The DMZ

Rory McCune

07:53

Mornin' All

AviD

08:34

@RoryMcCune yes, yes it is.

Rory McCune

@AviD how would you know from your lair? Do you have a periscope perhaps?

AviD

@RoryMcCune hehehe

I'll have you know I was outside twice today. Once I even left the neighborhood.

Had to go renew my drivers license :-(

Rory McCune

@AviD ooh. I've been on my travels this week, been to a load of areas of Scotland I've never seen before (which was lame, I really should have been up that way as it's not really that far..)

AviD

"renew"... well they suspended it, because I didnt do the corrective drivers course... so I had to get it temporarily reinstated. :@

Rory McCune

@AviD tut tut

AviD

08:37

@RoryMcCune hehe, yeah they always say the locals see less of the area than tourists...

@RoryMcCune and, for the record, I do have a window, it even gets some direct sunlight sometimes...

Rory McCune

@AviD probably true, well at least I can say I've visited loch ness, and morayshire now

AviD

@RoryMcCune oo, did you ride it??

... her?

Rory McCune

@AviD no sightings while we were there, probably on her holidays

AviD

maybe hibernating...

should check for hibernat.sys file ;-)

Rory McCune

@AviD geek joke!

Lucas Kauffman

08:41

Back in Belgium :(

AviD

hey. anybody ever figure out a good greader replacement yet?

Rory McCune

@AviD I went to newsblur, the pay-for version seems reasonable and has mobile apps.

AviD

wp7/8?

Rory McCune

ooh not sure

only tried the iPad one so far..

Lucas Kauffman

security.stackexchange.com/questions/38209/…

AviD

08:44

nm I'll check, looking at it now...

Lucas Kauffman

Kill it

Rory McCune

@LucasKauffman with fire?

AviD

also want one with a proper w8 app/desktop prog, dont like reading in the browser...

Lucas Kauffman

Preferably or with the Loch Ness monster if you manage to restore her from hibernation

Rory McCune

@AviD BTW you tried the 8.1 preview yet? the missus has installed it on desktop and surface, liking it a lot so far

AviD

08:47

@RoryMcCune no, I dont have time to play with previews... as much I'd like to.

I'm waiting for gold...

@LucasKauffman done

@RoryMcCune are there any real differences?

I figured its mostly some spit'n'polish... with a few of the sharper edges cut down.

Lucas Kauffman

A start button I imagine :p

AviD

@LucasKauffman actually, thats not quite the case, from what I heard...

it's more of a kinda-sorta situation.

Rory McCune

@AviD more flexible start menu and customizations, start button is back (kind of), metro is more flexible, new apps...

AviD

@RoryMcCune well, apps is always good, flexible is good.... cant say I care about the kinda start button though.

Terry Chia

09:12

Anyone over here tried your hands at bitcoin mining before?

ManishEarth

@TerryChia yes

on a cpu

Terry Chia

@ManishEarth hah. how long ago was that?

ManishEarth

Probably made like a hundredth of a cent

Half a year ago. It was only for experimentation

Terry Chia

@ManishEarth Cool. I'm trying my hands on litecoin mining now.

AviD

dunno, it always seemed to me a bit like a pyramid scheme....

ManishEarth

09:13

@TerryChia nice

Terry Chia

In another few hours I will have earned $2. :O

Probably not worth it.

ManishEarth

@AviD I'm just fascinated with the concept. They make the crypto uncrackable (even in the future), simply because it is more lucrative to use your computing power to help the system.

AviD

yeah, thats a cool angle from a social engineering perspective (well, at least until someone does manage to find a shortcut).

ManishEarth

Quantum computing introduces issues

AviD

and sure, the crypto design is really interesting - as far as the "distributed transactions database" goes.

ManishEarth

09:16

Yep

AviD

but as a monetary ecosystem, it feels sleazy.

ManishEarth

I don't participate in it, but I just love the design

@AviD Meh. Currently it is used a lot for sleazy purposes (read: .onion sites)

AviD

tbf, I dont like the govt controlled system that much more - but if you're going to reinvent currency, do it right.

