FBI Turns to Broad New Wiretap Method: Apparantly worse than Carnivore? EFF must be having a field day...

Lifehacker: Alpha Geek

Lifehacker: Alpha Geek
Oh man- can MP3 life get any better? This program described here by said MP3 guru Rick Brodia, MP3Gain, is wondrous. It scans every file in you music collection and adjusts them so every song sounds like it was from just one album. What I am trying to say is: you get rid of very loud or very soft tracks, something you get when you boy from different source's rip from your friend, record off the internet, or whatever it is you people do :) You can even change the dB level to be louder or softer depending on your preferences, and if you think it sucks you can revert back to your old 'volume knob turning with every new song' ways. The true test for me is when I re-synch with my MP3 player (yes the -original- Dell Digital Jukebox is still kicking, but I am thinking of upgrading)

His RSS feed - Alpha Geek is pretty great anyways.

Go Manning

I will not even attempt to discuss football here (I still don't understand offsides all too well), but I like this editorial on Sports Illustrated.com about how (almost) everyone is happy that Manning is (finally) going to the SuperBowl

Seriously, I do not know anyone who likes the Patriots. They are a good team, you kind of have to be to get as far as they did, and oh yeah - won multiple (I think 3?) SuperBowls in a row. But -man- Manning is just so likable! Look at his commercials for Mastercard, ESPN, and Sprint... so cute.

Brady's got the looks, but Manning is the boy next door that everyone is rootin for.

Let's of course- not forget the Bills SuperBowl legacy... or maybe we should :P GO BILLS!!

Oh and while we are on the topic of sports- Everyone should watch the NHL All-Star Game on Wednesday 8pm EST. Sabres coach Lindy Ruff, as well as center Danny Briere, Defensemen Brian Campbell, and goalie Ryan Miller will be in full effect supporting the Eastern Conference. There is someone from our coaching staff there too... LETS GO BUFFALO!! My only complaint is that Mr.Afinogenov didn't make it - its a conspiracy I tell you

Wow

Upright Ms. Pac Man Arcade Game?! Wow - this is beyond exciting

Wahoo to more password changing

PWDMan sounds some old superhero (almost as old as NTOSKRNL man), but regardless this article sheds some light on this password checker tool.

"PWDMan can query a single computer or a list of computers to determine the age of the local administrator account's password to see if it's time for a change. In the drop down box, enter either the name of a computer or the name of a text file with a list of computer names."

So, keep in mind this is more for business with more than a handful of computers (if you use this at home, you may just be lazy and mkaing more work for yourself... or in my case you may just be curious how it works)

Majorgeeks.com : definitely not a new page by any stretch, but I have found renewed love for the site, it keeps me far behind on 'cool looking software I would like to try out'

And, since Kyle thinks I have 'boring techie' stuff on my website, here is my attempt to appease his with fun little snippets about my life (but still geek related):

• Right now the DoD Cybercrime Conference is going down in St.Louis, Missouri. Due to reasons beyond my control I was unable to make it this time. But a few of my buddies will be there, with some good speakers
• Thanks to my inablility to go to said conference, I have decided my next course of action will be to shoot for Black Hat 2007 either in DC or Vegas. Hope wise I'm gunning for Vegas, reality/budget wise I am going to the DC one... let's hope I get approved!

Sorry Kyle- that was not too exciting- I apologize

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: 'Whats In It For Me?' Amy Diamond (via Hamachi!)

Yes so if you could not tell from the above I got Hamachi working. My main problem was allowing the Hamachi IP address to be a trusted IP address. Oh and making sure I was all connected with workgroups and what-not. My suggestion to anyone running Hamachi is make sure your firewall is configured properly. This means not only allowing hamachi.exe but also allowing the IPs to go thru. Oh, hah and having two firewalls, as I apparantly had going on on my laptop does not help either. I was using this tutorial and various other HOWTO's on the website. Make sure you follow their instructions regarding setting up your home network. Hamachi has their own mini 'getting started' tutorial as well. Patience and perserverance young grasshopper.

My next mission is to try and get VNC running over Hamachi. If you have all the necessary folders shared however I am not sure I would need to run VNC. I see VNC as a great way to help people having an issue on their computer and you can't get there physically to help them. To be fair I think the web proxy would be more helpful, but one thing at a time!

WTF

Current Mood: whatevs
Current Music: 'Into the Fire' - Noa Assembly

Hamachi Update: Why does it always seem the 'easy' things never work for me? I can chat between the two computers, but pings and browsing does not work! I assume the network is set up wrong somewhere or I simply failed to follow the instructions... more on that to come!

However I do have something to report! Last night my roommate could not log on to his computer and he asked me if there was a way to get it. With some Google searching I found this Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. The walk thru guide makes this look horribly scary - but it isn't so bad. It is basically a registry editor and lets you alter the SAM files (read:where the hashed passwords are found) to be whatever you want them to be. The registry is wonderful, but dangerous place!

I was super excited to try this out, but unfortunately roomie simply had a user error (he forgot his user name, how one does that on their home computer I have no idea), so we did not need to run it. I noticed the program worked on NT 3.51, NT 4 (all versions and SP), Windows 2000 (all versions), Windows XP (all versions, also SP2), Windows Server 2003 (at least Enterprise)... XP eh? Hmmm... Virtualization would not work because it required a reboot, and with a reboot everything is refreshed... HMMMMMMM....

