Sunday, December 16, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Topic 11 - From Hacktivism to Cyberwar
week 6 (October 15-21), topic 11
Find and blog about an illustrative case of hacktivism.
I would describe the case from the movie "Web warriors" (there is also Estonian version - movie is in English with Estonian subtitles and comments at the beginning).
This is the true story about Michael Calce aka mafiaboy - highschool student from Montreal and member of Russian hacker group TNT/Phorce. In this film all are talking about hacker but I would say cracker. Why? As we know, the hacker is clever programmer but cracker is cyber criminal. In previously mentioned movie there are three categories of hackers spoken:
Internet was never designed to be secure - not to keep your bank accounting information etc for what we are using it today. So - why not to leave mission critical systems disconnected? For business efficiency it is quite impossible - systems needs to be remotely accessible to manage them faster.
We would say, that there is no secure computer or its network. As our famous hacker Michael Calce says - everything, what is online - it can be shut down (it means take control over the internet and if wanted - also shut down).
In the movie, hacker Donnie says that one week for research and one day to take down - power supply, switch off communication and basically turn off that military power we know - basically it paralyzes the country....
I would say, that I've seen myself, how Donnie does it. That international flight booking web portal has same weaknesses, what also some other systems have, which are created by same person - this wasn't mentioned in the movie.... Donnie demonstrated in the movie and also to myself, that less in 5 minutes he could get in (with one arm!) into one international flight booking system. The most worse thing is, that this system creator doesn't listen Donnie and don't fix these bugs. So - there might be several flight booking systems in the world, which are vulnerable for crackers...
It was honour to take part from two of Donnie's courses, where he showed a world alternative. This was awesome experience and this was actually just smelling that world... We made some penetration tests and noticed, how vulnerable MS Windows is... This would be an example for decision makers, who still thinks, that MS Windows can be secure operating system... The only reliable prevention is to move some free UNIX-like system (like Linux), which at least is designed to be secure system...
Nowadays there is one of the biggest hackers conference called DEFCON, which is most exciting event in this area and probably quite dangerous place to visit... There you can pay only with cash and no banking cards. This is actually good idea - in the place, where are approximately 7000 hackers over the world, isn't the place, where use your credit card :)
But Michael just prepared the weapon against another hacker group and didn't mean to attack any company or mission critical network... But he had to test it and choosed Yahoo, then CNN, Amazon, E-Bay, Dell... But when CNN were shut down - also 1200 other connected sites were disappeared... All these attacks were based on Pentium-133 computer.... That most damaging computer virus called Blaster... Antivirus for that virus was invented at F-Secure lab in Helsinki, Finland.
During few seconds approximately 50 million peoples remain without electricity - even some nuclear powerplants were shut down... There were approximately 100 powerplants shut down. In New York City emergency state were announced... Phone and water systems were not working, thousands of people were trapped into subway and elevators. Trains, aircrafts, ships were stopped. This all happened 11th to 14th August 2003, when largest blackout in history causes 6 billion USD in damages. Official cause was: overgrown trees on power lines... But there was much more than just trees...
Finally Michael was arrested due to swanking. He spent 8 months at youth prison. But he was actually first person,who showed that emperor has no clothes - how vulnerable internet is. Suddenly internet wasn't so nice place to do business.
Then Microsoft put announcement online, that they will give reward 250 000 USD for every arresting and conviction of dangerous virus writer. There are enormous collection of documents, what are collected by one MS Word macrovirus - this might be named also as spyware. My suggestion - use free and open source software and open data file formats - then you are much less threatened.
TJX - one of the largest online company (more than 2000 representations over the world) announced on 2007 of stealing their customers credit card data and other personal information. This attack maybe happen through WiFi connection (used wardriving) and known as largest stealing of personal and credit card data over the internet - probably more than 94 million people were influenced...
Nowadays there are so called hacker toolkits in internet, which are bundle of carefully choosed programs and gives even for beginners opportunity to be small cyber thief. You can just tell, which virus you need and program will write it to you. This is very dangerous and makes easy to be criminal even by accidentally for some youngers.
