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00:00 - 19:0020:00 - 21:00

12:00 AM
Actually, looking to get something like this. I'm still not totally a fan of 4-bangers, but it'll do the job for now. And, the wife can always have it whenever I can afford to get something with a V8 under the hood later on.
 
12:11 AM
Hahahaha - just got my email for details of where to send prizes. There's a little Rory meme in there which amused me. Cheers @Aarthi
 
 
4 hours later…
4:20 AM
 
 
3 hours later…
7:15 AM
good morning
 
7:32 AM
Good morning @Lucas
 
hows u @RoryAlsop?
 
Not bad at all - having a day off today as well, and focusing mostly on some big gigs and our next album launch
 
@RoryAlsop ever planned a tour around europe?
 
@LucasKauffman Yes, we have some venues in Germany and France who want us to come and play - we just ran out of time planning this year
Maybe we'll get our act together - and the day job will allow us to do it next year
 
7:48 AM
yea must be hard to combine that with your normal job?
 
@LucasKauffman not too bad, most of the time - but when there is a clash, the one that pays the bills has to come first. This will become a challenge if the band ever hits the big time :-)
 
@RoryAlsop you never know :D, plus you could go to cons and perform there too :P
 
@LucasKauffman we have already been asked by 2 big security cons, so we may do that next year:-)
 
nice!
@RoryAlsop perchance you need security personel to keep the groupies at bay?
 
@LucasKauffman ...the groupies are security folks at the cons
we do need security people to drink with at gigs
:-)
 
7:56 AM
@RoryAlsop well I'm up for that sacrifice :p
 
lol
 
Figured this question was well overdue...
0
Q: Hows does SSL work?

PolynomialHow does SSL work? I just realised we don't actually have a definitive answer here, and it's something worth covering. I'd like to see details in terms of: A high level description of the protocol. How the key exchange works. How authenticity, integrity and confidentiality are enforced. What t...

I'll convert to a CW if there's enough attention
 
@Polynomial dude - never realised this encryption stuff was new to you :-)
(joke)
 
trololol
 
Did you see I have drafted up this week's QoTW post as basically a cut'n'paste of your answer re IE zero day exploit
don't think I have borked it in any way, but feel free to give it the once over
scheduled for midday publish
 
8:03 AM
not got time to check through it this morning, sorry
 
Oh, and did you get your competition email @Poly?
 
I didn't notice you'd put it up there
 
@Polynomial no worries
 
yes, I did, thanks :)
 
@Polynomial is in pending
 
8:04 AM
I was tempted to put an amusing address in there
deliver to Polynomial Bulk Answering Services Ltd :P
 
@Polynomial I was tempted to respond with your details and my address :-)
 
haha
 
oh - I've given 256 answers on music.se - might have to stop. That's a good number :-)
or maybe I should head via 512 and 1024 to 1337 and then stop
 
I aim to get to 45,067 points, then stop.
 
btw we get t-shirts as well or was that just to have one form for all? :p
 
8:09 AM
in hex, it's 0xB00B.
 
@LucasKauffman For the competition? Not sure. I'm actually wearing my sec.se t-shirt at work now :P
I think a t-shirt with all prizes would be good - always nice to have some Sec.SE swag.
 
@Polynomial hahahaha
@Polynomial don't know - you'll have to let us know when they arrive
@Lucas - wish I had thought. I gave my last conference swag t-shirt to @RoryM to give away at the last OWASP Scotland event
 
I got mine from @RoryM at 44Con
 
@RoryAlsop aaaw :(
 
8:24 AM
It was one of those interesting things - I had ordered a conf pack (following these instructions: meta.security.stackexchange.com/a/677/485) and then my company had failed to give me time to go, so I ended up doling out that swag at 4 different events...often @RoryM helped out (I'm very grateful - and also jealous as he gets to go to more cons than me)
 
is there actually any way we can still obtain a tshirt?
 