ManishEarth

What's wrong with this method?

It's completely independant of any controlling entity

AviD

@ManishEarth which, govt or bitcoin?

ManishEarth

09:17

@AviD bitcoin -- "do it right"

For that matter the govt ain't that bad either. But every decision they make changes the buying power of your pocket, not something that's always fun.

AviD

@ManishEarth ah, yeah except for the pyramid aspects...

the early adopters are "worth more", simply because they came in early?

and the govt - well, it goes back to any govt controlled commerce...

ManishEarth

codinginmysleep.com/ponzi-schemes-in-plain-english

AviD

@ManishEarth ha! yeah, that....

ManishEarth

@AviD Yeah, but that's only for the early adopters. Now it's no longer a surefire way to make money -- it's easy to lose money by investing in it too

AviD

interesting, perhgaps after I finish reading that I will think differently, it is possible I just dont know enough about it.

@ManishEarth exactly. doesnt seem to far of daytrading, but with cpu power...

and the longer you wait to get in, the less your "time" is worth.

ManishEarth

09:21

@AviD Though I think it only talks about ponzi, and makes a few passing mentions of pyramids. The blog's written by @DavidPerry (Bitcoin.SE mod, also well known in bitcoin circles), and is quite wel written

@AviD Not really, considering that most people keep upgrading their hardware

AviD

well I would consider ponzi as a subset of pyramid, so it should answer me well enough.

@ManishEarth that too.

ManishEarth

@AviD Think of it as the people working at the mint getting a salary :P

> The pyramid scheme, for example, is almost identical to the Ponzi but new investors are solicited by old investors rather than the person at the top.

Lucas Kauffman

Bit coin mining was profitable because not many hashes were known

ManishEarth

@LucasKauffman ?

Oh, the difficulty level you say?

Lucas Kauffman

Is litecoin something new?

Aye

ManishEarth

09:24

BTC mining was easy in the very very beginning. But once the difficulty level kicks in, the system adjusts itself to maintain a constant difficulty/profitability.

AviD

@ManishEarth hmm, well then bitcoin would be less ponzi, more pyramid... ;-)

ManishEarth

@LucasKauffman Not really. There are many alternate systems. Namecoin is bitcoin-like but also is a DNS server

@AviD yep

@AviD The person at the top has gone missing :P

Lucas Kauffman

I mean I have servers running on idle ATM better put those to good use

Rory McCune

09:52

from what I've seen bitcoin mining is out of range of the casual participant now, with people getting custom ASIC rigs

the trading aspect is massively risky very volatile and when there's a problem the trading can lag heavily

the big money was made back with bitcoins were only worth a couple of cents each

anyone who cashed out at the top ($200/coin) made mad cash!

Lucas Kauffman

I wonder how you explain bitcoins to taxes

I also wonder how much money laundering is done using the system

Rory McCune

well TBH I think that the tax reason/money laundering is another reason to have concerns about using bitcoin as there's indications that the US government are going to crack down on it, which will make getting cash into/out of it tricky...

TildalWave

10:33

@LucasKauffman I think it's the same as currency trading?

AviD

@TildalWave that would probably depend greatly on the local government.

@RoryMcCune yeah, they'll probably try - which will result only in difficulties for US citizens only, and most of those would just find an alternate outlet.

ie. use it for trading and purchases, not as a BC-to-USD cash flow.

TildalWave

@AviD well sure... but should be there somewhere with the rest of currency trading... here you can trade all you want (EU still didn't pass that tax on it AFAIK) but once you declare it as income it's a matter of income tax

Rory McCune

@AviD well problem is if they tell mastercard/visa to block BC transactions it causes problems world-wide. It's nasty having to rely on US companies for a system like credit/debit cards....

