Root Access

Michael Frank

12:00 AM

There are 6450 profile folder in that location, the network storage team were not happy.

allquixotic

12:12 AM

lol

Michael Frank

Yeaaaaa... It's often amusing having half of our tech team in Manilla/Bangalore.

They have almost entirely different approaches to many situations we face.

Often, they're completely backwards and just wrong. :/

Bob

@allquixotic @JourneymanGeek was looking into something the JS room created that's supposed to be more-or-less an SE clone

far as apps go, gitter has those too

allquixotic

@Bob SE chat clone, or SE clone?

Bob

@allquixotic chat

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: SE chat clone. Its pretty good

chat.lupinenet.co.uk:8080 (Its a bit slow cause it runs at home, and through a 6 to 4 gateway/cloudflare)

And its JS so.... ;p

Psycogeek

12:35 AM

Bad joke. Trying to figure out how to rename my partitions, I got the really huge front one named Dolly Partition, and the clone OS partition named Dolly .

yea the clone OS partition is the Baaaaaackup

That Brazilian Guy

@JourneymanGeek Oh, it's Miaou.

Journeyman Geek

Yeah

(The vm is called catchat ;p)

That Brazilian Guy

I found out about it when I was looking for chat options, don't remember why

I didn't like it for some reason, can't remember why

Journeyman Geek

@ThatBrazilianGuy: Oh, the dev was helpful, and fixed up some installation stuff that was borked.

That Brazilian Guy

@JourneymanGeek Nah, it was something about UX, "look and feel", experience...

Some fancy way of saying "I just didn't like it" :P

Journeyman Geek

12:42 AM

lol

That Brazilian Guy

In unrelated news: so I managed to use OpenVPN on ubuntu and KitKat. And Netflix thinks I'm on USA and lets me watch US stuff. Now how do I cast it to the chromecast? (Strangely enough, my VPN'ed Moto G detects the chromecast. -- But won't cast to it).

Journeyman Geek

@ThatBrazilianGuy: I used to run an IRC server ;p

that's still an option, maybe with kiwi for a web front end

Michael Frank

Doesn't Chromecast have a hardcoded DNS? I thought it doesn't care about VPNs...

That Brazilian Guy

@MichaelFrank Yeah, looks like it does. There's light at the end of the tunnel, though: acevpn.com/knowledge-base/…

Psycogeek

I Didnt have to read the news today because it already all happened before.
George Zimmerman involved in a shooting
Black Man Found Hanged From Tree in Greensboro, Georgia
Five million Syrians at high risk of explosive weapons
Notjob with gun at Huston texas college
Border Patrol find 16 people concealed in tractor-trailer

Journeyman Geek

12:51 AM

>_>

That Brazilian Guy

> I Didnt have to read the news today because it already all happened before.

Doesn't it always?

First as tragedy, then as farce, etc.

Psycogeek

You would think that somebody would learn something

That Brazilian Guy

Ok, so 1 have 1 modem+router+wifi-AP, and 1 two-ethernet PC. I think I need to use this PC as a dd-wrt powered router, then configure it to use the VPN, redirect DNS requests thru it to use the VPN, then connect a new wifi AP to its second ethernet port

Psycogeek

And what did that 1.2 trillion $$$$$ in patriot act homeland security get us?

Michael Frank

stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/68472096/…

@allquixotic You'll enjoy this!

That Brazilian Guy

12:55 AM

Damn, I don't even know what I'm saying anymore

You know what, it will be waaaaaay easier to just use HDMI.

...but less fun in an inquisitive, geeky way. ._____.

Oh, cruel adulthood that burdens me with priorities and crushes my curious geek nature.

Journeyman Geek

1:08 AM

Lol

@ThatBrazilianGuy pfsense might be a better idea

Psycogeek

There is hope for us yet "Obama administration says health insurers must offer free contraceptives" & "The new rules made it clear that patients cannot be billed a copay for anesthesia during a colonoscopy." And here i thought the copay was the colonoscopy. No i wont be telling the last joke about the goverment getting all in your business :-) And i am -----> outta here.

