Shell shock attacker?
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What's hidden in your wired network?
We spend so much time worrying about wireless networking we forget to also consider what might be attached to the wired network. What is hidden behind the wall? Actually I built a network tap for administrative purposes, but it shows how easily something like this could be hidden in the wall behind the sheetrock. Does not hurt to pull the screws once in a while to see what is there. http://www.instructables.com/id/Passive-network-tap-revised/ Connected to the passive tap also could be a wireless device which makes for real security problems such as loss of company secrets and other financial data.
What's hidden in your wired network?
We spend so much time worrying about wireless networking we forget to also consider what might be attached to the wired network. What is hidden behind the wall? Actually I built a network tap for administrative purposes, but it shows how easily something like this could be hidden in the wall behind the sheetrock. Does not hurt to pull the screws once in a while to see what is there. http://www.instructables.com/id/Passive-network-tap-revised/ Connected to the passive tap also could be a wireless device which makes for real security problems such as loss of company secrets and other financial data.
Port of call.
One thing that is good for an network administrator is to be able to see if a web server is up without having to load a browser. Of course the web browsers usually run on port 80. Here is a short script to do that. Grab a root webpage and save the code. Great for seeing if a server is up. Usage: ./webpageget.sh site outputfile ./getwebpage.sh oesrvr1 oesrvr1_rootpage rm: cannot remove `oesrvr1_rootpage’: No such file or directory <html> <head> <title> Offshore Educators (Main Page) 1 </title> <base href=” http://oesrvr1/oe/”> ; </head> <FRAMESET ROWS=”15%,*”> <FRAME SRC=”title.html” NAME=TITLE SCROLLING=NO> <FRAMESET COLS=”20%,*” FRAMEBORDER=no> <FRAME SRC=”tools.html” NAME=SIDEBAR noresize> <FRAME SRC=”notes.html” NAME=NOTES noresize> </FRAMESET> <NOFRAMES> <H1> Offshore Educators</H1> No frames? No Problem! Take a look at our <A HREF=”plain.html”>no-frames...
Powering the Raspberry Pi.
Warning: Do this at your own risk. We will not be responcible for any or all issues. Chances of electrocution causing death can occur. Get a professional to help before you start this project if you are even the least bit unsure. Wanted to make a Raspberry Pi where I could have several units in one case. Putting several power supplies in one box seemed like a mess. Instead I decided to use an old "AT" (not atx) power supply. I did not want to cut up the cable from the power supply. I looked for a dead motherboard in the junk box. There was one! Now, had to get out the old heat fun (used for paint removal. Most "AT" motherboards are attached to the pc like this: But if you have a dead motherboard it will not need the Power supply header anymore. So the mother board looked like this: Now we want to add heat to the back side of the motherboard to release the header. Be careful as it is HOT. Solder could come flying and burn you. Wear protective clothing. Then once th...
Experimental usb power adapter.
Knowledge about electricity is required. Get an expert to help if you are the least bit unsure. We are not responcible for any and all issues. Great way to power your usb hubs if your pc can not handle it. Some hubs will not work with this setup, so try at your own risk. Lot of people do this with the usb hubs, but I wanted to be able to use the hub without having to have the power attached.
Easy to make tablet stand.
Made some coat hanger tablet stands in another post using coat hangers, I wanted a stand that would be less likely to damage a touchpad and be easy to store while traveling. This what I dreamed of after seeing another idea. Draw your pattern. Trace it over two pieces of thick posterboard. Cut out the pieces. (Just using one long piece is hard to fold.) Double tape the backend of the two pieces together. Bend and insert your tablet. Update: yet another prototype stand. It did not work as expected, but worked well enough.
Right to disassemble.
In the last article, I talked about looking at programs and disassembling them. What is that really all about. Let us take the very simple program hw and run it. $ ./hw Hello world! $ The program hw printed out the famous Hello world. We can understand that, but let's look at what the computer sees to do that program. $ cat hw � �̀Hello world! ( ���� ����� .shstrtab.text.data � eddie@oedt01:~$ ��" ��� Obviously garbage. At this point we can not really use that output for our needs. Remember I talked about a disassembler? It changed that gobbletygoop in to something that a programmer might use. Let's try it. $ objdump -D hw hw: file format elf32-i386 Disassembly of section .text: 08048080 <.text>: 8048080: b8 04 00 00 00 mov $0x4,%eax 8048085: bb 01 00 00 00 ...
The mighty parallel port.
Nowadays people use the Arduino and the Raspverry Pi to control all sorts of motors and other things. but also older computers can do the same thing with the parallel port. In fact, you can add several parallel port cards to even make a cnc machine, http://www.machinegrid.com/2008/12/parallel-port-tutorial-part-1/ is a good article about using the l293d chip as what is known as a h bridge with the parallel port. Note: In Qbasic you can control the parallel port with out 888, 0 instead of outportb(0×378,0×00); as used by the C language.
Simple camera adapter.
Had a tripod, but the digital camera did not have a place for the screw from the tripod. No problem. a bit of pvc and a nut now allows the camera to have new uses.
Ubuntu angers the linux community.