In the end of the movie Michael says, that even 8 years later situation is almost same and he can repeat same attack if he want to... This makes me worry - how is situation today...
I have same opinion - mission critical systems should use separate network and not internet. We surely realize, that building similar network like internet is quite resources consuming, especially time and money.
So there might be also considered to use strong encryption, user authentication (ID-card or similar), asking confirmation code over SMS and/or special app at smartphone etc - multiple level of security.
But as we know - locks are created by humans and can be also broke by humans. So separating mission critical systems physically would be the best solution.
Who knows - perhaps Internet2 would fill that gap, what is needed to establish secure future. When every step would be traceable in time, every person who enters the internet will be known - perhaps it disciplines people to behave nicely.
Similar attacks by crackers might trigger cyberwar and possible WWIII. Therefore is very important to pay special attention for security with sensitive data and mission critical systems.
Some links:
Find and blog about an illustrative case of hacktivism.
I would describe the case from the movie "Web warriors" (there is also Estonian version - movie is in English with Estonian subtitles and comments at the beginning).
This is the true story about Michael Calce aka mafiaboy - highschool student from Montreal and member of Russian hacker group TNT/Phorce. In this film all are talking about hacker but I would say cracker. Why? As we know, the hacker is clever programmer but cracker is cyber criminal. In previously mentioned movie there are three categories of hackers spoken:
- white hats are good guys - virus hunters and/or your office IT-specialists
- grey hats - they work both sides of the street: for good and bad guys. They are doing e.g. penetration testing hired by companies. Good example is Donnie Werner aka Morning Wood
- black hats are bad guys - writing viruses or they are crooks - e.g. trying to steal your credit card numbers
Internet was never designed to be secure - not to keep your bank accounting information etc for what we are using it today. So - why not to leave mission critical systems disconnected? For business efficiency it is quite impossible - systems needs to be remotely accessible to manage them faster.
We would say, that there is no secure computer or its network. As our famous hacker Michael Calce says - everything, what is online - it can be shut down (it means take control over the internet and if wanted - also shut down).
In the movie, hacker Donnie says that one week for research and one day to take down - power supply, switch off communication and basically turn off that military power we know - basically it paralyzes the country....
I would say, that I've seen myself, how Donnie does it. That international flight booking web portal has same weaknesses, what also some other systems have, which are created by same person - this wasn't mentioned in the movie.... Donnie demonstrated in the movie and also to myself, that less in 5 minutes he could get in (with one arm!) into one international flight booking system. The most worse thing is, that this system creator doesn't listen Donnie and don't fix these bugs. So - there might be several flight booking systems in the world, which are vulnerable for crackers...
It was honour to take part from two of Donnie's courses, where he showed a world alternative. This was awesome experience and this was actually just smelling that world... We made some penetration tests and noticed, how vulnerable MS Windows is... This would be an example for decision makers, who still thinks, that MS Windows can be secure operating system... The only reliable prevention is to move some free UNIX-like system (like Linux), which at least is designed to be secure system...
Nowadays there is one of the biggest hackers conference called DEFCON, which is most exciting event in this area and probably quite dangerous place to visit... There you can pay only with cash and no banking cards. This is actually good idea - in the place, where are approximately 7000 hackers over the world, isn't the place, where use your credit card :)
But Michael just prepared the weapon against another hacker group and didn't mean to attack any company or mission critical network... But he had to test it and choosed Yahoo, then CNN, Amazon, E-Bay, Dell... But when CNN were shut down - also 1200 other connected sites were disappeared... All these attacks were based on Pentium-133 computer.... That most damaging computer virus called Blaster... Antivirus for that virus was invented at F-Secure lab in Helsinki, Finland.
During few seconds approximately 50 million peoples remain without electricity - even some nuclear powerplants were shut down... There were approximately 100 powerplants shut down. In New York City emergency state were announced... Phone and water systems were not working, thousands of people were trapped into subway and elevators. Trains, aircrafts, ships were stopped. This all happened 11th to 14th August 2003, when largest blackout in history causes 6 billion USD in damages. Official cause was: overgrown trees on power lines... But there was much more than just trees...
