jcm's blog

[ from the more-fun-for-everyone dept. ]

Hello. I have created a number of binaries over the last few years in cs.nott.ac.uk. Perhaps someone will take care of them for me later on, here’s the list in /stud/ug/jcm00u/bin and /stud/ug/jcm00u/local/bin: ar, bochs, bximage, cdp, cdplay, chroot, date, des, echo, flea, gchroot, gdate, gecho, ggroups, gid, gnice, gnohup, gprintf, groups, gsleep, guname, guptime, gwho, gwhoami, id, ls, make, mpg123, mutt, muttbug, ncftp, nice, nohup, pagewrap, pgpring, printf, psim, pstree, scp, screen, slrn, smbclient, ssh, strip, test-x11-fonts, uname, undes, uptime, who, whoami, whoami-full, xmms-wrapper.sh. Many of these may not be required for Solaris 9 as it is less in need of GNUification out of the box. If anyone wishes to look after these then feel free to do so – some people still use the ones directly from my home directory so it would be helpful to them.

Jon.

[ 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.

[ from the just-for-fun-honest dept. ]

I am preparing some machines for a schools demonstration of using Debian GNU/Linux and Linux in general. Although the point is about
Microsoft alternatives, Free Software and so forth, one cannot resist the temptation to show more twisted things like this shot of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Powerpoint running under WINE within a KDE environment just for fun. Also pictured is Sun Star Office which is being demonstrated along with Open Office. I may eventually produce some (non-Powerpoint!) slides to completement what I will be demonstrating this weekend.

For more details on the potential uses of GNU/Linux in education, there are a number of websites online. I would very much like to see Universities such as Nottingham try this Free technology as an alternative or as a step towards removing the Microsoft infection.

Jon.

[ from the where-do-you-want-to-go-today? dept. ]

I met an old friend on Saturday that I have not seen in a while. This reminded me that I am now 21 and am not getting any younger – perhaps it is time to move on with my life, make some changes, and so forth. Dinner in London, very civilised, all things considered. An accident on a Central Line train did not affect us though I expect congestion tomorrow.

Tomorrow I am going to visit an interesting company and I need to think about employment or research after graduation, which scarily is going to happen in less than six months from now. I am seriously thinking it might be a good idea to do some further academic study – I feel my undergraduate degree leaves so much undone that there are a number of lose ends…but do I really want to spend the next three years of my life doing something I might well do in my spare time anyway?

My passport should be renewed soon and then I think I will have a random weekend break. The trip to California should still be happening though the details have not yet been resolved so it may get pushed back further in to the year. I would really like to line up a few places to visit while over there. Has it really been nearly three years in Nottingham?

I pointed out to someone the dangers of allowing untrusted people to load kernel modules through sudo and this spurred me generally in to thinking about kernel code signing. A number of research systems offer the ability to sign code using a simple cryptographic algorithm – it might be useful in Linux but would open a nice little can of worms. I took the new “Understanding The Linux Kernel” book with me on my travels and am enjoying it so far – especially the typeface and typesetting used (Adobe Framemaker and a bunch of Adobe fonts which do look very nice). I should learn the DocBook DTD properly soon and use it for certain documentation.

Jon.

[ from the any-more-fire-alarms? dept. ]

The exam season in Nottingham is now over for me and I am taking a few days reflection while I visit random places and contemplate jobs and so forth.

I will be in Cambridge again next month for the Security Seminar (and meet certain friends if they are about) on Quantum Computing. Tomorrow I am in London briefly I believe. I have the new edition of Understanding The Linux Kernel to keep me busy – and am playing with FreeSWAN for a review. Hopefully I will have a SIP/VoIP system in place if I get time next week. I have some proof on concept code for demonstrating some ideas I have been having. Need to go to Birmingham, Oxford, and a few other places too.

Jon.