Bob

"Hello, this is Sam, and I'm calling you from Windows regarding your computer"

Oh look here they go again

allquixotic

@MichaelFrank Ack :/

Michael Frank

1:28 AM

@allquixotic Quite a smooth landing all things considered.

allquixotic

@MichaelFrank I rode on a Bombardier CRJ200

very similar plane to that CRJ100

That Brazilian Guy

1:46 AM

/me listening to Pandora after what, 5, 7 years

geographical conten restriction is so retarded and annoying

and I'm soooooooooo frustrated for losing my 10k+ song playlist on grooveshark ヽ(ಠ_ಠ)ノ

Journeyman Geek

lol

@ThatBrazilianGuy: this is why I do not really like to rely on external services for anything important ._.

Michael Frank

@ThatBrazilianGuy Did you try the script?

reddit.com/r/Music/comments/34goss/…

If you were logged in, you could potentially get your playlists as text files.

Not sure if it still works, but can't hurt to try.

That Brazilian Guy

@MichaelFrank I wasn't ;____;

Michael Frank

2:01 AM

That sucks. :(

That Brazilian Guy

@JourneymanGeek Yes, couldn't agree more.

Journeyman Geek

2:22 AM

(and if you must. Tons of backups ;p)

Journeyman Geek

2:42 AM

(One or two exceptions. I have a few google play books and amazon books that I need to de-drm and backup. And baen, but that's more sorting than anything else.

HackToHell

3:40 AM

Spotify ftw !

I have my playlists synced to rdio too ;p

Journeyman Geek

I have all my music on 2-3 hard drives, and google play music ;p

(and scrobbed to last.fm on both my phone and my pcs.)

Michael Frank

I pretty much only use spotify now.

But I've been meaning to go on a Picard spree on my currently backed up stuff.

HackToHell

I have been using Spotify since 2012

Can't really use anything else now

it's just too good

Journeyman Geek

@MichaelFrank: Its not accurate enough for me. I ended up using mp3tag to organise everything that was tagged, and picard for the stuff that wasn't only

Michael Frank

I've never really had many issues... and any I do find I end up updating on Musicbrainz itself.

Journeyman Geek

3:59 AM

When I last tried it it prefered compilations over the actual albums when done en mass.

Michael Frank

Ahhh.. you have a collection of tracks instead of albums?

Journeyman Geek

naw, as albums

Michael Frank

Huh... that's strange then. Never had that happen for me...

Journeyman Geek

4:35 AM

hm. That's wierd. Tried to pick up someone for/on my kindle at work and it tells me I'm in a different country from my amazon account. Works at home tho

Bob

O_O

thume.ca/screentunes

Journeyman Geek

5:22 AM

@Bob: No repro at work.

HackToHell

@Bob Doesn't work on my laptop

I can only hear my fan

Bob

5:50 AM

shrug

works here :P

Michael Frank

6:56 AM

@JourneymanGeek Our work network identifies as Australia to many sites. Maybe you're the same?

Bob

8:10 AM

That's because GeoIP is a stupid concept.

Journeyman Geek

@MichaelFrank: both identify as singapore.

Home's ipv6, and I have no clue if amazon does that.

(and pretending to be american is easy)

@Bob: the web browser on the kindle is horrific ;p

Bob

@JourneymanGeek I did say, didn't I? :P

Journeyman Geek

I bought it to read books, and its great for that ;p

Bob

Apr 27 at 13:43, by Bob

Webpages on e-ink isn't so bad, but the scrolling and browser itself on the kindle are annoying

Journeyman Geek

Tried logging into SE chat.... doth not go well ;p

Journeyman Geek

8:39 AM

@Bob: web pages are kinda horrific. Its almost like using a early palm ;p

Bob

9:16 AM

@JourneymanGeek One reason I think a Kobo might've been a better choice.

Also not great though.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: My phone's great for webpages, or I have an actual small laptop in my bag ;p

Neither of which is great for reading books.

Randy Jones

10:12 AM

@JourneymanGeek hello there

Journeyman Geek

lo

Randy Jones

I'm having a Q over at Graphic Design that I'd wonder you'd guys like to have

0

Q: Searching adobe bridge for filenames based on the naming convention

I need to filter out a bunch of files from a folder that have a specific character structure (e.g 2H4L_, T74L_, 3453_). They're all 4 characters followed by a underscore. I've been trying to use Adobe Bridge to help me out but I cant seem to find anything useful. Open to using other alternatives...

