The Comms Room

Mark Henderson

00:02

Woooo our government is now going all US-style and wants to keep all phone and internet records from ISPs and telcos for 2 years because we had a citizen blow themselves up in Iraq a few weeks ago

Journeyman Geek

Morning

Mark Henderson

Woohoo my uniFi AC AP has been shipped

My wife is gunna be so pissed when she sees another blinkie thing that I'm going to bolt onto the roof. Worth it.

4

cole

sup

ewwhite

00:20

I need a hug.

2

Ry Jones

hopefully a trip up the star wall will suffice

ewwhite

Chasing customers for money.

cole

I can share my beer with you.

ewwhite

Heh.

cole

hope you like IPAs

Mark Henderson

00:27

@ewwhite hugs and kisses

I had a customer yesterday with $27,000 in outstanding invoices and a the CEO's PDF printer was borked. All of a sudden we received remittance advice for all the outstanding invoices so his PDF printer could be fixed

ewwhite

At dinner with wife. But she invited a friend.

Last minute n

Mark Henderson

That's an expensive PDF printer (for them)

@ewwhite Wow cockblocked much?

ewwhite

First danila, now this.

Ry Jones

@MarkHenderson drop them as a customer

Falcon Momot

yeah that's kind of a big red flag... "we won't pay you until absolutely necessary"

Mark Henderson

00:30

@RyJones Nope, cos when they pay they pay a lot

When they stop paying we cut them off

Then they pay

Then the cycle repeats every 6 months

They pay for a few months, then stop paying

Anyway they're not my client they are my colleagues responsibility so I dont have to deal with them. Sweet.

Falcon Momot

another thing you could do with them is give progressive payment terms

so that if they remit months late they owe you double

Ryan Ries

Does anyone know of a tool like sslscan for Windows, except that's been updated since 2008?

Mark Henderson

@RyanRies Does it have to be one that you can run internally?

Falcon Momot

companies remit late for one of two reasons: they have cashflow issues, or their AP department is incompetent. If the former, you don't want to be the vendor holding a PO from an insolvent client.

but I digress.

Ryan Ries

@MarkHenderson Yeah something for internal networks

Mark Henderson

00:34

@FalconMomot We have been known to cause cash flow issues because we're so expensive

Falcon Momot

hahahaha

Mark Henderson

But the flip side is that once they stop paying us they make more money than they spent

Falcon Momot

extending credit makes sense then

Mark Henderson

We've worked with companies that have grown from $500,000/year to $80M/year revenue

Falcon Momot

due to their IT systems?

Mark Henderson

00:35

@FalconMomot Yep

They were totally paper based when we started working with them. They had a small access system and MYOB but all their data transfer was paper based

Falcon Momot

oh, yeah, that could do it

Ry Jones

in the mid-90s Microsoft lost a shitload of cases due to how incompetent AP was.

Mark Henderson

Which also meant that guys had to come into the office to get their run sheets and return to the office to drop their reports off

Ry Jones

When I started on the migration project for that I think they were over a year behind paying.

Mark Henderson

Now they are totally paperless, most of the field staff never come into the office, they're doing an extra job per day per field staff and have won so many contracts they couldn't keep up with the demand and opened 5 new offices around the country

And then they fired us because we couldn't provide them with the time that they needed because they were now so big (which was OK by us, we had milked that cow as much as we feasibly could)

cole

01:07

sometimes it blows my mind I work for a $1.9 billion dollar company.

ewwhite

Picky-ass bitches!

Oh, and by the way, as much as I respect and appreciate you investing in my specific difficulty, it doesn't really answer the question(s) which were more knowledge-based. My question was to do with standardised terminology in racks and rails, and you've now partially answered the second question (by implication) but only in the comments. I was expecting more of an answer defining terms. I'll change my bolding to emphasise this. — tudor 17 mins ago

I'll point him to Spiceworks.

cole

01:23

haha

MDMarra

01:54

1

Q: Is using an Azure VNet-to-VNet a feasible way to create a DMZ?

I have a three-tier application running in Azure VMs. This application has two back-end tiers and a web tier. This is split up into three cloud services. The two back-end tiers use Azure Internal Load Balancing. The web-tier only needs to communicate to the back-end on port 443. Is it feasible to...

azure

ewwhite

@MDMarra No.

