A Geek With Guns

Cell phones are one of the greatest double edged swords human being have ever invented. They’re incredibly convenient communication devices that not only allow the possessor to make and receive phone calls but also send and receive e-mails, text messages, instant messages from various services, and almost any other data communication you can think of. Due to the amount of personal information we put into these devices they also make the greatest spy gadgets ever invented as they have a microphone, list of contacts, your recent e-mail messages, your current and previous locations, and other similar types of data. Because of the latter rootkits installed on phones are far more dangerous than those installed on personal computers, which is why this is unnerving news to say the least:

You may recall from a few articles back that we started talking about something called CIQ or Carrier iQ. This is, essentially, a piece of software that is embedded into most mobile devices, not just Android but Nokia, Blackberry, and likely many more. According to TrevE, the software is installed as a rootkit software in the RAM of devices where it resides. This software basically is completely hidden from view and in it virtually invisible, and worst of all, rather complicated to kill (some devices more so than others and you will see why in a few minutes). This is given root like rights over the device, which means that it can do everything it pleases and you will have nothing to say about it.

Why do we go into this? Well, a while back I was having some conversations back and forth with TrevE regarding all the HTC’s PoCs that he has been working on, and he started wondering about CIQ, as according to him, was one of the worst things that he had found in HTC’s code. So, he decided to start digging a little into this and found out that there is much more to be said regarding this software than even manufacturers will dare say. It turns out that CIQ is not exactly what many people don’t see (as it is hidden), but it is rather a very useful tool for system and network administrators. The tools is used to provide feedback and relevant data on several metrics that can help one of the aforementioned admins to troubleshoot and improve system and network performance. Point and case, the app seems to run in such a way that it allows the user to provide the input needed via surveys and other things. To put things in a more visual way, this is what CIQ should look like

Carrier iQ is likely one of the most dangerous pieces of software in common use today. I do understand the great amount of benefit it gives to cellular providers but we all know anything accessible by said providers can also be access by the government, often without so much as a court order.

There is a second article that brings up some of the implications of this software being installed on many cell phones. To call such software a violation of privacy being too nice, it literally allows third parties to spy on your every move and potentially listen in to your conversations. Smart criminals would have abandoned cellular phones while performing their ill-deeds long ago but intelligent people never follow the mantra of, “if you’re not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear” in regards to potential surveillance.

It doesn’t look as though there is much that can be done about Carrier iQ without giving up the convenience of smart phones. Still it is smart to be aware of this technology so you can make the decision of what is more important; have the ability to communicate almost anywhere or a stronger guarantee of privacy.

It was bound to happen eventually but a trojan is now circulating for OS X that syphons a victims computing power and uses it to mine Bitcoins:

“This malware is complex, and performs many operations,” security researchers from Mac antivirus vendor Intego warned. “It is a combination of several types of malware: It is a Trojan horse, since it is hidden inside other applications; it is a backdoor, as it opens ports and can accept commands from command and control servers; it is a stealer, as it steals data and Bitcoin virtual money; and it is a spyware, as it sends personal data to remote servers,” they explained.

The Bitcoin mining program that DevilRobber installs on infected computers is called DiabloMiner and is a legitimate Java-based application used in the virtual currency’s production.

The one flaw in this trojan (besides requiring manual intervention by a user to get installed) is using a Java-based application to perform Bitcoin mining. Mac OS 10.7 doesn’t include Java by default and the user must manually install it if they want to run Java applications. While a prompt will appear asking the user if they want to install Java when they try to use a Java applet those are fairly uncommon at this point so the chances of a user running 10.7 having Java installed is actually pretty low.

Still the application appears to also seek out and steal Bitcoin wallets. I’m rather shocked that we didn’t see this kind of trojan come to the attention of network security sites before now. When I first looked into Bitcoin one of the first ideas that popped into my malicious thought filled head was how easy it would be to use a massive botnet to mine a great number of Bitcoins.

