical hardware. If you’re processing a lot of data, you will need plenty of RAM and good disk. VMs are fine for this, provided you have the right underlying resources. Don’t listen to those who still cling to their physical boxes. They lost.
Anomaly Detection
You Continue reading
Technology Short Take #46
Welcome to Technology Short Take #46. That’s right, it’s time for yet another collection of links and articles from around the Internet on various data center-related technologies, products, projects, and efforts. As always, there is no rhyme or reason to my collection; this is just a glimpse into what I’ve seen over the past few weeks. I hope you are able to glean something useful.
Networking
- This post by Matt Oswalt—the first in a series, apparently—provides a great introduction to 5 development tools for network engineers. I’ve already increased my usage of Git in an effort to become more fluent with this very popular version control tool, and I was already planning on exploring Jinja2 as well (these are both mentioned in Matt’s article). This is a really useful post and I’m looking forward to future posts in this series.
- Matt also recently posted part 4 (of 5) in his series on SDN protocols; this post covers OpFlex and declarative networking.
- It was good to read this post on Cumulus Linux first impressions by Jeremy Stretch. I’m a fan of Cumulus, but I’m admittedly a Linux guy (see here) so you might say I’m a bit biased. Jeremy is Continue reading
Chinese Routing Errors Redirect Russian Traffic
In recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to enact measures to protect the Internet of Russia. In a speech to the Russian National Security Council he said, “we need to greatly improve the security of domestic communications networks and information resources.” Perhaps he should add Internet routing security to his list because, on a number of occasions in the past year, Russian Internet traffic (including domestic traffic) was re-routed out of the country due to routing errors by China Telecom. When international partners carry a country’s domestic traffic out of the country, only to ultimately return it, there are inevitable security and performance implications.
Last year, Russian mobile provider Vimpelcom and China Telecom signed a network sharing agreement and established a BGP peering relationship. However, as can often happen with these relationships, one party can leak the routes received from the other and effectively insert itself into the path of the other party’s Internet communications. This happened over a dozen times in the past year between these two providers. This is a general phenomenon that occurs with some regularity but isn’t often discussed in BGP security literature. In this blog post, we’ll explore the issue Continue reading
Using ssldump to Decode/Decrypt SSL/TLS Packets
Who needs the Wireshark GUI right; let’s do this at the command line and be grown up about things. This is a straight copy of my popular Using Wireshark to Decode/Decrypt SSL/TLS Packets post, only using ssldump to decode/decrypt SSL/TLS packets at the CLI instead of Wireshark. Aside from the obvious advantages, immediacy and efficiency of a CLI tool, ssldump also […]
Author information
The post Using ssldump to Decode/Decrypt SSL/TLS Packets appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Steven Iveson.
Response: Black Energy 2 Malware Router Abuse – Kaspersky
Kaspersky published a research note on Black Energy malware that uses backdoors and exploits on Cisco routers to install a TCL file, perform surveillance or destruction of the device configuration. And, they revealed that their Cisco routers with different IOS versions were hacked. They weren’t able to connect to the routers any more by […]
The post Response: Black Energy 2 Malware Router Abuse – Kaspersky appeared first on EtherealMind.
Using Firewalls for Policy Has Been a Disaster
Almost every SDN vendor today talks about policy, how they make it easy to express and enforce network policies. Cisco ACI, VMware NSX, Nuage Networks, OpenStack Congress, etc. This sounds fantastic. Who wouldn’t want a better, simpler way to get the network to apply the policies we want? But maybe it’s worth taking a look at how we manage policy today with firewalls, and why it doesn’t work.
In traditional networks, we’ve used firewalls as network policy enforcement points. These were the only practical point where we could do so. But…it’s been a disaster. The typical modern enterprise firewall has hundreds (or thousands) of rules, has overlapping, inconsistent rules, refers to decommissioned systems, and probably allows far more access than it should. New rules are almost always just added to the bottom, rather than working within the existing framework – it’s just too hard to figure out otherwise.