TildalWave

but I read they're planning some tax on transactions... IMO utterly stupid and will lower our competitiveness on financial markets, but I never expected any better from EU anyway and it wouldn't really hit me as surprising if they did

Financial transaction tax

A financial transaction tax is a levy placed on a specific type of monetary transaction for a particular purpose. The concept has been most commonly associated with the financial sector; it is not usually considered to include consumption taxes paid by consumers. A transaction tax is not a levy on financial institutions per se; rather, it is charged only on the specific transactions that are designated as taxable. So if an institution never carries out the taxable transaction, then it will never be subject to the transaction tax. Furthermore, if an institution carries out only one such ...

There's a paragraph or two on proposed European Union financial transaction tax

AviD

@RoryMcCune yeah, but I'm sure there will be a way around that. e.g. use it for online bc-supporting sites only...

paypal competitors... (non-us based, of course)

Lucas Kauffman

11:11

@TildalWave except that currency trading is highly regulated and monitored

Terry Chia

@LucasKauffman Yeah, it's a new blockchain. Each litecoin is $2~ compared to the $90-100~ price of bitcoin.

ManishEarth

@RoryMcCune ASICs are still in "beta".

TildalWave

@LucasKauffman Yes, and this is also how I read this proposal. The 0.1% doesn't seem much but it would give governments a better overview of financial transactions. Basically, it's not about the money that would trickle into countries' budgets with this, but the ability to force additional control where they're probably not within their rights to enforce it

Rory McCune

@ManishEarth well there are shipping products like the butterfly labs stuff mineforeman.com/2013/05/15/… but yeah early days for them. however once they're on the scene I can't see too many serious people staying in the game with CPU or maybe even GPU powered rigs

FPGAs maybe

ManishEarth

11:34

@RoryMcCune Yeah, but butterfly labs is iirc still not o the open market

Yeah FPGAs

Rory McCune

@ManishEarth well they're taking orders (rather then pre-orders) on their site, but how quickly they're shipping is another matter...

ManishEarth

huh maybe they got out of beta

I'd really like to play with an FPGA though. Not mining, just fiddling around. Our institute has a course (in the elec department, so not too easy for me to take) where there's tons of fpga hands-on. Might be able to audit it

Terry Chia

@ManishEarth @RoryMcCune arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/06/…

TildalWave

11:55

0

Q: Can SHA-1 hash function produce "non-random" digest

SHA-1 message digest produces outputs that appear to be a random distribution of hex characters. My question is this: Is there a non-zero chance to see a digest that looks "non random", let's say after applying the hash function on 2^80 arbitrary strings? and if there is, is it practical to see o...

sha

dunno what to make of it... this is essentially asking what random is, no?

or actually quite similar to computing bitcoins (?)

Rory McCune

@TerryChia cool. of course the return will be diminishing as time goes on but I guess for a while it'll be possible to make money with these.

Terry Chia

@RoryMcCune Yeah, but there's really no point in ordering one now since they are just clearing the preorders from last year.

Rory McCune

@TerryChia I might get one of the little ones to see what they're like in time. could be handy to have some bitcoins I'm sure (in the UK there's even a pub that takes them!)

Terry Chia

It will probably not be worth it by the time you can get your hands on one.

Rory Alsop

Afternoon all

It's British grand prix time

Rory McCune

12:04

@TerryChia actually reading this thegenesisblock.com/category/mining-2 it sounds like even small ASIC miners won't get a lot done in the future...

Terry Chia

@RoryMcCune Yeah, it will get progressively harder as time goes by. I think the idea is to hopefully make enough with your existing miners to justify buying new ones in the future.

Rory McCune

@TerryChia hmm that sounds like a game that only the hardware manufacturers will win ultimately...

anyone see this reuters.com/article/2013/06/30/…

2

can't help thinking that the EU are going to have to respond somehow...

Terry Chia

@RoryMcCune Yup. I'm just going to mine for today to see how it's like. No way I'm gonna commit to it long term.

TildalWave

12:27

@RoryMcCune jeebus almighty quick, post a rep train question before some non-IT security guy posts a really bad one and we won't be able to get rid of it again, like that PRISM one!

"What are the implications of U.S. taps on the average German internet user?" :))

AviD

12:47

@TildalWave wait, is that q you want him to post, or the "really bad one"?

