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• Using Java Executor on AppEngine causes AccessControlException

  - by Drew

  How do you get java.util.concurrent.Executor or CompletionService to work on Google AppEngine? The classes are all officially white-listed, but I get a runtime security error when trying to submit asynchronous tasks. Code: // uses the async API but this factory makes it so that tasks really // happen sequentially Executor executor = java.util.concurrent.Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor(); // wrap Executor in CompletionService CompletionService<String> completionService = new ExecutorCompletionService<String>(executor); final SomeTask someTask = new SomeTask(); // this line throws exception completionService.submit(new Callable<String>(){ public String call() { return someTask.doNothing("blah"); } }); // alternately, send Runnable task directly to Executor, // which also throws an exception executor.execute(new Runnable(){ public void run() { someTask.doNothing("blah"); } }); } private class SomeTask{ public String doNothing(String message){ return message; } } Exception: java.security.AccessControlException: access denied (java.lang.RuntimePermission modifyThreadGroup) at java.security.AccessControlContext.checkPermission(AccessControlContext.java:323) at java.security.AccessController.checkPermission(AccessController.java:546) at java.lang.SecurityManager.checkPermission(SecurityManager.java:532) at com.google.appengine.tools.development.DevAppServerFactory$CustomSecurityManager.checkPermission(DevAppServerFactory.java:166) at com.google.appengine.tools.development.DevAppServerFactory$CustomSecurityManager.checkAccess(DevAppServerFactory.java:191) at java.lang.ThreadGroup.checkAccess(ThreadGroup.java:288) at java.lang.Thread.init(Thread.java:332) at java.lang.Thread.(Thread.java:565) at java.util.concurrent.Executors$DefaultThreadFactory.newThread(Executors.java:542) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.addThread(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:672) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.addIfUnderCorePoolSize(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:697) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.execute(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:652) at java.util.concurrent.Executors$DelegatedExecutorService.execute(Executors.java:590) at java.util.concurrent.ExecutorCompletionService.submit(ExecutorCompletionService.java:152) This code works fine when run on Tomcat or via command-line JVM. However, it chokes in the AppEngine SDK Jetty container (tried with Eclipse plugin and the maven-gae-plugin). AppEngine is likely designed to not allow potentially dangerous programs to run, so I could see them completely disabling thread creation. However, why would Google allow you to create a class, but not allow you to call methods on it? White-listing java.util.concurrent is misleading. Is there some other way to do parallel/simultaneous/concurrent tasks on GAE?

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• WCF 3.5 - Remove SVC Extension - Special Case

  - by Brandon

  I have several RESTful endpoints like such: System.Security.Role.svc System.Security.User.svc etc. This is meant to be a namespace so our RESTful URL's would look like: /rest/{class namespace}/{actions} I have tried a few examples to get the SVC extension removed when my endpoint has multiple periods in it, however, nothing seems to work. I have tested with the WCF REST Contrib package (http://wcfrestcontrib.codeplex.com/), this example (http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/570695.aspx), and another StackOverflow post (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/355165/how-to-remove-thie-svc-extension-in-restful-wcf-service). This works great when my endpoint is something like this: Echo.svc It will properly remove the SVC extension. Any ideas on how to handle endpoints with multiple periods in the endpoint name? EDIT: After some further testing, I found out that it is failing because whenever you do: string path = HttpContext.Current.Request.AppRelativeCurrentExecutionFilePath; If the endpoint contains multiple periods, it strips off everything after the endpoint causing all of the standard IHttpModule's to fail. Example: If I call http://localhost/services/Echo/test, my relative app file path has a returned value of: ~/echo/test However, if I make a call as http://localhost/services/System.Security.User/test, then my relative app file path has a returned value of: ~/system.security.user I am missing the '/test' on the end in that situation.

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• Custom ASPNetMembership FailureInformation always null, OnValidatingPassword issue

  - by bigb

  As stated here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.security.membershipprovider.onvalidatingpassword.aspx "When the ValidatingPassword event has completed, the properties of the ValidatePasswordEventArgs object supplied as the e parameter can be examined to determine whether the current action should be canceled and if a particular Exception, stored in the FailureInformation property, should be thrown." Here is some details/code which really shows why FailureInformation shouldn't be always null http://forums.asp.net/t/991002.aspx if any password security conditions not matched. According with my Membership settings i should get an exception that password does not match password security conditions, but it is not happened. Then i did try to debug System.Web.ApplicationServices.dll(in .NET 4.0 System.Web.Security located here) Framework Code to see whats really happens there, but i cant step into this assembly, may be because of this [TypeForwardedFrom("System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=Neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a")] public abstract class MembershipProvider : ProviderBase Easily i may step into any another .NET 4.0 assembly, but in this one not. I did check, symbols for System.Web.ApplicationServices.dll loaded. Now i have only one idea how ti fix it - to override method OnValidatingPassword(ValidatePasswordEventArgs e). Thats my story. May be some one may help: 1) Any ideas why OnValidatingPassword not working? 2) Any ideas how to step into it?

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• Episerver Scheduled Job fails (scheduler service)

  - by Igor

  Our scheduled jobs started failing since yesterday with the following error message: CustomUpdate.Execute - System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at System.Web.Security.Roles.GetRolesForUser(String username) at EPiServer.Security.PrincipalInfo.CreatePrincipal(String username) The scheduled job uses anonymous execution and logs in programmatically using the following call: if (PrincipalInfo.CurrentPrincipal.Identity.Name == string.Empty) { PrincipalInfo.CurrentPrincipal = PrincipalInfo.CreatePrincipal(ApplicationSettings.ScheduledJobUsername); } I have put in some more logging around PrincipalInfo.CreatePrincipal call which is in Episerver.Security and noticed that PrincipalInfo.CreatePrincipal calls System.Web.Security.Roles.GetRolesForUser(username) and Roles.GetRolesForUser(username) returns an empty string array. There were no changes code wise or on the server (updates, etc). I checked that the user name used to run the task is in the database and has roles associated with it. I checked that applicationname is set up correctly and is associated with the user If i run the job manually using the same user it executes with no issues (i know there is a difference between running the job manually and using the scheduler) I also tried creating a new user, that didn’t work either. Has anyone come across the same or similar issue? Any thoughts how to resolve this issue?

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• Authenticating to Google Search Appliance using Basic HTTP auth and ASP.NET (VB)

  - by Chainlink

  I've run into a snag though which has to do with authentication between the Google Search Appliance and ASP. Normally, when asking for secure pages from the search appliance, the search appliance asks for credentials, then uses these credentials to try and access the secure results. If this attempt is successful, the page shows up in the results list. Since ASP is contacting the search appliance on the client's behalf, it will need to collect credentials and pass them along to the search appliance. I have tried a couple of different documented ways of accomplishing this, but they don't seem to work. Below is the code I have tried: 'Bypass SSL since discovery.gov.mb.ca does not have valid SSL cert (NOT PRODUCTION SAFE) ServerCertificateValidationCallback = New System.Net.Security.RemoteCertificateValidationCallback(AddressOf customXertificateValidation) googleUrl = "https://removed.com" Dim rdr As New XmlTextReader(googleUrl) Dim resolver As New XmlUrlResolver() Dim myCred As New System.Net.NetworkCredential("USERNAME", "PASSWORD", Nothing) Dim credCache As New CredentialCache() credCache.Add(New Uri(googleUrl), "Basic", myCred) resolver.Credentials = credCache rdr.XmlResolver = resolver doc = New System.Xml.XPath.XPathDocument(rdr) path = doc.CreateNavigator() Private Function customXertificateValidation(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal certificate As System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate, ByVal chain As System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Chain, ByVal sslPolicyErrors As Net.Security.SslPolicyErrors) As Boolean Return True End Function

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• Calling a wsdl in php over https using Zend Soap Client

  - by Sam Segers

  When I'm trying to connect to a webservice I always get the next fault SoapFault exception: [s:Sender] An error occurred when verifying security for the message I have to use a security header like: <o:Security env:mustUnderstand="1" xmlns:o="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"> <wsu:Timestamp env:mustUnderstand="1" xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd"> <wsu:Created>2010-06-10T08:22:59Z</wsu:Created> <wsu:Expires>2010-06-12T10:22:59Z</wsu:Expires> </wsu:Timestamp> <o:UsernameToken> <o:Username>myUsername</o:Username> <o:Password>myPassword</o:Password> </o:UsernameToken> </o:Security> My username and password are correct, I have allready tried to change the expiration date later but that doesn't solve it. What else could be the reason for this fault?

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• How do I grant a site's applet an AllPermission privilege?