Finally Michael was arrested due to swanking. He spent 8 months at youth prison. But he was actually first person,who showed that emperor has no clothes - how vulnerable internet is. Suddenly internet wasn't so nice place to do business.
Then Microsoft put announcement online, that they will give reward 250 000 USD for every arresting and conviction of dangerous virus writer. There are enormous collection of documents, what are collected by one MS Word macrovirus - this might be named also as spyware. My suggestion - use free and open source software and open data file formats - then you are much less threatened.
TJX - one of the largest online company (more than 2000 representations over the world) announced on 2007 of stealing their customers credit card data and other personal information. This attack maybe happen through WiFi connection (used wardriving) and known as largest stealing of personal and credit card data over the internet - probably more than 94 million people were influenced...
Nowadays there are so called hacker toolkits in internet, which are bundle of carefully choosed programs and gives even for beginners opportunity to be small cyber thief. You can just tell, which virus you need and program will write it to you. This is very dangerous and makes easy to be criminal even by accidentally for some youngers.
In the end of the movie Michael says, that even 8 years later situation is almost same and he can repeat same attack if he want to... This makes me worry - how is situation today...
I have same opinion - mission critical systems should use separate network and not internet. We surely realize, that building similar network like internet is quite resources consuming, especially time and money.
So there might be also considered to use strong encryption, user authentication (ID-card or similar), asking confirmation code over SMS and/or special app at smartphone etc - multiple level of security.
But as we know - locks are created by humans and can be also broke by humans. So separating mission critical systems physically would be the best solution.
Who knows - perhaps Internet2 would fill that gap, what is needed to establish secure future. When every step would be traceable in time, every person who enters the internet will be known - perhaps it disciplines people to behave nicely.
Similar attacks by crackers might trigger cyberwar and possible WWIII. Therefore is very important to pay special attention for security with sensitive data and mission critical systems.
Some links:
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Topic 10 - Different People, Digital World
Week 5 (October 8-14), topic 10
Choose a minority group and describe how they can make use of Internet to reduce alienation and prejudice.
I would choose old people - so called digital immigrants in our information society. They are usually looking nowadays computer related technologies (including internet) as not necessary to them. But who is using, finds it helpful and useful.
There is widely known, that old people doesn't use computer, internet and its related solutions, communities at all. Therefore bringing old people to information society is quite important to establish better unity in our information society.
First example, which comes in my mind - apartment society moved to web based management. Then all apartment owners should enter their monthly water usage data into that environment. There are also old people, who are apartment owners.
Suddenly they discovered, that even living in apartment and paying for it isn't possible without computer and internet. Also that apartment society management environment on web is sending PDF-invoices by e-mail - so old people do need also e-mail account.
Second example - necessity to communicate with children and/or grandchildren - they are often using internet for that - especially VoIP-solutions (IP-phone, Skype, Linphone, Google Talk, Facebook phone). I guess the IP-phone is most convenient way for older people to talk over internet and usually it's free if numbers are in same network. Then older people can call over internet without computer and often free. E.g. in Estonia (and also other countries) there is Linxtelecom, which offers IP-phone service - internal calls are free and outside network calling is also cheaper than usual.
I can bring one example using IP-phone with old people. One Estonian guy took his wife from Peru, Latin America. They came to Estonia but his wife would like to talk with her parents at Latin America quite often. Sometimes to teach using computers to old people would not possible - if they are very old, have visual impairments etc. So that Estonian guy bought two cheap IP-phone devices Grandstream BT-102. These devices had large LCD screen and buttons - perfect for older people. Then was calling to daughter in Estonia quite easy and free of charge - that Estonian guy used same device and service - so calls were free between Estonia and Peru over internet. You may imagine, how much there is to discuss :)
Nowadays there is also videoconversations quite usual. So, this can be also environmental saving when there can be avoid travelling using fossil fuel based vehicles - usually are grandparents living in somewhere rural area far from their children or grandchildren. Also for people with visual impairments are solutions.
