Information Security by Joe

Good guy hackers

joevest — Sat, 03 May 2008 03:43:15 +0000

I have followed the security community for a few years and have found something very interesting. ‘Hackers’ are nice people. Many people in my local security community are good people willing to put in their time and energy to help people. Take a look a this article about Johnny Long.
http://seclists.org/isn/2008/May/0007.html
This guy is doing the right thing. I really admire what he is doing.
It doesn’t matter how great your skills are if you do not put them to good use.
I challenge everyone to do the right thing. Get involved and help. I hear so many complaints from the IT community on how ‘dumb’ end users are or how insecure our systems are. Well… fix it… get out there and make a difference.

Backup Gmail with Google Groups and share your secrets with the world

joevest — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:22:53 +0000

My wife was looking for discounts on airfare a few days ago and found something interesting and asked me to come take a look. She was looking at someone’s flight confirmation. I thought this was strange; the confirmation was for a recent flight. Why would someone post this? We kept looking and discovered we were looking at someone’s email! I thought “What the….? Why is this person’s email publicly available?”

After further research, it looked like someone had decided to backup their gmail by forwarding all mail to a google group. Why backup gmail? Not sure.. That is a different topic. The email was available because the private setting was not selected in the google group. All email was publicly available and being indexed by google. This person’s email has usernames and passwords, phone numbers and addresses, and personal information about other people. My wife decided to call the person (using the phone numbers she found in the email). She left a message on the mobile and home numbers. A little while later we got a call from an older man. My wife explained the situation. The man had no idea their email was available and was a little scared. My wife stayed on the phone for almost 2 hours helping him figure out how to undo what was done and change all passwords to any online accounts.

What can be learned?

Can you really trust an online service to keep your private information private? Especially when you have the control to undo any security setting.
If you send an email to someone, its privacy is only as safe as the weakest link.
Do the right thing. If you find someone who has inadvertently exposed their personal information, help them straighten it out.

Setup Content Filtering for a home network for free

joevest — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 03:02:48 +0000

I have wanted to help people keep their kids and family safe when using the internet. This is more or less what I have setup. It work’s, but is still not a replacement for watching what happens on your computers.

Basic Steps

Create DynDNS account
Create OpenDNS account
Setup an OpenDNS network
Configure filtering rules
Install and configure DynDNS updater client
Configure you computer to use the OpenDNS servers

OpenDNS provides the filtering service

Content filtering is accomplished by using the OpenDNS service. OpenDNS offers free DNS servers for name resolution. When using a registered account with OpenDNS , general categories and specific sites can be allowed or blocked. The service knows who you are by your IP address.

My IP address Changes all the time

Most home users IP address will change quite often. This will cause the OpenDNS not to recognize who you are. Something must be setup to allow these dynamic changing IP address to be recognized. This is where DynDNS is used.

Updating my dynamic IP address

DynDNS allows for a changing IP address to be mapped to a static name.

Example:

Current IP address 10.10.10.10

DynDNS Registered hostname: ilikecheese.dyndns.com

DynDNS uses a client to update the DynDNS servers with your current IP address. In the example the domain name ilikecheese.dyndns.com will point to your current IP address. The same client can update the OpenDNS servers so that the OpenDNS service knows who you are. By updating the OpenDNS servers with your IP address, you will be able to use the filtering service.
Detailed Steps.

Create DynDNS account

Visit www.dyndns.com and create a new account.

After you create an account setup a new hostname. Follow the instructions on the site.

This will give you a new domain name that will point to your current IP address. Note: Your address may change and will become outdated. This will be corrected at a later step.

Create OpenDNS account

Visit www.opendns.com and create a new account.

Setup an OpenDNS network

After you create the account, setup a new network. Use your current IP address and give the network a label. I suggest using the hostname you created at dyndns.

Once the network is created, you need to enable dynamic updates.

Click Settings and Choose the “Set Up a Dynamic IP” link.

Click the Check box ‘Enable dynamic IP update’

Now your OpenDNS account is ready for IP updates and filtering rules.

Configure filtering rules

Logon to OpenDNS

Click dashboard and Networks.

Click the settings link for your network.

The filtering links on the left of the screen will allow you to create white and black lists and block categories of sites.

Install and configure DynDNS updater client

A client need to be installed and configured to update the DynDNS and OpenDNS services. The DynDNS updater can be downloaded from the DynDNS site.

This article offers the best steps for configuration.

http://www.opendns.com/support/article/187

I suggest your install the software as a service. This will force the software to always run and can prevent others from stopping the program.

Configure you computer to use the OpenDNS servers

Most likely your computer is set to automatticly obtain the DNS servers. This setting must be changed to only use the OpenDNS servers.

Open the control panel.

Double click Network Connections

Right click your network connection (wired or wireless)

Choose Properties

Click TCP/IP and choose properties.

Change the DNS configuration to use the following address

208.67.222.222

208.67.220.220

Done

That’s it. Be sure to test your configuration before you trust it. Make sure it blocks sites appropriately.