  - by nahsra

  I'd like to specify certain applets to run with java.security.AllPermission on my computer (for debugging and security testing). However, I don't want to enable all applets that I run to have this permission. So, editing my user Java policy file (which I have ensured is the correct policy file through testing), I try to put this value: grant codeBase "http://host_where_applet_lives/-" { permission java.security.AllPermission; }; This value fails when the applet tries to do something powerful (create a new Thread, in my case). However, when I put the following value: grant { permission java.security.AllPermission; }; The applet is able to perform the powerful operation. The only difference is the lack of a codeBase attribute. An answer to a similar question asked here [1] seemed to suggest (but never show or prove) that AccessController.doPrivileged() calls may be required. To me, this sounds wrong as I don't need that call when I grant the permissions to all applets (the second example I showed). Even if this is a solution, littering the applets I run with AccessController.doPrivileged() calls is not easy or necessarily possible. To top it off, my tests show that this just doesn't work anyway. But I'm happy to hear more ideas around it. [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1751412/cant-get-allpermission-configured-for-intranet-applet-can-anyone-help

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• What does "active directory integration" mean in your .NET app?

  - by flipdoubt

  Our marketing department comes back with "active directory integration" being a key customer request, but our company does not seem to have the attention span to (1) decide on what functional changes we want to make toward this end, (2) interview a broad range of customer to identify the most requested functional changes, and (3) still have this be the "hot potato" issue next week. To help me get beyond the broad topic of "active directory integration," what does it mean in your .NET app, both ASP.NET and WinForms? Here are some sample changes I have to consider: When creating and managing users in your app, are administrators presented with a list of all AD users or just a group of AD users? When creating new security groups within your app (we call them Departments, like "Human Resources"), should this create new AD groups? Do administrators assign users to security groups within your app or outside via AD? Does it matter? Is the user signed on to your app by virtue of being signed on to Windows? If not, do you track users with your own user table and some kind of foreign key into AD? What foreign key do you use to link app users to AD users? Do you have to prove your login process protects user passwords? What foreign key do you use to link app security groups to AD security groups? If you have a WinForms component to your app (we have both ASP.NET and WinForms), do you use the Membership Provider in your WinForms app? Currently, our Membership and Role management predates the framework's version, so we do not use the Membership Provider. Am I missing any other areas of functional changes? Followup question Do apps that support "active directory integration" have the ability to authenticate users against more than one domain? Not that one user would authenticate to more than one domain but that different users of the same system would authenticate against different domains.

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• Exception: "Given final block not properly padded" in Linux, but it works in Windows

  - by user1685364

  My application works in windows, but fails in Linux with Given final block not properly padded exception. Configuration: JDK Version: 1.6 Windows : version 7 Linux : CentOS 5.8 64bit My code is below: import java.io.IOException; import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException; import java.security.InvalidKeyException; import java.security.Key; import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException; import java.security.SecureRandom; import javax.crypto.BadPaddingException; import javax.crypto.Cipher; import javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException; import javax.crypto.KeyGenerator; import javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException; import sun.misc.BASE64Decoder; import sun.misc.BASE64Encoder; public class SecurityKey { private static Key key = null; private static String encode = "UTF-8"; private static String cipherKey = "DES/ECB/PKCS5Padding"; static { try { KeyGenerator generator = KeyGenerator.getInstance("DES"); String seedStr = "test"; generator.init(new SecureRandom(seedStr.getBytes())); key = generator.generateKey(); } catch(Exception e) { } } // SecurityKey.decodeKey("password") public static String decodeKey(String str) throws Exception { if(str == null) return str; Cipher cipher = null; byte[] raw = null; BASE64Decoder decoder = new BASE64Decoder(); String result = null; cipher = Cipher.getInstance(cipherKey); cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key); raw = decoder.decodeBuffer(str); byte[] stringBytes = null; stringBytes = cipher.doFinal(raw); // Exception!!!! result = new String(stringBytes, encode); return result; } } At the line: ciper.doFilnal(raw); the following exception is thrown: javax.crypto.BadPaddingException: Given final block not properly padded How can I fix this issue?

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• Weird .net 4.0 exception when running unit tests

  - by vdh_ant

  Hi guys I am receiving the following exception when trying to run my unit tests using .net 4.0 under VS2010 with moq 3.1. Attempt by security transparent method 'SPPD.Backend.DataAccess.Test.Specs_for_Core.When_using_base.Can_create_mapper()' to access security critical method 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting.Assert.IsNotNull(System.Object)' failed. Assembly 'SPPD.Backend.DataAccess.Test, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' is marked with the AllowPartiallyTrustedCallersAttribute, and uses the level 2 security transparency model. Level 2 transparency causes all methods in AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers assemblies to become security transparent by default, which may be the cause of this exception. The test I am running is really straight forward and looks something like the following: [TestMethod] public void Can_create_mapper() { this.SetupTest(); var mockMapper = new Moq.Mock<IMapper>().Object; this._Resolver.Setup(x => x.Resolve<IMapper>()).Returns(mockMapper).Verifiable(); var testBaseDa = new TestBaseDa(); var result = testBaseDa.TestCreateMapper<IMapper>(); Assert.IsNotNull(result); //<<< THROWS EXCEPTION HERE Assert.AreSame(mockMapper, result); this._Resolver.Verify(); } I have no idea what this means and I have been looking around and have found very little on the topic. The closest reference I have found is this http://dotnetzip.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=80274 but its not very clear on what they did to fix it... Anyone got any ideas?

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• JMS template credentials default value

  - by Gandalf StormCrow

  Hello everyone I'm trying to work with jboss messaging, does anyone knows the default value for these java.naming.security.principal and java.naming.security.credentials or how can I set them? <bean id="jndiTemplate" class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiTemplate"> <property name="environment"> <props> <prop key="java.naming.factory.initial">org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory</prop> <prop key="java.naming.provider.url">jnp://localhost:8080</prop> <prop key="java.naming.factory.url.pkgs">org.jboss.naming:org.jnp.interfaces</prop> <prop key="java.naming.security.principal">value</prop> <prop key="java.naming.security.credentials">value</prop> </props> </property> </bean> I'm trying to instansiate the <bean id="connectionFactory" class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean"> I'm guessing that this is the cause why jboss timeouts when starts

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• Does ASP.NET need to be configured for Full Trust to implement 'PageHandlerFactory' ?

  - by Kev

  Our hosting platform (running IIS6/ASP.NET 2.0) is configured to run under partial trust. In the machine wide web.config file we set the ASP.NET trust level to Medium (and lock to prevent overrides) and use a modified policy file. When trying to add a custom HttpHandler to handle .aspx requests for a website running in this configuration I get the following security exception: Security Exception Description: The application attempted to perform an operation not allowed by the security policy. To grant this application the required permission please contact your system administrator or change the application's trust level in the configuration file. Exception Details: System.Security.SecurityException: Request failed. Source Error: An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below. Stack Trace: [SecurityException: Request failed.] System.Reflection.Assembly._GetType(String name, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) +0 System.Reflection.Assembly.GetType(String name, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) +42 System.Web.Compilation.CompilationUtil.GetTypeFromAssemblies(AssemblyCollection assembliesCollection, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase) +172 System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetType(String typeName, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) +291 System.Web.Configuration.ConfigUtil.GetType(String typeName, String propertyName, ConfigurationElement configElement, XmlNode node, Boolean checkAptcaBit, Boolean ignoreCase) +52 I'm using a class derived from PageHandlerFactory, for example: public class MyPageHandlerFactory : PageHandlerFactory { public override System.Web.IHttpHandler GetHandler(System.Web.HttpContext context, string requestType, string virtualPath, string path) { // CustomPageHandler derives from System.Web.UI.Page return new CustomPageHandler(); } } My web.config httpHandler configuration is as follow: <httpHandlers> <add verb="*" path="*.aspx" type="MyPageHandler.MyPageHandlerFactory" /> </httpHandlers> The documentation for PageHandlerFactory shows that PageHandlerFactory is decorated with the following attributes: [PermissionSetAttribute(SecurityAction.LinkDemand, Unrestricted = true)] [PermissionSetAttribute(SecurityAction.InheritanceDemand, Unrestricted = true)] public class PageHandlerFactory : IHttpHandlerFactory Does this mean that I need to set ASP.NET to run at Full Trust to be able to create my own PageHandlerFactory classes?

