Rant

Recently I have been hearing a lot of innovators posting to their blogs that they are pursuing new employment with Microsoft, and I wonder if they are making sneaky power plays into the Open Source market. Taking it’s best projects and plucking their leads. For example:

KnoppMyth Creator:
http://mysettopbox.tv/index.html#News

EDIT: The above article seems to be an April Fools joke that I was late to the party on. Thanks to Mark for calling me out.

Castle Cops - Owner/Operator - Paul Laudanski

http://www.castlecops.com/t223152-Must_Read_Important_Announcement.html

Now, don’t get me wrong, everyone needs their family and Open Source is a thankless job sometimes. I am not trying to dog on them for going Microsoft. I am just wondering if they are doing this to give these gents a job and make their product better, or just get rid of supporting competition.

Just my rant on what I am seeing. Sounds a bit like dvorak.org/blog eh?

-- mubix

  What happens when the lights go out. Power is gone and all you have left is your thoughts and a laptop that’s battery is quickly dieing? You write. Movies will take up too much power and it’s too dark to read so you write. What do you write about, does it really matter? You write.

  I am a part of a great many projects but I can’t say that I have contributed to them very much. But I would like to in this post, since I have the time all of a sudden, take the time to acknowledge the real people who are making things happen:

  First of we have Roelof Temmingh. His hard work and dedication to his project Maltego has created something as revolutionary as the search engine. Now, you may say that that is one hell of a statement and shouldn’t be tossed around like an Emmy. I am here to assure you I am not. Just as ArcSight, if implemented correctly and cared for is one of the greatest tools a Information System Incident Responder can have, Maltego is the information gatherer’s most valuable asset. From Intel bubbas to Social Engineers to Private Investigators. This tool is not something you can live without any longer. Why? Because your opponent is already using it.
http://www.paterva.com/

  The next project I would like to talk about is the WiFi Security mailing list. Dninja and Joshua Wright as some of the brightest minds in the field of 802.11. Joshua Wright is well recognized, but I think Dninja is less so. Both Josh and Dninja are working on incorporating Karma into embedded devices, mainly the Fon Router. The Fon is a extremely small form factor router that still has enough embedded memory to be useful for modding. Their continued research, by all of those in the WiFi Security mailing list, directly impact the 802.11 field. That impact is seen in the increased security we are seeing in WiFi devices and software every day.
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/137/description

  The Mal-Aware team. Lance James and the gents over at Castle Cops are the main players in this team but collaboration from around the world is done on these mailing lists. Closely working with the FBI and other federal and foreign agencies. The brain power that make up the list of email addresses joined together in this list could swell any room. Like mythological super heroes, they dedicate their free time to making the internet a safer place each and every day.
http://www.mal-aware.org/

  Last but not least is the crew over at Hak.5. Darren, Wess, Ally, Paul, and the latest addition Matt. I probably wouldn’t be as ingrained in the “Hacker” world as I am now without these guys. The videos they produce on such a limited budget are entertaining and, in my opinion, rival the professionalism of Hollywood. What they produce is always innovative and informative. Even if they mod the Guitar Hero guitar every other episode. Even though they criticism from all angles, they continue to produce and put out a video podcast that is as of yet unmatched in it’s market.
http://www.hak5.org

  The reason I am writing this post, other than boredom, is to sort of tip my hat in humility to these innovators. Some of the readers of my blog think highly of me. I wish only to transfer that respect to those who deserve it. I am humbled to be apart of such amazing projects and be witness to their impact on the world.  

      -- Rob Fuller (a.k.a. Mubix)
P.S. So basically, buy Maltego (or get your company/school to), join the WiFi Sec and Mal-Aware mailing lists, and watch Hak.5. Support these projects in any way you can, because they have already supported you in one way or another.

Oregon’s State Legislature passed a law that provides a full-tuition waiver for a bachelor’s or master’s degree at an Oregon University System institution for children or spouses of service members who died on active duty, became 100 percent disabled in connection with military service, or died as a result of a disability sustained on active duty

My home state rocks.

Military.com’s Writeup | digg this story

Wow. I have to admit, they did the Facebook chat right. I like how it looks and how it works. I would only change one this and allow chats to disembark from the status bar, but other than that, congrats. It is actually keeping me on Facebook longer.


Enough brown nosing, here are the pros and cons:

PRO: very well done layout - clean, crisp and not in the way
CON: I have no idea when one of my friends sign on or off, it would be nice to have to show something simple as - Bob signed on, and have it as an option to turn off for those who have reached their 5000 friend limit.
PRO: I now have access to all of those old friends and people that I have lost touch with over the years and didn’t know their email or IM address. This was already the case, but IMs are much more inviting to use.
CON: Like I said above, it would be nice if I could dock and undock the IM windows. being stuck to the bottom kinda gets annoying.

I still think that Facebook is littered with a lot of useless apps and spam, but the IM ability is helping to ween me back into trying and cleaning up my profile.

EDIT:Alright, either the Facebook code really fast, or I just didn’t know where to click, but I have been corrected. You can undock the IM interfcae by clicking on the shiloutte and clicking “Pop Out Chat”. This will create a new window and put all of your chatting in the new window. After you are done being pop’ed out, just click Pop-In on the upper right and you are back to normal. While this isn’t the 100% solution I was looking for (Ajax floating chat boxes that could be together or seperate or tabbed)

I’ve had an idea and I have been hashing it out the last couple days. I want a smal piece of hardware that runs basically a MITM, but a physical one. Something like those old keyloggers that you plug between a PS/2 keyboard and a computer. If it already exsists, please link me, but this is what I want it to do:

Features of the KVM-MITM:

• Ports:  (2) DVI or VGA; (2) Ethernet NICs; (4) USB or/and (4) PS/2 Ports  <-- Half male, Half female
• Services:
  • VNC or RDP - a remote way to alter what is happening
  • Keylogger - recording all keys pushed through USB or PS/2 Mouse
  • SSH / SFTP - for reconfiguration or grabbing Keylogger data
  • IP snagger - management of using a static IP address within the DHCP scope automagically, without registering with DHCP
  • SSH Client for Tunneling local services
  • SSL Tunneling client for alternate means of tunneling if port 22 is blocked
  • Iptables - keep from a scan detecting the bridged nic (0 ports open, just tunnels outboud listening)
• Power Supply: USB powered or a Male/Female plug for a standard desktop power cord

Just an idea.... any takers?