Blog posts from 2009

1. dnssnarf

   Domain Name System (DNS) traffic is inherently timely. Responses from DNS servers are expected to change from one minute to the next. So many important application layer protocols leverage DNS, and…

2. trst.us

   Over the summer two friends and I brainstormed some ideas for a value-add URL shortener. I know, I know. It was going to do a bunch of security checks against URLs it was asked to shorten, and when…

3. What I expect inside inside files with underscores in the name instead of spaces...

   Dear Grant: If my calculations are correct, you will receive this file immediately after you saw the DeLorean struck by lightning. First, let me assure you that I’m allive and well. I’ve been living…

4. Red teaming with EICAR

   The EICAR test file (official name: EICAR Standard Anti-Virus Test File ) is a file, developed by the European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research , to test the response of computer antivirus…

5. The shortened url straw men of doom

   Bastardizing the Drake equation , if only a fraction of the people using twitter used it to send urls to each other, and only a fraction of those urls were artificially shortened by a url shortener,…

6. How I Decoded the Verizon 2009 DBIR Cover

   I was the first to solve the Verizon 2009 Data Breach Investigations Report cover. Chris Eng’s similar write-up is excellent and perhaps more in the spirit of defeating a challenge of the sort. That…

7. Wikipedia

   Simplepedia is a greasemonkey userscript that gives mediawiki sites a modern and clean design. Wikipedia’s design and style is tiring and cluttered. There’s just too much going on! Without the entire…

8. The Mad Tea Party

   There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and a Democrat and a Republican were having tea at it: the Economy was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it…

9. capture - a script for analysts and incident handlers

   Frequently, security analysts kick off tcpdump full packet captures on unix servers with tapped interfaces at trust zone perimeters which they leave running in the background. Often this is done in a…

10. Corporate Brand Mash-up DIY Rebellion

    From the Wall Street Journal via Dark Visitor : A property developer in Nanjing, hoping to lure business and buzz, set up storefront facades with logos such as “Haagon-Bozs,” “Pizza Huh,” “Bucksstar…