Third example - using e-governmental and other e-services. In rural area there might be such services like banking or take some application to local government quite far away or even missing. Here comes the internet with e-services as almost only one solution for older people, especially at rural area. Then even older people will learn computers/internet and its software usage.
Gradually older people will discover also other possibilities of internet - reading news, e-mail or even listening radio or watching TV (e.g. in Estonia). After digital television coming there are also problems with regular radio waves - often is radio listening over internet only one solution - even in some cities (e.g. in Estonia). Also some older people know some foreign languages - there is also possible to read/listen/watch media in other languages, which would be without internet almost impossible due to its expenses on paper versions and often they aren't sold in rural areas.
Conclusion
When older people needs such internet-related services and devices - they need some assistance (by children or grandchildren) but it is possible, that they will start using them. There is also important if there are programs in motherlanguage - often older people doesn't know English. But using free and open source software (FOSS) brings more and better translated software to everyone.
Childrens or grandchildrens will sometimes give computer as gift to their parents or grandparents - this will help to bring also older people with low income into information society. Also using FOSS helps to reduce the cost of computer acquisition and usage.
In rural area sometimes is also mobile internet needed. This is not a problem, because data transfer limits for old people are more than enough - e.g. 3G/4G has enough limit (in Estonia 4G has currently 30 GB and 3G has 15 GB per month) - you can even configure computer to automatically receive updates and you can also watch videos/TV or listen radio over internet. This will also change in Estonia due to EstWin project, which brings cable-internet to every rural centre.
Choose a minority group and describe how they can make use of Internet to reduce alienation and prejudice.
I would choose old people - so called digital immigrants in our information society. They are usually looking nowadays computer related technologies (including internet) as not necessary to them. But who is using, finds it helpful and useful.
There is widely known, that old people doesn't use computer, internet and its related solutions, communities at all. Therefore bringing old people to information society is quite important to establish better unity in our information society.
First example, which comes in my mind - apartment society moved to web based management. Then all apartment owners should enter their monthly water usage data into that environment. There are also old people, who are apartment owners.
Suddenly they discovered, that even living in apartment and paying for it isn't possible without computer and internet. Also that apartment society management environment on web is sending PDF-invoices by e-mail - so old people do need also e-mail account.
Second example - necessity to communicate with children and/or grandchildren - they are often using internet for that - especially VoIP-solutions (IP-phone, Skype, Linphone, Google Talk, Facebook phone). I guess the IP-phone is most convenient way for older people to talk over internet and usually it's free if numbers are in same network. Then older people can call over internet without computer and often free. E.g. in Estonia (and also other countries) there is Linxtelecom, which offers IP-phone service - internal calls are free and outside network calling is also cheaper than usual.
I can bring one example using IP-phone with old people. One Estonian guy took his wife from Peru, Latin America. They came to Estonia but his wife would like to talk with her parents at Latin America quite often. Sometimes to teach using computers to old people would not possible - if they are very old, have visual impairments etc. So that Estonian guy bought two cheap IP-phone devices Grandstream BT-102. These devices had large LCD screen and buttons - perfect for older people. Then was calling to daughter in Estonia quite easy and free of charge - that Estonian guy used same device and service - so calls were free between Estonia and Peru over internet. You may imagine, how much there is to discuss :)
IP phone (Wikipedia)
Videophone over IP (Wikipedia)
Nowadays there is also videoconversations quite usual. So, this can be also environmental saving when there can be avoid travelling using fossil fuel based vehicles - usually are grandparents living in somewhere rural area far from their children or grandchildren. Also for people with visual impairments are solutions.
Skype videophone AiGuru SV1 from Asus - ideal for older people
TelyHD brings Skype and other features to communicate in simple way
Free and open source softphone Ekiga supports also SIP protocol for IP phones
(for Windows, Linux, Mac OS)
Also free and open source Linphone brings SIP protocol support to Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android, iPhone, Blackberry
(for Windows, Linux, Mac OS)
Gradually older people will discover also other possibilities of internet - reading news, e-mail or even listening radio or watching TV (e.g. in Estonia). After digital television coming there are also problems with regular radio waves - often is radio listening over internet only one solution - even in some cities (e.g. in Estonia). Also some older people know some foreign languages - there is also possible to read/listen/watch media in other languages, which would be without internet almost impossible due to its expenses on paper versions and often they aren't sold in rural areas.