MDMarra

:(

ewwhite

@MDMarra use your sass to smack this guy around.

MDMarra

what a dummy

I dont care to tell people they're dumb about hardware anymore

Maybe I'm getting soft

OR MAYBE IM JUST ALL UP IN THIS CLOUD SHIT

5

Michael Hampton

I like paying other people to worry about the hardware.

MDMarra

02:02

@MichaelHampton you do some Azure stuff right?

ewwhite

You are all cloudy.

Michael Hampton

@MDMarra I have a few Linux VMs running in Azure, but nothing big.

MDMarra

oh

hm ok

Ever play with multiple VNets in a vnet-to-vnet config

ewwhite

Wanna know why I hate cloud shit?

Michael Hampton

@MDMarra Nope

MDMarra

02:04

ewwhite

amazon.com/Logitech-Harmony-Ultimate-Customizable-Cabinet/dp/…

MDMarra

This is what I'm trying to do, but I want to move the top tier to a new VNet that can only communicate with the back end "internal only" VNet over 443

@ewwhite I've had a logitech harmony remote forever

ewwhite

My fucking remote control was DISABLED by the manufacturer.

MDMarra

not that one though

@ewwhite HAHAHA WHAT

ewwhite

Being a bit hyphy, I have three of these in our house, and they disabled the wrong one.

MDMarra

02:06

ha

Do you like that model?

I have two of the older ones without the touch screen

ewwhite

Yes and no...

it's an RF remote..... so it's a new paradigm

no more pointing shit at the TV

it controls all devices...

MDMarra

how does it change the channel?

I have mine programmed to control my tower fan

it's awesome

but i thought it was all IR, not RF

ewwhite

RF to a hub device, which blasts IR

and also cloud-connected

hence how they were able to disable my remote control

Michael Hampton

Fuck. Fuck that. Fuck that shit.

MDMarra

hahaha

hilarious

I like that the XBone has an IR blaster

So "Xbox On" turns my TV on after you say it for the 72nd time and it finally picks up your voice

ewwhite

02:12

so I have like $900 in remotes... and had no CLUE that they could be wiped remotely

MDMarra

hilarious

Michael Hampton

I assume everything connected to the network can be controlled by someone else without explicit action to prevent it.

ewwhite

It's not a big stretch, right?

Michael Hampton

Which is one reason I always root my phone and usually replace the firmware.

And why I will never, ever have an iPhone or iPad.

ewwhite

because: apple

Michael Hampton

02:20

@ewwhite Yeah, between Apple and the NSA...and people like me who have MDM and can enroll a random device in five seconds.

iOS devices are still safe -- from everybody except Apple and the NSA

MDMarra

Rooting your phone won't replace the baseband OS

Which, from what I understand, is the dangerous one

Falcon Momot

@MDMarra they are all the dangerous one

Michael Hampton

@MDMarra Yeah, that controls the radio. And sure, you can hide malicious crap in there, but there is a limit to how much you can do. And even that can be worked around, by disconnecting the battery, or putting your phone in the microwave.

Falcon Momot

the radio, and the microphones and speakers and everything like that

ewwhite

everything scares me

MDMarra

02:24

Sure, but for regular every day use... If someone wants to listen in, they'll be doing it at the baseband level, not Android

Michael Hampton

OK Google, send everything I ever say to the NSA.

Falcon Momot

baseband rootkits are not an everyday thing :)

Michael Hampton

@FalconMomot Right, I expect something like that from advanced persistent threats.

MDMarra

Assuming you're not a moron, neither are android root kits, correct?

Michael Hampton

Big ones.

Falcon Momot

02:26

but I wouldn't be surprised if someone was publishing an unlocking tool that modified the android OS with persistent malware after unlocking the bootloader.

Michael Hampton

@MDMarra Android is open source. There are a million developers on Stack Overflow who can manage to hack on it. The baseband...that would have to be reverse engineered first.

Falcon Momot

the trouble with the baseband is that it's device-specific.

baseband malware is most similar to bios malware.

Michael Hampton

Do we have concrete examples of baseband malware yet?

Falcon Momot

I don't know of one

but like

Michael Hampton

I haven't even heard hints that the NSA was doing it.