@Lucas - if you are going to an appropriate event, follow that link (well in advance of the event) and you may be able to get a conf pack.
And if you are giving out swag to speakers, attendees etc - I think you'd need to be modelling a t-shirt to show how lovely they are
 
>< y u no say this 3 weeks ago xD
 
that's awesome - I'll keep that in mind for future conferences
 
@LucasKauffman and @Polynomial - star that meta question as a favourite
 
8:34 AM
nods
 
sometimes I just kind of assume everyone sees all those meta posts
otherwise I would have mentioned it again
AFK for an hour or so - the hazards of being on holiday: I get given jobs to do :-)
 
nods too
 
@RoryAlsop oh maaan, that just reminded me.... >.<
@GraceNote my conf package for OWASP IL never did make it here....
it's kind of moot by now, just curious if the post office workers somewhere are parading around wearing 3 tshirts each...
 
@AviD I find it funny that there was a guy working for the "Israeli Airforce" with a wink at brucon
 
@LucasKauffman heh, with a wink? As in, not really?
 
8:50 AM
no
probably state security
but he did not want to confirm that
there are some weird people at these cons tho
 
more likely some other secret unit, not really the air force per se.
@LucasKauffman heh, yeah.
like there's one guy, who uses Cookie Monster as his avatar!
 
@AviD or that one guy that uses tigers from Winnie the Pooh
 
@LucasKauffman that should be double guh
and, sadly, I've not been to Brucon :(
 
@AviD :( next year!
we make it a giant sec.SE meetup
at Brucon 2013!
 
Bah, hope I can afford it :|
 
8:59 AM
@Polynomial I can provide shelter if needed!
and beer
lots of beer
so that leaves you with the ticket
 
I flagged security.stackexchange.com/questions/20805/… as NARQ but now I don't think that it should be closed
 
@LucasKauffman Oh, really? Awesome :D
 
well normally that shouldn't be a problem
 
@LucasKauffman Well, ticket and flights... How much are the tickets these days?
 
tickets are not that expensive think around 150 E
 
9:07 AM
yeah, 100€ for early tickets and 160€ for the rest.
 
so thats what 70 GBP?
 
@LucasKauffman sounds cool, even if a bit overly optimistic for me...
 
£80
likely to be closer to 85 after currency conversion fees.
 
@AviD israel isn't that far
 
+ a grand for flights, plus hotels, plus kosher foods.... not too cheap. :(
mebbe I'll get somebody to pay for it for me.
hmm, do they sponsor speakers? Maybe I'll try to grab a speaker slot next year.
 
9:15 AM
@AviD yep hotel and flights are paid then
you can always contact Wim Remes
@AviD and finding kosher food in Belgium won't be that hard, we have a big jewish community in Antwerp
 
return flight for me would be £260
so including the train and everything, it'd be ~£380
 
train?
 
to the airport
 
I don't live near one :P
 
9:19 AM
mmm whatabout eurostar?
or thalis
 
eurostar goes through to brussels?
 
@LucasKauffman ah, yeah, was there once for a weekend.
 
@Polynomial you can also try to get a speaker slot or give a workshop
 
WTH? 250% more expensive for "business tickets"?
ooh, I heard Katie gives a great talk.
looks like a great schedule, overall.
will have to remember to check it next time around.
 
9:45 AM
@All hi )
 
0
Q: Are anti-virus companies companies regularly committing software piracy?

Andy SmithAs Mikko Hypponen highlighted in a recent tweet, anti-Virus companies collect and store both samples of malicious software and samples of legitimate software: https://twitter.com/mikko/status/25145612256373964 This got me to thinking, what differentiates that from software piracy? If I downl...

seriously?
@VicKyAmr hi there!
 
@LucasKauffman yeah man
yeah Its true , often I too have a notification from adobe for Kaspersky
 
so you actually are admitting you are using pirated software? :p
 
@AndreyBotalov I rolled back your edit to that certifications question. It completely changed the question - whilst it made it on topic, it's up to the author to decide what their question is.
 
