Topics

26

N.A.N.Y. 2020 / N.A.N.Y. 2020 Release: Mass JSON Editor

« on: January 01, 2020, 01:48 PM »

NANY 2020 Entry Information

Application Name	Mass JSON Editor
Version	1.0.0
Short Description	A follow on to last year's NANY project Mass JSON Viewer, I've updated it and added the ability to edit.
Web Page	in progress
Download Link	https://my.pcloud.co...HrpTgNH3tapGe0smPxW7

Description
A follow on to last year's NANY project Mass JSON Viewer, I've updated it and added the ability to edit. Well, it's more like an overhaul, using some techniques and controls as a starting point for the features.  I haven't had as much time as usual, so there's still features that I can add, though the ones that are there are the ones that I needed to begin with, i.e. the ability to see what Newtonsoft did with the JSON, and cut and paste nodes and replace them.  I wanted to add the ability to edit in place, but that one fell by the wayside in the interest of getting it completed for what it was needed.

Features

Select a folder, and the application will iterate the folder, showing the json files contained within.  You can add objects, add arrays, remove any node, and copy and paste the nodes elsewhere - even replacing them.  ou can also edit the values in the area to the side where the type is shown. You can also save the changed file- overwriting your original file, or as a different file.

Screenshots



Installation

Just copy it where you want and run it!

Uninstallation
Just delete the folder.  It creates nothing anywhere else.

Other Notes

It's not very user friendly- if you switch to a different file before saving your changes, it will not warn you.  There is no undo.  It is slower than I'd like, so after you open a folder, there is a bit of a wait for very large JSON files.  I unfortunately haven't found anything with a similar featureset.

27

General Software Discussion / Phishing Attack Hijacks Office 365 Accounts Using OAuth Apps

« on: December 10, 2019, 11:47 AM »

from https://www.bleeping...ts-using-oauth-apps/

A phishing campaign has been discovered that doesn't target a recipient's username and password, but rather uses the novel approach of gaining access to a recipient's Office 365 account and its data through the Microsoft OAuth API.

Almost all Microsoft Office 365 phishing attacks that we see are designed to steal a user's login name and password by impersonating a Microsoft login landing page.

In a phishing campaign discovered by threat intelligence and mitigation firm PhishLabs, attackers are no longer targeting a user's login credentials, but are now using Microsoft Office 365 OAuth apps to hijack a recipient's account.

"This attack method is unique in that it's effectively malware targeting a victim's Office 365 account.  It's highly persistent, will completely bypass most traditional defensive measures, and is difficult to detect and remove unless you know what you're looking for.  It's really quite clever, and extremely dangerous," PhishLabs' Michael Tyler told BleepingComputer in conversations.

More at link.

28

General Software Discussion / And another Google Service is biting the dust...

« on: November 22, 2019, 04:42 PM »

From: https://arstechnica....-google-cloud-print/

Google is killing Google Cloud Print
After a decade of making printing easy, Google just isn't interested anymore.

Cloud Print is—well, was—pretty cool. Printers are some of the dumbest, most archaic "tech" devices on Earth, but Cloud Print was the missing link, allowing your dumb printer to work with more modern devices. You could print from Chrome and Chrome OS, or print from a phone, or even print remotely over the Internet. The idea was that the Cloud Print server was built into every copy of the Chrome browser, and your printer probably connected to a computer running Chrome at some point, either over a local network or USB cable. Once your printer hit a computer running Chrome and you registered it to your Google account, Google took care of the rest. The printer was accessible from pretty much anywhere via your Google account, as long as the local computer was turned on. Chrome OS and Chrome on the desktop would automatically list Cloud Print printers alongside your local ones. Android supported cloud print throughout the operating system, and on iOS, Cloud Print was built into Gmail, Chrome, and the whole Google Docs suite.


Cloud Print was a huge success, as far as printing services go, and it even ended up being built-in to traditional printers. Google has a list of hundreds of cloud-ready printer models that connect directly to Google's service, no intermediate computer needed. So much for that.

More at link.