I used my own computer to test it, and I must say it worked just fine! I will post up screen shots if I remember, but the walk-through on the website is pretty good. Do not be frightened by the command prompt, embrace it!

NOTE: Tony also said I could have used Backtrack or Auditor with John the Ripper (it's already on them), dumped the SAM files, and cracked the passwords that way.. another good option.

Current Mood: whoo!
Current Music: Ticks & Leeches - Tool

In true to form 'yay its the weekend' fashion, here are some fun links I saw during the week. I do believe I will tackle my awesome list of things on Monday, seeing as how I have the day off from work, and maybe start on it a little. Actually I do believe I will go thru the Hamachi set-up here, this way I can have a guilt-free weekend.

Before all that, some fun links:

• Verizon Increase SMS Rates - Get out Now and avoid that stupid fee

• In the spirit of new year's resolutions, I was thinking about buying some Nike shoes, an IPod Nano, and that cool RFID thing and you can track your progress (or lack therof), but after reading a paper from some CS majors at the University of Washington about how they can track people, I feel less inclined (but want to try it myself).

• Guys Hack LA traffic lights: I am sure everyone wishes they could do that at times!
  

Ok back to Hamachi....
Taken from the Hamachi website:

"LogMeIn Hamachi is a zero-configuration virtual private networking (VPN) application.

In other words Hamachi is a program that allows you to arrange multiple computers into their own secure network just as if they were connected by a physical network cable.

Hamachi is fast, secure and simple. Its core version is also free."

Yes there are some differences between the core version and the premium (see a comparison here). I was interested to see that if acting as a web proxy the core version of Hamachi only allowed 2.5 MB of data (to put things into perspective, that MP3 you are listening to right now is probably bigger than 2.5 MB). This saddens me as I was interested in doing secure internet-ing from say, a Starbucks or hotel. I was intrigued by the 'routed tunneling' option, which means if the client in your LAN does not have Hamachi, a person (with all the required information, calm down) can still access it. This enables the P2P idea.

Speaking of MP3s - "Weapon of Choice" just came on my MP3 player. Take a break everyone - go watch the music video!

Ok- enough Walken (ha as if THATS possible!), back to Hamachi.

Right so I downloaded the core version of Hamachi and like all programs you need 'read' the EULA and click 'I agree'. The set up is pretty straightforward ("zero configuration" remember??) Hamachi also very nicely allows you to try the premium edition for 30 days then automatically switches you to the core version. That was the entire set-up.

When you run Hamachi for the first time, you get fun little pop-up:

It gives you a little tutorial as to the basics of how you can use Hamachi, its pretty straight forward so I won't go into detail here. It gives you a 'dummy scenario' where you can see how to do the connecting and what not...

Wonderful, I got it on one computer. I installed on my laptop (which I actually do not have networked to my main computer {stupid networking}). And after being harassed a million times by my firewall I got connected... I set up my very own network (aka sneakermoose), created a password and tried to connect both computers to it... cross your fingers!

The next blog I will talk about the trials and tribulations of actually getting this to work and testing it from somewhere.

Current Mood: tired (why am I always tired?!)

So thanks to the wonderful world of the Google Homepage and the plethora of tabs and content you can throw on there, I came across a tutorial on how to fix your Nintendo. Now I have not tried this yet, as the mere thought of losing my Nintendo forever based on my own stupidity makes me cringe. I like the connector fixing bit, it does not require cutting anything out of the mobo....

Things I plan to look at:
1. TrueCrypt (namely how it works)
2. Metasploit (yes I know I am such a n00b when it comes to netsec)
3. Wireless STIG (Security Technical Implementation Guides) Actually I am sure there are many more I should look at
4. -some- type of programming (I am looking to C, XML, and Java)

The question is: when will I stop play Lego Star Wars II and DO this stuff??

*Editors Note* After looking at the previous post, #5 would be VPNs using Hamachi

VPN - The most fun one can do on a Friday night

Current Mood: whatevs
Current Music: Hysteria- Muse

So, this article from ComputerWorld is a great outline for how to protect your precious laptop from wireless hotspot baddies. One of the interesting suggestions was to have a Virtual Private Network for protecting whatever information you send over the public 'wires'. Granted, this idea would mostly (well it SHOULD be mandatory) for doing business on the road. I really hope no one is checking their bank accounts at their local Starbucks *shiver*.

Being kinda foreign to the whole VPN world (brief into here) myself, I have decided I should look into VPN's. Mr. Gralla suggested HotSpotVPN, which for a fee (~$8/month) can protect you from the outside world while mobile. Now, this is all well and good, but what about us poor people who can't afford that, or are just curious. I hope to look more into this, I found a program called Hamachi, an open source (read: free) program that might do the trick, we shall see (any suggestions?). I would do it tonight, but I still think jet lag is tugging at me, and I am exhausted.

Wireless Forensics

Interesting paper about wireless forensics. Did you know that your AP sends beacon frames 10x a second? Read: dread for the person trying to perform wireless audits...