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• 401 Unauthorized returned on GET request (https) with correct credentials

  - by Johnny Grass

  I am trying to login to my web app using HttpWebRequest but I keep getting the following error: System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized. Fiddler has the following output: Result Protocol Host URL 200 HTTP CONNECT mysite.com:443 302 HTTPS mysite.com /auth 401 HTTP mysite.com /auth This is what I'm doing: // to ignore SSL certificate errors public bool AcceptAllCertifications(object sender, System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate certification, System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Chain chain, System.Net.Security.SslPolicyErrors sslPolicyErrors) { return true; } try { // request Uri uri = new Uri("https://mysite.com/auth"); HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(uri) as HttpWebRequest; request.Accept = "application/xml"; // authentication string user = "user"; string pwd = "secret"; string auth = "Basic " + Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetBytes(user + ":" + pwd)); request.Headers.Add("Authorization", auth); ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback = new System.Net.Security.RemoteCertificateValidationCallback(AcceptAllCertifications); // response. HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse(); // Display Stream dataStream = response.GetResponseStream(); StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(dataStream); string responseFromServer = reader.ReadToEnd(); Console.WriteLine(responseFromServer); // Cleanup reader.Close(); dataStream.Close(); response.Close(); } catch (WebException webEx) { Console.Write(webEx.ToString()); } I am able to log in to the same site with no problem using ASIHTTPRequest in a Mac app like this: NSURL *login_url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://mysite.com/auth"]; ASIHTTPRequest *request = [ASIHTTPRequest requestWithURL:login_url]; [request setDelegate:self]; [request setUsername:name]; [request setPassword:pwd]; [request setRequestMethod:@"GET"]; [request addRequestHeader:@"Accept" value:@"application/xml"]; [request startAsynchronous];

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• Performance of VIEW vs. SQL statement

  - by Matt W.

  I have a query that goes something like the following: select <field list> from <table list> where <join conditions> and <condition list> and PrimaryKey in (select PrimaryKey from <table list> where <join list> and <condition list>) and PrimaryKey not in (select PrimaryKey from <table list> where <join list> and <condition list>) The sub-select queries both have multiple sub-select queries of their own that I'm not showing so as not to clutter the statement. One of the developers on my team thinks a view would be better. I disagree in that the SQL statement uses variables passed in by the program (based on the user's login Id). Are there any hard and fast rules on when a view should be used vs. using a SQL statement? What kind of performance gain issues are there in running SQL statements on their own against regular tables vs. against views. (Note that all the joins / where conditions are against indexed columns, so that shouldn't be an issue.) EDIT for clarification... Here's the query I'm working with: select obj_id from object where obj_id in( (select distinct(sec_id) from security where sec_type_id = 494 and ( (sec_usergroup_id = 3278 and sec_usergroup_type_id = 230) or (sec_usergroup_id in (select ug_gi_id from user_group where ug_ui_id = 3278) and sec_usergroup_type_id = 231) ) and sec_obj_id in ( select obj_id from object where obj_ot_id in (select of_ot_id from obj_form left outer join obj_type on ot_id = of_ot_id where ot_app_id = 87 and of_id in (select sec_obj_id from security where sec_type_id = 493 and ( (sec_usergroup_id = 3278 and sec_usergroup_type_id = 230) or (sec_usergroup_id in (select ug_gi_id from user_group where ug_ui_id = 3278) and sec_usergroup_type_id = 231) ) ) and of_usage_type_id = 131 ) ) ) ) or (obj_ot_id in (select of_ot_id from obj_form left outer join obj_type on ot_id = of_ot_id where ot_app_id = 87 and of_id in (select sec_obj_id from security where sec_type_id = 493 and ( (sec_usergroup_id = 3278 and sec_usergroup_type_id = 230) or (sec_usergroup_id in (select ug_gi_id from user_group where ug_ui_id = 3278) and sec_usergroup_type_id = 231) ) ) and of_usage_type_id = 131 ) and obj_id not in (select sec_obj_id from security where sec_type_id = 494) )

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• Adventures on Enterprise Library 5.0: Who moved my cheese (namespace)

  - by Junior Mayhé

  Jesus, Krishna, Budda! I've migrated to EntLib 5.0, but classes like ISymmetricCryptoProvider are not recognized anymore. Funny to say that Data, Logging and other blocks are working compiling fine. Here's the problematic class: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common.Configuration;//-->it's not working anymore using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Security.Cryptography;//-->it's not working anymore namespace MyClassLibrary.Security.EnterpriseLibrary { public sealed class Crypto { public static ISymmetricCryptoProvider MyProvider { get { //IConfigurationSource is not recognized either, neither SystemConfigurationSource IConfigurationSource cs = new SystemConfigurationSource(); SymmetricCryptoProviderFactory scpf = new SymmetricCryptoProviderFactory(cs); ISymmetricCryptoProvider p = scpf.CreateDefault(); return p; } } The references are fine on project too. I really don't know why this particular project it's causing too many trouble on VS2010! Older references were deleted, project was cleaned, rebuilt, but can't make it compile :-( The references are: Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Logging Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Logging.Database Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Security Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Security.Cryptography Why some namespaces can be found while others can't?

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• Data Warehouse: Modelling a future schedule

  - by Pat

  I'm creating a DW that will contain data on financial securities such as bonds and loans. These securities are associated with payment schedules. For example, a bond could pay quarterly, while a mortage would usually pay monthly (sometimes biweekly). The payment schedule is created when the security is traded and, in the majority of cases, will remain unchanged. However, the design would need to accomodate those cases where it does change. I'm currently attempting to model this data and I'm having difficulty coming up with a workable design. One of the most commonly queried fields is "next payment date". Users often want to know when a security will pay next. Therefore, I want to make it as easy as possible for them to get the next payment date and amount for each security. Also, users often run historical queries in which case they'd want the next payment date and amount as of a specific point in time. For example, they may want to look back at 1/31/09 and query the next payment dates (which would usually be in February 2009 for mortgages). It's also common that they want to query a security's entire payment schedule, which might consist of 360 records (30 year mortgage x 12 payments/year). Since the next payment date and amount would be changing each month or even biweekly, these fields wouldn't seem to fit into a slow-changing dimension very well. It would probably make more sense to use a fact table, but I'm unsure of how to model it. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

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• Week in Geek: USDA Chooses Microsoft for Cloud Services Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to create geeky LED holiday lights with old bottles, dig deeper in Windows Defrag via the command prompt, use Google Chrome’s drag/drop feature to upload files easier, find great gift recommendations by looking through the How-To Geek holiday gift guide, and have fun adding Merry Christmas fonts to our computers. Photo by ntr23. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week, so we have extra news link goodness with information that is good for you to know. USDA making the move to Microsoft The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it has chosen Microsoft to host things like e-mail, instant messaging, and collaboration through the software giant’s Business Productivity Online Suite. Google says it was cut off from USDA project bid Google is claiming that it was not given a chance to bid on a cloud-computing project for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which the contract was awarded to rival Microsoft. Apache is being forced into a Java Fork When Oracle rolled over Apache and Google’s objections to its Java plans in December, the scene was set for Apache to leave and, eventually, force a Java code fork. Tumblr explains daylong outage After experiencing an outage that started on Sunday afternoon and stretched through most of the day yesterday, Tumblr has explained what happened. Google demos Chrome OS, launches pilot program During a press briefing this week in San Francisco, Google launched the Chrome application store and demonstrated Chrome OS, its browser-centric netbook operating system. Don’t expect Spotify in U.S. this holiday season As of last week, Spotify had yet to sign a single licensing deal with a major label, after spending more than a year negotiating, multiple music sources told CNET. December 2010 Patch Tuesday will come with most bulletins ever According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 17 Security Bulletins addressing 40 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, December 14. It will also host a webcast to address customer questions the following day. Hacker plants back door in Symbian firmware Indian hacker Atul Alex has had a look at the firmware for Symbian S60 smartphones and come up with a back door for it. PC quarantines raise tough complexities The concept of quarantining PCs to prevent widespread infection is “interesting, but difficult to implement, with far too many problems”, said security experts. Symantec: DDoS attacks hard to defend It has surfaced that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Visa and MasterCard Web sites on Wednesday were carried out by a toolkit known as low orbit ion cannon (LOIC). Web Sockets and the risks of unfinished standards Enthusiasm for a promising new standard called Web Sockets has quickly cooled in some quarters as a potential security problem led some browser makers to hastily postpone support. Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection Microsoft is making changes to Internet Explorer 9’s security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions. NASA sold PCs with sensitive data NASA failed to remove sensitive data from computers that it sold, according to an audit report released this week. Cybercrooks create fake Amazon receipts The bad guys have created yet another online scam, this one involving fake Amazon receipts. World of Warcraft character move fees waived Until December 22, Blizzard will allow free realm transfers from 25 highly populated servers to alleviate log-in queues or performance issues. (The free transfers are one-way and one-time only.) SpaceX Dragon reaches orbit atop a Falcon with a fiery tail The Space Exploration Technologies corporation has become the first nongovernmental entity to put a vehicle into low Earth orbit. Geek Video of the Week If birds have wings, then why are the Angry Birds using slingshots? Photo by Dorkly Bits. Wait… Birds have Wings, Why are the Angry Ones Using Slingshots? Sysadmin Geek Tips How To Setup Email Alerts on Linux Using Gmail or SMTP Linux machines may require administrative intervention in countless ways, but without manually logging into them how would you know about it? Here’s how to setup emails to get notified when your machines want some tender love and attention. Random TinyHacker Links Red Panda Webcam Support Firefox and the Knoxville Zoo’s Red Panda program. Christmas Icons (Icons we like) Superb set of holiday icons by lgp85 at deviantArt. Download the .zip and use as .png or convert to .ico at Convertico.com or with tiny app Imagicon. Super User Questions Enjoy reading the great answers to this week’s popular questions from Super User Useful USB boot disks? DVD/CD burning .zip: is it more reliable, faster, longer lasting to burn a zip of files rather than the files as a folder? What are other ways to backup my files if I do not have an external drive? Anti virus what is the difference between these all? How can I block all Facebook elements/content? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a busy week between work and preparing for the holidays? Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles of the week. 20 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? How to Use and Customize Google Chrome Web Apps One Year Ago on How-To Geek This week’s batch of retro geeky goodness is all about customizing Windows 7. ClassicShell Adds Classic Start Menu and Explorer Features to Windows 7 Get an Aero-Styled Classic Start Menu in Windows 7 Customize the Windows 7 Logon Screen Get the Classic Style Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7 How To Enable Check Boxes for Items In Windows 7 The Geek Note We would like you to join us in welcoming Jason Fitzpatrick to the writing staff here at How-To Geek. He started with us this past week, so take some time to read through his articles about the Wii, Kindle, & PlayStation 2 Peripherals and leave a friendly comment to say “Hi”! Got a great tip to share? Make sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by real00. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek Settle into Orbit with the Voyage Theme for Chrome and Iron Awesome Safari Compass Icons Set Escape from the Exploding Planet Wallpaper Move Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress Pytask is an Easy to Use To-Do List Manager for Your Ubuntu System Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox

