Slashback: OSX Security, DoD Filtering, Anonymous Posting

Slashdot tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including some favorable results from the University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge, skeptics investigate cold fusion claims, more on DoD web filtering, AT&T cuts 10,000 jobs after BellSouth merger, more child-proofing efforts for MySpace, Why Windows Vista Will Suck: a rebuttal, Harvard Professor punished for reporting bugs, Assemblyman Biondi backpedals on NJ anonymous posting bill, and a followup on Chinese TLDs -- Read on for details.

University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge. HABITcky writes "The University of Wisconsin Security Challenge has ended after 38 hours, intermittent DoS attacks, 4000 ssh login attempts, a bandwidth spike of 30 Mbps, and 6 million logged ipfw events. During this time there were 'no successful access attempts, nor any claims of a successful attempt.' You may remember this challenge was proposed in response to the 'woefully misleading' ZDnet article, Mac OS X hacked under 30 minutes, which was previously discussed here on Slashdot."

Skeptics investigate cold fusion.smooth wombat writes "As a follow-up to a previous Slashdot posting, Purdue University is investigating the claims of Rusi Taleyarkhan who claimed in 2004 to have created nuclear fusion at room temperature. The investigation came about from complaints from colleagues who suspect something is amiss. Taleyarkhan, who used to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has, since working at Perdue, removed the equipment the co-workers were using to try and replicate the results, claimed results for experimental runs were positive for fusion despite the co-workers never seeing the raw data and opposed the publication of results which contradicted his findings."

More on DoD web filtering. timetrap writes "I work in a mobile combat communications unit, while I'm not in the sandbox right now, I can attest to the DoD policy on blocking web access. First of all when you are down range don't expect to even get DSL speeds from a satellite, we usually roll with about 256kbs for the data side of our trunk. So blocking sites is very important, otherwise 4 or 5 people could start streaming audio and pretty much knock down any legitimate use of the network. We filter websites with smartfilter and yes the military system admins in the IPO office will unblock any web site that isn't blocked by local policy (no pr0n, no streaming audio, no civilian web mail: both the hot and the g varieties, and no chat programs; although irc is used by the DoD) This is no Orwellian conspiracy, but quick and easy system administration; apply smartfilter: check! If you want to check the current smartfilter blocked sites goto: securecomputing and submit some sites to check." Slashdot's own Jamie took a look at Smartfilter back in '99 as a part of the Censorware project and it still remains a mysterious black box to this day. While some would advocate full disclosure using censorware still appears to be merely passing the buck.

AT&T cuts 10,000 jobs after BellSouth merger. mytrip writes to tell us that immediately following their $67 billion acquisition of BellSouth, AT&T plans on cutting about 10,000 jobs.

More child-proofing efforts for MySpace. conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interview with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthalin in which he describes measures MySpace and other similar sites should take to protect children. From the article: 'We're going to be suggesting some very specific measures that MySpace can take based on our conversations with MySpace as well as with other law enforcement authorities at the state and local levels. We've received hundreds of complaints from parents who are concerned about these issues, and we want to be sure that the measures we propose are technologically feasible and financially viable.'"

Why Windows Vista will Suck: a rebuttal. shrapnull writes "Hot on the heels of Extreme Tech's 'Why Windows Vista Won't Suck', Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has an alternate position posted on DesktopLinux, and sent to subscribers of Novell's 'Suse Linux Cool Solutions' newsletter."

Harvard researcher punished for reporting bugs. Guillermito writes "A story previously discussed came to a sad conclusion two weeks ago. The bottom line is this means that it is forbidden to use reverse engineering tools to find bugs in a software. You also have to prove that you own a valid license for each version of the tested software. To publish a proof of concept that contains a few dozens of copyrighted bytes is also forbidden. It's a nice precedent for any company selling a defective product."

Assemblyman Biondi backpedals on NJ anonymous posting bill. Quadraginta writes "Earlier, denizens of Slashdot reacted to a story about a bill to be introduced to the New Jersey legislature that would require hosts of forums, bulletin boards and the like to keep track of the real identity of anonymous posters. Seems like there was a strong reaction all over. Assemblyman Biondi now appears to be backpedalling furiously. From a letter quoted after the link: 'I am getting inundated with responses which I will review and use to better educate myself on the implications of this bill. If, after reviewing all of the correspondence and the opinion of OLS, it turns out that the bill is, in fact, unworkable, I will certainly reconsider and withdraw it.'"