It's off-topic at our place, but it might have a bit of a life here.

Journeyman Geek

Needs a lot more detail tho. What sorta file? What OS?

(since if a question is getting migrated, I'd like to minimise the chance of it being kicked right back(

Randy Jones

I agree :)

I'll keep it around for a bit and ask for some detail. If that detail's been provided, you wanna have it?

Journeyman Geek

Yeah. I have no clue what adobe bridge is, but yeah, seems potentially ok

Randy Jones

10:20 AM

hehe. Bridge is Adobe's take on Explorer/Finder with expanded thumbnailing, metadata and slideshow features. It's rather nice to work with when you use their other software.

Thanks for the €0,02

Journeyman Geek

Ahh.

Bob

11:54 AM

@RandyJones I've always seen Bridge as this horribly laggy/bloaty thing.

Then again, that's exactly what it was, along with the rest of the Adobe suite back in CS4/CS5.

Not that it isn't laggy/bloaty now...

Oliver Salzburg

12:07 PM

Gold \o/

...for doing nothing

Bob

?

HackToHell

uhm, just what exactly does "You will be doing a lot of Software engineering" mean ?

Bob

12:26 PM

Context?

HackToHell

I applied for this internship and they said that of code in their Stack had to be software engineered

It wasn't exactly like that

Nate Kerkhofs

12:45 PM

Is there anyone in the chatroom who knows Turkish? It's the first time I've opened Office on my laptop, but for some reason, the default language is set to Turkish, and I have no idea how to fix it

Well, not exactly "no idea". I know HOW to do it, but not what the turkish names are for the things I need to press

Oliver Salzburg

1:01 PM

@Bob Got a "Famous question" badge

studiohack

1:13 PM

Question: Can I initialize a disk and not lose data?

Background: I have a failed drive (or near failing) that gives BSOD saying the drive is unmountable. So I've plugged it in via an external SATA adapter, and I'm trying to access it via another PC. But It doesn't show up in Windows Explorer, and Disk Management wants to initialize it. Can I do this and not lose the data? Sources conflict....

Oliver Salzburg

@studiohack No idea, I'd probably try to mount it in a live Linux environment first

studiohack

@OliverSalzburg fuuun, okay. LiveCD?

Oliver Salzburg

@studiohack Yeah

studiohack

@OliverSalzburg Okay, I'll give that a shot. I need this data :P Failed drive of a relative. Gahh, I need a good, automated backup solution for people.

Oliver Salzburg

@studiohack CrashPlan works for me. It's simple enough that I would recommend it to anyone

studiohack

1:21 PM

@OliverSalzburg I need a good offline one, like SyncToy or such that runs automatically.

Ah well, I'll have to come back to that.

Oliver Salzburg

@studiohack You can use CrashPlan offline. I back up to multiple local drives and CrashPlan Central

studiohack

@OliverSalzburg Any charge for that?

Oliver Salzburg

@studiohack No, you only pay for CrashPlan Central

AFAIR

studiohack

@OliverSalzburg Ooooh, good to know. Thanks for the heads up!

Journeyman Geek

2:00 PM

@studiohack: veem endpoint backup is sweet

I have it doing daily backups, retaining a week of snapshots, and merging old backups into a 'master' one so I can save space.

It'll let you restore from bare metal too

@Bob: customs somewhere opened up my wallet I think ;p

(and I have a timmy sticker on my netbook now)

@studiohack: pop the drive into linux, see if you can do a direct copy of of files. If not, hit it with gnuddrescue, mount a copy of the image you make with kpartx and try from there.

studiohack

@JourneymanGeek, @OliverSalzburg: I booted a Live DVD of Ubuntu 14

Plugged in the drive, nothing comes up on the desktop. Do I need to manually mount it?

Oliver Salzburg

@studiohack Possibly, yes

Although, I think it should be auto-mounted

Journeyman Geek

Not if it was uncleanly mounted

HackToHell

Make a backup and run nfts-fix

works 99pc of the time

studiohack

Guys, guys, I know nothing about Linux.

What should I do from here?

HackToHell

2:13 PM

Is it a removable drive ?