@LucasKauffman not like that, some times , I may use trails .. that time it causes
 
10:18 AM
@Polynomial In my opinion my edit doesn't change meaning of the post but clarifies it
I've already made many edits like this to posts. Most of them were approved
 
@AndreyBotalov and @Polynomial - I think the question itself was just very broad so have closed and pointed the guy at some questions we already have that may be useful
 
But why it was closed as off topic?
Not NARQ for example?
 
@AndreyBotalov Because he didn't ask about security, he asked about IT.
your clarification changed the subject of the question, with the assumption that he was talking about security - but there's no actual evidence that he was talking about that.
 
And because sometimes there are a couple of reasons which may not quite fit perfectly, so we have to pick the one we think is nearest
 
so it's easiest to close as OT, then have him clarify it himself if he did indeed mean security certs
at which point we'd still close it as NC or TL, because the worth of certs is a matter of opinion and their usefulness varies between people.
 
10:27 AM
I even haven't noticed that he doesn't talk about security certifications
 
yeah, he just said "IT certs", which is a whole different kettle of fish.
 
11:07 AM
@Polynomial I might answer that this week-end (not today: too much work)
 
 
1 hour later…
12:21 PM
roryalsop on September 28, 2012

Community member Iszi nominated this week’s question, which asks for an explanation of the issue from the perspective of a developer/engineer: What is exactly being exploited and why does it work?

Polynomial provided the following detailed, technical answer:

CVE-2012-4969, aka the latest IE 0-day, is a based on a use-after-free bug in IE’s rendering engine. A use-after-free occurs when a dynamically allocated block of memory is used after it has been disposed of (i.e. freed). Such a bug can be exploited by creating a situation where an internal structure contains pointers to sensitiv …

 
1:10 PM
God I hate downvotes without explanation :<
2
 
@LucasKauffman Equally as bad, if not worse: Close votes without explanation.
 
1:31 PM
I just got my hands on a voucher for an online bookstore. Any one has any recommendations for interesting technical books to pick up? I would like to get some reading done during my last month of holidays.
 
@TerryChia Rootkit Arsenal by Bill Blunden, Windows Internals 6th Edition (parts 1 & 2) by Mark Russinovich, Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering by Eldad Eilam, The Shellcoder's Handbook by Chris Anley, Malware Analyst's Cookbook (with DVD) by Steven Adair, Liars and Outliers by Bruce Schneier.
to name a few.
 
1:49 PM
@Polynomial Thanks! I'll pick up the reverse engineering and windows internals books. Looking forward to reading them.
 
winternals ones are great reference materials
mark's the guy behind SysInternals
 
I see. It's a new topic for me, so I have quite a bit to learn. Should be fun.
 
Schneier's books are always a fun read, if a bit repetitive. 'Course they're not really technical, usually.
 
The Liars and Outliers book does sound interesting. Might pick it up in the future.
 
I agree about the winternals, too.
 
1:52 PM
yeah, L&O is basically about how most of society functions in terms of an implicit trust model, and the explicit controls we put in place to enforce standards on people who don't fit into the normal societal model
 
though it is very technical, up to the point where you'd probably use it more as a reference.
but it is very good to understand, anyway.
@Polynomial I object to that.
hey, I don't fit into the normal societal model, but I dont want more controls to enforce arbitrary standards on me. ;-)
 
@AviD There's more to it than that, but that's generally the bulk of it.
 
@Polynomial oh, yeah I know.
havent read that one yet, but looking forward to it.
eventually.
 
@AviD But you do fit into it. You're taking part in the implicit trust model.
 
@Polynomial taking advantadge of it ;-)
 
1:55 PM
he gives a great example of having a plumber come to his house - he trusted that the plumber would do a good job, was who he said he was, wouldn't try to steal from him or rob him, etc.
and the plumber had implicit trust in Bruce not to kill him, steal his tools, etc.
 
kidding. I was referring to the second half of your sentence independant of the first half. I.e. "normal societal model" irrelevant of trust model.
 
heh
my copy was signed by Bruce himself :)
 
hmm, when you put it like that, I would say that I barely fit into that model.
 
met him at InfoSec in February, he gave me a free copy ^_^
 
I'm always assuming someone is going to be trying to kill me.
@Polynomial cooooool
 
1:57 PM
@AviD Yeah, it was awesome. Left a talk, glanced left briefly, and Bruce was just standing there. I was like "That's... that's Bruce Schneier. That's actually him. Holy shit!"
One thing did surprise me - he's incredibly short.
maybe 5'2 or so, I'd guess.
 