A followup on Chinese TLDs. nqz writes "In this story on ComputerWorld, ICANN and the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) both dispute a previous story discussing China's new top-level domains containing Chinese characters."

Oops!

http://test.doit.wisc.edu/ [wisc.edu]

Yesterday we discovered the Mac OSX "challenge" was not an activity authorized by the UW-Madison. Once the test came to the attention of our CIO, she ended it. The site, test.doit.wisc.edu, will be removed from the network tonight. Our primary concern is for security and network access for UW services. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused to the community.

I guess Dave Schroeder had it authorized, [slashdot.org] just not authorized by the right person?

CIO = Chief Information Officer

Re:Oops!

University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge. HABITcky writes "The University of Wisconsin Security Challenge has ended after 38 hours, intermittent DoS attacks, 4000 ssh login attempts, a bandwidth spike of 30 Mbps, and 6 million logged ipfw events. During this time there were 'no successful access attempts, nor any claims of a successful attempt.

I think it is woefully misleading to not mention that the challenge was ended early!

Re:Oops!

At the time of my submission (around 12:30pm today), the http://test.doit.wisc.edu/ [wisc.edu] website did not appear as it does now. It appeared as an updated version of what you see in the Google cache. There was an updated posting on the site from Schroeder earlier this morning mentioning that the challenge had ended and giving the statistics which I included in my submission. The posting had no mention of the challenge ending early or the messege that is currently displayed, it mearly stated that the challenge had ended and there was no successful access by anyone.

Re:Oops!

i had asked this question [slashdot.org] initially and Dave had thought the was given permission. But I suspected that the proximity of his response challenge to the failure of the original mac mini challenge meant it was done with slightly less than comprehensive permission. woops.

OS X security competition "ends"

More like - was done without authorization, and was shut down. From the site linked:

Yesterday we discovered the Mac OSX "challenge" was not an activity authorized by the UW-Madison. Once the test came to the attention of our CIO, she ended it. The site, test.doit.wisc.edu, will be removed from the network tonight.

Our primary concern is for security and network access for UW services. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused to the community.

Still, shut down or 'ended,' not being hacked is a good show. Congrats to OS X.

I think Apple would be well-served by having a continously running OS X security challenge, for both OS X and OS X Server. Offer a reward every time you demonstrate a hole, and fix them fast.

Re:OS X security competition "ends"

I think Apple would be well-served by having a continously running OS X security challenge, for both OS X and OS X Server. Offer a reward every time you demonstrate a hole, and fix them fast.

Would be nice to see something like this for all platforms. The only question is how valid is the test, since the security of computer depends as much on the network security around it, as the machine itself. Firewalls can help filter out much of the bad traffic, reducing the final impact on the host. I would not like to say that any system is invunerable, since vunerability also depends on the configuration of the machine and the people managing the installation. A well patched windows installation might be as good as a well patched OS X installation.

Re:OS X security competition "ends"

Would be nice to see something like this for all platforms. The only question is how valid is the test, since the security of computer depends as much on the network security around it, as the machine itself.

Well, if it's ever done by Apple, it would best be done as a tool to actually help find security vulnerabilities, rather than as a marketing effort. To that end, I'd suggest whatever configuration would best expose those vulnerabilities.

A similar test for local vulnerabilites would also, obviously, be quite valuable (as the ZDNet test showed).

Re:OS X security competition "ends"

Would be nice to see something like this for all platforms.

Well it's not exactly identical, but one of the people who works on SELinux has been running a test machine on and off since Fedora Core 2. Details are here [coker.com.au]. Similar to the OS X box that was hacked in 30 minutes he does have SSH open and provides you with local account access, the local account being root. I wouls suggest that that shows a certain amount of confidence in its security. Also note that SELinux is coming to Ubuntu soon [ubuntu.com].

Jedidiah.

Re: Mac Challenge

I dunno. I would think a massive, pipe-clogging bandwidth spike, which resulted in the removal of said site, would qualify as a successful attack.