Why have they been a disaster? Here’s a few thoughts:
- Traditional firewalls use IP addresses. But there’s no automated connection between server configuration/IP allocation and firewall policies. So as servers move around or get decommissioned, firewall policies don’t get automatically updated. You end up with many irrelevant objects and Continue reading
Voters are jerks
Out and about today, jerks are proudly displaying a "I Voted!" sticker. My twitter feed is likewise full of people proudly declaring they voted. They only serve to perpetuate the problem.Most voted for incumbents, while spending the rest of the year bitching about how bad the incumbents are.
Most base their voting on vapid political rhetoric, rather than understanding the issues. Their political analysis comes from late night comedians rather than serious sources. Those like Vox or the Economist do a good job with analysis, but of course, few read them because that would require thinking. It's much easier watching Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert and laugh about how stupid other people are.
Though, understanding the issues is really just a smokescreen. What people really vote for is to take money from other groups and give it to themselves. They mask it in issues like national defense or the environment, but it's really just a money grab.
People proudly vote in this election, where few contests are competitive. These same people ignored the primaries, where their votes could have made a difference.
People waste their vote on major parties. Frankly, we live in a one Party state with Continue reading
Adding protocols to masscan
The unique feature of Masscan is that it has it’s own TCP/IP stack, bypassing the kernel’s stack. This has interesting benefits, such as being able to maintain a TCP connection with all 30 million HTTPS servers on the Internet simultaneously. However, it means that (at the moment) it’s difficult to write your own protocols. At some point I’m going to add LUA scripting to the system and this technical detail won’t matter, but in the meanwhile, if you want to write your own protocols, you’ll have to know the tricks.Scalability
The issue Masscan solves is scalability, such as maintaining 30 million concurrent TCP connections. In a standard Linux environment, the system requires about 40 kilobytes per TCP connection, meaning a system would need 1.2 terabytes of RAM to hold all the connections. This is beyond what you can get for standard servers.
Masscan reduces this. At the moment, it uses only 442 bytes per TCP connection – including the memory for difficult protocols like SSL. That’s less than 16-gigabytes of RAM for 30 million concurrent connections.
This is a little excessive, because connections are quick. Even a fast scan of the Internet takes long enough that at any Continue reading
Shellshock: One Month On
Shellshock was released a little over a month ago, to wide predictions of doom & gloom. But somehow the Internet survived, and we lurch on towards the next crisis. I recently gave a talk about Shellshock, the fallout, and some thoughts on wider implications and the future. The talk wasn’t recorded, so here’s a summary of what was discussed.
Background: NZ ISIG: Keeping it Local
The New Zealand Information Security Interest Group (ISIG) runs monthly meetings in Auckland and Wellington. They’re open to all, and are fairly informal affairs. There’s usually a presentation, with a wide-ranging discussion about security topics of the day. No, we don’t normally discuss “picking padlocks, debating whose beard or ponytail is better or which martial art/fitness program is cooler.”
Attend enough meetings, and sooner or later you’ll be called upon to present. I was ‘volunteered’ to speak on Shellshock, about a month after the exploit was made public. I didn’t talk about the technical aspects of the exploit itself – instead I explored some of the wider implications, and industry trends. I felt the talk went well, mainly because it wasn’t just me talking: everyone got involved and contributed to the discussion. It would be a bit Continue reading
Appropriate Halloween costumes
There has been some debate over Halloween costumes, whether ISIS terrorist garb or hazmat suites are appropriate. Of course they are. Culture responds to current events; everything is fair game.An example of this are Afghan "war rugs", as pictured below. The one on the left is in response to the old Soviet invasion, and the one on the right is in response to the post-9/11 invasion by the U.S. Rug weavers incorporated things from their environment into the rugs. In particular, the design of the rug on the right comes from leaflets we carpet bombed the country with before invading them.
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Indeed, the entire "Halloween" theme is about death. It's just that it got incorporated in our culture long before the Internet enabled wimpy nitpickers from debating what was, or wasn't, appropriate. I'm not sure if the holiday would've survived in the modern politically correct climate.