@Polynomial I'd seen him at RSA Conf a few years ago, but he pretty much flew straight into his keynote and flew straight out.
 
@AviD He flew? I knew he had superpowers!
 
did see him walking in while I was sitting having a coffee, and I'm like "whoa he looks familiar"
 
I used to be much more of a fan of him years ago, before his works were so self-referential.
 
@Polynomial there is that now, sure.
but to be fair, he's pretty much already said it all upfront.
 
2:00 PM
these days I respect him for all his achievements, but take his opinions with a pinch of salt. he's a cryptogod, but he can be incredibly opinionated.
 
if people now would listen to Bruce from 5 years ago, he wouldn't have to repeat it.
@Polynomial opinionated speakers are the most interesting.
 
@Polynomial Sounds just like Linus.
 
indeed, but I was referring more to the blog posts, where he literally quotes himself.
@TerryChia s/Linus/Stallman/
god, Stallman is such an ass :P
4
his devotion to duty is exceeded only by his hubris and self-importance.
 
@Polynomial wasnt that a quote from Game of Thrones?
 
@AviD I've never watched GoT, so I wouldn't know.
 
2:04 PM
and speaking of which, can anybody front me $30,000? store.hbo.com/game-of-thrones-life-size-replica-iron-throne/…
 
hmm, there's lots of god references in the starred comments box.
solution:
s/god/The Almighty Athiesmo/
 
@Polynomial how many of them have ass in the same comment?
 
(Futurama reference, if you don't get it)
 
s/god/Rory/
then you have even more.
hmm. s/ass/Rory/ works too.
"Rory, Stallman is such a Rory."
 
@AviD grep -r '(ass)|(god)' ./comments
 
2:08 PM
@Polynomial whenever I see Stallman I think of this:
 
haha
s/\b.+/Rory/
"Rory, Rory rory rory rory rory :P"
5
 
? \b.+ ?
ahh, right.
no need, we'd already done that in honor of RoryDay.
 
\b is word boundary, .+ is one or more characters
 
@AviD Isn't every day RoryDay?
 
I should have done \w+ really, to skip smilies and the like.
 
2:10 PM
@Polynomial yeah, thats what I would have thought, but I thought I thought mistakenly, turns out I was wrong.
 
I'm noticing that my dominance of the starwall with declarations of debauchery has been overtaken.
 
2:26 PM
@Polynomial For that matter, so is Chuck Norris
 
@ThomasPornin Chuck Norris isn't short. He's just so beefy that gravity bends light around him, making him appear short.
 
@ThomasPornin let's see you say that to his face.
btw @TerryChia was also going to say (before we got sidetracked on The Bruce), you could also go for some of the classics in the IT field.
Things like the Mythical Man Month (though it usually gets overquoted out of context...), Code Complete (if you're into coding), Peopleware (I'm still shocked when there are managers who haven't read it.)
 
2:45 PM
@Polynomial I don't really speak RegEx or whatever that is in your tweet. Looks like it would be funny if I did, though. :-(
 
@Iszi It means "replace every word with Rory"
 
3:03 PM
@TerryChia Liars and Outliers is ...okay
nothing special
@Polynomial hahahahahaha
 
@TerryChia Richard Stevens books: kohala.com/start
 
@Polynomial updated the Memes page :-)
 
@RoryAlsop lol, win ;P
 
TCP/IP illustrated is a classic
 
3:21 PM
0
Q: PCI-DSS compliance for business with only swipe terminals

rowattI support the IT infrastructure for a small retail business which is now required to undergo a PCI-DSS assessment. The payment service and terminal provider (Streamline) has asked that we use Trustwave to do the PCI-DSS certification. The problem I face is that if I answer all questions and foll...

do want the above - have a flag suggesting here would be a better place for it
 
@Iain sure - ping it on over:-)
cheers
 
There was much rejoicing
 
\o/ all your's
 
4:18 PM
@LucasKauffman Yeah that was odd I was definitely there, but didn't see you about! suppose there were a lot of people there..
 