Run lsblk

studiohack

500GB SATA @HackToHell

HackToHell

What does lsblk say ?

studiohack

How do I run that?

Windows Disk Management thinks it is 2048 GB instead of 500 before initialization. :/

HackToHell

Ubuntu ico -> Terminal

sudo lsblk

if it's ubuntu

I am pretty darn sure there are tools for this

Ping @JourneymanGeek

Journeyman Geek

;p

studiohack

2:16 PM

doesn't see it at all, @HackToHell - lsblk doesn't pick up on it

Journeyman Geek

@studiohack: is the drive on a USB adaptor now?

studiohack

@JourneymanGeek yeah

Its a larger adapter with a wall plug, so it should have sufficient power

Journeyman Geek

unplug it first - then type in ls /dev/ | grep sd . Plug it in and type it again. Tell me what's the new stuff that appears after you plugged it in

studiohack

@JourneymanGeek:
it lists sda and 1 and 2, and then the NEW is sdb

Journeyman Geek

hm

That's not good

studiohack

2:21 PM

rats

Journeyman Geek

sudo apt-get install testdisk

(installs testdisk)

studiohack

okay

unable to locate it

Journeyman Geek

o0

studiohack

its a live dvd lol

Journeyman Geek

Should still be able to install stuff

studiohack

2:22 PM

E: Unable to locate package test disk.

The HDD on the host machine running the Live DVD is encrypted.

All hope lost on this drive?

Bob

@JourneymanGeek O_O

Journeyman Geek

@studiohack: no space

testdisk

@studiohack: ugh

studiohack

Bahhhh

Journeyman Geek

encrypted turns up the difficulty level a LOT

and explains why you can't find the partition

studiohack

I can find another machine, but it means I can't mess with it for a while.

@JourneymanGeek the drive in question is NOT encrypted.

Journeyman Geek

2:29 PM

Oh

studiohack

just the machine that I'm running the Live CD on.

Journeyman Geek

try installing testdisk not test disk.

;p

studiohack

I did that

no space.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: the thinkgeek baggie inside my DHL baggie was cut open.

studiohack

Same error :'(

Journeyman Geek

2:30 PM

That's wierd

I routinely install testdisk on a livedisk for recovery....

OH.

I use livedvds

studiohack

this is a LiveDVD

since ubuntu is huge now

Should I try initializing in Windows?

Journeyman Geek

No

studiohack

Okay

Journeyman Geek

That would likely destroy your data

testdisk works in windows too tho

studiohack

Some say it doesn;t, which surprises me, but oh well.

Well, if I can't mount it in Ubuntu, then it's probably done for, @JourneymanGeek?

Journeyman Geek

2:36 PM

ugh

Prolly not

but you'd need to have a decent idea of what you're doing

(and even then, its chancy)

studiohack

Yeah and I don't :/

Can I run something like chkdsk on this one, @JourneymanGeek? Or the linux equivalent?

Journeyman Geek

errrr

not if you don't see a partition

if you saw, say sdb1, there's a ntfs fixing tool in linux

or you might be able to just mount it and have it work

studiohack

@JourneymanGeek yeah it's just sdb

allquixotic

hi

studiohack

The list has sda, sda1, sda2, and sdb

Journeyman Geek

2:42 PM

yup. Chances are tho, sda1 and 2 aren't real and are part of your livedvd boot

studiohack

True @JourneymanGeek. Can I do testdisk in Windows somehow?

Journeyman Geek

there's a port

I don't remember if you need a drive letter tho

Bob

@studiohack Before you run anything like chkdsk, take an image.

s/chkdsk/anything that might write to the disk/

Thor

Peek-a-boo.

allquixotic

:S

your gravatar is horrifying

studiohack

2:50 PM

@JourneymanGeek tried it, has tons of errors

cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

Journeyman Geek

:/

studiohack

It won't even bring up the partition list, can't find them @JourneymanGeek. :(

Journeyman Geek

hm, that's REALLY bad

is there something else wrong with the disk?

studiohack

@JourneymanGeek no idea?

Disk spins up..

Journeyman Geek

hmm

studiohack

2:52 PM

Still thinks it is 2000gb instead of 500.