Falcon Momot

02:27

it's not really my job to call out examples of them

there are definitely hints that the NSA is up in that. a quick google shows that much.

Michael Hampton

Maybe so. I would expect, though, that it would be more likely to be used for targeted attacks, rather than, say, compromising Motorola and inserting malware into every device.

Falcon Momot

that too is debateable, because china.

but it wouldn't be "all motorola devices". It would be "the droid 3".

or something like that.

Michael Hampton

I think for now I'll stick with the "battery pull" and the "leave the phone at home" tactics.

Falcon Momot

the battery pull thing is getting progressively harder because everyone feels compelled to emulate apple

Michael Hampton

@FalconMomot I have a phone with a "non-removable" battery. Nevertheless I have disassembled and replaced the battery, when the previous one threatened to explode.

Falcon Momot

02:33

yeah, but that's mightily inconvenient for mid-conversation transitions to top secret.

Michael Hampton

Yeah, that's when I find the nearest Faraday cage and stick the phone in it.

ewwhite

Burners for me.

Michael Hampton

Yep, I've used plenty of burner phones too

But burning a high end smartphone gets expensive...

Falcon Momot

burners won't protect you from open mic surveillance.

Michael Hampton

Yeah, but they're cheap pieces of crap that are easy to remove the battery.

Falcon Momot

02:37

true.

I think the only real solution of course is this:

death to spies. god loves pyros.

Michael Hampton

Well, unfortunately I'm fresh out of nukes.

Journeyman Geek

Simple solution?

Michael Hampton

Conventional weapons.

Journeyman Geek

Just use an oldschool monochrome phone ;p

Michael Hampton

I'm liking my rotary desk phone from the 1970's more and more every day. Not only does it make and receive phone calls, it can be used to crush a skull.

Journeyman Geek

02:43

they arn't upgradable (so any changes would need to be at the factory), they're about 20-30 dollars each (so fairly disposable), and they have dumb, pullable batteries

Michael Hampton

@JourneymanGeek That's generally what's used as burner phones.

theregister.co.uk/2013/03/07/…

Journeyman Geek

this was my phone until ~2 years ago

and ugh

Read up... I'm slightly brainfried at the moment

stupid stratergic management.

Michael Hampton

Aw crap, I missed one of Snowden's reveals about the baseband chip.

Falcon Momot

oh, strategic management is not that bad

Michael Hampton

03:09

@FalconMomot redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/…

ewwhite

WTF is wrong with people?!?

Falcon Momot

@MichaelHampton interesting.

Mark Henderson

@ewwhite Someone doesn't have a working spam filter?

ewwhite

@MarkHenderson people who don't delete mail

Michael Hampton

@FalconMomot The equivalent driver in Motorola devices is open source, though I have yet to review it.

@FalconMomot The most interesting part is that instead of fixing it, Samsung denied everything.

@ewwhite They're too damn busy to deal with all the crap they get emailed.

Falcon Momot

03:30

@MichaelHampton why am I not surprised

Michael Hampton

Naturally I have a Motorola phone.

Falcon Momot

I wonder who manufactures the nexus 5?

ewwhite

@MDMarra Thoughts on this?

2

Q: Disable Outlook Web Access Junk filtering in Exchange 2013

By default, Outlook Web Access (OWA) in Exchange 2013 appears to move suspected junk mail to the Junk Email folder. This is undesirable behavior in most of my environments because we have Barracuda Spam Filters in place. I'd like to accomplish the following setting globally for all existing and...

group-policy spam exchange-2013 outlook-web-access

Michael Hampton

@FalconMomot LG

Falcon Momot

noted.

Journeyman Geek

03:38

IIRC its a varient of the LG G2 without the wierd back buttons

Michael Hampton

03:51

Thanks a lot. This discussion made me bounty a question on SO.

1

Q: How mobile OS talks to baseband OS

I am trying to modify the mobile OS, so that I can control which call to take, and which one to reject, and also to run some signal processing. I am playing with Android OS, but I need to talk to baseband OS, and I am sure there is some way as whenever we get a phone call, the mobile OS user int...

android mobile operating-system

Falcon Momot

:D

that is a question few people will know the answer to

ask a cyanogen developer maybe?