@ScottPack the crowd went mad, nothing is as exciting as compliance!
@RoryMcCune defo, think it was also due to the fact that "'t pand" building was further away from the main location
@RoryMcCune what talks did you do?
 
@LucasKauffman got to quite a few of the main one's and also spent 4 hours in the Red Forest Workshop
was very interesting learning about machine learning and malware analysis
 
ah yes
 
impressed that the Mandiant people did that for free
what about you?
 
was it that good?
 
4:21 PM
yeah they did a background on machine learning and then had us classifying potential malware
it's an interesting approach that they've come up with, will be interested to see the general release
 
I did all the keynotes, then the main ones (georgia weidman, anti-forensics (loved that one), hacking with python and OWTF and the DJ workshop )
 
Sweet, I guess i'm getting a sec.SE tshirt for taking part in the mod election.
 
I did some besides that but they weren't too interesting
@RoryMcCune damnit, I should have gone to that one instead
 
@LucasKauffman it did take a big chunk out of the first day (4 hours) but I reckon it was worth it..
 
first day was kind of meh except the anti forensics for me
OWTF was way too long for what it was
and the talk after the keynote about the whole Unix ICMP exploit was way above my head technically
 
4:25 PM
yeah I was a bit unsure about how that one would turn out...
 
he could have done it in 1 hour instead of 3
 
yeah the one with the two americans it was interesting in a way to hear about the depths that they're going to but quite heavy for a one hour slot..
 
indeed
there was one thing that scared me a bit
the guy with that nmap alternative
did you see that one?
 
which one was that, don't think I saw it?
 
it was called pmap it was after the anti-forensics
about a passive scanner to discover devices when there are IDS around
or IPS
not that pmap was scary
 
4:28 PM
@LucasKauffman Aren't there already passive portscanners out there? Forgot what it was called though.
 
but the guy had a large of amount of graphics with very excplicit violence in his talk
@TerryChia nmap :P? it's the same but this one does it passively, so IPS and IDS wont detect it
 
@LucasKauffman really.. that's bad shouldn't happen at a good conf...
 
jrg
you guys at derbycon?
 
@LucasKauffman did you go to the one that was meant to be about APT/RATs where the guy just did a talk about beer brewing instead
 
@LucasKauffman nmap is a active port scanner. I remember coming across some passive port scanners (doesn't send packets) but i forgot what it was called.
Sounds a lot like this pmap
 
4:30 PM
@jrg nope, con'd out did 44con and brucon this month, I do know some people were flying straight from brucon to derbycon tho'
 
@RoryMcCune hahaha I heard about that one, but it was at the same time as I went to the hacking with python one (done by the guy of securitytube.net)
 
jrg
@RoryMcCune those folks are nuts. ;P
 
@RoryMcCune you should have gone to the brewing your own beer workshop :P
friend of mine went there and he said it was mostly about tasting lots and lots of beer :p
 
@LucasKauffman well I wouldn't have minded if I'd gone to the workshop 'cause that was meant to be about beer but tbh I was a bit narked that I'd picked a talk that got changed with no notice...
 
@RoryMcCune yea a lot of people were not happy about it
did you go to the party?
 
4:34 PM
@LucasKauffman nah didn't make it along to the party (never been a huge fan of loud places and now I'm getting old ;op) me and the missus just went out and got some dinner and had a wander round ghent.
still here at the moment went to Brugge today and going to either Leuven or Antwerp tomorrw.
 
@RoryMcCune it was the worst day to do that though, student kick off was happening
I didn't know about it until we wanted to get the car
 
ahh is that why there's so many kids about at the moment..
 