I guess it all just depends on exactly what you want to do.

Re: Mac Challenge

I would like to point out that those people who state that MacOS X hacking is of little interest to the hacking community because the Mac has little market presence should pay attention to the draw this challenge precipitated.

Looks like every hacker and their uncle had a go at this one. I wonder how many unique IP addresses were used to access the challenge.

Parent is right.

those people who state that MacOS X hacking is of little interest to the hacking community because the Mac has little market presence should pay attention to the draw this challenge precipitated.

I completely agree with you. a 4,5% share seems low but many hackers would get a terrific ego boost by being able to shut up once for all the mac fanboys. Also some attacks on windows rely on unpatched machines with this and that service running and reachable through firewalls, which could well mean an attack on the 10% or less of the total of windows machines which in turns makes like an 8-6% or even less share. Crackers still take time to engineer them, though.

Mod parent up, please.

Windows no longer uses BSD network stack

It did, in the old days. They rewrote it a long time ago, I think in the jump to Nt 4.0. The userspace command line tools are still BSD based in XP though.

DoD filtering

no pr0n, no streaming audio, no civilian web mail: both the hot and the g varieties, and no chat programs

And that's why when it says on your military ID "Property of the U.S. Government" they're not just talking about the ID card ... =)

I am very bothered...

...by the effective ban on software research. If you publish a flaw and don't include data backing it, you'll likely be sued for defamation. If you DO include the data (however insignificant) you'll be sued for copyright infringement. The 9/11 case in the US shows that is you do know of a problem, but don't tell anyone, you'll be got that way, too. However, being willfully ignorant of a fault can also land you in court, if it causes harm.

Software researchers are the most impacted by this, as it's hard for a PhD to claim natural stupidity as a defense. It's expected of most end-users (even when that is unfair) so they can get away with it.

Solution to security research problem

There is a fairly simple solution to the problem of vendors forbidding security reaseachers from examining their products. At the next big security confab float and get a lot of signatures on a resolution something like this:

"Some companies object to our legitimate research, even though we report our findings responsibly. So be it. We resolve to continue to locate defects in these irresponsible vendor's products. However since they now make it a crime to do the right thing, we resolve to anonymously publish our results for these products to the most vile and wicked cracking gangs we can contact as ready to use fully weaponized exploits. We further assert that we do not fear any legal reprecussions on the grounds that if any Fed can tag us we aren't worthy to continue in this line of research."

Let the business press cogitate on that announcement a day or two and see how fast vendors start backpeddling.

Re:Solution to security research problem

They probably won't. They'll just call you terrorists and prosecute you for what you've said. Even though you haven't done anything.

No - the best thing to do IMHO is to just say that you have found a problem with their product but that due to the litigious nature of the company(ies) you can not explain how the problem comes about nor will you provide any details because you have destroyed all evidence in accordance with the company's wishes that all problems remain just that - unresolved problems. Further, since you have found these problems and could verify that they existed if the company would allow you to do so; you must - in the future - deny any request from the company for information (since you had to destroy it and it is illegal to have such information in your possession) and - you must also, from that day forwards, recommend that this company's products be barred from consideration in future purchases for the university and/or any companies with which you are going to be working with until the problem has been fixed.

Remember - hit them in their pocketbook. If everyone gangs up against the company and refuses to buy their products and boycotts them, they will go out of business and you won't have to deal with them anymore - or - they will stop trying to enforce rules and regulations which are detrimental to the overall health of the (and their) economy.

The alternative is for the person to send the information out to every other university in the United States and all of them declare the same findings at the same time so there isn't just one person the company can sue. They would have to sue everyone which makes them a persona non grata in the academic world. The great thing about this idea is that it would definitely draw the attention of the press if such a thing occurred. Which, I believe, is not something any company wants to do. (Be on TV across the nation in a bad light.)

Just my $0.02 worth. :-)

PS: Remember - they can't make you perjure yourself in court. So when they ask what you did you just say "I can not answer that under the rules and regulations of the 5th admendment." And if asked to explain you just look at the judge and say it is a catch-22 situation. You are damned if you answer and damned if you do not. Sort of like the Spanish Inquisition where they'd ask questions like "Did you enjoy consorting with the devil the last time you did it?" and then only allow you to answer yes or no. Either answer makes it look as if you enjoyed consorting with the devil at some point.