Michael Hampton

I would have given 500 rep, but then I would have dropped below 3K

If I had time, I'd dig into the AOSP source myself. But I don't.

Maybe some fake internet points will encourage someone with more time to take a look.

Falcon Momot

04:07

@MichaelHampton I gave it a shot.

Michael Hampton

@FalconMomot I already saw that :)

Oops, OK, I'm an idiot. That question has a dupe.

stackoverflow.com/questions/11111067/…

Falcon Momot

kinda yes

Michael Hampton

Well, that does have actual pointers into the source. Which I think saves some time.

Falcon Momot

yup

what are you trying to accomplish?

Michael Hampton

Threat assessment.

And maybe a slight bit of mitigation.

Supposedly the Blackphone wrote their own baseband.

Falcon Momot

04:16

by the way, look at what I must put up with... facebook.com/falconkirtaran/posts/10152709483149341

Michael Hampton

@FalconMomot So that's what Facebook's 404 page looks like!

Falcon Momot

really?

oh, right. try again.

Mark Henderson

:16951706 Wow thats a cool start button. What skin did you use? Is that Winblinds?

Michael Hampton

@MarkHenderson Hahahaha

Mark Henderson

I used to use Winblinds. When I was a teenager.

Falcon Momot

04:22

huh, didn't catch the screenshot as I was in another window reading this:

Mark Henderson

It's the equivalent of putting stickers on your car

Falcon Momot

warp.povusers.org/grrr/java.html

Michael Hampton

Oh wow, it oneboxed an SVG

@MarkHenderson And no, it's not Winblinds, it's KDE. On Fedora. You know, Linux. On the desktop. For real. Unicorns really do exist.

Mark Henderson

@MichaelHampton What is... linux? Can I install that in Windows 8?

Michael Hampton

@MarkHenderson I'm not sure, but you can certainly install Windows 8 in Linux!

Mark Henderson

04:28

I used to run a FreeBSD desktop back in about '03. I was probably into BSDM and hurting babies back then too.

2

Michael Hampton

@MarkHenderson The FreeBSD desktop is probably about the same, as far as I know. But I could be wrong.

Falcon Momot

Michael Hampton

Mark Henderson

@MichaelHampton Heresy!

Burn the witch!

Michael Hampton

Hey, that's where Windows belongs, inside a very small and highly secure box.

@MarkHenderson No, heresy is FILE EDIT ALL CAPS MENU BARS

Mark Henderson

04:42

@MichaelHampton OMG WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO YELL AT EVERYONE IN FULL SCREEN MODE

ITS LIKE ADDING INSULT TO INJURY. NO YOU CANNOT WINDOW THIS SCREEN THAT USES OVER TWO MILLION PIXLES TO DISPLAY A TRIVIAL AMOUNT OF INFORMATION. YOU WILL LIKE IT, YOU WILL ENJOY IT AND I WILL YELL AT YOU WHILE YOU ENJOY IT

Michael Hampton

Seriously, this looks ridiculous.

Mark Henderson

Visual Studio 2013 is a particularly bad offender

It even turns Windows 7 into a shouting match

Michael Hampton

Heh. I can actually stand to use 8.1 now, as long as it doesn't try to force Metro on me too much.

But when it comes to getting work done, that's what the half dozen terminals are for.

Bob

05:09

@MarkHenderson Does Office2013 do that too? I never got around to trying it.

Mark Henderson

@Bob I think it does, in the ribbon titles

We only have one user on 2013 and they're not here today so I can't check

Bob

@MarkHenderson Poor guy. Did they piss you off?

Mark Henderson

@Bob Haha he did until I basically told him "you fucking asked for 2013, otherwise I would have given you 2010 so you're on your own"

Journeyman Geek

05:33

@MichaelHampton: 8.1 (especially with the update) is much less obnoxious about that

Bob

@JourneymanGeek I can mostly ignore it, except the damn wireless network panel.

At least it doesn't freeze/crash every other time I try to use it now.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: Oh, I ignore that

win-x FTW

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Does that let you connect to a network?

MichelZ

good morning

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: sure

Bob

05:36

@JourneymanGeek ...I don't see it.

Journeyman Geek

wait, it opens up the sidebar.