Journeyman Geek

run some smart tool on the disk?

studiohack

Some suggest plugging it into the mobo directly

12

Q: Will initializing disk make data unrecoverable?

I'm trying to access files from a friend's external hard disk which had stopped showing up in 'My Computer' on his XP machine. I removed the drive (500Gb Seagate SATA drive) and installed it in my Windows 7 PC. The drive is detected by Disk Management but listed as 'Not initialized'. It pops u...

windows-7 hard-drive data-recovery

@JourneymanGeek doesn't pick up on the drive well because its on USB

Journeyman Geek

maybe. I doubt tho

studiohack

Well, I think I've run out of shots at this then

:P

Bob

@studiohack Many portable HDDs now have the USB interface on the board itself.

studiohack

3:05 PM

@Bob interesting

Bob

Huh. Who knew. There's apparently an Anker-branded vertical mouse (cc @OliverSalzburg)

studiohack

Too many bad sectors according to WD's own hard drive diagnostics. I think this drive is gone @JourneymanGeek. Thanks for the help, I appreciate it.

studiohack

3:23 PM

Gonna try this

cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step

Journeyman Geek

3:36 PM

That's file level. Is also going to mangle filenames

Aaron Hall

4:47 PM

I'm trying to set up lynx inside cygwin to be able to access the internet like my traditional browsers do, but I can't ping anything but stuff on our intranet. I also don't have root, and want to respect that. Thoughts?

allquixotic

5:14 PM

@AaronHall does your LAN require a proxy for outbound internet access?

Aaron Hall

It might, in fact it probably does, but I'm a bit out of depth in this area.

What I do know is that I have internet access through my browsers, so why can't I ping google?

allquixotic

@AaronHall it's trivial to check; just open a browser and look at your proxy settings

if your LAN is configured to require a proxy, you won't be able to get out without configuring Lynx to use a proxy

or maybe it's configured to silently ignore browsers that don't submit one of a whitelist of UAs

Boris_yo

Rollerball pen - 0.5 mm or 0.7 mm? Which is common?

allquixotic

or maybe a netfilt driver installed by your employer ignores packets from all but a whitelist of processes

Boris_yo

I assume it's the size of it's writing edge?

Aaron Hall

5:20 PM

I'm using Firefox as well as IE, so I doubt they're whitelisting them...

allquixotic

there are infinite ways that your system or network could be modified by programs that your IT department or sysadmin has installed on your computer without your knowledge (and maybe even without most peoples' knowledge within their department) that could interfere with the operation of some random other program on the system that you've installed

Aaron Hall

yeah

allquixotic

just a matter of rolling up your sleeves, digging in, and understanding how your computer and network are configured

understanding will (should) obviate a solution

Aaron Hall

ok, I have in IE "Use automatic configuartion script" checkmarked with an address with proxyconfig in it...

allquixotic

ok, so you are using a proxy

!!wiki Proxy_auto-config

ChatBot John Cavil

5:23 PM

Proxy auto-config

A proxy auto-config (PAC) file defines how web browsers and other user agents can automatically choose the appropriate proxy server (access method) for fetching a given URL. A PAC file contains a JavaScript function “FindProxyForURL(url, host)”. This function returns a string with one or more access method specifications. These specifications cause the user agent to use a particular proxy server or to connect directly. Multiple specifications provide a fall-back when a proxy fails to respond. The browser fetches this PAC file before requesting other URLs. The URL of the PAC file is either configured...

allquixotic

you'll want to find and obtain a copy of that PAC file (it's probably installed on your local HDD or a shared drive; you have to have access to it to get to the Internet)

hopefully it's just one proxy server for all URLs outside the LAN; if that's the case, you can just point Lynx to that proxy server

Aaron Hall

ok, I'm learning something here... yay.

allquixotic

Lynx doesn't know about PACs so you'll have to point it to the appropriate proxy server

not sure if it supports SOCKS4/5 proxy servers but I know it supports HTTP(S) proxies (and http proxies that support CONNECT for HTTPS tunneling)

Aaron Hall

@allquixotic :( I was just googling this...

allquixotic

well, read your PAC file until you understand what type of proxy you have; if it's HTTP or HTTPS, you should be good just setting the appropriate command-line option or env var

if it's SOCKS you may have to use a socks to http proxy translator on your local system, like delegate

delegate.org/delegate

every good civil disobedient / social deviant should be an expert on the high-level design, configuration and implementation of common proxy and VPN protocols, clients and servers ;p it's a key tool for ensuring internet freedom e.g. at work

...and they're not terribly complicated, in general

Aaron Hall

5:33 PM

I searched for socks, didn't find that

allquixotic

is your PAC file big and complex, or is it short?

