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* Posts by Frumious Bandersnatch

2662 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Nov 2007

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IPv6 is great, says Facebook. For us. And for you a bit, too

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Nat as a security measure

NAT makes for better privacy. The use of IPv6 without any NAT is likely to make each device in your site uniquely identifiable by its global address.

Sorry, but that's probably the #1 myth about ipv6. If you use SLAAC then the global address for a single host will change over time. See for example, this page which says (emphasis added):

IPv6 provides both a stateful and a stateless address configuration functionality. Stateful address configuration is similar to the existing DHCP functionality in IPv4. IPv6 also supports Stateless Address Auto Configuration (SLAAC). In this mode, nodes can automatically configure their network configuration by generating a local IP address, locating neighbors on the same local segment, locating a default router, and even generating a globally routable address using the prefix supplied by the router through ICMP messages. All of this occurs without any user interaction. Another interesting note is that IPv6 provides the ability to easily renumber these global addresses via the routers on the network instead of configuring the hosts individually. Securing these interactions is definitely something to consider when deploying IPv6.

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Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: There's begillions

Do you have to configure a /64 as a routed subnet?

Are you sure you can't be more granular than that?

That link you gave was too long for me to read (quickly) but from what I understand, you could * use a smaller subnet but it's definitely not recommended. The problem is that ipv6 lets you do some neat automatic configuration at the "single user end LAN" router but only if the address space it's managing is /64. If your LAN space is smaller than that then the Stateless

Address Auto Configuration (SLAAC). mechanism won't work. Basically you will want to use SLAAC even thought technically you don't have to.

* ipv6 routing tables aren't significantly different from ipv4. You can still, for example, put in arbitrary static routes, but it's not the "ipv6 way".

* edit: just to add another explanatory note, ipv6's natural subnet size is /64, while they define /56 as being for "Minimal end sites assignment". So (to keep things really simple) ignoring any special address spaces carved out of the global address space, there are up to 2**56 different "end sites", each of which can have 2 ** (64-56) = 256 subnets, each of which can have up to 2 ** (128 - 64) individual hosts.

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OpenWrt gets update in face of FCC's anti-flashing push

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Poor show

it's a really poor show when you've already run out by 9:30am on a Monday, too :)

The gin, yes, but running out of grenadine? It's non-alcoholic, isn't it?

Also, minor quibble... all the OpenWRT releases are named after cocktails. The splash screen (motd) when you log in has always given the recipe on any release I've ever used.

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Reviewed: Shadowrun: Hong Kong, Until Dawn, Hearthstone expansion and more

Frumious Bandersnatch

Until Dawn -- "I’m almost relieved when the blood starts flying."

So, basically your standard "Twenty minutes with jerks" trope.

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Confession: I was a teenage computer virus writer

Frumious Bandersnatch
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"I didn't really understand it, but it solved my issue, so I used it."

Sums up my entire career as a "developer" :(

There's a name for that ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming

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Frumious Bandersnatch

Two obvious questions

1. Did you get caught; and

2. Is there some sort of statute of limitations?

I found the whole field very interesting for a while. Not so much the basic idea of a virus (which is trivial) but more the ingenuity that some authors had in finding novel places to stash their code in memory, evade detection (like some viruses that would hook DOS or the BIOS interrupts to show infected files in their original, uninfected forms if resident) and especially polymorphic viruses (especially the Dark Avenger Mutation Engine).

I never used a BBS. I tended to use Usenet (VIRUS-L? All the 40Hex, 2600 and so on were also available) and a few key resources (Ralf Brown's Interrupt List, Patricia Hoffman's VSUM and IIRC, "The Programmer's PC Sourcebook/Handbook" by Thom Hogan). Was never part of any "hacker" scene. More of an academic interest with me. Kind of a strange hobby for teen/twenty-something, but still, I learned an awful lot about PCs, the BIOS, Dos and x86 assembly from it.

They really were simpler times. Most viruses were no more than stupid and ill-advised pranks. Even PCs were kind of more like a novelty than a serious tool. When serious money started being involved (PCs becoming mission-critical and the Internet becoming a conduit for commerce and banking) the scammers and crooks took over. That was the end of the fun/innocence.

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The last post: Building your own mail server, part 1

Frumious Bandersnatch

maildir format

That brings me back. I used to use it with the mh mail client and exmh (which I think integrated with fetchmail). Despite exmh being written in tcl/tK, it was as nice to use as any "full fat" mail client I've used since.

