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[Keith] Welcome to the Mind Of Root. I'm Keith Albright and this is Episode 138 streaming live on Ustream.tv on September 2nd, 2010. Welcome to the show.
Chit-Chat - What's going on with you?
[Steve]
[Rich]
[Keith]
- Did a special Mike Tech show this past Saturday with Mike Smith and Winston Wolf. Not special as in 'after school' or the episode where Blossom shoplifts....more fun than those.
- Action packed show tonight. Thought I was going to be light on topics, but wound up with a couple.
Housekeeping Items
[Rich]
[Steve]
[Keith]
- Rich has a new post up on administering AD like Houdini. It's really about trying to do what you need to do an AD in a restrictive environment. Give a read and give us your comments.
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• I've tinkered with home-brew laptop tracking, but now that this is out, there is no need.
• Two modes; stand-alone or via control panel. Control panel allows for three devices and provides a management interface and is free.
• Stand-alone just sets up the services and reports are sent directly via email. I see a potential problem given ISP blocks on PBL, etc meaning emailed report may not come through.
• What is sent in report? Network info (public/private IP), Screen shots, webcam pics, list of files changed, Geo location (if capable).
• Setting the device to missing activates the reports being sent. When the device checks in with the control panel at the set interval and is deemed missing, it starts the reporting process. (Default 20 min intervals)
• Stand-alone mode uses the presence of a URL to determine if marked missing. So, on the Mind Of Root site, I could have a file in the URL that when Prey checks, it finds the file and declares all OK.
• If device is missing, I delete the file and Prey will not find it and start sending reports.
• Do, I finally had a chance to crack open the iMac to replace the drive. It went easier than I expected. Glass panel came off easily and them only tricky part seemed to be when I pulled the LCD up, there are three cables connected. I got two disconnected and the third was really tight and at an odd angle to disconnect and reconnect. Instructions online indicated it was OK to leave connected and work around; which I did.
• Fast forward to a fully re-assembled iMac and when I powered it on, I get a completely white rectangle on the screen. The CD spins, etc but screen never changes.
• This is why I don't like working on laptops with my fat hands. There are too many connectors and cables that are delicate and (to me) the connectors are designed to be put together once then never disassembled/re-assembled.
• Well, I had a chance to crack it open and I checked all my work. All connections were solid.
• I booted with the case off and without the Mac OS X install CD in and I got the flashing folder with question mark on the white screen and I realized the display wasn't hosed. I was just missing something in the recovery process.
• I booted with the CD in and tried hitting the 'C' key which tell the Mac OS to boot from CD...Lo and Behold, it started booting from CD.
• I formatted the drive and ran into one problem with the Restore from Time Machine backup seeing the new drive, but a weird trick where you hit the back button on the Welcome screen did the trick and it started the 27 hours restore process.
• It does not back up certain log and database files and I've been gathering tips on handling these things. e.g. when launching Mail, it will have all the old mail, but will need to rebuild the index DB for the Mail application.
• Initial Restoration problems.
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• Have a set of users that receive email work orders to a shared bucket. When one person processes, they print then archive.
• Sometimes get several work orders and they would select all mail items from list view in outlook then click the print icon.
• One user started getting errors when trying to print (something like "action not supported"). I found only one reference to the problem from a forum post in 2007 with no real answer. Tried full re-install of Outlook, but did not resolve.
• Fast forward to today and EU was trying to send an email using a email hyperlink on a web site and was getting 'Object not found' errors.
• Turns out the resolution to this is to delete the forms cache file (frmcache.dat) in Local Settings\application data\microsoft\forms and re-launch Outlook to re-create it.
• That did the trick and I noticed in the forms folder were subfolders referencing IPM.NOTE which is one of the form types referenced in a potential fix for the previous problem.
• So, I thought to check the previous problem, and it was resolved. He could print multiple emails again.
• WSUS server died. HD ok, so moved to another chassis. Need to virtualize.
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• Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux
Main Features:
• Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.
• Encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive.
• Encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication).
• Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.
• Parallelization and pipelining allow data to be read and written as fast as if the drive was not encrypted.
• Encryption can be hardware-accelerated on modern processors.
• Provides plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password: Hidden volume (steganography) and hidden operating system.
• Two volumes in one file. Password A opens the one containing the decoy information. Password B opens the volume containing the real information.
• Nice anti-brute force feature; type of encryption is not stored or noted anywhere in the file. When you enter password and mount, it tries each encryption method until it is successful. So, if someone were to try to brute force crack the file, they wouldn't even know which encryption algorithm to start with.
• Support multiple encyrption algorithms; AES, Serpent, Twofish, or cascades (multi layer encryption; AES-Twofish, Twofish-Serpent)
• US Customs now confiscating devices at will.
• TC can be run as a portable app. Extract from the installer and put on a thumb drive. You can put the EXE and the TC volume/file on a thumb drive and mount it anywhere to extract files.
• Last bit of advice; when you move files to the TC volume, clean up after yourself and remove the original. Otherwise, what is the point of securing them if there are digital artifact copies that are left unsecured.
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Listener Feedback
From listener....
Website Picks
Rich - http://
Steve - http://
Keith - http://adrianotto.com/2010/08/dev-null-unlimited-scale/ I follow Adrian on Twitter and just had to point MoR? listeners to this blog entry. He's found an amazing new DB platform that is fast, infinitely scalable and 100% non-blocking. It's called /dev/null and as one commenter noted on the amazing security scheme; "Once data is in, nobody can steal it!" So, if you are look for a really secure and fast place to move your data, check out /dev/null
Last Call
Anyone....Anyone....Buehler.....Buehler....
Closing
Test-
I'd like to thank everyone in the chat on UStream?.tv we always enjoy the additional comments and interaction.
everyone should remember that there are numerous ways one can interact with the show. For listener feedback post comments on the main show site, or email us at feedback[at] MindofRoot?.com.
It's always fun to see where our listeners live, put a pin on our frappr map there is a link to this on the main show site.
To become even more involved you can leave suggestions for future shows on the topics request wiki. Again a link to the wiki can be found on the main show site.
There is a link to the wiki on the main show site. If you would like to participate in the show; either through an interview, a segment contribution, or any other way, please let us know. We are also a member of the Techpodcast network. Check out some other great shows by going to Techpodcast.com.
test end-
All right, well that is it for the show. For listener feedback; you can email us at Feedback [at] mindofroot.com or post a comment on the main site at mindofroot.com. If you use iTunes, you could write a review. If you just want to show us your listening, drop a pin on the Frappr map...there's a link on the show site.
Lastly, you can drop any show ideas or topic requests on the wiki. There is a link to the wiki on the main show site. If you would like to participate in the show; either through an interview, a segment contribution, or any other way, please let us know. We are also a member of the Techpodcast network. Check out some other great shows by going to Techpodcast.com.