While I see a great potential in electric cars from a performance standpoint I don’t give two shits about them from an environmental standpoint (thanks to you fucking enviro-nazis, if it weren’t for you I’d have no issue with the environment). I also have a soft spot for one of the most famous pieces of crap that has ever been released, the DeLorean DMC-12. Well the DeLorean Motor Company has unveiled a fully electric prototype of the DMC-12 and I really want one.

Of course I’ll make sure to recharge it with a big soot spewing coal power plant just to piss the enviro-nazis off. Seriously, if you assholes weren’t in my face constantly telling me how to live I’d have no issue driving a “green” automobile. Thanks to you my current vehicle is a Ford Ranger and my next one will likely be a Ford F-150.

This is just a bad week honestly between the death of Steve Jobs, Pete Franzen (a well-known and respected member of MNGunTalk and the Minnesota shooting community), and now Dennis Ritchie.

For those who don’t know, Dennis Ritchie was one of the creators of UNIX and the man who designed the C programming language. The contributions those two things made to the computer science field is incalculable. If you’re sitting at a machine running OS X you’re running UNIX and regardless of what you’re running chances are at least parts of it were written in C.

The legacy of UNIX and C can only be described as astronomical. UNIX’s design philosophy can be found in everything ranging from the various flavors of BSD to Linux and all of them are written in C. It’s rare for a technology to last more than a few scant years but both of Ritchie’s well-known contributions are not only used to this day but they’re pervasive. I would argue that this man’s contribution to the computer field surpasses that of Steve Jobs but being Ritchie’s contributions were all behind the scenes they remain less known.

So long Dennis Ritchie, you’ll be missed. Your contributions to the field of computer science quite literally changed the world for the better.

Since I was beating my head against the wall for several hours last night trying to figure this out I’m going to give a piece of advice to everybody working with OS X Lion Server in a virtual environment.

You can not set your virtual server to be an Open Directory Master unless there are at least two CPUs attached to the virtual machine. No errors indicating as such will be given, apparently you’re just supposed to know this intuitively. It’s a very strange bug and thankfully somebody figured it out.

I knew I’d be writing this article sooner or later but I was hoping it would be later… much later. Unless you’ve been living under one of the world’s largest rocks you’ve likely heard that Steve Jobs died last night. It’s strange to see the passing of a business man garner so much publicity but I believe that speaks for the impact he had on the world. Along with Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs literally changed the world.

If it wasn’t for Steve Jobs I can honestly say I wouldn’t be where I am today. I say this not because Steve Jobs was a man of inspiration for me in my youth, but because the invention he helped nurture into fruition kicked off the personal computer revolution. People will rightfully point out that Steve Wozniak was the man who invented the first marketed personal computer but it would be an act of absolute ignorance to say Steve Jobs had no part in its success. Of the two I’m obviously closer to Wozniak, I’m an engineer who loves to invent and tinker but I have no clue how to market or sell. Jobs’s genius was in his ability to sell the product. Through my career I’ve worked with numerous sales people and I can say without any uncertainty that I truly understand why they’re as important as they are. Without Wozniak there would have been no personal computer as we know it today and without Jobs we would have never heard of the computer Wozniak built.

Whether you love or hate Apple you have to admit Jobs did something few can lay claim to; he changed the world. But the personal computer wasn’t the only thing Jobs could lay claim to, he also revolutionized the music market and the mobile device market. After his return to Apple Jobs took the failing computer and turned it into one of the most successful companies in the world. A major part of that turn around involved the iPod. Although the iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player on the market it was the one that moved MP3 players from a device known only by geeks to a device owned by a great number of people.

Another success under Jobs’s belt was the iPhone. When the first iPhone was released I was still on the Palm Treo 755p so I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Yes the iPhone looked nice but it couldn’t run any applications and had limited functionality compared to my phone running ancient Palm OS. Like most things Apple introduced though, the iPhone slowly evolved into an incredibly powerful tool. When the news of Jobs’s death arrived one of my fellow computer science graduates called me to talk about it. During this conversation we got on the topic of all the things Jobs accomplished and I remember saying, “Hell, I’m talking on his legacy right now.”