No evidence feds hacked Attkisson
Former CBS journalist Sharyl Attkisson is coming out with a book claiming the government hacked her computer in order to suppress reporting on Benghazi. None of her "evidence" is credible. Instead, it's bizarre technobabble. Maybe her book is better, but those with advance copies quoting excerpts make it sound like the worst "ninjas are after me" conspiracy theory.Your electronics are not possessed by demons
Technology doesn't work by magic. Each symptom has a specific cause.
Attkisson says "My television is misbehaving. It spontaneously jitters, mutes, and freeze-frames". This is not a symptom of hackers. Instead, it's a common consumer complaint caused by the fact that cables leading to homes (and inside the home) are often bad. My TV behaves like this on certain channels.
She says "I call home from my mobile phone and it rings on my end, but not at the house", implying that her phone call is being redirected elsewhere. This is a common problem with VoIP technologies. Old analog phones echoed back the ring signal, so the other side had to actually ring for you to hear it. New VoIP technologies can't do that. The ringing is therefore simulated and has nothing to do with whether it's ringing Continue reading
The deal with the FTDI driver scandal
The FTDI driver scandal is in the news, so I thought I'd write up some background, and show what a big deal this is.Devices are connected to your computer using a serial port. Such devices include keyboards, mice, flash drives, printers, your iPhone, and so on. The original serial port standard called RS232 was created in 1962. It got faster over the years (75-bps to 115-kbps), but ultimately, the technology became obsolete.
What FTDI sells is a chip that converts between the old RS232 and the new USB. It allows old devices to be connected to modern computers. Even new devices come with RS232 instead of USB simply because it's simple and reliable.
The FTDI chip is a simple Continue reading
Free Seminar – Advancing Security with the Software-Defined Data Center
We’re excited to take to the road for another edition of our VMware Software-Defined Data Center Seminar Series. Only this time, we’ll be joined by some great company.
VMware & Palo Alto Networks invite you along for a complementary, half-day educational event for IT professionals interested in learning about how Palo Alto Networks and VMware are transforming data center security.
Thousands of IT professionals attended our first SDDC seminar series earlier this year in more than 20 cities around the globe. Visit #VirtualizeYourNetwork.com to browse the presentations, videos, and other content we gathered.
This free seminar will highlight:
- The Software-Defined Data Center approach
- Lessons learned from real production customers
- Using VMware NSX to deliver never before possible data center security and micro-segmentation
Who should attend?
People who will benefit from attending this session include:
- IT, Infrastructure and Data Center Managers
- Network professionals, including CCIEs
- Security & Compliance professionals
- IT Architects
- Networking Managers and Administrators
- Security Managers and Administrators
Agenda
- 8:30 a.m. Registration & Breakfast
- 9:00 a.m. VMware: Better Security with Micro-segmentation
- 10:00 a.m. Palo Alto Networks: Next Generation Security Services for the SDDC
- 11:00 a.m. NSX & Palo Alto Networks Integrated Solution Demo
- 11:45 a. Continue reading
Learning NSX, Part 17: Adding External L2 Connectivity
This is part 17 of the Learning NSX blog series. In this post, I’ll show you how to add layer 2 (L2) connectivity to your NSX environment, and how to leverage that L2 connectivity in an NSX-powered OpenStack implementation. This will allow you, as an operator of an NSX-powered OpenStack cloud, to offer L2/bridged connectivity to your tenants as an additional option.
As you might expect, this post does build on content from previous posts in the series. Links to all the posts in the series are available on the Learning NVP/NSX page; in particular, this post will leverage content from part 6. Additionally, I’ll be discussing using NSX in the context of OpenStack, so reviewing part 11 and part 12 might also be helpful.
There are 4 basic steps to adding L2 connectivity to your NSX-powered OpenStack environment:
- Add at least one NSX gateway appliance to your NSX implementation. (Ideally, you would add two NSX gateway appliances for redundancy.)