29

General Software Discussion / Hosting photos on your own site

« on: October 31, 2019, 10:33 PM »

There was a piece of software that was very easy to install on your website, and very easy to make galleries of photos for viewers to see that I used in the past- but I can't remember the name of it.  People here have used it- there's a free version and a paid version.  I know I'm not giving much to go off of here, but I just don't remember anything other than it was very easy to set up and I need something like that right now.

Does anyone recall any software that would let you host photo galleries easy on your own site?

30

Living Room / Attackers create elaborate crypto trading scheme to install malware

« on: October 12, 2019, 12:10 PM »

From Bleeping Computer:

Attackers have created an elaborate scheme to distribute a cryptocurrency trading program that installs a backdoor on a victim's Mac or Windows PC.

Security researcher MalwareHunterTeam discovered a scheme where an attacker has created a fake company that is offering a free cryptocurrency trading platform called JMT Trader. When this program is installed, it will also infect a victim with a backdoor Trojan.

More at link.

31

Living Room / Questionable URL and Netgear Armor

« on: October 11, 2019, 08:23 AM »

I recently signed up for a trial of the netgear armor service through my router.  I figured that you can't have too much protection, and I like a lot of the analytics in it, so was thinking of actually continuing after my trial.  I received my first alert today- several times, two of my machines tried to hit https://skydrive.wns.windows.com/.  As I know that windows.com is legit, I was thinking it was a false positive- maybe some reference to skydrive still in onedrive or something.  But to be safe, I tried it on archive.is, and this was the first time that site didn't work to retrieve a URL, so now I'm a bit concerned about it.  I checked it on virustotal and it came up OK, but the inability to retrieve it still has me concerned.

Does anyone know anything about that url?

32

DC Gamer Club / Humble Bundle for Card Game Designers

« on: October 10, 2019, 02:33 PM »

https://www.humblebu.../make-your-card-game

I know that some people are interested in analog game design, so thought that this might be of interest.

33

Living Room / HP printers try to send data back to HP about your devices and what you print

« on: September 17, 2019, 04:48 PM »

HP printers try to send data back to HP about your devices and what you print | Robert Heaton


Summed up by the quote in the article: "Life is so much harder when you feel like you’re in a constant cold war standoff with your otherwise perfectly useful gadgets."

34

Living Room / UPS and NAS

« on: August 16, 2019, 07:04 PM »

I had a UPS when I was contracting- bought a top of the line one.  But it gave out after I left the consulting gig, and I never bothered to replace it. 

I just paid for that decision, as a drive crashed in my NAS because of a power failure.  It was a decently old drive, so I don't know if that contributed to the failure, but it gave no indications of failure before it happened.  Thankfully, everything on there was either (a) elsewhere or (b) relatively expendable.

Now, I'm looking at getting a new UPS, and not really sure about the most reliable source these days.  Does anyone run a UPS and/or have any suggestions?

35

Living Room / What did the FTC hear in its loot box workshop?

« on: August 07, 2019, 04:03 PM »

via https://www.gamesind...ts-loot-box-workshop

As promised, the Federal Trade Commission is looking into loot boxes. Today the US regulator held an event titled Inside the Game: Unlocking the Consumer Issues Surrounding Loot Boxes "to inform regulatory priorities as well as industry and consumer guidance."

Presenters at the event consisted of academics, industry members, and watchdogs offering their own perspectives on the subject. Much of the day was clearly intended to bring people unfamiliar with games up to speed on the issue, but the event also played host to some breaking news.

During the opening panel of the day, Entertainment Software Association chief counsel of tech policy Michael Warnecke announced commitments from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft to mandate loot box odds disclosures for new games (or existing games updated with loot box functionality) on their platforms by the end of 2020. A number of ESA member publishers made a similar pledge for all of their titles regardless of platform.

More at link.

36

Living Room / Kazakhstan’s aggressive mass surveillance technique explained

« on: August 07, 2019, 04:00 PM »

via https://protonmail.c...ternet-surveillance/

On July 17, the government of Kazakhstan began coercing its citizens to install a root certificate on their devices that would allow the authorities to monitor everything they do online. The surveillance affects anyone trying to access certain websites, including Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Once the certificate is installed, the government could access emails, read private messages, log browsing activity, and store login credentials.