Why Windows Vista Will Suck

For those who don't want to read the entire article, here is the cliffsnote version.

I understand operating systems and am very smart and I have 20 computers and a dog named spot.

linux power.

Vista will suck because it won't be free.

linux power.

The graphics will suck because it takes an expensive computer to run Aeroglass.

linux power.

Memory management will suck because linux has had good memory management for years.

linux power.

Superfetch will suck because GCC has had it for years, and your dog can run off with your USB card. (Never mind that it's just a *cache*, and it won't do anything but slow your computer down again after your dog starts chewing on it)

linux power.

TCP/IP improvements will suck because it's been in other OS's for years.

linux power.

Security will be bad because they found a bug in vista.

linux power.

Re:Why Windows Vista Will Suck

Speaking of "superfetch", arn't most USB storage devices running on flash memory? Flashable memory does tend to stop working after a certain number of flashes. Moving in and out huge ammount of data will seriously shorten the life of these devices.

Seriously though, I would like Microsoft to improve their caching abbilities using the system's RAM. For now, Windows only has two setting. To cache minimally, or maximally. So what do I do when I got 2GB of RAM, want a run a 300mb application and cache the rest? According to Microsoft, they recommend not to cache because Windows will store that application in the paging file. Talk about stupidity.

Seriously, if mainstream applications would be ported to Linux, more people would switch.

DoD policy=depends on who ya ask!

"I work in a mobile combat communications unit, while I'm not in the sandbox right now, I can attest to the DoD policy on blocking web access.

There are several levels of DoD blocking. First, the DoD policy on web access, policy, and security in general, very broad, next is the Departments level, i.e. Army, Navy, etc, then there is the base policy and then the command policy and unit policy all the way down to the company. The "general rule" is that no one can have policy rules lower then that of above. This means a platoons policy can not be more lax then the base policy. This sort of transitive policy based appliance leaves much room for interpretation at all levels of policy implementation. Every service is different, every level is different and every network right down to the hardware is different. So, when you talk about blocking you have to be very specific as it is nearly impossible to just nail down an exact, cut and dry policy. Web content filtering, ACL's and the likes are different from service to service and mission to mission.

First of all when you are down range don't expect to even get DSL speeds from a satellite, we usually roll with about 256kbs for the data side of our trunk.

This is too far from the truth depending on the environment. The Ku band in Iraq is quite substantial in fact the smallest direct BGP Sat link might be a T-1 up to 8 and 32Meg or so via a Sat package called the DKET. This is speaking for the Marine side by the way. Also lateral links are about 3Meg at the smallest level via another Ku Sat package. This of course has its caveats. At this level we are talking about a non-mobile infrastructure were as a mobile infrastructure would be a Microware shot thru a TSR or MUX link at anywhere from 96k to 512k or more depending on voice needs and breakdown of classified to unclassified network needs. (Data bandwidth is shared between the two types of DoD networks when multiplexed, voice generally rides its own trunk card thru the multiplexer, typically a Promina node does this multiplexing or at lower levels in the unit they have what is called an FCC multiplexer)

So blocking sites is very important, otherwise 4 or 5 people could start streaming audio and pretty much knock down any legitimate use of the network. We filter websites with smartfilter and yes the military system admins in the IPO office will unblock any web site that isn't blocked by local policy (no pr0n, no streaming audio, no civilian web mail: both the hot and the g varieties, and no chat programs; although irc is used by the DoD)

This is somewhat accurate. From the Corps standpoint, when I first went to Iraq this was not the case. We could chat all day long until it was "locked down". This is done at the BGP point via the highest headquarters out there, CentCom etc. Even then it isn't full proof, I found ways around it, i.e. bypass or just good ole bribing the E-3 at the terminal.

This is no Orwellian conspiracy, but quick and easy system administration; apply smartfilter: check! If you want to check the current smartfilter blocked sites goto: securecomputing and submit some sites to check."

