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I first stumbled across this report while I was at SecureWorld in Boston this spring. One of the Keynote speakers, Bret Arsenault, General Manager of Microsoft's National Security Team, went over the 1H07 report and provided some spiffy bound hard copies for the attendees. It is really well done and a nice view of the current threats against the Windows Environment.

Now, Microsoft has released 2H07 for download. Sadly, no hard copies for me, but it's still a very good read. Available are the complete report and a "Key Findings" section suitable for 50000ft views.

• Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (July - December 2007)

I am a big fan of Prelude IDS to correlate reports from my honeypot/nepenthes/snort setup at my house. One of the things that was quite repetitive was finding the locations of IPs. So, I sat down and coded up a patch that grafted GeoIP onto Prelude's Prewikka web interface. After a bit of effort figuring out Python and the template engine, I ended up with this:

Of course, my patch doesn't blur out the names like the screenshot, but it does add the spiffy little flags to show you what countries are attacking you.

You will need:

• A working GeoIP installation
• The GeoIP Python module
• A set of flag icons in PNG format. I recommend FamFamFam's icons
• My patch
• Prewikka 0.9.14 source tree.

The GeoIP libraries are available from the link above. Installing them is pretty straightforward. Once that is done, untar the Prewikka tarball and apply the patch for Prewikka in the source directory. Then install as normal.

Unzip the flags archive somewhere on your system. Move the contents "png" directory to your web root under the folder "/images/flags". You may need to make an adjustment to your Apache installation if Prewikka is running in the root web directory like I had to. I made an alias in my Apache configuration pointing /images/ back over to /var/www/images.

Alias /images/ /var/www/images/

With any luck, it should work. As always, your mileage may vary.

Share and enjoy!

Stacy Thayer, one of the Security Twits that I follow, posted a blog entry regarding an encounter she had with some neanderthal at RSA 2008. Quite frankly, it made me shake my head. The idea of judging someone's knowledge based on their body parts is far too common in some technical circles, and what drives me nuts is that it often happens to people who tout the "hacker ethic".

As a brief side, the Hacker Ethic was a term coined by Steven Levy in his excellent book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (If you haven't read this book and are involved in IT, click the link and order it. Now. Go ahead, we'll wait. Back? Cool.). One of the key points that I always feel is one of the great equalizers in computers is the fact that people are often accepted by their knowledge, rather then their position or their alphabet soup after their name. (However, they are not mutually exclusive)

HACKERS SHOULD BE JUDGED BY THEIR HACKING, NOT BOGUS CRITERIA SUCH AS DEGREES, AGE, RACE, OR POSITION.

The ready acceptance of twelve-year-old Peter Deutsch in the TX-0 community (though not by non-hacker graduate students) was a good example. Likewise, people who trotted in with seemingly impressive credentials were not taken seriously until they proved themselves at the console of a computer. This meritocratic trait was not necessarily rooted in the inherent goodness of hacker hearts--it was mainly that hackers cared less about someone's superficial characteristics than they did about his potential to advance the general state of hacking, to create new programs to admire, to talk about that new feature in the system.

This is often a very common theme technical circles. Unless, of course, you seem to of the female persuasion at which point it seems to be thrown out the window. I really experienced this in college. The handful of women in our classes were leered at, harassed, and generally made uncomfortable by some of our more "vocal" geeks who probably thought that it was some part of the mating ritual. To be 100% honest, I was dismissive of some of them until I came to the conclusion they could hold their own. Since then, I've had the pleasure to meet and work with some talented women, some of who can kick my ass technically.

The computer industry is very male dominated. Conferences have booth babes and the likes of Vanna Vinyl, which I'm sure doesn't encourage women to get involved in the field. However, shouldn't people who subscribe to the hacker ethic start equally applying it equally to both sexes?

Also, since we're on the topic:

Talented Women in Computers who's weblogs I read, and so should you:

• Jennifer Jabbusch - http://securityuncorked.squarespace.com/
• Jennifer Leggio - http://mediaphyter.wordpress.com/
• Stacy Thayer - http://www.stacythayer.com/

After upgrading to General in December, I could finally join the so-called "real hams" (whatever) on HF. However, since I live in a condo, the antenna situation somewhat limited me. After thinking most of the winter, and silently sneaking a ground plane outside to see if any of my neighbors would complain (they haven't so far, but we'll see what happens when more people venture outside during the spring), I decided to go all in and find a antenna that I could set up outside my office.

I knew that a permanent setup was out of the question. I also new that I was rather space limited. I also had a slight issue that I didn't know anything about antenna design. Thankfully I knew I was more or less out of luck until spring time as I didn't want to go around stringing up an antenna trudging through a foot of snow. So, I just read up and asked stupid questions in #hamradio and #amsat about what I should be doing. Thankfully, everyone in both channels were extremely helpful.

As April rolled around, I finally decided it was time. I had a few requirements:

1. It had to be cheap
2. It had to be easy to set up and break down
3. It had to be simple
4. It had to not require a tuner

Number 1 and Number 4 basically limited my options severely. I would have likely gotten hit if I approached my wife to buy another thing for my "static box" that cost more then a few dolalrs. So, after doing my research, the only option was to build a resonant dipole.

Last Saturday, my way-more-mechanically-inclined friend Steve, KB1MEH came down and we set out to build and antenna. Steve had some 18AWG wire at his house so all we needed at Home Depot and Radio shack was some PVC for the insulator and T connector, along with soldering supplies (Have I mentioned I never soldered before? I haven't.), and some PL-259 connectors. My only other investment was a cheap SWR meter for HF, courtesy of eBay.

