jcm's blog

[ from the whitehat-fun dept. ]

So this term one of the courses is called “Computer Security”. I have a box running Debian, grsecurity (grsec), standard stuff, NSA SE Linux (under development), and pointless stuff like the PC Speaker Driver to play annoying warning sounds to people or something…probably for A-Ha Take On Me (Superior Techno Remix). The system has standard iptables rulesets and uses cryptoapi to encrypt certain files and swap space. Fjear the penguin.

Robin and I are making a “One Time Password Pad” system for conveying changing passwords between sites and to allow for a “poor man’s” SecurID style security at very low cost compared with the fun involved. It should eventually talk both serial and USB to a PC for updates and have customised Pluggable Authentication Module(s) (PAM) for Debian GNU/Linux.

I found a “bug” in Solaris signal handling which I think needs to be fixed in some way and have mailed a standard contact point about it. If I get no reply then I will go hunt down a relevent security mail address.

Jon.

[ from the jcm-is-here-ok dept. ]

Well, I am in Nottingham and so far I have been in campus quite a lot this week. This term is interesting as there are not any modules I actually view as a total waste of my time and most actually are useful. The security stuff obviously does it for me but then I like that kind of thing.

Texas has murdered six people so far this year. I personally disagree with execution and am horrified to hear that already this many people have died at the hands of human rights violation. Despite how bad these people probably are, there is always the chance of false conviction and I think in this new age we should not still be so barbaric and backwards. Still, the UK government seem to be hinting at a willingness to turn their back on the European Human Rights Legislation – of course they believe everyone is a witch^H terrorist in this day and age so they feel they must witchhunt them down and protect us from blah, blah, blah, blah. When will they learn that striking fear in to the people is not the way forward.

Jon.

[ from the moving-along dept. ]

I finally mailed in the FreeSWAN review and as a consequence of writing it have a reasonable VPN environment running now. At least for a few hours I may be up to date. Later today I will probably return to Nottingham and perhaps pass through Birmingham at some point. I also plan to do some project work.

Jon.