Once again, take this with a grain of salt. Though this seems like it applies to all agencies and to all services at all times it really doesn't. The mobile and deployed units are in constant flex so nothing is really ever solidified when it comes to policy. The ONLY real way to know for sure is to go out there and site down behind their network and try it yourself, or ask someone you know out there to do it. I have a couple dozen friends out there right now on the Net Admin side so if you have a specific inquiry post it and I will see what I can come up with.

myspace

We're going to be suggesting some very specific measures that MySpace can take based on our conversations with MySpace as well as with other law enforcement authorities at the state and local levels.

Not sure what the point of this article is, he doesn't even say what his "specific measures" are. Probably just some political move.

I don't know what the big deal is about myspace, just politician noise, I guess. What kind of 14 year old girl is going to go out with a 30 year old man? If they do, there is probably some other problem (like they are starved for affection). I remember here on slashdot a few years ago there was a story about a girl who got seduced by a predator, but her mother was encouraging it!

So yeah, there is a problem here, but making laws about myspace isn't going to help anything.

Re:If it's not a conspiracy...

I'm not a marine, but I do work for the DOD, and I can tell you that most political websites, right or left, are blocked. Again, not a conspiracy, just simple work place web surfing management. When you're on a network that doesn't belong to you, or that you don't pay to have access to, you shouldn't complain about the policies in place. I don't bitch at my friends for not letting me fuck their wives when I come to visit their houses.

Re:If it's not a conspiracy...

I can tell you that most political websites, right or left, are blocked

I won't dispute your word, but I recall that Rush Limbaugh gets syndicated to the U.S. military's American Forces Radio and Television Service.

AFAIK, there are no voices giving out any other viewpoint(s).

You can read an in-depth review of the matter here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mmfa2/petition.html [petitiononline.com]
The petition was created by the people at Media Matters

Re:Are Slashdot Editors embarrassed yet?

The sad fact is that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy in the media to bury stories that are unfavorable to their political viewpoint. Liberals don't want to hear truth. Stories from soldiers in Iraq are positive, but lefties watching CNN all day only want to hear bad news so they can feel good about hating Bush some more.

It's not about left-wing or right-wing or centrist or any of that. It's about money and power just as it has always been. Play the follow-the-money game (and hone some research skills too, woohoo!) more often and you will come to see this.
Left, right today. God, Satan yesterday. You notice it's always two, and only two, diametrically opposed ideas that can be compromised but cannot be reconciled (with other ideas existing only in an extremely marginalized form that is unlikely to be implemented, such as libertarianism). Your basic divide-and-conquer strategy. The left-wing vs. right-wing is an idealistic clash that does a great job of distracting people from basic critical thinking skills and a willingness to stick to the facts as determined by evidence when making decisions. It's a distraction, and it's a deliberate and effective one.

I'll give an example. Generally a left-winger is for greater personal freedom and more economic restrictions (particularly income redistribution, but there are others). Generally a right-winger is for greater economic freedom (tax cuts and the like) but more restrictions on personal freedom. Well, guess what? Both require a rather large government to properly realize their stated goals. So you have everyone squabbling over which set of restrictions they prefer, meanwhile, the elected officials continue to enjoy an ever-increasing national budget and more and more laws to appease their campaign contributors (recent changes to copyright law, anyone?). No matter how you carry out the left vs. right debate, a minimal government will never be the result. As stated above, a very effective distraction. For the people who stand to gain from less real freedom, and this subset of the population includes the major media outlets, it has served its purpose well. You don't need a conspiracy of any sort either; all that is required is that those who desire power act in their own interests while no one does anything to check them because they're too concerned about who will win the next American Idol.

It has always amazed me how so many people would agree that throughout history, religion has been used to control people by keeping them ignorant and willing to obey, but the same folks who will agree with that find it absurd that media and propaganda and creature comforts and an overemphasis on work/business can be used the same way.

Re:OSX security

The original article said it would be up through Friday, why the early shutdown? Maybe it stayed up for 38 hours or whatever and then someone got in, so they post-pre-maturely ended the contest the minute before the crack?

More like the campus IT head went ape shit regarding the amount of bandwidth eaten up by this contest.

Re:OSX security

Not just bandwidth, but if you were the head admin of their network, how thrilled would you be that somebody hung a big sign on your campus saying "please attack us"?