Technology has become so pervasive in our lives that we rarely stop to think about all of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into getting our devices from the prototype stage to a completed product. When you sit down in front of your computer you barely ever think about the efforts of Alan Turning who came up with the theory modern computing is based on. When you pick up your phone you probably never stop to consider the great amount of effort it took to make the device function as well as it does.

Part of what made helped rocket Jobs into success was his attention to detail. If there was one thing Jobs brought to the table, above all others, it was his extreme attention to detail. This is pervasive in all of Apple’s current product lines. The MacBook Pro I’m typing this story on is a beautiful piece of technology that is not only insanely powerful but a work of art in of itself. My phone is a very powerful and complicated piece of machinery that remains simple to operate. This page you’re now reading was uploaded to your computer by a tiny Mac Mini sitting underneath my television.

Many who knew Jobs said he was arrogant and often very difficult to work for. I didn’t know the man personally so I can’t comment on his personal life but there is something to be said for a man who is seen as arrogant yet able to attract some of the greatest talent in the world to his employ. Jobs was a visionary who helped change computers from giant room-sized devices that only large businesses and laboratories had to small device that many households hold many of. He was never one to back down and always followed what he thought was right. To sum the man up it would be easier to say he had balls. It’s rare to find a man who is so incredibly talented that he changed the entire world. What’s even rarer is to find a man who changed the entire world in a positive way.

So long Steve Jobs and thanks for everything. Life on this planet would be far different had you and Wozniak not come together to revolutionize the world. We’ll miss you and I can honestly say the world is diminished without your presence.

There have been several stories floating around the web about a recent security flaw in OS X 10.7 that allows a user to change the password of another user without knowing that user’s current password. Although there is a security flaw related to passwords on OS X 10.7 it’s not nearly as severe as many websites are making it out to be.

An overview of the flaw can be found here. In summary the flaw is related to the Director Services command for reading and changing passwords. By entering the following command you can get the shadow hash of any user’s password:

dscl localhost -read /Search/Users/[user]

The value [user] should be replaced with the short name of a user who’s shadow hash you want to obtain. This is a rather serious flaw as there are scripts that can crack shadow has password (in fact one is available on the linked site for OS X 10.7). The other part of this flaw involves changing users’ passwords using the following command:

$ dscl localhost -passwd /Search/Users/[user]

Once again you replace the value of [user] with the system short name of the user whose password you want to change. What most articles I’ve seen regarding this flaw have claimed is that this command allows you to change another user’s password without knowing their current one. This is incorrect as the command requires you to enter the user’s current password before changing it. What this command does allow you to do is change the currently logged in user’s password without knowing their current one. Once again this is a rather serious security flaw but not nearly as severe as many are making it out to be.

I’m not trying to defend Apple here as they royally fucked up by allowing users to grab other users’ shadow hashes. They also fucked up be allowing somebody besides a directory administrator to change a currently logged in user’s password without entering their current one. But this flaw requires one major thing, access to a currently logged in user account. In most cases this means you must have physical access to the machine in which case all bets are off as far as security is concerned (it’s generally accepted that once an attacker has physical access to a target machine it’s game over).

The important question you should be asking right now is how can you defend against this? It’s simple, don’t leave you machine logged in when you’re not around. You should have a password set on your account (if you don’t you have no means of preventing unauthorized access anyways) and the account should be set to require a password immediately after locking the screen. When you walk away from you machine lock the screen (the keyboard shortcut on OS X is control + shift + eject). Remote access shouldn’t be a concern as it requires a remote user to know the user name and password of somebody on the system already (in which point this flaw matters not as they could change the password for the account they known the credential for).

Finally this flaw allows an unauthorized user to change the password of a currently logged in user without knowing that user’s current password but it does not allow that unauthorized user to change the currently logged in user’s keychain password. This means the password, certificates, and notes stored in the keychain will remain encrypted and out of reach unless the unauthorized user is able to crack the user’s shadow hash (in which case they have the password to unlock the user’s keychain).

If you need to give other users access to use your machine it would be smart to create a separate account for them and use the parental controls to prevent access to all applications they do not need (especially Terminal in this case). This isn’t bulletproof by any means but it’s an extra layer of security that should be done anyways.

