Tag Archives: Routers

September 6, 2021 · 01:26

Turmoil of doubt

We all have it, at times and some more often we doubt. Whenever I see such doubt I think back to a story that I heard in primary school. It was about Lakshmi and the greedy beggar. You might have guessed it, or perhaps you know the story. The beggar just wants in the end one coin more and ends up with nothing. This is a setting we know where it goes, but now let’s change the premise. I could end up with $3.7 billion over 3-5 years of Google, Amazon or Huawei buys my IP. I could optionally make $250,000 if I publish an idea of intrusion I have. An idea they all overlooked and could give a certain wall street player the insight on certain patents that would be accepted within 30 days. With this method I speculatively could make another 3 million, yet that would also mean that I can no longer rely on the larger amount to ever become mine. What would you do? The small amount now or hoping for the best? I am not breaking any laws, because I am showing a flaw, two actually and the law has close to no chance of finding substantiative evidence. So I am basically in the clear. So what to do?

Well, I am also a story teller, so here goes (it was a simple riddle).

Between a larger technology firm and a patent office is a link, they mail and they take all the precautions. The messages go from router 1 to router 2 via what some might know a router table. Now no matter what the path is, at some point it will go via router N1. That is how the beans take the high or low road. So I got the idea to place a listener to ANY router one jump away from Router N1, so it could be almost anywhere. That place we call Router X0, it was my idea for the Hop+1 solution. There is a second part, this part means we need to get to that router somehow, whether it is internal solutions of intrusion. The idea was to replace the CF card in that router with an identical one, but there is one difference, it might state 64MB, but it has 256GB and one small internal component sets the 64MB apart and the rest is a floating drive. The floating drive has its own dynamic and it installs a small program in the memory of Router N1, that program will copy EVERY packet directed to Router 2 towards Router X0. There is almost no chance to detect it, when someone resets it, the program is gone, the evidence is gone. The memory card will unless dissected not show anything and there too is nothing to show what is going on, the CF card will know when it can forward packets to the end station when it can hide in other traffic, unless a System administrator reads the ENTIRE log, there is nothing to see. The receiver now has a collection of packets of traffic from Router 1 to Router 2, which also includes a message that Patent acceptance was achieved, the Wall Street Firm now has an advantage to place the right options and stock ahead of all the others and when the rest catches on the larger profits are raked in.

A setting of not so speculative anticipation of profit and when the deed is done, both routers are reset and the evidence is gone forever. There is one remaining part, that is the CF card, yet id that went to an empty mobile station that might not be the problem, the only issue is getting the card back, leave no evidence behind. These System administrators are often underpaid, so that might not be an issue either.

An idea that I had when I was wondering how Sony was transgressed upon, because there was no way that North Korea had that level of know how. In this setting it was an internal setting, optionally a disgruntled employee, but it was all speculative from my side, it felt more realistic than North Korea with its lack of technology.

So will I doubt? Yup, I will remain hopeful the three true innovators will take my IP, if not, ah well. Still time to make it all public domain, what Wall Street tends to call pubic domain, not sure why but there you have it. Have a great Monday!

Wrong way intersection?

We all look at times, we look in the direction that we are going we look at where we want to be, in this we are all alike and for the most, we stop to look where we were, what we passed and where we came from. These are natural moments. So what is natural on focussing on Huawei, especially the accusations by Finite State, a Matt Wyckhouse undertaking. I have a few issues here. You see, when a person hides behind statements like: “‘The Finite State report was highly critical of Huawei, claiming that the Chinese company’s “devices quantitatively pose a high risk to their users. In virtually all categories we examined, Huawei devices were found to be less secure than those from other vendors making similar devices.” According to Finite State, this included potential backdoors. “Out of all the firmware images analyzed, 55% had at least one potential backdoor,” Finite State reported. “These backdoor access vulnerabilities allow an attacker with knowledge of the firmware and/or with a corresponding cryptographic key to log into the device.”“, when the bla bla is surrounding “Out of all the firmware images analyzed, 55% had at least one potential backdoor“, a percentage with ‘potential backdoor‘, you should optionally be regarded as a hack giving a hatchet job, plain and simple. A real cyber security firm will give us: “These are the clear backdoors found“, there is no percentage, and it will be presented as evidence plain and simple. That is how this works; let’s face it, Columbus Ohio is not really Silicon Valley, is it? (there is a plot twist, read on please)

And when TechRadar gives us: ‘Huawei’s telecom equipment is more likely to have flaws than rivals’ claims report‘, my question becomes based on what evidence? When it is linked to: “when compared to similar equipment manufactured by its rivals Juniper and Arista“, why are they dependable? Or perhaps only the NSA has those backdoors? There is a disgusting amount of bias coming out of the mouths from those who should stay absolutely neutral, and it gets to be worse.