TildalWave

@AviD just a joke, I'm sure anyone from here could come up with a lot better question that could gather relevant answers.

@AviD And it's not just Germany either according to that article ;)

@RoryMcCune they will probably ban wigs, toupée and other hairpieces to prevent US spies like Ryan Fogle from moving around EU so freely :)

-1

Q: My old email has totally crashed

my old adelphia email has crashed on me & I been using a new gmail account for some time, I have been playing Robinsons from my droid phone & just replaced my phone. My game will not transfer (or i just cant figure out how to do it) & I do not have access to the old email and cannot remember wh...

email

burn it

AviD

13:21

@TildalWave meh, didnt bother reading it... its not exactly news

Rory McCune

@AviD dunno publicly admitting that Germany and France are treated differently to the UK/Canada/Australia/NZ in terms of spying effort is likely to put the cat amongst the pigeons a little....

AviD

its dem dang forners, cant trust em cuz dey dont speak good english

never trust nobody who dont speak english right.

pool time! laters

Rory McCune

@AviD oh god that's me in trouble then!

TildalWave

@AviD gee I just brought a bucket of water for the missus' feet in the room when you posted that :))

Lucas Kauffman

13:55

mmm I think I burned my wireless card

Terry Chia

@LucasKauffman How..?

Simon

Morning

Lucas Kauffman

@TerryChia I don't know, I increased the TX power (AWUS036H) and suddenly I smell like an electricity brun

next thing I know my wireless card won't connect to any network anymore

so first I thought it might be windows

so I plug it into BT

Simon

-1

Q: Is it possible to make money independently?

I've come to a sort of cross-roads in my life where I have to consider what I want to focus on "exclusively". I have always felt like information security would be my ultimate career path, but lately I have been considering getting into indie game development. I like creating stuff and if I coul...

career

The dude is answering his question himself

Lucas Kauffman

which shows some major errors in dmesg

Terry Chia

14:04

@LucasKauffman Ouch. At least they aren't that expensive to replace.

Lucas Kauffman

@TerryChia the problem is that it was my backup plan

I just came home from spain to find one of my homeplugs malfunctioning

Terry Chia

@LucasKauffman Ouch. :(

Lucas Kauffman

so I can't play any games at the moment (this internet is my mobile)

Rory McCune

@LucasKauffman with home plugs I've found that turning them off and leaving to cool for a little while can help, so that might work :)

Lucas Kauffman

@RoryMcCune nah it's toast, it was plugged in and felt completely cold, no lights burning

Terry Chia

14:06

I always have spare wireless cards. I think I have 3 sitting around at the moment. One Alfa card as well as two TP-LINK ones in addition to the one on my mobo.

Rory McCune

@LucasKauffman ahh bummer :(

Lucas Kauffman

hopefully, if I get lucky, they will deliver my new pair tomorrow or the day after

mmmm maybe I can bridge the wifi card in my laptop to my network

lets see

Terry Chia

I need to get round to flashing my Nexus 7 with the Pwnpad ROM.

Lucas Kauffman

alright

I bridged my laptop's wireless connection to my bedroom network

TildalWave

14:25

@LucasKauffman You have a bedroom network? :mrgreen:

Simon

14:43

Who the fuck are these clowns? They're reviewing a sport car and complain because you cannot get an automatic transmission.

As Jeremy Clarkson would say: IRRELEVANT.

Adnan

I was wondering, is it possible to have a PNG version (transparent background) of the Sec.SE logo. Any ideas?

Perhaps our Photoshop expert, @Tilda, have some ideas?

Lucas Kauffman

15:01

Simon

loooooooooooool

Adnan

@LucasKauffman The number of results returned by preg gif on that image URL is too damn high!

Adnan

15:21

Well, since it's that dry around here, I thought some instagramming would change the mood a bit.

To a fine a week. Cheers!

Adnan

15:44

Well, that didn't work. Laters everybody.

Simon

Haha. See ya.

AviD

17:26

@RoryMcCune heh, yeah do scots count?

Scott Pack

@AviD I think so.

