Recent Posts

5976

Living Room / Re: Vuln. Alert: Browser 'Clickjacking'

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 23, 2008, 05:31 AM »

Scripting in all its forms is far to prevalent, fueled by the need to pack more Wow into every page for a typical end user to be able to sort through what is and what is not OK. Compounded by the simple fact that "Bad Sites" are next to impossible to identify until after the fact. Sure some are obvious, but others (well intending but poorly secured servers) are much harder to spot until it's too late.

What Article? The one you started this thread with, or the one (paper link) I add above? The paper link I add above goes into great (memory stack & code level) detail on exactly what is being done with the popular browser plug-ins to bypass the various security mechanisms. It also includes some registry hacks which will help to mitigate the threat. <-That and other options are what I was hoping to have a discussion about.

5977

Living Room / Re: Vuln. Alert: Browser 'Clickjacking'

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 21, 2008, 09:42 PM »

Actually it looks like Sun (Java) boned it worse than Adobe (acrobat & Flash).

Sure killing all scripting works, but it's throwing the baby out with the bath water ... There has got to be a balance point somewhere.  I was actually hoping for a bit more detailed discussion about the exploit.

5978

Living Room / Re: Vuln. Alert: Browser 'Clickjacking'

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 21, 2008, 09:22 AM »

Anybody else get the impression that this is more of an Adobe issue, than a browser issue?

-Stoic Joker (September 17, 2008, 11:09 AM)

Yes indeed. Though sensationalism is getting out of hand if they're using the phrase "affecting anyone who uses a browser to surf the web" when they're actually referring to adobe reader.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (September 17, 2008, 03:40 PM)

I'm thinking maybe we jumbed the gun on calling this poo. I ran across the following articles that while not directly related, does seem to depict the type of exploits available using this attack surface.

http://searchsecurit..._gci1324395,00.html#

Refers to:

http://taossa.com.ny...protection-bypasses/

Which contains the paper:

http://taossa.com/ar.../bh08sotirovdowd.pdf

Which was a bit over my head in spots, but the parts I could follow are quite troubling. It seems that ALSR, DEP, & NX can all be somewhat bypassed using techniques outlined in this article.

Thoughts?

5979

General Software Discussion / Re: WipeOut... Useful tiny app.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 20, 2008, 06:53 PM »

I don't get it. Why not just press Win+M to minimize or Win+D to show your desktop?

-Deozaan (September 20, 2008, 04:34 PM)

(My thoughts exactly) It's to easy...?

5980

General Software Discussion / ASUS mobo dead

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 20, 2008, 06:51 PM »

Only time I've seen an optical drive lock-up that tight is right before it died. I've got a Plextor DVD burner now, but before that I had a Lite-on and used CDR-Win exclusively. The Lite-on drive did what you're describing for a while right before it died. I have no issues with the Plextor/Imgburn combo now.

*Shrug* ...Just thinking out loud.

An IDE channel will still run at the speed of the slowest device.

5981

Living Room / Re: [NSFW Humor]: The funnier side of Mac vs. PC

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 20, 2008, 06:38 PM »

ROFL Mac. Nobody Gives a Shit. 

That made my day.

5982

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 -- ribbons for everyone!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 19, 2008, 10:47 AM »

Well... I love it in Office, but using it on wordpad seems like a bit of overkill, there's only one "tab"! (or whatever its name it)

-jgpaiva (September 19, 2008, 09:14 AM)

Yeah, ...I'm gona go with you and Gothi[c] in the hate it camp. It'll totally blow if they do that to Notepad.

5983

Living Room / Re: News Article: Microsoft To Teach About Secure Code

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 17, 2008, 06:58 PM »

But that's what we get for sticking with C and character arrays, instead of moving to at least C++ and std::string

-f0dder (September 17, 2008, 05:55 PM)

Hay, was that aimed at me...?

5984

Living Room / Re: Vuln. Alert: Browser 'Clickjacking'

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 17, 2008, 11:09 AM »

Anybody else get the impression that this is more of an Adobe issue, than a browser issue?

5985

Living Room / Re: News Article: Obama Sex Video Serves Up Malware

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2008, 09:55 AM »

I'm not even sure if someone who is stupid enough to open one of those emails from someone who he doesn't know should have a computer at all..

-jgpaiva (September 14, 2008, 05:56 AM)

100% Correct! You can not protect people from themselves, and attempting to do so only forces the rest of us to suffer. The information super-highway (like the interstate highway) simply requires that one drives their carputer defensively.

5986

Living Room / Re: Vuln. Alert: Malformed URLs Crash Acrobat 9

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2008, 09:43 AM »

Um.. what *doesn't* cause adobe acrobat to crash? 