Twenty four

It is like a real time drama with Kiefer Sutherland, less than 24 hours ago, Cisco gave us: “Cisco issued three “critical” security warnings for its DNA Center users – two having a Common Vulnerability Scoring System rating of 9.8 out of 10“, which is really really bad and the rest of the media ignores it completely. So when we get: “In one advisory Cisco said a vulnerability in the web-based management interface of DCNM could let an attacker obtain a valid session cookie without knowing the administrative user password by sending a specially crafted HTTP request to a specific web servlet that is available on affected devices. The vulnerability is due to improper session management on affected DCNM software” there is a much larger story, especially as Cisco is working to remove a few severe failings in its own system, which are unlikely to be removed for a few more months, all leading to larger issues, but the media is seemingly more interested in spouting anti-Huawei materials and not interested in warning optional victims, how does that go over to you?

TechRadar also gives us: “Finite State makes big claims in its report but until it is publicly released, we won’t know for sure if its findings are accurate. However, now that the news is out, further investigation into its legitimacy will likely be carried out by the media, world governments and of course by Huawei itself“, a relatively unknown company in the middle of nowhere; that is how it reads to me and I will happily have my serve of humble pie when they are proven to be correct, yet that public release is likely to find delays to maximise on fear, all whilst Cisco is evading the limelight by media friends. This is not entirely correct from my side, Cisco has been warning all kinds of parties since they were found and that is a noble thing, yet the media does not hand out that reality to the larger media does it? (They had not responsibility to do so)

I have a second issue, this is supposed to be a ‘for profit‘ venture and that is fine, they have been around for 2 years, yet we now see: “the security report was done pro-bono as the company believed making this information public was the best way to inform policy makers of the security issues in Huawei’s equipment“, so this report requiring a massive amount of hours and testing if we go by: ‘all the firmware images analysed‘, the (initial) absence of numbers is also debatable here, so in all this time and resources required, this report was done pro-bono? Is (like it goes in deceptive conduct) merely a pro-bono report, or are they servicing Juniper and/or Arista? Is that not a valid question?

I find the setting debatable from the mere TechRadar point of view. From my point of view, well known cyber experts have looked at Huawei and none of them have given any clear indication that there was a clear and present danger with anything that Huawei has, they had shown previous issues and they had been dealt with, so unless Finite State gives the golden bullet with clear evidence, than the future of Finite State might not be that bright. Can we expect anything form a cyber-firm that facilitates for others? Well, yes but those are not known as Cyber Experts, they are merely digital marketing firms and the method used implies that they are not very good at what they do.

So I can jump in there and show them how to do it, as long as it comes with 300 W Spring St #1904 as a stating bonus (we all have our price), it is 2 blocks from the Ohio FBI office, as well as a nice view of the Scioto River (good for enjoying coffee in the morning). Would I compromise? Optionally, but do you want to have faith in someone who compromises, or someone telling you how it is at a price? I get it, at times there is a tactical reason to do things pro-bono, sometimes it brings in the larger fish, yet in this case, when the floor falls from under them, in the way it was presented, do you have faith in them looking towards keeping you safe? Is that really the security you want to bank on?

Cisco has issue, yet they came forward (almost) immediately telling us how it is, the fact that the media is treating them darling and keeping them out of the media to the largest degree is not a crime, it places merely question marks on the integrity of the media, and how much credibility do they really have?

There is a larger concern and it is a serious one, the media has set the stage that less and less information is trusted, especially in fields where trust is essential. It changes the game, but how is not to be told, we cannot tell, yet there is every concern that Europe, Asia and India are less and less likely willing to trust US equipment. There has been clear indicators that 5G evolution did not give rise to trust, the fact that so called pro-bono work is working out is also not a given, until there are clear trustworthy sources showing all that Finite State had indeed the silver bullet, things can only go worse for many over the long term and that has been proven in several ways offer the last decade. It is not that I want.