AviD

heh, thats particularly amusing, my window is pretty narrow so its only showing "Scot" for your name...

Scott Pack

Diz 'at pure techt Ah coont an aw, 'en?

AviD

17:41

@ScottPack wotcha

TildalWave

18:01

@Adnan run me through it, I didn't read all the transcript

oh I have that @Jin sent it to me on request...

I have PSD files also but they come with a copyright warning we're only allowed to use it for sec.se promo obviously ;)

Lucas Kauffman

@Adnan shot the CP99 today, a bit of hard squeeze on the trigger

my groups were a bit off, but I did manage to get them in the circle at 10 meters (7 x 7 cards)

it does allow for relatively accurate shots when shooting fast

TildalWave

AviD

@LucasKauffman 10 meters? 10 meters??

dont think I've ever shot anything that close.

ah well, I guess thats a pistol, I'm used to rifles...

Lucas Kauffman

@AviD It's a pistol and the cards were made for 10 meters :p

AviD

hmm, actually I do remember my dad taking my to the pistol range with him when I was a teenager, but even that 10 meters was probably too short.

He carried a Magnum 357....

yaknow, Dirty Harry style :D

Lucas Kauffman

18:11

@AviD dirty harry didn't have a 357 :p

also shooting a 357 is like firing a small hand canon o.O

AviD

@LucasKauffman "most powerful handgun in the west". Sure he did.

TildalWave

S&W 29

Lucas Kauffman

@AviD harry had a 44 magum

@Adnan oi40.tinypic.com/2mnj9r5.jpg

AviD

@LucasKauffman oh yes it is. had to use smaller bullets in the range, otherwise it would go right through the reinforced walls... not to mention the kickback in the hands of a teenager.

Lucas Kauffman

as promised

TildalWave

18:13

I'm pretty sure he had a Smith & Wesson model 29-2

AviD

@LucasKauffman not bad

TildalWave

Lucas Kauffman

@TildalWave yea, .44 caliber rounds

@AviD yea but needs improvement

AviD

@LucasKauffman always does... ;-)

Lucas Kauffman

I tend to shoot to the right, need to adjust the sights to shoot a bit lower and a bit more to the left

AviD

18:14

unless youre robin hood, of course

Lucas Kauffman

vice versa

AviD

@LucasKauffman damn, youre right... had to look that up, of course

now I'm confused... could be what my dad has too, or it could be I was always confused about dirty harry....

Lucas Kauffman

@AviD iirc a .357 is more lethal than a .44

AviD

@LucasKauffman not according to dirty harry!

"being as this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and will take yuour head clean off..."

Lucas Kauffman

:p

TildalWave

18:18

@AviD He had a long barrel one in that movie, no? That's the first movie? And a short barrel in other movies?

AviD

@TildalWave I think it was long barrel in all of them, no?

Lucas Kauffman

@AviD this is my new toy btw: allgunsdiscounted.co.uk/images/walther-cp99-black.jpg

AviD

well my dad does....

TildalWave

@AviD No the pool one was short I'm pretty sure

AviD

@LucasKauffman aww its cuuuute!

you could stick that down your shorts and it would barely leave a bulge!

so, same as now, I guess... ;-)

@TildalWave guess I gotta watch them all again, then!

classics...

actually did watch good bad and the ugly not too long ago...

TildalWave

18:22

hmmm dunno now is there a medium length barrel magnum 44?

Lucas Kauffman

@AviD FIIIIIEEEEEIIEEEW WAAAH WAAH WAAAH

TildalWave

doesn't look neither short nor long one to me, or it could be the angle :O

AviD

oh its long enough....

@TildalWave but isnt that what she said?

TildalWave

@AviD hhee

AviD

18:34

hey, anybody here happen to use outlook with gmail?

Lucas Kauffman

19:22

@AviD yea

porque?

Simon

19:44

Is it me or they hasn't been many quality questions today?

AviD

@LucasKauffman do you use google calendar with it, too?