@RoryMcCune mmm when do you want to come to leuven
 
we were in Brugge today and it was mobbed, loads of what looked like school parties
 
its like where I live :p
yea student kick offs
starting of the new academic year == tons of cheap beer and parties
@RoryMcCune Idk which city is best, leuven is rather small but has a lot of historic places
 
4:37 PM
really didn't know you're from there. We're planning tomorrow and the idea was either to go to antwerp or Leuven, not finalised which one yet but it'll be tomorrow
quite like historic stuff (thus Brugge today) so Leuven might be a good bet
 
I can give you some addresses if you are into tasting beer though
leuven has a lot of renovated buildings, city hall is probably the most impressive thing
there is the St Pieters church on the opposite site, it also has a museum full of historic art and nice paintings
 
cool, yeah any pointers are great we tend to wander round looking at the interesting buildings (glad I have decent roaming data, it's real easy to get lost!)
 
Ill make you a list of interesting buildings, you going by train I suppose?
 
@LucasKauffman yeah that's the plan, from what I've seen it's a direct train,...
 
yea it should be, do mind that the trains in general in Belgium suck :p
 
4:44 PM
@LucasKauffman well in comparison to scottish trains... not so much. We did make the mistake of getting an L train from the airport which was pretty slow, but it was IC trains to Brugge today and were pretty ok..
 
they are renowned for going on strike a lot
 
@LucasKauffman as much as French trains ?
 
at the moment anyone working there for 20 years, has probably striked at least 1 year in total
 
@LucasKauffman ahh fingers crossed they hold off till Sunday!
 
they go on strike on wednesday next week xD
no worries :P
 
4:47 PM
In France, SNCF (French train company) is 1% or workers nation-wide, but 65% of strike days.
 
@ThomasPornin where did you get these figures?
 
@RoryMcCune : Leuven station -> Martelaren plein
Stadhuis of Leuven
St. Michielskerk of leuven
Begijnhof, Leuven
Hortus Botanicus Lovaniensis
oude markt
Hortus Botanicus is a park with lots of different plants
the oude markt is where to get the beer
oh and add the American Library
if you are lucky they might even be playing during the day in the old clock tower
 
@LucasKauffman
cool thanks for that
should keep us busy tomorrow.
You likely to be about, we could meet up for a coffee at some point?
 
Sure, what time do you want to meet up? I have to leave in the afternoon though
 
4:59 PM
cool shall we meet up about 11am ish? where would be a good place?
 
@RoryMcCune ehm we can meet at the metropol, it's a cafe on the oude markt
 
@LucasKauffman cool sounds like a plan :)
 
:D
@RoryMcCune I'll give you my phonenumber
tell me when u read so I can delete it :p
 
@LucasKauffman got it :)
let me know when you've got it copied and I'll delete :)
although I've had this number for ages and it's probably on the net somewhere...
 
got it
 
5:07 PM
darn it won't let me delete must have a time limit
ahh well I've flagged for the mods I'm sure one of those kind and beneficient souls will help out :)
wow that was fast :)
thanks mods :)
 
we're easily bored
:)
 
I'm a flag ninja.
 
w00 for flag ninja's and bored mods
 
I interviews somebody. My eyes glazed over. I did make a nice breakfast while one the phone, though.
 
5:13 PM
lol debian released a security patch with CVE dating back to 2010 xD
 
right I gotta wander off go find some food/beer l8r (@LucasKauffman see ya tomorrow)
 
5:29 PM
@Gilles I think I got them from an uncle of mine (who has a PhD in political sciences, so I tend to trust him on these matters). It was a few years ago but I don't think it changed much since.
 
6:00 PM
@AviD Huh.
 
6:16 PM
> Give valid proof in favour or against
Urgh
 
You misspelled favor.
 
@ScottPack It's a quote.
 
@JeffFerland It's a smartass reply.
 
@ScottPack The quote is already featuring the British spelling. How can you be more smart-assed? :)
 
Wotwot?
 
6:25 PM
favour is correct
 
:%s/correct/courrect/g
 
but it is the British way of writing favor
Oh deary me, perchance you can have a look at the spelling of British words, @Scotty old chap!
 
6:38 PM
@LucasKauffman hahahahahaha
 
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