Aaron Hall

just lots of conditionals on 'https' being the first five letters

big and complex

allquixotic

eww

if it has a lot of IP addresses starting with 10.x or 192.168.x or internal domains you recognize, you can ignore those

you're looking for something like "PROXY some_local_ip_or_domain:8080"; in an else block or similar

Aaron Hall

is the PAC file written in JS?

allquixotic

yep

you're just looking to be a human interpreter of the JS until you can divine one specific proxy server that's being used to route all the public Internet traffic

unless you want to access a LAN site through Lynx, which makes things more complicated

alternatively, you can install the commercial freeware tool Telerik Fiddler and point it at your PAC, then point Lynx at the Fiddler proxy on localhost

if you point Fiddler at your PAC, what'll happen is that Fiddler will create a listening TCP socket on localhost:8080 (or whichever localhost port you choose), and Lynx (or any other program) can connect to that socket and use it as an HTTP(S) proxy; on the backend, Fiddler will interpret each request and route the requests downstream according to the PAC rules

so Lynx sees one proxy, but the PAC may have hundreds of complex proxy mapping rules

this will enable Lynx to access all sites that you can access in your browser

Aaron Hall

5:43 PM

Looks like the Lynx setup is pretty straightforward if I know what my proxy server is

allquixotic

including LAN ones

Aaron Hall

so I'm just trying to find a one-size fits all approach.

I don't want lynx to get to intranet stuff

mostly

I think

installing things is hard, I'm not admin on my box

allquixotic

from your statements it sounds like you might not be entirely clear on what the PAC is doing, and are having difficulty deciding which proxy to use; if your PAC is really that complicated, you might just want to use Fiddler

Fiddler does not require admin rights to install

Aaron Hall

I did get cygwin though

allquixotic

it may say that it does, but you can easily extract the installer

Aaron Hall

5:46 PM

through official channels

allquixotic

well it all depends on (1) how risk-averse you are, and (2) how watchful/observant/skilled/paranoid/restrictive your IT folks are

sufficiently low risk aversion combined with sufficiently limited monitoring by IT should enable you to seamlessly download, extract and set up Fiddler without admin rights

are you doing this for something that could be considered a legitimate business purpose?

Aaron Hall

I'm risk-averse, my IT is fairly paranoid, so... I'm not going to use Fiddler.

allquixotic

lol k

Aaron Hall

I'm learning, I need to learn more about security though. But I need to be careful not to break the rules as I learn.

allquixotic

if you're a programmer/engineer/sysadmin, whoever's got you locked up behind bars like this should be fired for obstructing the ability of colleagues to perform their work, because devs need the ability to install software, arbitrary software, to get their work done

Aaron Hall

5:54 PM

well we have a self-contained system that provides us with 99.9% of everything we need, but I'm living on the boundaries of that .1%

allquixotic

that's the part that management and IT admin type folks just can't understand: they can NEVER, NEVER anticipate all the possible software needs you could have; there's always one more

and having a cumbersome process to get stuff approved by IT makes it even worse

Aaron Hall

looks like I've configured my proxy in lynx, so... how would I fix that for ping? Or does ping not understand proxies?

allquixotic

the ping program uses either UDP or ICMP packets to do its work; every HTTP proxy, by definition, necessarily only uses TCP (and HTTP on top of that), so it would never be able to allow a UDP or ICMP ping through

the answer to your second question is "That's correct; it doesn't", but it's more along the lines of proxies don't understand how to route pings.

Aaron Hall

ok

fair enough then!

allquixotic

your LAN routing rules are probably set up to automatically ignore everything that isn't an HTTP request heading to a proxy server

if you need to simulate a ping, you can try using curl to request a URL from a server you need to "ping"

if it times out, or returns a Connection Refused, you know the ping "failed"

Aaron Hall

6:00 PM

WTF it works!!!

allquixotic

if it returns any HTTP error code, whether it's 200, 500, whatever, then the ping was "successful"

define "it".