Conclusion
When older people needs such internet-related services and devices - they need some assistance (by children or grandchildren) but it is possible, that they will start using them. There is also important if there are programs in motherlanguage - often older people doesn't know English. But using free and open source software (FOSS) brings more and better translated software to everyone.
Childrens or grandchildrens will sometimes give computer as gift to their parents or grandparents - this will help to bring also older people with low income into information society. Also using FOSS helps to reduce the cost of computer acquisition and usage.
In rural area sometimes is also mobile internet needed. This is not a problem, because data transfer limits for old people are more than enough - e.g. 3G/4G has enough limit (in Estonia 4G has currently 30 GB and 3G has 15 GB per month) - you can even configure computer to automatically receive updates and you can also watch videos/TV or listen radio over internet. This will also change in Estonia due to EstWin project, which brings cable-internet to every rural centre.
Topic 9, part 2 - The Hacker Ethic in a Networked World
Week 5 (October 8-14), topic 9 part2
Write a short blogged analysis about the hacker ethic found in today's world (is it there of not, how much of it etc).
For me are hackers clever programmers, who are "playing with cleverness" - sounds almost same as RMS said - "playful cleverness".
I guess, that current hacker ethics in today's world corresponds to Hacker howto written by ESR. Hackers are skilled programmers, who are wroting code and sharing it (GitHub and other similar places). I realized, that most important is the "social machine" (hackers and their relationships with each other) around the code, not only code itself.
I would also say, that increasing hacker ethics and culture seems to be key requirement for efficient, well programmed and secure world in the future. Therefore such activities like Hacker Highschool, Codecademy, Google Summer Code etc are very welcome phenomenons in our information society.
Often people say, that hackers are bad guys. Actually hackers are just good guys, who likes programming in very passionate way and they don't use their skills in bad ways. We can expect from hackers only penetration tests and then they definitely will tell to test subscriber, what were wrong and will fix it. So hackers are earning some additional income in very legal way.
Crackers are often paid but also unpaid criminals, who are using their skills in bad way and there is nothing to do with hacker ethics. There is one movie "Web warriors" (also in Estonian) in example, what might happen when teenager will mix being hacker or cracker.
For youngers:
Internet - working and living environment for hackers:
Some events :
Some links:
Some l33t translators:
Write a short blogged analysis about the hacker ethic found in today's world (is it there of not, how much of it etc).
For me are hackers clever programmers, who are "playing with cleverness" - sounds almost same as RMS said - "playful cleverness".
I guess, that current hacker ethics in today's world corresponds to Hacker howto written by ESR. Hackers are skilled programmers, who are wroting code and sharing it (GitHub and other similar places). I realized, that most important is the "social machine" (hackers and their relationships with each other) around the code, not only code itself.
I would also say, that increasing hacker ethics and culture seems to be key requirement for efficient, well programmed and secure world in the future. Therefore such activities like Hacker Highschool, Codecademy, Google Summer Code etc are very welcome phenomenons in our information society.
Often people say, that hackers are bad guys. Actually hackers are just good guys, who likes programming in very passionate way and they don't use their skills in bad ways. We can expect from hackers only penetration tests and then they definitely will tell to test subscriber, what were wrong and will fix it. So hackers are earning some additional income in very legal way.
Crackers are often paid but also unpaid criminals, who are using their skills in bad way and there is nothing to do with hacker ethics. There is one movie "Web warriors" (also in Estonian) in example, what might happen when teenager will mix being hacker or cracker.
For youngers:
- http://hackertyper.net/ - available also for Android and iOS
- http://hackertyper.com/ - works faster
- ASCII movies (puTTY is a good telnet/SSH client if needed):
- telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl - StarWars Episode IV - New Hope
- telnet miku.acm.uiuc.edu - some color...