-mouser (September 14, 2008, 07:38 AM)

ROFL - Amen!

I'm with you on this one Acrobat is a regular nightmare for IT departments. Sure the original PDF (Portable Document Format) open on any platform was a delightfully handy idea, but it's become too many thing to too many people at this point as 90% if its "Features" are nothing more than pointless, useless, bloated weight which drag down the app, the browser, and the machine it's (trying) to run on. It has become precisely the type of Swiss Army Knife type of application that I abhor.

5987

Living Room / Re: News Article: YouTube Bans Terrorist Videos

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2008, 09:30 AM »

terrorist propaganda available on the net, this could be a slippery 1984 slope. Government opposition could end up falling under this classification. And are they going to ban stuff like DIY JackAss videos? - those definitely have an inherent risk

-f0dder (September 14, 2008, 08:10 AM)

Funny, I never liked that show, but that's the first place I went with this also ... e.g. Who's definition of "Dangerous" is to be used?

Orwellien this is indeed.

5988

General Software Discussion / Re: How to get rid of the restart prompt afer win update?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 12, 2008, 05:35 AM »

Why not just configure Windows Update to: Download updates but let me choose whether to install them.

Your not gaining anything by running half the update as the reboot is required to update a system file with the new code. ...So you're still going to be running the same old has a bugg what needs fixed code that you had before running the first part of the update.

-Stoic Joker (September 11, 2008, 01:59 PM)

I do do that - I choose whether to install, but I cant remember now what choice it gives you *
anyways I clicked install this morning without thinking ...

* [edit] does that window keep popping up then (presuming I want to install something) - "please install me" - funny how easy it is (for me ) to forget this stuff if it's only once a month

-tomos (September 11, 2008, 02:34 PM)

Nope, no bouncing windows, just a quiet little icon in the system tray. Double click it, hit custom install, and it will display a list of updates it's on about. This allows you to better decide if you need to install them Right Now ... or they can wait. And it's fairly easy to figure out which will actually require a reboot (not all do).

5989

General Software Discussion / Re: How to get rid of the restart prompt afer win update?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 11, 2008, 01:59 PM »

Why not just configure Windows Update to: Download updates but let me choose whether to install them.

Your not gaining anything by running half the update as the reboot is required to update a system file with the new code. ...So you're still going to be running the same old has a bugg what needs fixed code that you had before running the first part of the update.

 

5990

General Software Discussion / Re: Outlook 2007 isn't so bad

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 09, 2008, 02:03 PM »

Thinking about it I have a couple of Sony programs that may use SQL databases so they might be the cause of the pop up - but surely the MS installer should be able to detect that stuff is still needed by other programs ... isn't that the whole point of the registry system?

-Carol Haynes (September 08, 2008, 06:19 PM)

The installer can only keep track of the information contained in the install/uninstall script it's running. Once SQL (most flavors) is installed by any one program no other program will actually install sql again (even if it says it is) it will simply create a new instance of the service (named for the app it's from) and add that to the SCM's to-do list.

So you remove A and B throws an error ... That's "normal"

5991

Living Room / Re: 10 Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 09, 2008, 01:35 PM »

So I wonder how many of the WSJ's staff are now playing with this little Bag-of-Tricks?!?

...I guess if their network get blown to bits any time soon we'll know why, huh?

5992

Living Room / Re: When Traffic Shaping Results in ISP Changing

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 08, 2008, 05:41 AM »

No idea - but it must be in the terms of services somewhere. I made sure it was when I registered my two domains

-f0dder (September 05, 2008, 07:04 PM)

Simplest way is to never register the domain name with a hosting company. Sure you might save a few bucks ...but you'll be married to them forever. e.g. Hosting companies tend to not be helpful when you leave them...

5993

Living Room / Re: Vista suffering from FUD?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 05, 2008, 03:58 PM »

The KMS licensing requirement was created due to the XP era corporate keys being swapped around faster than a whore at a viking festival.

...and that is the only place they're used/required.

5994

General Software Discussion / Re: windows based web server

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 05, 2008, 03:29 PM »

what kind of hardware requirements should I be looking at?  Should I use something on the upper end or would a lower end AMD Duron 1.2 work ok?

thanks,
dave

-techidave (September 05, 2008, 07:36 AM)

If this is a Public Access Production website for the entire school... Your traffic load will dictate your hardware requirement.

As far as Apache on Windows goes; Hay if you're just playing around in a lab, and want to try new things... Go ahead knock yourself out.  On the other hand if you are really going to do a serious production environment server deployment...For the love of god don't even think about it.