The afternoon was spent cutting wire (the 18AWG wire was in a three conductor wire, so it had to be cut open and removed), soldering (Hey! This is easy!), drilling holes, and listening to the Scituate repeater.

Finally, around 4PM, the antenna was finished. We strung it up outside and plugged it into the SWR meter. Flipping my TS-120S (who hasn't transmitted once since I got the thing back in 1996) I saw a S4 noise floor. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. Tuning around, I heard two or three signals way down in the noise, but nothing really intelligible. I now braced myself and hope my radio didn't explode. I IDed myself, calibrated the SWR meter, and checked the SWR. Hmmm... 1:1.4... Not Great, but well within tolerance. We'll fix it later. Tuning up and down the band there was nothing really on. I had heard the regulars on Scituate mention that the band was dead, but they were also talking about a Beirut station that were all trying to work. I nervously tuned to an open frequency and called a few CQs... No response. Uh Oh...

A few quick diagnostics yielded no amazing results. Disheartened, Steve and I took the antenna down and he left for the day. I hoped that the band was just bad today and that I had not screwed up the antenna somehow.

The next day I had a free afternoon, so I set up the antenna again. I was pleased to see only a S3 noise floor that day, so there may be a small bit of hope. I nervously tuned up and down the band and stumbled across a Georgia station, K4HYB, coming in S9+. Working some kind of contest, I waited him to exchange his information and hear him say:

"This is K4HYB, QRZ?"
I nervously keyed the mic... "November One Whiskey Bravo Victor"
"November One Question Mark, K4HYB"
Holy @#$^!!! Me? Did it work? "November One Whiskey Bravo Victor"
"November One... Again?"
"November One Whiskey Bravo Victor... November One Whiskey Bravo Victor"
"November One Whiskey Bravo Victor. You are 5 by 9 in Spartanville Georgia. Your location?"

I gave my location we parted ways. I was elated that the antenna worked. I quickly tuned around looking for someone, anyone to talk to. After some looking, I was rewarded with EA1JJ calling CQ North America. I worked him my first try rewarded another 5 by 9. After some waiting and trying, I also worked Ken, G0IBS in England and had a brief QSO. Unfortunately, he faded away into the ether, so I had to break it off.

So, the Antenna is a success. I still need to trim to see if I can get better SWR, but I can fold it up into a 1' round circle for storage, and can have it and functioning in about 5 minutes of work. It also cost me peanuts. So, if you want to work on 20m some day, drop me an e-mail!

With the 2nd repeater on AO-51 active, a repeater that is vastly underutilized I might add, a bunch of us in #amsat tried to all get on the 2nd repeater during one of the middle US passes.

We had moderate success, with KB2HSH, N3CRT, and KI4BKE getting on. Plus, we had Drew, KO4MA come on. Plus, with us using the 2nd repeater, we could actually talk! Amazing!

• Mar 24th, 20:15EDT AO-51 pass (MP3, 10:28, 4.2MB)

I've typed up a fairly simple "do's and don'ts" guide to working AO-51. The guide focuses more on etiquette and operational guidelines rather then technical ideas, because there are already some excellent guides out there for the new user to read up on. That, and my technical setup leaves much to be desired.

This was more or less concieved one night in #amsat while discussing the operational issues on AO-51. The satellite is a very good, very easy satellite to get into, however, the more people jam on, the harder it is for people to use it. So, myself, John (KB2HSH), Charles (N3CRT), and Mark (KF6KYI) all tossed around ideas on what is more a less a good "code of conduct" for AO-51 operation.

• The Courteous Ham's Guide to AO-51 PDF (35K)
• The Courteous Ham's Guide to AO-51 DOC (38K)

Share and Enjoy!

As previously mentioned, I'll be going to SOURCE Boston tommorow. I'll be attempting to the conference on my somewhat shiny and new Twitter Feed. Per haps I may even, *gulp* "live blog" (Ugh. I feel dirty for saying that).

Truth be told, I'm not 100% sure what to expect. Most of my previous "security" conferences have been either DEFCON or HOPE, which I assume will be slightly more "low brow" then SOURCE. For example, I'm not expecting SOURCE to have A room full of hammocks you can crash on. But, from what I can gather, and from what the schedule says, it will be a pretty good time. It looks like it's going to be a good mix of business types and security geeks, and it's approaching the idea with the right attitude (Pub crawl anyone?). Another plus, any conference where I don't expect the conference attendees to smell like week-old BO == Win. (Hooray!)

I'll be staying mostly on the Security Technology track, with possibly heading over to the Application Security track if something over there catches my interest. I'll be attending the pre-conference gathering tonight, along with the reception tomorrow night and the pub crawl on Thursday. If anyone of the four of you who read this want to meet up, IM, text, tweet, comment, or poke me at the conference.

Two more satellite passes from Saturday. The 5:52 pass was very nice, as I chatted with VA4SF/HI, who was on the sunny shores of the Dominican Republic, which was my first Caribbean QSO.

• Mar 1st, 17:52EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 8:02, 4.2MB)
• Mar 1st, 19:30EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 6:30, 3.8MB)

Jeff Atwood has, once again, hit one out of the park. I always wonder how he always seems to come up with these great posts, seemingly pulling them out of thin air, while my weblog just seems to post satellite audio.

Ugh... I can't believe I'm going to embed a YouTube video on my web page... BUT...

John, KB2HSH, posted this fantastic video on Eggbeater Antenna construction, and made it so simple even a drooling fool like myself can understand it. Plus, the materials suggested are friendly to the solderphobic (which, I need to get over quickly).

Kudos John!

Now... If I only had a roof to put antennas on...