Aaron Hall

lynx, it directed me to the cygwin home page

whereas before it blocked me

allquixotic

looks like you figured out which proxy server routes to the internet ;p

Aaron Hall

If you hadn't explained that file, it would have taken much longer for me to figure out where to look

thank you

allquixotic

you've taken the first step toward understanding your environment -- an important part of getting shit done in the risk-averse environment of corporate America / public sector America

can't tell you how many people don't even see the shackles, much less try to understand how they are built

now you can impress your coworkers when they shrug and walk away when they get an error message on any command-line tool connected to the Internet :P

we had a similar situation here, except with Ruby's gem HTTP-based library installer

most people see an error and don't even try to understand why; that kind of mentality wastes billions of dollars in lost productivity

DragonLord

6:07 PM

@allquixotic Everyone is so lawsuit-happy to the point where any self-respecting business has to take these kinds of measures.

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but consider that lawyers and lawsuits cost billions, too.

allquixotic

@DragonLord what lawsuits do they become invulnerable to by locking down the Internet with forced proxies and restrictive web filters?

DragonLord

I think the justice system needs improvement.

allquixotic

the key issue is that their mitigating measures are fundamentally ineffective; I've never seen a proxy or web filter I couldn't bypass with 5 minutes and a VM

unless they have a strict whitelist of allowed domains, and do forced HTTPS MITM

in which case I will refuse to work for them

or just develop some kind of "layer 8" proxy on top of Google Search somehow ;p

there are infinite ways for information to leak in and out of corporate digital environments; if you're that paranoid about your dirty laundry, keep it locked up on non-networked machines with PS/2 keyboards and mice and the USB controllers destroyed or removed from the motherboard or disabled in the (password-protected) BIOS

Aaron Hall

where would I have learned this stuff elsewhere? Why was my typical google search learning mechanism broken?

allquixotic

if you let people on the Internet, you need to give them freedom; don't expect half-measures to be effective; they just slow down legitimate work

@AaronHall your biggest knowledge gap was in not recognizing that you were being forced to route through a proxy, and that Lynx, unlike IE/FF/Chrome, is unable to automagically sense Windows proxy settings and pick them up

"can't connect to internet through Lynx" is a far cry from "configure Lynx with PAC" in terms of specificity

basically just lack of awareness of your operating environment

don't be afraid to snoop under the hood; few, if any, employers will even know you looked, let alone punish you

snooping and changing stuff are two different things though

the mentality that I'd suggest is, don't treat anything as a magic black box

start out with the nearest topic or element that you are aware of (in terms of its existence) but don't understand, and google that topic to understand it

try to find answers to questions like, "how can I find out how my network is configured?"

then keep peeling back the onion

it's literally the same discovery process as a prisoner who's locked in solitary confinement and trying to find a way out

look around; use your senses; try to find tools you can use; try to find weaknesses or cracks in the wall; observe the behavior of the guards; keep track of time; monitor patrol schedules, shift rotation, meal time, evidence that you're being observed, etc. etc. etc.

(not that I've ever been in prison)

a corporate network can feel a lot like a digital prison, though

there's the sensation of panopticon (you don't know if you're being monitored); there're strict controls on your behavior; there're severe punishments for matching any of the criteria deemed by the operators to be in violation of rules or policy; etc.

it also, fortunately, possesses, in most cases, one additional similarity with prison: there are tons and tons of gigantic loopholes

ever hear of the gangs that are literally operated out of prisons in California? that's right; inmates, behind bars, actually making decisions and strongly influencing entire groups of (violent) individuals in society outside the prison

I'm one of the most non-violent people you'll ever meet :P but darn if I can't find my way to freedom when I'm behind a corporate network :P

Canadian Luke

6:59 PM

If you use the IE 11 preview app from Microsoft, it creates a Remote Desktop connection to IE 11, from MS's network

allquixotic

7:25 PM

@CanadianLuke wat

Canadian Luke

remote.modern.ie

I can use that to get around most firewalls and filters as well

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