Internet - working and living environment for hackers:
Internet map based on ping (from Wikipedia)
Some news:- test your internet speed
- calculate your network
- scan your ports (another one)
- for security reasons, especially at public internet - use free VPN (speed may change in future):
- http://bestfreevpn.com/ - 1,2Mbps@800kbps, every 8...24 hours will change password
- http://www.bestfreevpn.com/ - 1,2Mbps@512kbps, every 8...24 hours will change password
- http://www.mobilevpn.net/ - 1,2Mpbs@500kbps, every 4 hours will change password
- http://news.ycombinator.com/
- http://thehackernews.com/
- http://hackerslide.com/
- http://ihackernews.com/
- http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/
- http://hackermonthly.com/
- http://www.hackernewsletter.com/
- http://hckrnews.com/
- http://hackernewsradio.com/
- http://magazine.thehackernews.com/
- http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/computers_math/hacking/
Some events :
- http://wikibon.org/blog/2012-hacker-events-to-look-forward-to/
- http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Events
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon
Some links:
- Google for hackers
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet
- http://leetkey.mozdev.org/ - Firefox extension for l33t persons :)
- how to become l33t - don't try this at home!
- http://leetmore.ctf.su/
- http://l33tminion.livejournal.com/
- http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/30197/ask-how-to-geek-how-do-you-make-upside-down-text/
Some l33t translators:
- http://www.ypass.net/misc/haxor/ - one of the best
- http://www.jayssite.com/stuff/l33t/l33t_translator.html
- http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~ls2ef/pastproj/eloworks/L33t/index.html
- http://www.brenz.net/services/l337Maker.asp
- http://www.onlineconversion.com/haxor.htm
- http://www.myrotacol.net/html/haxor.php
- http://website-tools.net/google-keyword/word/133t+translator
- http://www.writtenhumor.com/1337-translator.html
- http://rolandblanton.com/h4x0r/
- http://www.1337talk.com/
- http://www.noslang.com/dictionary/full/
- http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/leet
- http://ryanross.net/leet/ - even for Windows :)
- http://r2o-1337.blogspot.com/
- http://leet-generator.sourceforge.net/ - for Linux
- http://jamsubuntu.blogspot.com/2009/01/l33t-sig.html - for Linux
- http://www.l33tsig.net/ - for Windows, Linux
- http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=148580 - for Gnome
- http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~kwysoc/hacks/
- http://h3x.se/
- http://n00b-or-1337.seebyseeing.net/
- http://www.noobstore.com/
- http://www.upsidedowntext.com/
- http://www.upside-down-text.com/
- http://www.fliptext.org/
- http://www.en.fliptext.net/
- http://www.sherv.net/flip.html
- http://www.typeupsidedown.com/
- http://www.fileformat.info/convert/text/upside-down.htm
- http://www.sunnyneo.com/upsidedowntext.php
- http://www.whatsmyip.org/upside-down-text-flipper/
- http://textupsidedown.com/
- http://text-symbols.com/upside-down/
- http://www.flipmytext.com/
- http://writeupsidedown.org/
- http://www.writeupsidedown.com/
- http://toolsgeek.com/upsidedown.php
- http://fliptitle.com/
- http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/text-upside-down/id333278851?mt=8 - for iOS
- https://play.google.com/store/search?q=text+upside+down&c=apps - for Android
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Topic 9, part 1 - Interesting terms at Jargon File
Week 5 (October 8-14), topic 9 part 1
Browse the Jargon File. Write a small blog entry about a term/definition which was the most intriguing for you.
I found three interesting terms:
dumbass attack - this might be a problem, even classified as attack, when outsider will run commands as root without looking their meanings
brainwidth - sounds interesting, especially nowadays, when multitasking seems to be important even at humans
ambimouseterous - seems to be good feature nowadays to use mouse with both hands
Browse the Jargon File. Write a small blog entry about a term/definition which was the most intriguing for you.
I found three interesting terms:
dumbass attack - this might be a problem, even classified as attack, when outsider will run commands as root without looking their meanings
brainwidth - sounds interesting, especially nowadays, when multitasking seems to be important even at humans
ambimouseterous - seems to be good feature nowadays to use mouse with both hands
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)