Let’s not start kidding around here, the report is damning, there is no doubt. When we look past the TechRadar hype created and take a serious look at the paper (at the end), we get 55 pages of tech heaven, all jetlagged turbo text, with all the hypes that any techie get off on.

When a firm gives us: “Across the firmware tested, there were 8,826 observations of vulnerabilities with a CVSS score of 10.0, the maximum severity level, indicating serious flaws in the systems“, it better come with backing, and the source of the data, as well as the firmware better be verifiable, from my point of view, any discrepancy shown and Finite State becomes liable. Even when we see: “Our automated system analyzed more than 1.5 million files embedded within 9,936 firmware images supporting 558 different products within Huawei’s enterprise networking product lines“, the sources are not given to us (as far as I saw). The appendix does give us the hardware list and it is a huge list, so now that the die is cast we will have to see what happens next, not merely to Huawei and Finite State, large names have stated on the record that no issues had been found, they will be in equal measure get judged if the scrutiny on the Final State paper holds up, no matter how this goes, there is a shit storm coming and it will impact at least one party, yet how large it will be cannot be stated at present, the claims are too loud and if the scrutiny breaks the paper it might be the end of Finite State and its board of directors before they got decently started, should they make it, the opposition is a lot larger and it gets to be a lot uglier for many players involved.

The paper also gives clear premises, for one there is: “It is common for embedded devices to ship with a default password enabled for the primary account, “root” in this case, as long as the password can be changed and is documented as part of the standard operating procedure of the device.” OK, that is fair enough, but there is a second part, how many consumer get told on how to change that? And how does that compare to issues found with Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon as documented parts that show users how to do that. Is that not equally important? In the end I can debate all the parts until I look like a failed auto asphyxiation attempt, yet the scrutiny from me has little to no value, it is the response of Huawei and the other players that now becomes the part, because these expert making 1000% or more of what I make will not be allowed the ‘Oops!’ or ‘That was not part of our investigation’ excuse, in that way whatever comes next will get ugly fast and in light of my initial exposure of anti-Huawei goons, I have an equal responsibility to take this to the next level, no matter how it goes, because that too is part of accountability. No matter how we slice it, Finite State has given us something serious to look at (one of the very first to do so), so now we look at the boffins at MiT and Stanford on what they make of it, and if the technical dudes at DARPA decide to wake up for this one, that would be nice too.

I look forward to round two, because it will be a beauty to watch on hundreds of channels all over the planet, this would make for great TV (and optionally ten times better than anything the Kardashians can show) so I’ll get the popcorn for this one.

https://finitestate.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Finite-State-SCA1-Final.pdf

Finite-State-SCA1-Final

For free or for naught?

It is less than a day after I wrote the previous blog ‘The danger ahead’, now I read in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data) that the quote I made in yesterday’s blog “Speed and disregard of proper development has allowed for open access to many computers and devices, which allows for almost complete collection and stored and such storage can only be done by just a few. This open level of availability allows the NSA and GCHQ (amongst others) to collect open source intelligence, hoping to gain the upper hand in the war on terror.“, which is close to what the Guardian reported, as well as what is currently shown on Sky News!

At this point, I am looking at a few issues and the more I look at the data that the press is stating, the more I see that Edward Snowden is more than just a traitor. He claims being a victim in a German TV interview (at http://www.dw.de/wanted-dead-by-us-officials-snowden-tells-german-tv/a-17388431), where he speaks the fear that he is being targeted for long term sleep therapy (aka ‘terminal sleep’).

The ‘problem’ is that the issue is not just Snowden. The more I look into the breaches, the more I look into a possible functional approach on the way the NSA server parks (plural) are set up, the more I am convinced that not only was Edward Snowden not alone in this all, I feel some level of certainty that this person might still be in the NSA, endangering both NSA and GCHQ as well as other allied monitoring agencies.

The humongous amount of ‘revelations’ that are claimed in the name of Snowden do two things. First of all it turns Benedict Arnold in a stumbling saint (I just had to wash my mouth with soap for making such a claim). Linked to this is the fact that the many dozens of operations as his ‘revelations’ seem to touch on would have been on at least a dozen of servers (as projects are spread around). The fact that NSA uses an upgraded edition of SE-LINUX means that a system with logs and mandatory access control cannot get transferred to such a degree. The fact that IT and security monitors it all, as well that he was civilian contractor means that his name should have popped up a dozen times. Even if he used other accounts, the logs should have triggered alerts all over the field when they were scanned through solutions not unlike a program like Palantir Government.