FAIL

Bob

:P

Journeyman Geek

and eh

I have a centos 7 vm installed

~~I have NO idea what DE this is. I THINK its plasma...~~ Gnome 3

hm, no

(no, don't tell me)

Bob

I just realised I've never actually used CentOS. Or RHEL.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: this is my first time ;p

(though I'm using this to do LFS 101 so....)

Bob

05:40

Oh, That thing -_-

Journeyman Geek

fun part is they are using centos 6, not 7

and man, I wish I had this as a newbie.

Falcon Momot

My last few trips to the weed store: http://www.art.com/products/p25405380159-sa-i7982422/h-armstrong-roberts-1970s-sorry-temporarily-out-of-gasoline-sign-during-1973-opec-oil-shortage-crisis.htm

Tweeted by chronomex on August 5, 2014 at 5:12 AM

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Weren't you complaining about its simplicity just a day or two ago? :P

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: I did say newbie right?

Ry Jones

@FalconMomot I feel bad for Duncan, standing in line for no weed

Falcon Momot

05:43

well there are other ways

Journeyman Geek

@FalconMomot: grow your own? ;p

Falcon Momot

warp.povusers.org/grrr/xml.html

@JourneymanGeek there are other ways, in the plural.

Iain

G'day

First time I got to use my gold linux close dupe powers serverfault.com/q/617962/9517

That question is so fail :(

Falcon Momot

yeah

you can downvote those too ;)

Journeyman Geek

ow

Iain

05:49

@FalconMomot I guess I was surprised when it got closed and I forgot - thanks for the reminder

Ry Jones

I've gone from engaged release engineer to ready to quit in under a week. I should wait before the release is over before I quit

Falcon Momot

:)

Ry Jones

maybe I'll calm down

Falcon Momot

@RyJones ouch. looking for a new place?

Ry Jones

@FalconMomot ask me in a week

Falcon Momot

05:50

mhmm.

Ry Jones

I'm going to hit up opscode and see if they have anything shaking.

anyway, we're changing the development/release process (I'm in favor of the new process) and we're not assigning any requirements to the developers to make it happen

so it's all down to cajoling and social pressure, instead of the boss man saying "this is how it fucking is"

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: eh. Lesson 4. How to change your wallpaper. If you can see your wallpaper, you arn't using your screen-space right.

Bob

lol

I normally have a maximised browser window as my 'wallpaper' :P

Journeyman Geek

(seriously, this is good stuff for the complete newbie.)

Ry Jones

@JourneymanGeek I switched a bunch of lab machines back to windows basic theme so I could remote desktop to them, and the lab rats switched some of them back

Bob

05:53

Also, if you need a course to tell you how to change your wallpaper, one has to wonder how you managed to join the (online) course.

Journeyman Geek

@RyJones: I thought the composited themes were actually faster?

@Bob: they might be running it from windows ;p

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Locally. I guess fewer animations and gradients helps with remoting.

You can have the best of both worlds with composition on and animations off, though.

Ry Jones

@Bob you are correct. gradients and backgrounds on lab machines.

Journeyman Geek

ahh

Bob

@RyJones Wasn't there an option on the Windows RDP client to use a plain black background?

Ry Jones

05:56

@Bob not sure, I'm using Microsoft's Mac RDP client

Bob

o.O

Ry Jones

and it doesn't have any options for that.

Bob

Falcon Momot

lol

Bob

(it's normally on auto-detect, but LAN shows the checkboxes)

I'd recommend keeping desktop comp and maybe font smoothing on, and turning everything else off

Falcon Momot

05:58

but can you do that in the mac client?

(I completely forget...)

Bob

shrug do I look like a Mac user to you?

Falcon Momot

@RyJones does.

Journeyman Geek

I can probably check, I have a VM somewhere but I don't access to the app store ;p

Ry Jones

I just looked in the mac client, and as I said before, it isn't there

Iain

can we kill serverfault.com/questions/617972/… please ?

Journeyman Geek

06:00

sigh

Sometimes I wonder where we'd be if they also taught coders the facts of life ;p

Bob

> 23/ telnet is open only

Sounds like fun.

Journeyman Geek

lesson 1. Do not **** around with the university network unless you know you can bribe the admin.