Lucas Kauffman

@AviD I use google calendar but I use it straight in google, not through outlook

AviD

@LucasKauffman oh :-(

Lucas Kauffman

haven't thought about it :/

AviD

I'm trying to consolidate emails and calendar accounts... not as smooth as one would have hoped.

the way its been is I need to check more than one place before scheduling anything... not quite optimal.

and it seems like google does not support updates to the calendar via non-google UI...

btw that also means, if I'm reading gmail emails in outlook, any calendar invites I get will get saved to the outlook calendar, not the google calendar.

Rory McCune

19:57

ya know it occurs to me that I've not introduced the room to the cultural sensation that is Mr Ivor Biggun youtube.com/watch?v=nkqfa-kaRFM is a good example (NSFW lyrics)

or perhaps youtube.com/watch?v=ln4QojnG7G8 (NSFW lyrics again)

Lucas Kauffman

If anyone is working on sunday, poor blokes :p

AviD

@LucasKauffman yknow, there ARE some countries where sunday is a regular work day....

Rory McCune

well ya never know, if nothing else at least it warns the NSA analysts looking at it

Lucas Kauffman

@AviD like Israel?

AviD

@LucasKauffman like Israel :-)

well, its still cool, we have Fridays off instead...

I believe most muslim countries are the same, but I could be wrong.

Lucas Kauffman

20:02

just wrote my 350th answer on here

alsmost at 500 at serverfault

@RoryMcCune did you know we got rebranded? It's just EY now

new logo:

Rory McCune

@LucasKauffman bet ya' that logo wasn't cheap...

Lucas Kauffman

@RoryMcCune tons of graphics artists :p

actually it isn't cheap because they need to rebrand, everything.

AviD

@RoryMcCune and so the cycle of overpriced/undervalued consultancies continue...

Rory McCune

ooh they have twitter and facebook accounts now!

Lucas Kauffman

I did get a lot of old stuff they had with the old EY logo, like golf balls and a towel to hang in a toilet room

Rory McCune

20:07

From the EY_Belgium twitter account "The more ethical the #leader, the most substantial and long lasting will be the legacy of their organisation. RT if you agree"

interesting that it only got 2 retweets...

Lucas Kauffman

hahaha

@RoryMcCune ah well :p

Rory McCune

heh

3

Rory Alsop

20:28

Hahahah @lucas - I remember the millions they spent rebranding the last time. At least the beam and the colours appear to have stayed the same this time

Adnan

20:39

@TildalWave Oh yes the PSD would be great (or at least a higher res PNG), and yes they're for Sec.SE promotion.

@LucasKauffman That's a pretty sweet group. Not bad for this gun. I think after sight adjustment and a few more shots it should be all broken in and ready.

@Lucas What kind of pellets did you use?

Simon

My heard hurts.

So I'm gonna game to cure my headache.

Adnan

20:56

@Simon Nothing better than your socialist Canadian medical marijuana for your headache.

Simon

@Adnan How do I get my hands on that?

Adnan

@Simon I don't know! You should ask your buddy Barack Osama!

Simon

He's not a buddy of Canadians!

Adnan

(I'm just testing this whole Obama-is-a-Muslim-Build-the-wall-Vaccinations-cause-mental-illness thing)

Simon

I bet some marijuana would help though, no idea why.

Lucas Kauffman

21:00

@adnan .177 diablos, flat heads

Adnan

@LucasKauffman Great choice for cards

Lucas Kauffman

Yea bought everything at waffensport schneider

Pretty good shop they have tons of material

Adnan

@LucasKauffman Well, they've given you a quite nice deal on the pistol package.

Lucas Kauffman

Ordered a laser for it on deal extreme

Adnan

@LucasKauffman I think the laser is more adjustable than the open sights on that pistol. Don't forget to show off the results when you get it!

Lucas Kauffman

21:15

Will do ^^ adjusting the sights is a bid of a pane, you need to pull back on the slide and then adjust some screws, bit impractical

*pain

Adnan

@LucasKauffman I heard it doesn't have elevation adjustment (up/down), only windage (left/right). Is that true?

Lucas Kauffman

Yea I think so, need to check to make sure

Transcript for