They've since said this was just a 'test', but few are buying it.

37

Developer's Corner / Interview with the woman in charge of the software for the 1969 Moon Landing

« on: July 13, 2019, 05:27 PM »

An interview with the first software engineer ("Computer science and software engineering were not yet disciplines"), and a hero of the Apollo missions.

The computer system was the most sophisticated of its day. Her rigorous approach was so successful that no software bugs were ever known to have occurred during any crewed Apollo missions.

https://www.theguard...n-landing-nasa-women

38

Living Room / Some of rock's greatest riffs may be up for grab

« on: June 24, 2019, 09:49 AM »

...because copyright laws are stupid.



Do you know what a deposit copy is?  I never knew until I read this article on Bloomberg.  from the article

<snip...> “deposit copy,” as it’s called, is a spare document handwritten by a record company scribe who listened to the record and then distilled it into only 124 notes of piano music. The reverse engineering was required to comply with U.S. law, which before 1978 allowed songs to be registered only via sheet music “deposited” in Washington.

The first pages of the deposit copies of some songs you may know. Note the spareness; the courts are working out whether song elements that aren’t shown are copyright protected.

PHOTO: COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Let that sit for a second.  That spare amount for Stairway to Heaven, for example, doesn't include the most recognized portions of the song.

“You would agree that there’s no solo on the deposit copy … of Stairway to Heaven, which was deposited with the office?”

“Yeah, we—I agree with that. It’s not in there, no,” Page said.

Malofiy then pointed to the first measure. On the record, Stairway begins with a finger-picked introduction—one of the most recognizable musical passages of the past half-century, mimicked by millions of aspiring guitarists. That iconic intro, Malofiy said, “That’s not represented in the deposit copy?”

“No,” Page said. “You’re correct.”

That's just... mind-blowing.

more at https://www.bloomber...rock-riffs-loophole/

39

Developer's Corner / Introducing GitHub Package Registry

« on: May 13, 2019, 09:28 AM »

https://github.blog/...ub-package-registry/

GitHub Package Registry provides fast, reliable downloads backed by GitHub’s global CDN. And it supports familiar package management tools: JavaScript (npm), Java (Maven), Ruby (RubyGems), .NET (NuGet), and Docker images, with more to come.

Looks like an interesting proposal.  Signed up for the waitlist for the beta.

40

General Software Discussion / MOVED: Jpg captures B/W

« on: May 05, 2019, 05:01 PM »

This topic has been moved to Screenshot Captor.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=47645.0

41

Living Room / Docker Hub Database Hack Exposes Sensitive Data of 190K Users

« on: April 27, 2019, 11:47 AM »

From https://www.bleeping...-data-of-190k-users/

An unauthorized person gained access to a Docker Hub database that exposed sensitive information for approximately 190,000 users. This information included some usernames and hashed passwords, as well as tokens for GitHub and Bitbucket repositories.

According to a security notice sent late Friday night, Docker became aware of unauthorized access to a Docker Hub database on April 25th, 2019.

After performing an investigation it was determined that the database contained information for approximately 190,000 users. This information included access tokens for GitHub and Bitbucket repositories used for Docker autobuilds as well usernames and passwords for a small percentage of users.

More at link.

Full text of notification e-mail

On Thursday, April 25th, 2019, we discovered unauthorized access to a single Hub database storing a subset of non-financial user data. Upon discovery, we acted quickly to intervene and secure the site.

We want to update you on what we've learned from our ongoing investigation, including which Hub accounts are impacted, and what actions users should take.

Here is what we’ve learned:

During a brief period of unauthorized access to a Docker Hub database, sensitive data from approximately 190,000 accounts may have been exposed (less than 5% of Hub users). Data includes usernames and hashed passwords for a small percentage of these users, as well as Github and Bitbucket tokens for Docker autobuilds.

Actions to Take:

- We are asking users to change their password on Docker Hub and any other accounts that shared this password.

- For users with autobuilds that may have been impacted, we have revoked GitHub tokens and access keys, and ask that you reconnect to your repositories and check security logs to see if any unexpected actions have taken place.