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• Week in Geek: FBI Back Door in OpenBSD Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to migrate bookmarks from Delicious to Diigo, fix annoying arrows, play old-school DOS games, schedule smart computer shutdowns, use breaks in Microsoft Word to better format documents, check the condition of hard-disks using Linux disk utilities, & what the Linux fstab is and how it works. Photo by Jameson42. Random Geek Links Another week with extra news link goodness to help keep you up to date. Photo by justmakeit. Report of FBI back door roils OpenBSD community Allegations that the FBI surreptitiously placed a back door into the OpenBSD operating system have alarmed the computer security community, prompting calls for an audit of the source code and claims that the charges must be a hoax. Fortinet: Job outlook improving for cybercrooks In an ironic twist in the job market, more positions will open up for developers who can write customized malware packers, people who can break CAPTCHA codes, and distributors who can spread malicious code, according to Fortinet. Enisa: Malware for smartphones is a ’serious risk’ Businesses and consumers are at risk of data breaches through smartphone use, according to the European Network and Information Security Agency. The trick with the f: Google and Microsoft web sites distribute malware Last week, Google’s DoubleClick advertising platform and Microsoft’s rad.msn.com online ad network briefly distributed malware to other web sites in the form of advertising banners. New scam tactic: Fake disk defraggers It would appear that scammers are trying out new programs to see which might best confuse potential victims and evade detection by legitimate antivirus software. Microsoft closes IE and Stuxnet holes As previously announced, Microsoft has released 17 security updates to close 40 security holes. All four Windows holes so far disclosed in connection with Stuxnet have now been closed. Microsoft Offers H.264 Support to Firefox on Windows via Add-On The new HTML5 Extension for Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in add-on from Microsoft offers users that are running Firefox on Windows 7 H.264 support for HTML5 video playback. Google proclaims Chrome business-ready Google has announced that Chrome is ready for corporate use. Microsoft Tells Exchange Customers to Think Twice Before Opting for Google Message Continuity This week, Microsoft is telling companies still running Exchange 2010’s precursors that they should carefully consider the implications of embracing Google Message Continuity. Who Google has in mind for its Chrome OS users Steven Vaughan-Nichols explains why he feels that Chrome OS will be ideal for either office-workers or people who need a computer, but do not know the first thing about how to use one safely. Oracle takes office suite to the cloud Oracle has introduced Cloud Office 1.0, a cloud-based version of its office suite, which is aimed at web and mobile users. Mozilla pays premiums for reports of vulnerabilities The Mozilla Foundation has followed Google’s example by expanding its rewards program for reports of vulnerabilities in its Web applications. Who bought those 882 Novell patents? Not just Microsoft The mysterious CPTN Holdings — the organization that bought the 882 Novell patents as part of the terms of the Attachmate acquisition of Novell – has been unmasked (Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle). Appeals court: Feds need warrants for e-mail Police must obtain search warrants before perusing Internet users’ e-mail records, a federal appeals court ruled today in a landmark decision that struck down part of a 1986 law allowing warrantless access. Geek Video of the Week What happens when someone plays a wicked prank by shoveling crazy snow paths that lead to dead ends or turn back on themselves? Watch to find out! Photo by CollegeHumor. Janitor Snow Shoveling Prank Random TinyHacker Links The Oatmeal on Cat vs Internet What lengths will our poor neglected kitty hero have to go to in order to get some attention? Guide On Using JoliCloud With Windows JoliCloud is a nifty operating system that’s made for people who need a light-weight OS that’s mostly cloud based. Check this guide on using it with Windows. Use Cameyo to Easily Create Portable Programs Here’s a nifty tool to make portable apps out of programs in Windows. Check out the guide to do it. Better Family Tech Support A nice new site by Google to help members of family understand how computers work. Track Your Stolen Mobile Phone With F-Secure A useful anti-theft tool for your mobile phone. Super User Questions Another week with great answers to popular questions from Super User. What Chrome password manager fits my requirements? What’s the best way to be able to reimage windows computers? Could you suggest feature-rich disk-based personal backup program for linux (and I’ve seen a few)? What is IPv6 and why should I care? Is there any way to find out what programs are trying to connect to Internet on windows? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Here are our hottest articles full of geeky goodness from this past week at HTG. 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 Kills Viruses Dead. Download It Now. Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? Ask the Readers: Would You Be Willing to Give Windows Up and Use a Different O.S.? The Twelve Days of Geekmas One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy reading through our latest batch of retro-geek goodness from one year ago. Macrium Reflect is a Free and Easy To Use Backup Utility How To Turn a Physical Computer Into A Virtual Machine with Disk2vhd How To Restore Windows 7 from a System Image How To Manage Hard Drive Space Used by Windows 7 Backup and Restore How To Manage Hibernate Mode in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week, so see you back here again after the holidays! Got a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by mitjamavsar. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Deathwing the Destroyer – WoW Cataclysm Dragon Wallpaper Drag2Up Lets You Drag and Drop Files to the Web With Ease The Spam Police Parts 1 and 2 – Goodbye Spammers [Videos] Snow Angels Theme for Windows 7 Exploring the Jungle Ruins Wallpaper Protect Your Privacy When Browsing with Chrome and Iron Browser

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• I Hereby Resolve… (T-SQL Tuesday #14)