;p

Iain

@MichaelHampton serverfault.com/a/617958/9517 why did you not downvote that ?

Bob

Project Euler had its DB compromised... annnnnnnd they were using MD5 for their password hash.

Iain

@Bob like all of my passwords my PE one is unique to it

Bob

06:11

@Iain Mine was from before I started using a password manager :\

There goes another memorised password! I'm actually not sure what else is using it.

Iain

@Bob I haven't played PE for a long time - my maths isn't really that good

Bob

I'm actually more annoyed at the email leak... I've gone five years with this address without a large amount of spam, though there's been quite a bit since two week ago.

@Iain Same. I'm just really bored recently, hence checking it again :\

Journeyman Geek

I need to do that.

Iain

@JourneymanGeek what ?

Journeyman Geek

oh, switching over to unique passwords and a password manager

Iain

06:19

@JourneymanGeek it's easy with keepass and chromeipass| passifox

Jenny D

Morning

Bob

@Iain Thanks, never knew about PassIFox

I need to add KP to my phone sometime

Iain

@Bob I have it on mine - it can connect to drop box so you can keep the database syned around your devices too

Bob

@Iain Yea, mine's on DB with a local keyfile for desktop and laptop use. I just never bothered setting it up on the phone.

Journeyman Geek

@Iain: eh, I have basically 2 passwords that count, and I keep forgetting one of them

(personal email, which has 2fa anyway, and national online everything account)

Hennes

06:29

Morning all.

Iain

@JourneymanGeek I don't know and have never seen most of my passwords

Journeyman Geek

@Iain: yeah, which is a good thing

oh well, no time like the present (or when I am procrastinating)

Hennes

Imagine one day looking at the passwords and finding they are password1 kneepass2 kneepass3, ... ;-)

Falcon Momot

Cisco: "Java comprises 91 percent of web exploits" https://www.cisco.com/web/offer/gist_ty2_asset/Cisco_2014_ASR.pdf

Tweeted by FalconDarkstar on August 5, 2014 at 6:32 AM

Hennes

cisco routers are the other 9% ?

Journeyman Geek

06:44

according to that, its PDFs and flash

dawud

Morning, gents.

Journeyman Geek

and they're running java 6

dawud

We are running a legacy app which was tricked to use 1.4, but originally worked for 1.3

Falcon Momot

Aah C; C is timeless and eternal.

I can run my C application from 1998 against the libc from today's snapshot.

dawud

I say this all the time, but I really need to learn C.

Iain

06:54

@dawud I doubt it would take you long it's a fairly small language

Falcon Momot

@dawud amazon.com/The-Programming-Language-2nd-Edition/dp/0131103628

though really, you should do this too:

amazon.com/The-Programming-Language-4th-Edition/dp/0321563840

note that both of these texts are written by the people behind the language.

dawud

@FalconMomot Thanks, I'll definitely look into both of them.

Falcon Momot

:)

dawud

@Iain It's probably a matter of time availability and self organization, I guess.

Falcon Momot

Another definitive text is this one:

amazon.com/…

dawud

06:59

/me adds to list

Iain

Many of those Q&A will have techniques in them that will aid you in gathering information to diagnose your problem. Right now your question is unanswerable because it basically reads like this. My disks get full, reboot fix. HALP ! meta.serverfault.com/questions/6074/… — Iain 37 secs ago

:(

Falcon Momot

indeed

Journeyman Geek

07:16

" i using CentOS 6.5 with SSD hard drive" >_>

There's your problem...

faker

we got one of those notices today from Google that they had to remove a page from their index due to the recent EU law ruling

Journeyman Geek

The 'right to be forgotten' one?

faker

yes

he could have just contacted us directly. We usually respond quickly to something like that

Iain

@faker was it reasonable ?

faker

@Iain couldn't read it, was in Spanish I think. But our community team said it was against our TOS and deleted it anyway

Iain

07:21

fair enough

faker

we are a product review site, so if it is against a person it really doesn't belong on our site

Iain

I guess so

faker

anyway it's a stupid law. And now there are people complaining that Google doesn't remove it from their US index, only the EU ones...

Journeyman Geek

@faker: eh, the legal system of the world is ill equipped for globalisation

Transcript for