- You may view security actions on your GitHub or BitBucket accounts to see if any unexpected access has occurred over the past 24 hours -see https://help.github....ng-your-security-log and https://bitbucket.or...-what-when-and-where

- This may affect your ongoing builds from our Automated build service. You may need to unlink and then relink your Github and Bitbucket source provider as described in https://docs.docker..../builds/link-source/

We are enhancing our overall security processes and reviewing our policies. Additional monitoring tools are now in place.

Our investigation is still ongoing, and we will share more information as it becomes available.

Thank you,

Kent Lamb Director of Docker Support [email protected]

42

Living Room / Remember Net Neutrality and the arguments that the concerns were overrated?

« on: April 26, 2019, 12:26 PM »

Cox Communications is rolling out a new Elite Gamer ‘fast lane’ internet connection

Who wants to pay more for your internet connection to make sure you can play games on it? Because that’s what Cox Communications is now offering with its Elite Gamer package, an extra $15 charge to ensure that your online game experience has minimal lag and ping. You know, exactly the sort of “fast lane” connection that net neutrality rules prevented and that various companies (including Cox) assured people wouldn’t be created.

More at https://massivelyop....internet-connection/

43

DC Gamer Club / Update Origin Now

« on: April 18, 2019, 02:53 PM »

If you have Origin (EA's launcher/store) installed, update it now.   As in quit reading this and go update it.

Then you can read the long story here: https://gizmodo.com/...lient-now-1834079604

Excerpt:

But strangely, a recent bug with its Origin game client might be one of the company’s most serious issues yet.

That’s because due to a security flaw in the Windows version of Origin, it was possible for hackers to essentially run or install any application on a user’s computer through something as innocuous as a hyperlink.

Discovered by Daley Bee and Dominik Penner of Underdog Security (via TechCrunch), the source of the flaw came from EA’s use of a custom URL protocol that allowed gamers to access a game’s web store from a browser instead of using the Origin client. Unfortunately, because those “origin://” links could also be tricked into launching malicious software, it essentially gave hackers free rein to install almost any program onto an end user’s machine.

According to Bee, by combining a malicious code with a cross-site scripting exploit, malware could be sent and automatically installed on vulnerable systems simply by clicking a link. And to prove the existence of the flaw, the team at Underdog security even created a demo exploit that opened up the Windows Calculator app instead of a link in Origin that appeared to be an EA sales offer.

44

General Software Discussion / Microsoft reveals all of the things that it removed from Chromium for Edge

« on: April 08, 2019, 04:06 PM »

Microsoft just released preview versions of its Chromium-powered Edge browser today. If you’ve downloaded it to test it, you’ve probably noticed it’s very stable and performs surprisingly well. It even performs better than Google’s own Chrome browser on Windows 10, despite being built on the same Chromium open-source project. While it’s early days for Microsoft’s new Edge, the company has revealed all of the Google services it has replaced or removed from its new Chromium-powered browser to optimize performance.

Microsoft has removed or replaced more than 50 of Google’s services that come as part of Chromium, including things like ad blocking, Google Now, Google Cloud Messaging, and Chrome OS-related services.

More at link: https://www.theverge...hromium-edge-browser

I'm actually looking forward to trying it out.  I haven't been able to get past the middle-click problem in Brave, and Vivaldi seems to be slower than it used to be, so I'm back to Chrome.

45

Developer's Corner / How to lose $172,222 per second for 45 minutes

« on: April 01, 2019, 02:01 PM »

This is probably the most painful bug report I've ever read, describing in glorious technicolor the steps leading to Knight Capital's $465m trading loss due to a software bug that struck late last year, effectively bankrupting the company.

The tale has all the hallmarks of technical debt in a huge, unmaintained, bitrotten codebase (the bug itself due to code that hadn't been used for 8 years), and a really poor, undisciplined devops story.

Read more here.