A lot of Windows 8 news has been circulating as Microsoft finally unveiled the next version of their operating system. I will note that Windows 8 is looking pretty impressive and I need to set aside some time to play with the freely available developer preview. One piece of news that I found rather interesting through was the fact that the Metro browser won’t support plugins:

One of the first things a lot of folks will try after installing the developer preview of Windows 8 will be the IE10 browser—the most used tool in Windows. IE 10 in the preview is Platform Preview 3 of IE 10. You can read on the IE blog about the HTML 5 engine work we’re doing. This post is about a big change in Metro style IE, which is the plug-in free experience. In Windows 8, IE 10 is available as a Metro style app and as a desktop app. The desktop app continues to fully support all plug-ins and extensions.

Although this isn’t the end of plugins like Flash it is a death knell. Users who wish to use Flash will still be able to open a legacy Internet Explorer window but if you wish to use the new Metro interface you’ll be living the plugin-free lifestyle (it’s like the pants-free lifestyle but with browsers).

Honestly I want to congratulate Microsoft on this move because I can’t describe my hatred of Flash in words. As it sits right now I’ve been running Chrome as my primary browser for the last month (Firefox’s OS X 10.7 support is lacking to say the least) and Flash has been disabled for the last two of weeks. There are a few instances where I find myself opening Firefox to load something requiring Flash but overall you can get by on the web very easily without needing the Flash plugin. We can probably thank Apple for that as there was a strong move by many sites to eliminate their dependency on Flash when it was announced iOS wouldn’t be supporting it.

The less support browser developers give to Flash the faster web developers will completely dump it. I can’t wait until the entire web is completely Flash-free.

Apparently today is the day for resignations; first Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO and now CmdrTaco resigning from Slashdot:

After 14 years and over 15,000 stories posted, it’s finally time for me to say Good-Bye to Slashdot. I created this place with my best friends in a run down house while still in college. Since then it has grown to be read by more than a million people, and has served Billions and Billions of Pages (yes, in my head I hear the voice). During my tenure I have done my best to keep Slashdot firmly grounded in its origins, but now it’s time for someone else to come aboard and find the *future*.

I’ve been reading Slashdot almost daily for just under a decade. That’s quite a long span of time now that I think about it. Although I have some complaints about Slashdot I still enjoy going there to see the daily (or last week’s) tech news and the comments can still be rather entertaining.

So long CmdrTaco and thanks for all of your hard work.

Although I knew this was going to happen eventually I wasn’t expecting it so soon, Steve Jobs has officially resigned as the CEO of Apple. In typical Steve fashion his resignation letter was short and to the point:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Steve will retain his role as chairman of the board and Tim Cook has already been announced as the new CEO.

Although I’ve often referred to Steve as a prick and an asshole I still had a great deal of respect for his business ability. He basically came back to Apple when it was nearing bankruptcy and turned it into one of the highest valued companies on the planet. This turn around wasn’t due to a government bailout or legislation to “even the field” for Apple, it was done by offering products people wanted.

Sadly my money is on Steve’s resignation being due to his continually deteriorating health. Although I personally believe Steve Wozniak was the true genius behind the starting of Apple I can’t deny the value of Job’s business ability in jumpstarting the personal computer revolution. It’ll be a sad day when we begin to lose some of the iconic individuals who helped change computers from something only the most wealthy companies could afford into devices so many people now have multiple of. Here’s hoping that Steve stays with us for many years to come.

Many people have been stating concern over the future of the company as Apple nearly went bankrupt the last time Steve departed. This time is a bit different though as last time Steve was forced out by the Board of Directors due to his rivalry with John Sculley who had been hired for his success at marketing for Pepsi. Sculley didn’t have an engineering background or any idea how to manage Apple’s product line which is what lead to their near bankruptcy. Tim Cook on the other hand was the COO and has been personally groomed by Steve to be his successor. It would surprise me if Steve’s recommended man wouldn’t follow well in the steps of his predecessor.