The problem I eventually ran into back then was scalability. With the possibility of tens of thousands of emails, each with their own file, the mail directory could get really slow as the dir had to be rescanned for each sub-command. Mind you, that was in the days before the ext? filesystems had optimisations (automatic indexing or something) for huge directories like that. Even with the drawbacks, the maildir format still beat the alternative of a bunch of huge Inbox.bz files that needed to be decompressed twice when you were searching for something (once to find out which inbox file it was in, with no tools apart from zless) followed by a second decompress when you issue the command needed to extract the particular mail you want.

Of course, if I'd foreseen the need to index mailboxes before archiving I could totally have used something like glimpse on them instead of torturing myself with slow searches.

Nowadays, of course, all that seems like an anachronism when Google or Microsoft will happily index everything automatically. That's good, of course, but at what price?

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WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Frumious Bandersnatch

a chop too far?

El Reg photo department shuttered, work speedily outsourced to N. Korean shop shop.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

when given the choice

between the browsing The Register via its mobile app and a snake-infested laptop, most chose the laptop.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

The Register's occasional booze-up with the readers sometimes revealed some surprising faces behind the screen handles.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

The new 3W TDP CPU wasn't quite as toasty as his last laptop, but at least it wasn't crippled by a 1366x768 screen resolution.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

On the internet, no one knows you're a snake.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

This was definitely not what I had in mind when they said "come work in Slough"

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Frumious Bandersnatch

New Atom range fails to put a tiger in the tank.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

this competition should be the #1 article on the site

The Droste effect would blow the snake's mind.

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GCHQ wants to set your passwords. In a good way

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Cracks?

If GCHQ recommends SHA 256 and PBKDF2

I just happened to be reading this article about hacking WPA/WPA2 on Tom's Hardware the other day. Though they didn't mention it by name, they describe PBKDF2 as using an iterative HMAC construction for protecting the key. As far as I know, there are no practical attacks against this, so the attacker is forced to use brute force. I would be extremely surprised if someone ever did manage to come up with any better attack since the construct effectively includes two one-way functions (the HMAC part and the chosen digest function). Plus, even if someone did find an attack that's better than brute force, increasing the number of rounds or alternating between two separate digest functions should make it secure again.

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Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Consonant Consonant Vowel Consonant

Keep your clothes on, Carol, I can't concentrate!

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Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Dooesn't quite work for me

re: "securillusionifying"

I actually tend to use made-up portmanteaux like that quite a bit. Usually easy to remember if you can combine some sort of pop or literary reference with the purpose of the site/password, but should be hard to guess and impossible to crack using dictionaries.

Some totally made-up examples:

* "furuikeyast" for a SUSE Linux box ("yast" is the trigger to remember the wordplay with the famous haiku)

* "oblidobladon't" for Amazon (they have an "obidos" site, mashed up with a Beatles lyric)

I guess if crosswords were your thing you could do something similar and come up with a cryptic reminder to yourself and even write down the clue.

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MYSTERIES of remote ICE WORLD PLUTO: New pics BAMBOOZLE boffins

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Coat

Boffins like being baffled

Not if they're giving an important speech in a crowded auditorium. Sometimes good acoustics is as important as the message.

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3D printer blueprints for TSA luggage-unlocking master keys leak online

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Sorry, got the first sentence wrong

words like "brainfart" and "Mrs. Mimsy" were flowing liberally through my mind

Careful! Next thing you know, your mome raths will be outgribing ...

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Frumious Bandersnatch
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re: "the plastic output isn't all that strong."

Well just 3-d print the master in plastic (or get someone else to do it for you) and get a locksmith to clone it onto a proper blank. No need to invest in machine tools when any corner shop will do the job for next to nothing.

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Super Cali grabs its big stick, beats Uber 'cos it's odious

Frumious Bandersnatch

Ah, America (USA)

No representin' without a taxin'

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BORN to HURL: Man's shoulders are head and shoulders above apes, gorillas, chimps etc

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Only one thing to say

Not forgetting The Commentators

Who's on first?

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Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Cricket vs. Baseball.

Jiggery-Pokery ... Ozzie skulduggery!

Top notch tune, and I don't even like cricket :)

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Ubuntu Wily gaggle builds 15.10 beta beachhead

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Here it comes?

I remember doing that and wondering if my monitor was going to get fried...

Been there... fingers hovering over CTL-ALT-BACKSPACE. just in case.

Of course then someone decided that we don't need to have that enabled by default (as if I'm going to accidentally hit it). Same goes for PointerKeys. Grrr--I hate "progress".

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Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Vanishing scrollbars - can't wait !