46

Living Room / Raspberry Pi Display/Enclosure from printminion

« on: March 23, 2019, 09:43 AM »

Courtesy of @printminion on twitter:

inky-what display can be found on their site: https://shop.pimoron...riant=13590497624147

3d files can be found on thingiverse: https://www.thingive...se.com/thing:3325556

I'm thinking about tackling this.  Of course, I have so many projects in flight right now, not sure when that will be... 

47

Developer's Corner / Looking for a way to increase load on system to simulate OOM

« on: March 07, 2019, 01:24 PM »

I'm having a problem in a production environment while performing a memory intensive operation, the process gets an OOM exception.  In the debugger, because my local machine is not under the same memory pressure and has access to the entire address space, I can't reproduce it.  I'm pretty sure it's concurrent processing when processing this large document in memory that's the problem, but I can't verify it.

Is there a utility or a way in visual studio where you can limit the memory that the debugger can access to simulate memory pressure on the system, so I can determine under what conditions the process runs out of memory?  Either external to VS or internal?

48

General Software Discussion / Switching.social

« on: January 26, 2019, 09:44 PM »

https://switching.social/ is a list of ethical(?), easy-to-use and privacy-conscious alternatives.  I (?) ethical because that seems to be biased to the views of the site when that estimation should be in the eyes of the beholder.  But there are quite a few alternatives on there that seem to be worth looking into that I'd not heard of before.

49

DC Gamer Club / Interesting Game Jam on itch.io

« on: January 02, 2019, 11:04 AM »

I just joined the Gaming Like it's 1923 Game Jam on itch.io.  It will be my first, and I'll probably be doing an analog game (short RPG or something similar).

It's based on works released to the public domain on January 1st from those expiring from 1923.  Sounds like a cool idea for a Game Jam!

A source for works is https://law.duke.edu...ublicdomainday/2019/

There's also a spreadsheet: https://law.duke.edu...3_works_renewed.xlsx

50

N.A.N.Y. 2019 / NANY 2019: Mass JSON Viewer

« on: December 28, 2018, 11:35 PM »

NANY 2019 Entry Information

Application Name	Mass JSON Viewer
Version	1.0
Short Description	List, View, and Validate/Format JSON files in a directory
Supported OSes	Windows
Web Page	---
Download Link	https://my.pcloud.co...QIzACdLwd9FysBEd0zAy
System Requirements	Tested on Windows 10 .NET 4.5.2

Mass JSON Viewer
Overview
In response to the thread on a G+ Takeaway viewer, and my own needs, I decided to write something that would do the same thing as the Mass HTML Viewer, but for JSON files.

This application is quite simple - you click on the little folder icon, and point it towards a directory, and it lists all files with a .json or .txt extension.  If you click on a file, it will load it to the right.  If you click on the validate button next to the folder icon, it will try to validate then format the JSON, and display it in the area below.

Planned Enhancements

• Better reporting of errors in the JSON
• The ability to combine files into one JSON file
• Actually planning to make this a wider application, by including HTML, and XML formatted by an XSLT, as I have to do both of those regularly.
• Enhance the UI to make it a bit friendlier

Installation
Mass JSON Viewer requires .NET 4.5.2.  If you have Windows 10, you probably already have it.  If not, you can get it from Microsoft.

After you download Mass JSON Viewer, unzip it where ever you want to run it from, and run MassJSONViewer.exe.

Uninstall
To uninstall, just delete the folder where you unzipped the archive.

Documentation
As Mass JSON Viewer is intended to be rather simplistic, there's not much to using it.  Anytime you run it, the following screen will be shown.




From right to left, the toolbar at the top has the following functions:

• Exit the application
• About this Application
• Launch the Help Screen
• Validate loaded File
• Choose Directory

License Terms

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to use the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use and copy the software package, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do the same. Distribution and publication shall be allowed also without direct cost to the user, other than reasonable costs of such distributions, such as for the media on which the software is published will also be also allowed after permission is granted based on terms of such payment being submitted for approval. In all cases shall the distribution of the software be subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software, and a link to the original site for the software (http://www.thinkshui...re/mass-json-viewer/) shall be included in prominent view on any site where a download is hosted.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Note that if you paid money for this software, ask for it back!


Changelog

1.0.0.0

2018-12-29

Initial Release