  - by smisner

  It’s time for another T-SQL Tuesday, hosted this month by Jen McCown (blog|twitter), on the topic of resolutions. Specifically, “what techie resolutions have you been pondering, and why?” I like that word – pondering – because I ponder a lot. And while there are many things that I do already because of my job, there are many more things that I ponder about doing…if only I had the time. Then I ponder about making time, but then it’s back to work! In 2010, I was moderately more successful in making time for things that I ponder about than I had been in years past, and I hope to continue that trend in 2011. If Jen hadn’t settled on this topic, I could keep my ponderings to myself and no one would ever know the outcome, but she’s egged me on (and everyone else that chooses to participate)! So here goes… For me, having resolve to do something means that I wouldn’t be doing that something as part of my ordinary routine. It takes extra effort to make time for it. It’s not something that I do once and check off a list, but something that I need to commit to over a period of time. So with that in mind, I hereby resolve… To Learn Something New… One of the things I love about my job is that I get to do a lot of things outside of my ordinary routine. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of opportunity! So what more could I possibly add to that list of things to do? Well, the more I learn, the more I realize I have so much more to learn. It would be much easier to remain in ignorant bliss, but I was born to learn. Constantly. (And apparently to teach, too– my father will tell you that as a small child, I had the neighborhood kids gathered together to play school – in the summer. I’m sure they loved that – but they did it!) These are some of things that I want to dedicate some time to learning this year: Spatial data. I have a good understanding of how maps in Reporting Services works, and I can cobble together a simple T-SQL spatial query, but I know I’m only scratching the surface here. Rob Farley (blog|twitter) posted interesting examples of combining maps and PivotViewer, and I think there’s so many more creative possibilities. I’ve always felt that pictures (including charts and maps) really help people get their minds wrapped around data better, and because a lot of data has a geographic aspect to it, I believe developing some expertise here will be beneficial to my work. PivotViewer. Not only is PivotViewer combined with maps a useful way to visualize data, but it’s an interesting way to work with data. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out this interactive demonstration using Netflx OData feed. According to Rob Farley, learning how to work with PivotViewer isn’t trivial. Just the type of challenge I like! Security. You’ve heard of the accidental DBA? Well, I am the accidental security person – is there a word for that role? My eyes used to glaze over when having to study about security, or  when reading anything about it. Then I had a problem long ago that no one could figure out – not even the vendor’s tech support – until I rolled up my sleeves and painstakingly worked through the myriad of potential problems to resolve a very thorny security issue. I learned a lot in the process, and have been able to share what I’ve learned with a lot of people. But I’m not convinced their eyes weren’t glazing over, too. I don’t take it personally – it’s just a very dry topic! So in addition to deepening my understanding about security, I want to find a way to make the subject as it relates to SQL Server and business intelligence more accessible and less boring. Well, there’s actually a lot more that I could put on this list, and a lot more things I have plans to do this coming year, but I run the risk of overcommitting myself. And then I wouldn’t have time… To Have Fun! My name is Stacia and I’m a workaholic. When I love what I do, it’s difficult to separate out the work time from the fun time. But there are some things that I’ve been meaning to do that aren’t related to business intelligence for which I really need to develop some resolve. And they are techie resolutions, too, in a roundabout sort of way! Photography. When my husband and I went on an extended camping trip in 2009 to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, I had a nice little digital camera that took decent pictures. But then I saw the gorgeous cameras that other tourists were toting around and decided I needed one too. So I bought a Nikon D90 and have started to learn to use it, but I’m definitely still in the beginning stages. I traveled so much in 2010 and worked on two book projects that I didn’t have a lot of free time to devote to it. I was very inspired by Kimberly Tripp’s (blog|twitter) and Paul Randal’s (blog|twitter) photo-adventure in Alaska, though, and plan to spend some dedicated time with my camera this year. (And hopefully before I move to Alaska – nothing set in stone yet, but we hope to move to a remote location – with Internet access – later this year!) Astronomy. I have this cool telescope, but it suffers the same fate as my camera. I have been gone too much and busy with other things that I haven’t had time to work with it. I’ll figure out how it works, and then so much time passes by that I forget how to use it. I have this crazy idea that I can actually put the camera and the telescope together for astrophotography, but I think I need to start simple by learning how to use each component individually. As long as I’m living in Las Vegas, I know I’ll have clear skies for nighttime viewing, but when we move to Alaska, we’ll be living in a rain forest. I have no idea what my opportunities will be like there – except I know that when the sky is clear, it will be far more amazing than anything I can see in Vegas – even out in the desert - because I’ll be so far away from city light pollution. I’ve been contemplating putting together a blog on these topics as I learn. As many of my fellow bloggers in the SQL Server community know, sometimes the best way to learn something is to sit down and write about it. I’m just stumped by coming up with a clever name for the new blog, which I was thinking about inaugurating with my move to Alaska. Except that I don’t know when that will be exactly, so we’ll just have to wait and see which comes first!

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• Chock-full of Identity Customers at Oracle OpenWorld

  - by Tanu Sood

    Oracle Openworld (OOW) 2012 kicks off this coming Sunday. Oracle OpenWorld is known to bring in Oracle customers, organizations big and small, from all over the world. And, Identity Management is no exception. If you are looking to catch up with Oracle Identity Management customers, hear first-hand about their implementation experiences and discuss industry trends, business drivers, solutions and more at OOW, here are some sessions we recommend you attend: Monday, October 1, 2012 CON9405: Trends in Identity Management 10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m., Moscone West 3003 Subject matter experts from Kaiser Permanente and SuperValu share the stage with Amit Jasuja, Snior Vice President, Oracle Identity Management and Security to discuss how the latest advances in Identity Management are helping customers address emerging requirements for securely enabling cloud, social and mobile environments. CON9492: Simplifying your Identity Management Implementation 3:15 p.m. – 4:15 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Implementation experts from British Telecom, Kaiser Permanente and UPMC participate in a panel to discuss best practices, key strategies and lessons learned based on their own experiences. Attendees will hear first-hand what they can do to streamline and simplify their identity management implementation framework for a quick return-on-investment and maximum efficiency. CON9444: Modernized and Complete Access Management 4:45 p.m. – 5:45 p.m., Moscone West 3008 We have come a long way from the days of web single sign-on addressing the core business requirements. Today, as technology and business evolves, organizations are seeking new capabilities like federation, token services, fine grained authorizations, web fraud prevention and strong authentication. This session will explore the emerging requirements for access management, what a complete solution is like, complemented with real-world customer case studies from ETS, Kaiser Permanente and TURKCELL and product demonstrations. Tuesday, October 2, 2012 CON9437: Mobile Access Management 10:15 a.m. – 11:15 a.m., Moscone West 3022 With more than 5 billion mobile devices on the planet and an increasing number of users using their own devices to access corporate data and applications, securely extending identity management to mobile devices has become a hot topic. This session will feature Identity Management evangelists from companies like Intuit, NetApp and Toyota to discuss how to extend your existing identity management infrastructure and policies to securely and seamlessly enable mobile user access. CON9491: Enhancing the End-User Experience with Oracle Identity Governance applications 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., Moscone West 3008 As organizations seek to encourage more and more user self service, business users are now primary end users for identity management installations.  Join experts from Visa and Oracle as they explore how Oracle Identity Governance solutions deliver complete identity administration and governance solutions with support for emerging requirements like cloud identities and mobile devices. CON9447: Enabling Access for Hundreds of Millions of Users 1:15 p.m. – 2:15 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Dealing with scale problems? Looking to address identity management requirements with million or so users in mind? Then take note of Cisco’s implementation. Join this session to hear first-hand how Cisco tackled identity management and scaled their implementation to bolster security and enforce compliance. CON9465: Next Generation Directory – Oracle Unified Directory 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Get the 360 degrees perspective from a solution provider, implementation services partner and the customer in this session to learn how the latest Oracle Unified Directory solutions can help you build a directory infrastructure that is optimized to support cloud, mobile and social networking and yet deliver on scale and performance. Wednesday, October 3, 2012 CON9494: Sun2Oracle: Identity Management Platform Transformation 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Sun customers are actively defining strategies for how they will modernize their identity deployments. Learn how customers like Avea and SuperValu are leveraging their Sun investment, evaluating areas of expansion/improvement and building momentum. CON9631: Entitlement-centric Access to SOA and Cloud Services 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., Marriott Marquis, Salon 7 How do you enforce that a junior trader can submit 10 trades/day, with a total value of $5M, if market volatility is low? How can hide sensitive patient information from clerical workers but make it visible to specialists as long as consent has been given or there is an emergency? How do you externalize such entitlements to allow dynamic changes without having to touch the application code? In this session, Uberether and HerbaLife take the stage with Oracle to demonstrate how you can enforce such entitlements on a service not just within your intranet but also right at the perimeter. CON3957 - Delivering Secure Wi-Fi on the Tube as an Olympics Legacy from London 2012 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., Moscone West 3003 In this session, Virgin Media, the U.K.’s first combined provider of broadband, TV, mobile, and home phone services, shares how it is providing free secure Wi-Fi services to the London Underground, using Oracle Virtual Directory and Oracle Entitlements Server, leveraging back-end legacy systems that were never designed to be externalized. As an Olympics 2012 legacy, the Oracle architecture will form a platform to be consumed by other Virgin Media services such as video on demand. CON9493: Identity Management and the Cloud 1:15 p.m. – 2:15 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Security is the number one barrier to cloud service adoption.  Not so for industry leading companies like SaskTel, ConAgra foods and UPMC. This session will explore how these organizations are using Oracle Identity with cloud services and how some are offering identity management as a cloud service. CON9624: Real-Time External Authorization for Middleware, Applications, and Databases 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Moscone West 3008 As organizations seek to grant access to broader and more diverse user populations, the importance of centrally defined and applied authorization policies become critical; both to identify who has access to what and to improve the end user experience.  This session will explore how customers are using attribute and role-based access to achieve these goals. CON9625: Taking control of WebCenter Security 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Many organizations are extending WebCenter in a business to business scenario requiring secure identification and authorization of business partners and their users. Leveraging LADWP’s use case, this session will focus on how customers are leveraging, securing and providing access control to Oracle WebCenter portal and mobile solutions. Thursday, October 4, 2012 CON9662: Securing Oracle Applications with the Oracle Enterprise Identity Management Platform 2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Oracle Enterprise identity Management solutions are designed to secure access and simplify compliance to Oracle Applications.  Whether you are an EBS customer looking to upgrade from Oracle Single Sign-on or a Fusion Application customer seeking to leverage the Identity instance as an enterprise security platform, this session with Qualcomm and Oracle will help you understand how to get the most out of your investment. And here’s the complete listing of all the Identity Management sessions at Oracle OpenWorld.