For me, the final straw with the then-new Gnome environment was the completely non-intuitive alt-tab behaviour coupled with completely breaking sloppy focus. I know that I'm probably in the minority re sloppy focus but the combination of the two just made me give up. Not that these are the only things that are just plain stupid---like not having control over widget positioning in the top panel, to name just one---but that was just the straw that broke this camel's back. At least I managed to change the scrollbar behaviour within 5 minutes of seeing it.

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Microsoft: Thanks, Google, we'll have your media codec for Edge

Frumious Bandersnatch

"other open source formats, including OGG, Opus, and Vorbis"

OK, Opus is relatively new, but the other two have been around for what, 10+ years?

Any mention on whether FLAC support is likely (if it isn't there already; I'm not a Windows user so I don't follow such things)?

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Feeling sweary? Don't tell Google Docs

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Answer

"Phucket", the place, starts with a 'p' sound. Technically, it's an "aspirated" p sound, which means that it comes with a quick outburst of air. The 'h' is what distinguishes a normal p sound (like in "nap") from an aspirated one in the transliteration to our alphabet. It's never a good idea to assume that normal English orthography rules (like 'ph' -> 'f') apply when dealing with foreign words, especially place names.

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Hackers spent at least a year spying on Mozilla to discover Firefox security holes – and exploit them

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Storing extremely high-value information on a server

I have to downvote your there, AC. How is anyone supposed to get any work done these days if they can't collaborate and share crucial development info over the net? Especially something like open source tools where (presumably) developers are spread around the world?

Could you suggest a way for them to share info that will be 100% secure? Of course not. We're all human and susceptible to making mistakes every now and then that can let the bad guys breach almost any "secure" system.

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WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Cats, not meerkats

Racist! I'm just as much a Feliform as your stupid moggies. And cuter, too.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

Ugh, these lifeforms have no fashion sense at all

No point in checking up on them for at least 200 million katlus.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

Despite a dreadful week in which his pet fish had died and a storm had ripped a large branch of his favourite tree, leaving it blocking the driveway, Cadbury the meerkat was not overly despondent. "I'll kill two birds with one stone," he thought. "Percy needs a proper burial", he reasoned, "and that large log will make a fitting monument to him---I can use it as his tombstone". He set to work and with a few hours of digging and then rolling the enormous log into position, he had completed his task.

Exhausted, a satisfied smile crossed his face as he surveyed his work. "Yes," he thought, "I'm really happy with what I've done with the plaice."

(with apologies to PKD and, well, everyone)

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Frumious Bandersnatch

Now if I can just push this Ashley Madison log into the river

The torrents will take care of the rest

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Frumious Bandersnatch

so this meerkat walks in and sits down at the bar

The barman turns and says "hey, is this some kind of joke or something?"

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Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Sigh

By the time the moderator has finally read my entry the prize will have been given away

You're supposed to enter this week's competition, not last week's one.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

bricks n mortar outlets still struggling to compete with online cat à logs

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Frumious Bandersnatch

This is why we can't have nice things

The meerkats have them all.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

"For last time"

I not silly accent. This Soviet Russia --- silly accent you!

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Frumious Bandersnatch

Please "go compare"

"over there"

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Frumious Bandersnatch

There were far worse fates that could befall a meerkat

But accidentally super-gluing ones hands to a log was among the most embarrassing.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

And now on meerkat news

We have winner meerkat caption contest.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

It's not easy being a meerkat

No, wait. It's absolutely brilliant being a meerkat!

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Frumious Bandersnatch

Igor's eyes were saying

"how witty and urbane of you, Mr. Bond" but his hands were saying "now if I can just push this log down this hill and knock you into the shark-infested pond, I will be rid of you forever!"

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Frumious Bandersnatch

Anton tried hard not to look surprised

which was hard for him as "looking surprised" was basically his entire repertoire.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

eh, sorry, no cheddar, sir

I'm afraid we don't get much call for it around these parts.

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Frumious Bandersnatch

Pretend to look busy

Meerkat Jesus is coming!

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BOFH: Power corrupts, uninterrupted power corrupts absolutely

Frumious Bandersnatch

I always thought that "optimising the idle loop" was a no-no

I learned something useful from the BOFH today.

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128TB SSD by 2018? Toshiba promises much, delivers ... a little

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: Re. perpetual right to watch a movie

So tell me why my Raspberry Pi's root filesystem needs to pay royalties again?

Because you made an inexplicable decision to format it as FAT with long filenames instead of ext[234]?

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Frumious Bandersnatch
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Re: "and a few enthusiasts looking for speed in such things a gaming."

You don't need to explain ... <snip>

In other words, "use junctions"

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