Status update:
I’m back in Vegas for Defcon and it’s going swimmingly. so much so that i might get some actual swimming in.
Thanks to the late night help of Professor Franklin i have improved and redeployed the Defcam!
Category: Web
New security updates overtake jailbreak advantages.
There are just so many privilege escalation fixes in the latest iOS 12.2 update. I finally removed the jailbreak from my primary device and updated. Privilege escalation is when an unprivileged or user process (like an app from the app store or even a web page*) gets root or even kernel authority. This is when bad turns to worse because it can do and see anything with any of the device’s data or sensors. Since even the big trusted apps have been caught tracking or stealing data, I simply couldn’t leave myself unprotected any longer.
I’ll still of course keep a development device jailbroken on 12.1.2 for all of the reasons. It was a wonderful experience, only slightly beta. I appreciate all the hard work by everyone in the scene. I think i am going hate seeing the home bar again the most.
* web pages are often sandboxed separately from the app itself. Some might argue that a webpage would first have to escape the sandbox before it could escalate privileges. this is true, but i would respond that sandbox escape is just another form of privilege escalation, only one level down. There are also over a dozen webkit fixes in this update.
Pilgrimage to the Internet Archive
The offering I brought was nearly 100 lbs of technology from my childhood. I met some amazing staff and volunteers (they even archive their employees). Even visited the blinking lights of their servers. They archive even more then I knew. More then web, old software and films, they even archive music and have an impressive collection (i found several rare or out of print artists and albums in their archive).
Hosted Unifi controller with Let’s Encrypt SSL take 2!
I visited this idea months ago, but for anyone who implemented it, it has been a nightmare. Each subsequent Unifi controller update broke the https in new and exciting ways. After remaining a very squeaky wheel with Ubiquity support, they’ve pushed out a version that should permanently resolve the problems. They even made promises of native Let’s Encrypt support. All this will prove true of false with time, but for now i wanted to share my working procedure for Unifi controller version 5.9.32.
This solution required me to become more familiar with Java’s keytool then i would have otherwise. Unifi has a hardcoded keytool path and password, don’t change that (thanks Corey F @ubnt). i don’t think alias matter, but they must be consistent. I used mykey. We start by generating a key and a code signing request for our domain. For permissions reasons, we will want to do this as root. . .
cd /var/lib/unifi
keytool -genkeypair -alias mykey -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -keystore keystore -dname "CN=custom.domain.name" -storepass aircontrolenterprise
Now we export the csr file we will give to Let’s Encrypt.
keytool -certreq -alias mykey -keystore keystore -file custom.domain.name.csr -ext san=dns:custom.domain.name -storepass aircontrolenterprise
Now we run the interactive certbot script to prove the domain is actually yours before they hand out a cert. Follow the instructions you can use DNS or hosting a file to verify.
certbot certonly --manual --csr custom.domain.name.csr
Continue reading “Hosted Unifi controller with Let’s Encrypt SSL take 2!”
New Zealand Government website has the best 404 page!
They include a world map with a glaring omission. . . New Zealand. I guess they are feeling a little left out.
I setup an emoji domain on a dare. . .
check out ?.be3n.com. for no reason at all.
Has it been 10 years already??!!!
It was 10 years ago today when I decided that the virtual world needed a new URL and somethingdotsomething.com was purchased! It was another year before the site got any content and even longer before it was any good. (citation needed)
I have enjoyed publishing here. I hope to continue and to add more and grander works as well.
I fixed the error that killed my URL shortener.
This post should prove it. Thanks to @joedolson for graciously not being offended when i suggested it was a problem with his code. My own idiocy omitted an essential file. whoops! must test more throughly before I bother others.
Played with PoisonTap network hijacking tool
@SamyKamkar made an impressive and terrifying tool. This simple USB device steals your cookies, poisons your cache, and even persists a web backdoor. On a locked machine no less! It depends much on the trust that our computers take for granted. Trusting a USB device is not up to no good. Trusting the local network not trying to confuse. We must reexamine this trust going forward. It didn’t take long to get it up and running, however once you do, you can spend hours tinkering. (i was working to combine it with @mubix‘s work here)
I am also delighted to have my first Raspberry Pi as a USB device rather then host. it is certainly exciting to create some new doodads using this dangerous toolkit.
UPDATE
I have since made a version without the cache attack. I completely failed to steal the poisontap visuals, but TheCodePlayer offers a delightful matrix animation. next step is to man in the middle ssl too. I’m turning it into a device that logs everything while connected, but doesn’t persist.
art, Culture, technology, Web
There may be too many animated Gifs on my website.
This post will bump the largest one off the front page. My site was getting a bit bloated.