The linux community has been in an uproar over the alleged Ubuntu (Canonical) joint setup with Amazon to search Amazon on local searches that could invade your privacy. ( https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads-and-data-leaks ). Data coming back from the searches could easily be hijacked by man-in-the-middle and similar internet attacks. You would also be inundated with advertisements even with simple file searches. What really irks the community is that if you installed Ubuntu 12.10, you were not warned and did not have an option to opt out. Most linux users believe it should be an opt-in not opt-out setup. This is pushing linux users to use other distros or variations of linux particularly Mint linux. Ironically the Ubuntu server has had that same issue with the landscape software, so every upgrade you have to un-install it. The software known as unity-lens-shopping is in the default unity desktop interface. If you use a different desktop...
What's on your network?
Ever wanted to know what is on your network graphically? There is a program that works on most platforms that support the java gui. Your best chance to document your home network. The program is jNetMap. The java version seems a lot more stable now. You can find it on sourceforge.net You can start up the the program very easily from the command line with (if you have java installed): $ java -jar jNetMap.jar or C:\> java -jar jNetMap.jar The instructable: http://www.instructables.com/id/Map-your-network-visually/ has more information also. Once you run the software on your network and scan for devices, you can get a roadmap of what is there. What is really neat about it is, you can see what devices are up or down on the network and it makes trouble shooting easier. You can also see rogue devices on the network also that need to be investigated. You can use the mouse to move all the icons around to make the map more readable. You can even add notes to define wher...
The more you know or a McGuyver moment.
Years ago, back in the late 1980′s I taught two short stints in the state prison system for a nearby college. One summer I was to teach basic computer programming on the Commodore 64 computer for a summer semester. By today’s standards, the C=64 as it is commonly known as is an obsolete relic. Actually back then, they were on the way out also. The semester went along fairly smoothly and I was beginning to enjoy the semester. The inmates were fairly sociable and behaved well. That probably would not be so true now. As you could not get me back in there for any amount of money. Anyway, one day a student accidentally locked up the computer because the program he wrote when he ran it failed in some way. The student/inmate became very agitated and upset because he declared he had lost all his work. Of course fear tends to multiply and the whole class started in the same mode of hysteria. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable and nervous. I went over to the students...
Network Tap (not a "Spinal Tap" sequel)
One of the issues I talked about in an earlier article ( http://www.meetdageeks.com/2012/05/is-your-network-firewall-backdoor-open.html ) was about making sure the network infrastructure was secure, That is all the cabling and networking equipment was secure. Look at the following picture and tell me if it is secure. Actually there is a passive network tap inside with a cable going off to a computer in another room. At that other computer someone is eavesdropping or what is known at packet sniffing. The network taps make it easy to record from what you type on the keyboard to recording voip conversations. They require no power and can be made dirt cheap. The only shortcoming is that you have to be nearby to take advantage of it. It would be very easy if someone rented or had access to the office next door to use this device. They might have to punch a hole in the wall to access it unless there is some kind of socket nearby. To record what is coming from the victims compute...
Weather radar in ascii.
Once in a while I sort of come up with a neat idea. At least it is to me. Just because you have an old system, does not mean you can not teach it new tricks. Done a lot of page scraping to get weather details, but it would be nice to use radar screens from the command line. So details in this case are not so necessary. The overall view of the weather to see what kinds of weather fronts are approaching is. Here we go. We need to collect some historical data (i.e. radar screens). You can get these from the radar.weather.gov using the 3 letter designation for the area you are interested in. For example, I believe the Dallas Fort Worth area is supposed to be FWS. You do not have to collect data just for your area. Collect data for several areas and get an overview of the weather all around. (http://www.leonardsguide.com/us-airport-codes.shtml) You need to collect data. Cron is the perfect tool for the job. We need to create a batch file that will collect the pictures usin...
Computing hints.
Just a few ideas I have come up with. http://www.instructables.com/id/Computing-hints-or-ideas/ Guess which of the two parts an esteemed ITT graduate said was the ram (random access memory). He did not get the job.
Red October network discovery.
The basis of this article is based on the dialog from the movie known as "The hunt for the Red October". In the movie, one of the key lines was I think "One ping and one ping only". Pinging was a method by submarines equipped with sonar to detect what is around them. Normally you would use more than one ping. In computing we also have a program called ping that does the same thing to detect what is around on the network. There is a very powerful program called nmap that usually automates such activity. That usually takes some kind of administrative power to implement. We will be using a simple linux batch file (could be easily converted to other platforms) to detect what is around us. This tool is perfect for the home network. It will probably not detect what is known as "Man in the middle devices", but at least you can see the visible systems on your network. The code. ping.sh: (do not forget "chmod +x ping.sh) [code] for i in {1..254} do pin...
Geekwear
Added another piece of geek wear to the family line. This makes a third men’s accessory that can be created from old computer parts. Always looking for new ways to re-purpose what we have. The first accessory we came up with was the geek belt : Down where I live bolo’s or a sort of tie substitute are a big thing. so we came up with the geek bolo : In fact, you could use it to carry around a working network patch cable. Beauty and functionality combined. The newest member of the group is the Geek cuff links : Shame I do not have a French cuff shirt to really show them off. Doing all that work sort of makes me hungry. If you can hack computers, why not get into hacking food. You do not have to depend on the Pizza deliveryman. What is more interesting is that it is a way to fill in down time if you have any. Why not make your own pizzas. Two of my favorite pizzas are soda bread pizza 1 , soda bread pizza 2 , and good old yeast pizza . You may want to get into other hackin...