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• It's not just “Single Sign-on” by Steve Knott (aurionPro SENA)

  - by Greg Jensen

  It is true that Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-on (Oracle ESSO) started out as purely an application single sign-on tool but as we have seen in the previous articles in this series the product has matured into a suite of tools that can do more than just automated single sign-on and can also provide rapidly deployed, cost effective solution to many demanding password management problems. In the last article of this series I would like to discuss three cases where customers faced password scenarios that required more than just single sign-on and how some of the less well known tools in the Oracle ESSO suite “kitbag” helped solve these challenges. Case #1 One of the issues often faced by our customers is how to keep their applications compliant. I had a client who liked the idea of automated single sign-on for most of his applications but had a key requirement to actually increase the security for one specific SOX application. For the SOX application he wanted to secure access by using two-factor authentication with a smartcard. The problem was that the application did not support two-factor authentication. The solution was to use a feature from the Oracle ESSO suite called authentication manager. This feature enables you to have multiple authentication methods for the same user which in this case was a smartcard and the Windows password.  Within authentication manager each authenticator can be configured with a security grade so we gave the smartcard a high grade and the Windows password a normal grade. Security grading in Oracle ESSO can be configured on a per application basis so we set the SOX application to require the higher grade smartcard authenticator. The end result for the user was that they enjoyed automated single sign-on for most of the applications apart from the SOX application. When the SOX application was launched, the user was required by ESSO to present their smartcard before being given access to the application. Case #2 Another example solving compliance issues was in the case of a large energy company who had a number of core billing applications. New regulations required that users change their password regularly and use a complex password. The problem facing the customer was that the core billing applications did not have any native user password change functionality. The customer could not replace the core applications because of the cost and time required to re-develop them. With a reputation for innovation aurionPro SENA were approached to provide a solution to this problem using Oracle ESSO. Oracle ESSO has a password expiry feature that can be triggered periodically based on the timestamp of the users’ last password creation therefore our strategy here was to leverage this feature to provide the password change experience. The trigger can launch an application change password event however in this scenario there was no native change password feature that could be launched therefore a “dummy” change password screen was created that could imitate the missing change password function and connect to the application database on behalf of the user. Oracle ESSO was configured to trigger a change password event every 60 days. After this period if the user launched the application Oracle ESSO would detect the logon screen and invoke the password expiry feature. Oracle ESSO would trigger the “dummy screen,” detect it automatically as the application change password screen and insert a complex password on behalf of the user. After the password event had completed the user was logged on to the application with their new password. All this was provided at a fraction of the cost of re-developing the core applications. Case #3 Recent popular initiatives such as the BYOD and working from home schemes bring with them many challenges in administering “unmanaged machines” and sometimes “unmanageable users.” In a recent case, a client had a dispersed community of casual contractors who worked for the business using their own laptops to access applications. To improve security the around password management the security goal was to provision the passwords directly to these contractors. In a previous article we saw how Oracle ESSO has the capability to provision passwords through Provisioning Gateway but the challenge in this scenario was how to get the Oracle ESSO agent to the casual contractor on an unmanaged machine. The answer was to use another tool in the suite, Oracle ESSO Anywhere. This component can compile the normal Oracle ESSO functionality into a deployment package that can be made available from a website in a similar way to a streamed application. The ESSO Anywhere agent does not actually install into the registry or program files but runs in a folder within the user’s profile therefore no local administrator rights are required for installation. The ESSO Anywhere package can also be configured to stay persistent or disable itself at the end of the user’s session. In this case the user just needed to be told where the website package was located and download the package. Once the download was complete the agent started automatically and the user was provided with single sign-on to their applications without ever knowing the application passwords. Finally, as we have seen in these series Oracle ESSO not only has great utilities in its own tool box but also has direct integration with Oracle Privileged Account Manager, Oracle Identity Manager and Oracle Access Manager. Integrated together with these tools provides a complete and complementary platform to address even the most complex identity and access management requirements. So what next for Oracle ESSO? “Agentless ESSO available in the cloud” – but that will be a subject for a future Oracle ESSO series!                                                                                                                               

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• Week in Geek: IPv6 Capable Smartphones Compromise User Privacy Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to “clone a disk, resize static windows, and create system function shortcuts”, use 45 different services, sites, and apps to help read favorite sites, add MP3 support to Audacity (for saving in MP3 format), install a Wii game loader for easy backups and fast load times, create a Blue Screen of Death in any color, and more. Photo by legofenris. Weekly News Links Photo by The H Security. IPv6: Smartphones compromise users’ privacy Since version 4 of the iOS operating system, Apple’s iPhones, iPads and iPods have been capable of handling IPv6, and most Android devices have been capable since version 2.1. However, the operating systems transfer an ID that discloses information about their users. Dumb phones can be attacked too Much of the discussion of security threats to mobile phones revolves around smartphones, but researchers have found that less advanced “feature phones,” still used by the majority of people around the world, also are vulnerable to attack. SCADA exploit – the dragon awakes The recent publication of an exploit for KingView, a software package for visualising industrial process control systems, appears to be having an effect. Threatpost reports that both the Chinese vendor Wellintech and Chinese CERT (CN-CERT) have now reacted. Sophos: Spam to get more malicious Spam is becoming more malicious in nature as trickery tactics change in line with current user interests, according to a new report released Tuesday by Sophos. Global spam traffic rebounds as Rustock wakes Spam is on the rise after the Rustock botnet awoke from its Christmas slumber, according to Symantec. Cracking WPA keys in the cloud At the forthcoming Black Hat conference, blogger Thomas Roth plans to demonstrate how weak WPA PSKs can be cracked quickly and easily using Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. Microsoft Security Advisory: Vulnerability in Internet Explorer could allow remote code execution Provides a link to more details about the vulnerability and shows a work-around/fix for the problem. Adobe plans to make it easier to delete Flash cookies in web browsers The new API, NPAPI:ClearSiteData, will allow Flash cookies – also known as Local Shared Objects (LSO) – to be deleted directly in the browser’s settings. Firefox beta getting new database standard The ninth beta version of Firefox is set to get support for a standard called IndexedDB that provides a database interface useful for offline data storage and other tasks needing information on a browser’s computer. MetroPCS accused of blocking certain Net content MetroPCS is violating the FCC’s recently approved Net neutrality rules by blocking certain Internet content, say several public interest groups. Server and Tools chief Muglia to leave Microsoft in summer 2011 Microsoft veteran and Server & Tools Business (STB) President Bob Muglia is leaving Microsoft, according to an email that CEO Steve Ballmer sent to employees on January 10. Report: DOJ nearing decision on Google-ITA The U.S. Department of Justice is gearing up for a possible formal antitrust investigation into whether or not Google should be allowed to purchase travel software company ITA Software, according to a report. South Korea says Google Street View broke law Police in South Korea reportedly say Google broke the country’s law when its Street View service captured personal data from unsecure Wi-Fi networks. The backlash over Google’s HTML5 video bet Choosing strategies based on what you believe to be long-term benefits is generally a good idea when running a business, but if you manage to alienate the world in the process, the long term may become irrelevant. Google answers critics on HTML5 Web video move Google responded to critics of its decision to drop support for a popular HTML5 video codec by declaring that a royalty-supported standard for Web video will hold the Web hostage. Random TinyHacker Links A Special GiveAway: a Great Book & Great Security Software The team from 7 Tutorials has a special giveaway running during the month of January. Signed copies of their latest book, full 1-year licenses of BitDefender Internet Security 2011 and free 3-month trials for everyone willing to participate. One Click Rooting For Android Phones Here’s a nice tool that helps you root your Android phone effortlessly. New Angry Birds Free version 1.0 Available in the App Store. Google Code University Learn programming at Google Code University. Capture and Share Your Favorite Part Of a YouTube Video SnipSnip.it lets you share only the part of the video that you like. Super User Questions More great questions and answers from this past week’s popular topics at Super User. What are the Windows A: and B: drives used for? Does OS X support linux-like features? What is the easiest way to make a backup of an entire hard disk? Will shifting from Wireless to Wired network result in better performance? Is it legal to install Windows 7 Home Premium Retail inside VMware virtual machine? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Enjoy reading through our hottest articles from this past week. The 50 Best Ways to Disable Built-in Windows Features You Don’t Want The Best of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 How to Upgrade Windows 7 Easily (And Understand Whether You Should) The Worst of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise Removal One Year Ago on How-To Geek More great articles from one year ago filled with helpful geeky goodness for you to enjoy. Share Text & Images the Easy Way with JustPaste.it Start Portable Firefox in Safe Mode Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate Available, Here’s How to Fix Your Incompatible Extensions Protect Your Computer from “Little Hands” with KidSafe Lock Prying Eyes Out of Your Minimized Windows Custom Crocheted Cylon-Cthulhu Hybrid What happens when you let your Cylon Centurion figure and your crocheted Cthulhu spend too many lonely nights together? A Cylon-Cthulhu hybrid, of course! You can get your own from the Cthulhu Chick store over on Etsy. Note: This is not an ad…Ruth is a friend of ours, and this Cylon-Cthulhu hybrid makes the perfect guard for the new MVP trophy in our office. The Geek Note Whether it is a geeky indoor project or just getting outside, we hope that you and your families have a terrific fun-filled weekend! Remember to keep sending those great tips in to us at [email protected]. Photo by qwrrty. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Upgrade Windows 7 Easily (And Understand Whether You Should) The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise Removal Install a Wii Game Loader for Easy Backups and Fast Load Times The Best of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 The Worst of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy Firefox 4.0 Beta 9 Available for Download – Get Your Copy Now The Frustrations of a Computer Literate Watching a Newbie Use a Computer [Humorous Video] Season0nPass Jailbreaks Current Gen Apple TVs IBM’s Jeopardy Playing Computer Watson Shows The Pros How It’s Done [Video] Tranquil Juice Drop Abstract Wallpaper Pulse Is a Sleek Newsreader for iOS and Android Devices

