SELinux updates
Posted by creining | Filed under Security
The NSA has released an updated version of Security-Enhanced Linux. In reading this article about the release, I was informed that Debian, Gentoo and Fedora Core 2 all currently make some use of SELinux and that Red Hat plans to incorporate SELinux into its next Red Hat Enterprise Linux release. I found a few public test machines running SELinux, Debian and Fedora and Gentoo.
Uncapping cable modems
Posted by creining | Filed under Security
Good article at SecurityFocus entitled Cable modem hackers conquer the co-ax. In a nutshell, a group of hackers (the good kind, not the mysterious FUD-inducing evil ones in the media) called TCNiSO released a program called Sigma that allows an uncapper or someone just curious to rlogin to a Motorola Surfboard cable modem and be dropped into a VxWorks shell. At this point any FTP server can be specified to grab configuration information from, which contains the upload/download speeds. I remember a couple years ago when I had cable internet connectivity and a Motorola Surfboard a similar type of hack could be done. The underlying design flaw at that time (maybe still present) was that the ethernet side of the cable modem would accept a configuration file instead of only accepting the configuration file on the co-ax side. So, what one would do if they wanted to “uncap” their cable modem was to grab the configuration file from the cable company’s TFTP server (advertised in BOOTP/DHCP broadcasts), change the settings which were plaintext, serve up the new configuration file via TFTP on the ethernet side, change the MAC and IP address of the TFTP server to be that of the one advertised on the co-ax side, and boot up the modem which will grab its configuration from the ethernet side TFTP server.
Live Linux CDs: Knoppix STD and FIRE
Posted by creining | Filed under Security
A list of live Linux CDs. I have personally used Knoppix and Knoppix STD (Security Tools Distribution) which are both great to have handy. I should try out some of the other security specific CDs such as FIRE which I’ve read about on the Forensics mailing list and whose goal is to provide “an immediate environment to perform forensic analysis, incident response, data recovery, virus scanning and vulnerability assessment”.
Installing FC1 on my new Dell 4600
Posted by creining | Filed under Linux/BSD
I received my new Dell Dimension 4600 this week. I had been looking to replace my creaky Celeron 500MHz desktop machine that I cobbled together during my junior year of college and has been my main system since then. The Celeron had 312 MB 133MHz memory, an Ensoniq sound card, a Voodoo3 3000 16MB videocard, a Mitsumi 2x4x8 CD-RW and a 24x CDROM, and a power supply that was starting to fail (frankly, the last straw). My new Dell is a P4 2.8GHz with 512MB 333MHz DDR SDRAM and has the 80G drive that came with it and an 80G drive that was in my old desktop (note: the Dimension 2400 does not have a second drive cage) and integrated sound, video (note: the Dimension 4600 has an 8x AGP slot, the 2400 does not), ethernet all based on the Intel i810 chipset. I’ve installed Fedora Core 1 on the Dell and everything has gone smoothly. I especially like yum for updating packages. I configured the yum.conf file to point to fast Fedora EDU mirrors and added FreshRPMs and Dag APT repositories. So far, I’ve been able to install every package I’ve wanted to via yum.