Two Words: Administrative Overhead.
Meaning: Pick a Platform, and stick with it.
You want Windows? Then you're using IIS.
You want Apache? Then you're using some type of Unix/Linux box.

You go half and half, and you get stuck in the middle with a broken server any time anything goes wrong because the finger pointing abounds as side A is cock-sure it's side Bs fault. Security updates have to be gleaned from both sources = Time, Time, Extra steps, and A -vs- B x2 when an update hoses the box because not everybody was up-to-speed on exactly what was about to happen.

Unless you dedicated IT Staff has a lot of free time ... Stay with a commercial host. Hang together a non-critical internal access only box in a lab for testing crazy things that just popped into someone's head, and consider yourself lucky to have dodged a bullet.

Hint: I admin a production web-server (among other things) with multiple internal & external sites for our company...I'm not guessing.

5995

Living Room / Re: Vista suffering from FUD?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 05, 2008, 01:49 PM »

I'm running Vista x86 here at the office on a Dell Dimension E521 Athlon X2 Dual Core 3800+ with 2GB of ram. I keep between 2 & 7 RDP desktops, and 1 or 2 VMs running at all times (part of what I do...).

During an average day I will also have MSVS, Adobe PhotoShop, MS Outlook/Word/Excel/Access open all at the same time, and upwards of 50+ browser windows/tabs open in the process of researching one of the miriad of things I'm asked on any given day.

I have never had any issues while doing this...outside of the occasional minor lagg which is quite understandable given the load I put on the machine.

My Vista x64 machine at home is (much faster then the office machine) constantly under very (read insanely...) heavy loads, and also never misses a beat.

Neither machine is rebooted more than once a month, and both have run upwards of 6 months without a reboot flawlessly.

Granted one is custom built & both are custom loaded...but that only goes to prove that half of the "Bad Press" that Vista has gotten is due to idiots like HP that love to gadget & garbage up a machine to "Add Value" (BS...) to a machine before foisting it on a poor (unsuspecting) consumer.

That and Symantec needs to line up the NIS team in front of a firing squad, and then never do that again. Christ What Were They Thinking?!?!

5996

Living Room / Re: If somebody offers you swapping your PC for a mac cold turkey: would you do it?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 29, 2008, 03:48 PM »

If somebody offers you swapping your PC for a mac cold turkey: would you do it?

You mean after I stopped laughing? ...I'd quit.

While I do have an old Mac (PowerCenter 150 running OS9) here in my office, it's only here because it makes a great door stop.

5997

Living Room / Re: Video chat: Why don't people like it?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 29, 2008, 03:34 PM »

I'm curious:

Video chat is something I used to dream of (remember Blade Runner?).
What's up with people?! The future of communication is here, why do people shy away from it?

-SKesselman (August 28, 2008, 06:17 PM)

That is because, when talking to a client, one has to change out of pyjamas!

-cranioscopical (August 28, 2008, 06:37 PM)

Not really, You can just wear a shirt and tie, pants are optional ... Just don't reach for anything...

Christ I haven't worn pajamas since I was a kid.

5998

Living Room / Re: IPhone Security Hole Bypasses Password

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 29, 2008, 05:35 AM »

ROFL - Ah, the iPhone, like most fashion accessories (read apple products) they're wholly impractical in the real world.

5999

Living Room / Re: Insert Char into String - I "Hit the Wall" ...again.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 28, 2008, 04:27 PM »

Also, instead of trying to sanitize strings for use with SQL queries, have a look at bound arguments - much safer.

-f0dder (August 27, 2008, 05:59 PM)

"bound arguments"? -(never heard of them)- Where is it I would start looking at/for these?


edit by jgpaiva: fixed quote tag

6000

Living Room / Re: Insert Char into String - I "Hit the Wall" ...again.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 27, 2008, 03:00 PM »

LOL Yes I caught that part, By "Safe" I meant the functions didn't collide/conflict/refuse to compile.

The edit control the text comes from is input size limited to 500 characters and the buffer is 512 - I'm assuming nobody will use that many apostrophes...

If I have CleanString() stop before adding too many characters the SQL query/very next function will fail anyway...So it's kind of a Catch22. The SQL query string buffer is (defined in the main header file as) 2048 because SQL queries tend to be large & I hate having to define buffer sizes locally and then remember how big they were 10 pages later when I try to toss something at the function.

Dynamic buffer allocation is one of those things I never have figured out so resizing on the fly might take a while (Suggestions I'm open for...).

I wasn't thinking about the unicode part as this is a in-house only app, and nobody is going to by typing Chinese into it ... but that is a bad habbit I'm getting into.