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• How to configure VPN in Windows XP

  - by SAMIR BHOGAYTA

  VPN Overview A VPN is a private network created over a public one. It’s done with encryption, this way, your data is encapsulated and secure in transit – this creates the ‘virtual’ tunnel. A VPN is a method of connecting to a private network by a public network like the Internet. An internet connection in a company is common. An Internet connection in a Home is common too. With both of these, you could create an encrypted tunnel between them and pass traffic, safely - securely. If you want to create a VPN connection you will have to use encryption to make sure that others cannot intercept the data in transit while traversing the Internet. Windows XP provides a certain level of security by using Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) or Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP). They are both considered tunneling protocols – simply because they create that virtual tunnel just discussed, by applying encryption. Configure a VPN with XP If you want to configure a VPN connection from a Windows XP client computer you only need what comes with the Operating System itself, it's all built right in. To set up a connection to a VPN, do the following: 1. On the computer that is running Windows XP, confirm that the connection to the Internet is correctly configured. • You can try to browse the internet • Ping a known host on the Internet, like yahoo.com, something that isn’t blocking ICMP 2. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. 3. In Control Panel, double click Network Connections 4. Click Create a new connection in the Network Tasks task pad 5. In the Network Connection Wizard, click Next. 6. Click Connect to the network at my workplace, and then click Next. 7. Click Virtual Private Network connection, and then click Next. 8. If you are prompted, you need to select whether you will use a dialup connection or if you have a dedicated connection to the Internet either via Cable, DSL, T1, Satellite, etc. Click Next. 9. Type a host name, IP or any other description you would like to appear in the Network Connections area. You can change this later if you want. Click Next. 10. Type the host name or the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer that you want to connect to, and then click Next. 11. You may be asked if you want to use a Smart Card or not. 12. You are just about done, the rest of the screens just verify your connection, click Next. 13. Click to select the Add a shortcut to this connection to my desktop check box if you want one, if not, then leave it unchecked and click finish. 14. You are now done making your connection, but by default, it may try to connect. You can either try the connection now if you know its valid, if not, then just close it down for now. 15. In the Network Connections window, right-click the new connection and select properties. Let’s take a look at how you can customize this connection before it’s used. 16. The first tab you will see if the General Tab. This only covers the name of the connection, which you can also rename from the Network Connection dialog box by right clicking the connection and selecting to rename it. You can also configure a First connect, which means that Windows can connect the public network (like the Internet) before starting to attempt the ‘VPN’ connection. This is a perfect example as to when you would have configured the dialup connection; this would have been the first thing that you would have to do. It's simple, you have to be connected to the Internet first before you can encrypt and send data over it. This setting makes sure that this is a reality for you. 17. The next tab is the Options Tab. It is The Options tab has a lot you can configure in it. For one, you have the option to connect to a Windows Domain, if you select this check box (unchecked by default), then your VPN client will request Windows logon domain information while starting to work up the VPN connection. Also, you have options here for redialing. Redial attempts are configured here if you are using a dial up connection to get to the Internet. It is very handy to redial if the line is dropped as dropped lines are very common. 18. The next tab is the Security Tab. This is where you would configure basic security for the VPN client. This is where you would set any advanced IPSec configurations other security protocols as well as requiring encryption and credentials. 19. The next tab is the Networking Tab. This is where you can select what networking items are used by this VPN connection. 20. The Last tab is the Advanced Tab. This is where you can configure options for configuring a firewall, and/or sharing. Connecting to Corporate Now that you have your XP VPN client all set up and ready, the next step is to attempt a connection to the Remote Access or VPN server set up at the corporate office. To use the connection follow these simple steps. To open the client again, go back to the Network Connections dialog box. 1. One you are in the Network Connection dialog box, double-click, or right click and select ‘Connect’ from the menu – this will initiate the connection to the corporate office. 2. Type your user name and password, and then click Connect. Properties bring you back to what we just discussed in this article, all the global settings for the VPN client you are using. 3. To disconnect from a VPN connection, right-click the icon for the connection, and then click “Disconnect” Summary In this article we covered the basics of building a VPN connection using Windows XP. This is very handy when you have a VPN device but don’t have the ‘client’ that may come with it. If the VPN Server doesn’t use highly proprietary protocols, then you can use the XP client to connect with. In a future article I will get into the nuts and bolts of both IPSec and more detail on how to configure the advanced options in the Security tab of this client. 678: The remote computer did not respond. 930: The authentication server did not respond to authentication requests in a timely fashion. 800: Unable to establish the VPN connection. 623: The system could not find the phone book entry for this connection. 720: A connection to the remote computer could not be established. More on : http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Configure-VPN-Connection-Windows-XP.html

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• Running TeamCity from Amazon EC2 - Cloud based scalable build and continuous Integration