The claims I am making are growing in reliability with every ‘revelation’ that is being made. There is however another side that is now the consequence of all these whingers and whiners about ‘their privacy‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/tech-giants-white-house-deal-surveillance-customer-data). We now enter a field where it is important to realise that the new situation could be regarded as a danger.

It is linked to a previous newscast where President Obama was considering moving telephony data out of government hands (at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/23/government-privacy-board-members-say-shifting-nsa-data-to-third-parties-is-a-bad-idea/)

As stated before, this is a really bad idea. Consider that criminals, if enough money is in play, can use places like HSBC to launder their money (I am not talking about forgetting your wallet whilst washing your jeans), but the idea that commercial enterprises can get away with these events for just a 5 week fee (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2012/07/16/hsbc-helped-terrorists-iran-mexican-drug-cartels-launder-money-senate-report-says/, as well as http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/23/uk-standardbank-fine-idUKBREA0M0LF20140123) is a lot more dangerous than many realise. Handing data storage out of government hands is just too dangerous. I am steering away from the issue whether the monitoring program should go on or stop. The intelligence community needs to do what it needs to do. Leaving that data with third parties is just not an option. The worst case scenario would see the US government paying out billions if any data leading to a registered IP ends up in ‘other’ hands. Once that evidence is ever given, the US would lose whatever credibility they ever thought they had.

At this point the title can be used as a joke. What is the difference between for free and for naught? Someone got rich for free, the US got rich for naught! That would end up being the reality of a project that was meant to map levels of global terrorism. This joke only gets stronger when we see another ‘view of shock’, but now from Google CLO David Drummond (at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-25911266). It is hard to state against his view, or the premise of the company. These carefully pronounced statements from legal eagles are to be expected from many firms for some time to come. There is however a commercial positive view (at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25914731). Here we see how entrepreneurs in makeup and clothing are showing options to avoid detection. In more than one instance it is stated to be metal based, so standing next to airport detectors should be fun soon enough. I wonder how much more would get checked when the boxers or briefs are also metal based.

So whether we get entertainment for free or fashion for naught will be discussed by many soon enough, the main fact remains. If we want to remain safe, then data needs to be collected. It is not for free, or for naught. It is for the simple reason that the world is filled with bad people; some will go any distance to hurt as many as they can. Our governments have a duty to keep us safe, it is only fair that they are given the tools, the methods and the opportunity to do so.

This does get us to the final part (or final side) to these events. This morning, the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/28/microsoft-rules-out-back-door-access-to-mps-electronic-communications) reported on backdoor access allegations. The quote “Both Ludlam and South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon have been concerned about the security of Australian parliamentary communications since the Prism surveillance program was first revealed by National Security Agency contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden.” gives the information that was the part of all this. So again we see more resources squandered in regards to Snowden. Do not get me wrong, the question by both Ludlam and Xenophon is fair enough and as such it should be looked at. Whoever wants access to certain information, which might always be the case, could consider Intruding a system, which, unless you are a real expert is getting harder and harder, as it should be.

Yet, capturing and copying frames sent over a router system makes a lot more sense. You just capture it all and decrypt it later. Now, most people will not have the ability to do this, but consider the amount of elements to get this all from user1 to user2 via server X. If you think that this is highly encrypted hard to achieve effort, then think again. The more common the method used, the easier it is to read into it. So, there is a level of entertainment as we see leagues of technicians concentrate on the door of the bank vault, whilst in reality one of the walls is missing. To give you another example, we take a look at a paper by Daehyun Strobel, Benedikt Driessen, Timo Kasper et al (at https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/598.pdf). As we look at the quote “Despite the fact that nowadays strong and well-analyzed cryptographic primitives are available for a large variety of applications, very weak cryptographic algorithms are still widely deployed in real products all over the world.” This relates to the IT issue as, we might have secure servers and powerful password rules, but files are send from one computer to another via the ‘internet’, which goes via a router system (no matter how you twist or turn it). So, as someone gets to any router on the track and wireshark’s the traffic, the stream can be rebuilt. From there the hacker still faces a few obstacles, but you better believe that above a certain skill level, this data can be retrieved. So what exactly are we all crying about?

Tag Archives: Routers

Turmoil of doubt

Wrong way intersection?

For free or for naught?

Recent Posts

Archives