- Create an NSX L2 gateway service.
- Configure OpenStack for L2 connectivity by configuring Neutron to use the L2 gateway service you just created.
- Add L2 connectivity to a Neutron logical network by attaching to the L2 gateway service.
Review: The Peripheral, by William Gibson
After four years, William Gibson is finally coming out with a new book, “The Peripheral”. Time to preorder now. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00INIXKV2There’s not much to review. If you like Gibson’s work, you’ll like this book. (Also, if you don't like Gibon's work, then you are wrong).
What I like about Gibson’s work is his investment in the supporting characters, which are often more interesting than the main characters. Each has a complex backstory, but more importantly, each has a story that unfolds during the book. It’s as if Gibson takes each minor character and writes a short story for them, where they grow and evolve, then combines them all into the main story. It’s a little confusing at the start, because it’s sometimes hard to identify which are the main characters, but it pays off in the end. (I experienced that in this book, among the numerous characters he introduced at the start, it was the least interesting ones that turned out to be the main characters -- it's not that they were boring, it's that they took longer to develop).
One departure from his normal work is that this book is maybe a little more autobiographical. Continue reading
Google and Cloudflare: Encrypting the WWW
A couple of months ago, Google announced that it had started using SSL as a factor in SEO ranking. Since the search giant is the referrer for most website traffic, this is the type of announcement that gets the attention of website owners.
Cloudflare, a popular and easy to implement Content Delivery Network, seems to be stepping up to this challenge. Even their free offering has an option to provide forward facing SSL services. As discussed on Packet Pushsers Priority Queue show 34, they are also modifying SSL in ways that allow them to provide services to organizations without the need to obtain the site owner’s private keys. The likely result of the offering is that many existing and many new Cloudflare customers will take advantage of their SSL services.
Paul’s Take–I think Google’s announcement, combined with Cloudflare’s SSL offerings, will result in a significant increase of SSL encrypted traffic. This will have an interesting effect on how organizations do security. Traditionally, there has been a lower (but increasing) ratio of https to http traffic. Scanning SSL traffic, for troubleshooting or security, is significantly more challenging than its clear text counterpart.
Disclaimer: This article includes the independent thoughts, opinions, commentary or technical detail of Paul Stewart. Continue reading
Vulnerable OMA-DM Implementations and Over the Air Hacks
Earlier today, I was listening to Risky Business show #341. In this show Matt Solnik discussed vulnerabilities that he attempted to share at BlackHat. I say attempted, because it sounds like they may have had some issues with audio/video during critical times of the presentation. Nonetheless, it seems like there are many vulnerable implementations of the open mobile administration device management (OMA-DM). I took a minute to dig up some of the videos published by Accuvant that makes this stuff real.
Over the Air Code Execution and Jailbreak
NIA-Based Lock Screen Bypass
External Links
Disclaimer: This article includes the independent thoughts, opinions, commentary or technical detail of Paul Stewart. This may or may not reflect the position of past, present or future employers.
The post Vulnerable OMA-DM Implementations and Over the Air Hacks appeared first on PacketU.
Disappointed With Check Point
I have recently started working with Check Point products again, after a 5-year break. This has given me a different perspective on how they are progressing. It has been disappointing to see that they’re still suffering from some of the same old bugs. Some of the core functionality is now showing its age, and is no longer appropriate for modern networks.
When you’re using a product or technology on a regular basis, it can be hard to accurately gauge progress. Maybe it feels like there are only incremental changes, with nothing major happening. But then you come across a 5-year old system, and you realise just how far we’ve come. If you don’t think iOS is changing much, find some videos of the first iPhones.
The opposite is when it feels like there are many regular enhancements…but when you step back you see that core product issues are not dealt with. It can be hard to see this when you’re working at the coal-face. You need to step away, work with other products and systems, then return.
That’s what I’ve done with Check Point recently. Through much of the 2000s, I did a huge amount of work with Check Point firewalls. Continue reading