  - by RoyOsherove

  I’ve been having fun playing with the amazon EC2 cloud service. I set up a server running TeamCity, and an image of a server that just runs a TeamCity agent. I also setup TeamCity  to automatically instantiate agents on EC2 and shut them down based upon availability of free agents. Here’s how I did it: The first step was setting up the teamcity server. Create an account on amazon EC2 (BTW, amazon’s sites works better in IE than it does in chrome.. who knew!?) Open the EC2 dashboard, and click “Launch Instance” . From the “Quick Start” tab I selected from the list: “Getting Started on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (AMI Id: ami-c5e40dac)” .  it’s good enough to just run teamcity. In the instance details, I used the default (Small instance, 1.7 GB mem). You might want to choose a close availability zone based on where you are. We want to “Launch instances” so click continue. Select the default kernel, RAM disk and all. No need to enable monitoring for now (you can do that later). click continue. If you don’t have a key pair, you will be prompted to create one. Once you do, select it in the list. Now you’ll be prompted to create a security group. I named mine “TC” as in “TeamCity”. each group is a bunch of settings on which ports can be let through into and out of a hosted machine.  keep it as the default settings. We will change them later. Click continue,  review and then click “Launch”. Now you’ll be able to see the new instance in the running instances list on your site. Now, you need to install stuff on that instance (TeamCity!) . To do that, you’ll need to Remote desktop into that instance. To do that, we’ll get the admin password for that instance: Check it on the list, and click “Instance Actions” - “Get Windows Admin Password”. You might have to wait about 10 minutes or so for the password to be generated for you. Once you have the password, you will remote desktop (start-run-‘mstsc’) into the instance. It’s address is a dns address shown below the list under “Public DNS”. it looks something like: ec2-256-226-194-91.compute-1.amazonaws.com Once you’re inside the instance – you’ll need to open IE (it is in hardened mode so you’ll have to relax its security settings to download stuff). I first downloaded chrome and using chrome I downloaded TeamCity. Note that the download speed is FAST. several MBs per second. To be able to see TeamCity from the outside, you will need to open the advanced firewall settings inside the remote machine, and add incoming and outgoing rules for port 80 (HTTP). Once you do that, you should be able to see the machine from the outside. If you still can’t, see the next step. I also enabled ports 9090 since I will use this machine to create an agent image later as well. Now configure the security group (TC) to enable talking to agents: IN the EC2 dashboard click on “Security Groups” and select your group. To add a rule, click on the empty list under the ‘protocol’ header. select TCP. from and ‘to’ ports are 9090. source ip is 0.0.0.0/0 (every ip is allowed). click “Save.  Also make sure you can see “HTTP” tcp 80 in that list. if you can’t see it, add it or you won’t be able to browse to the machine’s teamcity server home page. I also set an elastic IP for the machine: so I always have the same IP for the machine instance. Allocate and set one through the”Elastic IP” link on the EC2 dashboard.   you should now have a working instance of teamcity.   Now let’s create an agent image. Repeat steps 1-9, but this time, make sure you select a machine that fits what an agent might do. I selected Instance type – Hihg-CPU medium machine,  that is much faster. On that machine, I installed what I needed (VS 2010, PostSharp etc..). downloading VS 2010 from MSDN (2 GB took less than 10 min!) Now, instead of installing teamcity, browse using the browser to the teamcity homepage (from within the remote machine). go to the Administration page, and click the upper right link “Install agents”. Install the agent on he local machine – set it to the IP or DNS of the running TeamCity server. That way you’ll be able to check their connectivity live before making this machine your official agent image to reuse. Once the agent is installed, see that the TC server can see it and use it. see steps 13-14 above if they can’t. Once it works, you can take steps to make this image your agent image to be reused. next, here is a copy-paste of several steps to take from http://confluence.jetbrains.net/display/TCD5/Setting+Up+TeamCity+for+Amazon+EC2 Configure system so that agent it is started on machine boot (and make sure TeamCity server is accessible on machine boot). Test the setup by rebooting machine and checking that the agent connects normally to the server. Prepare the Image for bundling: Remove any temporary/history information in the system. Stop the agent (under Windows stop the service but leave it in Automatic startup type) Delete content agent logs and temp directories (not necessary) Delete "<Agent Home>/conf/amazon-*" file (not necessary) Change config/buildAgent.properties to remove properties: name, serverAddress, authToken (not necessary)   Now, we need to: Make AMI from the running instance. Configure TeamCity EC2 support on TeamCity server. Making an AMI: Check the instance of the agent in the EC2 dashboard instance list, and select instance actions->Create Image (EBS AMI) you’ll see the image pending in the APIs list in the EC2 dashboard. this could take 30 minutes or more. meanwhile we can configure the could support in the teamcity server. COPY THE AMI ID to the clipboard (looks like ami-a88aa4ce) Configuring TeamCity for Cloud: In TeamCity, click on “Agents” and then on “Cloud” tab. this is where you will control your cloud agents. to configure new cloud agents based on APIs, click on the right link to the “configuration page” Create a new profile and select AMazon EC2 as cloud type. Use your AMI ID that you copied to the clipboard into the “Images” field. Select an availability zone that is the same as the one your instance is running on for best communication perf between them make sure you select the ‘TC’ security group hopefully, that should be it, and teamcity will try to instantiate new instances on demand. Note that it may take around 10 minutes for an agent to become available to teamcity from the time it’s started.

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• Granular Clipboard Control in Oracle IRM

  - by martin.abrahams

  One of the main leak prevention controls that customers are looking for is clipboard control. After all, there is little point in controlling access to a document if authorised users can simply make unprotected copies by use of the cut and paste mechanism. Oddly, for such a fundamental requirement, many solutions only offer very simplistic clipboard control - and require the customer to make an awkward choice between usability and security. In many cases, clipboard control is simply an ON-OFF option. By turning the clipboard OFF, you disable one of the most valuable edit functions known to man. Try working for any length of time without copying and pasting, and you'll soon appreciate how valuable that function is. Worse, some solutions disable the clipboard completely - not just for the protected document but for all of the various applications you have open at the time. Normal service is only resumed when you close the protected document. In this way, policy enforcement bleeds out of the particular assets you need to protect and interferes with the entire user experience. On the other hand, turning the clipboard ON satisfies a fundamental usability requirement - but also makes it really easy for users to create unprotected copies of sensitive information, maliciously or otherwise. All they need to do is paste into another document. If creating unprotected copies is this simple, you have to question how much you are really gaining by applying protection at all. You may not be allowed to edit, forward, or print the protected asset, but all you need to do is create a copy and work with that instead. And that activity would not be tracked in any way. So, a simple ON-OFF control creates a real tension between usability and security. If you are only using IRM on a small scale, perhaps security can outweigh usability - the business can put up with the restriction if it only applies to a handful of important documents. But try extending protection to large numbers of documents and large user communities, and the restriction rapidly becomes really unwelcome. I am aware of one solution that takes a different tack. Rather than disable the clipboard, pasting is always permitted, but protection is automatically applied to any document that you paste into. At first glance, this sounds great - protection travels with the content. However, at any scale this model may not be so appealing once you've had to deal with support calls from users who have accidentally applied protection to documents that really don't need it - which would be all too easily done. This may help control leakage, but it also pollutes the system with documents that have policies applied with no obvious rhyme or reason, and it can seriously inconvenience the business by making non-sensitive documents difficult to access. And what policy applies if you paste some protected content into an already protected document? Which policy applies? There are no prizes for guessing that Oracle IRM takes a rather different approach. The Oracle IRM Approach Oracle IRM offers a spectrum of clipboard controls between the extremes of ON and OFF, and it leverages the classification-based rights model to give granular control that satisfies both security and usability needs. Firstly, we take it for granted that if you have EDIT rights, of course you can use the clipboard within a given document. Why would we force you to retype a piece of content that you want to move from HERE... to HERE...? If the pasted content remains in the same document, it is equally well protected whether it be at the beginning, middle, or end - or all three. So, the first point is that Oracle IRM always enables the clipboard if you have the right to edit the file. Secondly, whether we enable or disable the clipboard, we only affect the protected document. That is, you can continue to use the clipboard in the usual way for unprotected documents and applications regardless of whether the clipboard is enabled or disabled for the protected document(s). And if you have multiple protected documents open, each may have the clipboard enabled or disabled independently, according to whether you have Edit rights for each. So, even for the simplest cases - the ON-OFF cases - Oracle IRM adds value by containing the effect to the protected documents rather than to the whole desktop environment. Now to the granular options between ON and OFF. Thanks to our classification model, we can define rights that enable pasting between documents in the same classification - ie. between documents that are protected by the same policy. So, if you are working on this month's financial report and you want to pull some data from last month's report, you can simply cut and paste between the two documents. The two documents are classified the same way, subject to the same policy, so the content is equally safe in both documents. However, if you try to paste the same data into an unprotected document or a document in a different classification, you can be prevented. Thus, the control balances legitimate user requirements to allow pasting with legitimate information security concerns to keep data protected. We can take this further. You may have the right to paste between related classifications of document. So, the CFO might want to copy some financial data into a board document, where the two documents are sealed to different classifications. The CFO's rights may well allow this, as it is a reasonable thing for a CFO to want to do. But policy might prevent the CFO from copying the same data into a classification that is accessible to external parties. The above option, to copy between classifications, may be for specific classifications or open-ended. That is, your rights might enable you to go from A to B but not to C, or you might be allowed to paste to any classification subject to your EDIT rights. As for so many features of Oracle IRM, our classification-based rights model makes this type of granular control really easy to manage - you simply define that pasting is permitted between classifications A and B, but omit C. Or you might define that pasting is permitted between all classifications, but not to unprotected locations. The classification model enables millions of documents to be controlled by a few such rules. Finally, you MIGHT have the option to paste anywhere - such that unprotected copies may be created. This is rare, but a legitimate configuration for some users, some use cases, and some classifications - but not something that you have to permit simply because the alternative is too restrictive. As always, these rights are defined in user roles - so different users are subject to different clipboard controls as required in different classifications. So, where most solutions offer just two clipboard options - ON-OFF or ON-but-encrypt-everything-you-touch - Oracle IRM offers real granularity that leverages our classification model. Indeed, I believe it is the lack of a classification model that makes such granularity impractical for other IRM solutions, because the matrix of rules for controlling pasting would be impossible to manage - there are so many documents to consider, and more are being created all the time.

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