IT Geeks in Training (ITGITS)

noreply@blogger.com (David Parker) — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 14:55:00 +0000

Scottsdale Cyber Conference
10-17-2019
Scottsdale Hilton
2pm-5pm

Small scale cybersecurity conference. I did arrive after classes in the afternoon, so I missed the morning presentations. I did spend time on the exhibit floor before going to the 2 sessions left in the day, after vendor sessions.
1/2 of the presentations were vendor based and ranged from conceptual to demonstrations
PANEL 2: Incident Response – What to do Before, During and After a Breach

most of the discussion centered on minimizing loss, but also contacting involved PPI owners. It was very nice to have a lawyer's perspective to see more sides of the issues.

Steve Gold
Vice President of Cybersecurity Solutions
Center for Internet Security
MODERATOR

Sean Brehm
Chairman and CEO
@RISK Technologies, Inc.

Nelson Cottier
Sr Manager, Sales Engineering (Enterprise West - Keysight)
Ixia Solutions Group

Dan Konzen
CIO
Advisor Armor

Tim McCulloch
Senior Presales Systems Engineer
Arctic Wolf

Kathy Winger
Attorney at Law
Law Offices of Kathy Delaney Winger
I got to meet with about 2 dozen vendors, some of whom were interested in talking internships [I gave contact cards to Brandy to pass on]
Closing Keynote with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. A lot of background on the speaker and past events, leading up to current issues. Mention of the Sony incident, among others.

Mike Lettman
Cyber Security Advisor
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

noreply@blogger.com (Dwight) — Wed, 15 May 2019 22:16:00 +0000

Cyber security Summit notes and summary May 15, 2019

Steve Zylstra – AZ Tech council CEO

Jackalopes!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 22:22:00 +0000

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16G9z0QQTTKz8j92acBUrh1nhGPLVyba_/view?usp=sharing

Phoenix ComiCon 2017 Art Imitating Life Inspiring Science

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 20:25:00 +0000

It's been awhile since my last post. Apologies.
I had the pleasure to serve on several science and education panels at the most recent ComiCon in Phoenix. Attached is the powerpoint for the Art Imitating Life Inspiring Science panel.
Aaaaand the powerpoint for Security in the Star Wars Empire.

GOW: Farming 101

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 00:43:00 +0000

A friend of mine recently asked for the breakdown on the benefits of a farm account. Ever the obliging companion, here goes:

1. Rally target/victim. Other than shielding, rallies are the only way to protect your troops. You can always join someone else's rally, but that will only protect troops. If you want to protect your hero, do the rally yourself. Set it at 8 hours, and at the end of that time, your troops start to March. Ideally, you call off the rally and yay.

2. Thing is, most of us can’t always make it in 8 hrs. But if your rally target is far away, you can factor that march time into the picture so that you have more than 8 before casualties occur.
Also, an unstopped rally can cause drama if you're ignorant and the target isn't friendly. Plus, you could lose valuable troops if the target is a turtle or trap account.
So you control the situation. Make your own target and place it far away. Make sure you can still march there, and joy.

Kingdom view: Wonder Woods Lavel 6 Monster 3. Place your farm account as far away from other alliances and hives as possible.

4. So you have a sitting duck. Now what?. Make him work. Gather resources, earn in-game gold, etc. Level him at your leisure, but keep him below sh15 for obvious reasons. Okay, maybe not so obvious – Your hero can be killed at Stronghold level 15. Below that, he/she’s just captured for a few days. If your primary account has membership privileges, you set your farm to join your alliance long enough to send your primary account resources, and then unjoin asap. Happy happy

5. Gifting Eventually, get gifting for your farm account. Unless you’re extraordinarily lucky, this will probably cost real money. This step isn’t necessary for a good farm account, but it certainly can help when your primary is running low. Basically, Gifting is a feature that, once purchased, it enables you to use in-game gold to purchase items as gifts for other players. Basically, you would use your farm account’s in-game gold to purchase <whatever> for your primary account.

6. Email addressing Set up the other account with a different email and register it under devices on the + screen.

7. Retribution If your farm account accidentally poaches, and gets in trouble-- no big. Your hero won't get killed, and there is no retribution because the farm account can't be traced to your primary

8. Oops! If for some reason, your farm city is totally destroyed, it auto ports to a random location. Again, no big: move it back (or not) and keep producing and gathering resources.

Wonder temple: in the center of the woods

Know your Wonder. Aka: A few notes on placement of your farm account:

1. Know where your local wonder is, and where you are relative to it.
2. GOW operates on a coordinate X-Y grid. Unlike the one we had in Geometry class, this one’s a bit different.
3. First, notice that while the X-axis starts on the left, the Y axis starts at the top.

4. The Wonder forest is around 200:500

Go to World View from within Kingdom View, then enter Kingdom

5. One way to quickly get to the wonder itself is to go into kingdom view, Press the World View button, and enter your own kingdom. It will drop you at the wonder.

6. The highest level monsters hang out in and near the wonder forest.

7. The most-active alliances do, too.

8. To my knowledge, every tile in the kingdom has the ability to march to the Wonder.

9. This is not to say that every tile in the kingdom can march anywhere in the kingdom. Several times, I’ve opened a treasure map only to find that it’s too far away to gather. L

10. I have encountered places that are too far away to march. The game-makers do this intentionally. Ideally, you should move your empire close(ish) to the target in order to reduce march time. Nevermind the fact that depending upon the target’s watchtower, they can tell you’re coming and port outta there. Solution: use a teleport to save time and angst. The problem: teleports are commodities, and if you’re not careful, you end up paying real money for them. These lightning raids are a favorite tactic for high-offense players and alliances.

11. Bottom line for farm accounts: ensure that the wonder woods is between you and your farm account – but still within marching range. This should increase your non-carnage rally time to a point where you can call it off.

Agents of Shield - S1E1: Asymmetric keys generated from GPS

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:21:00 +0000

Marathoning with the Underground Club in the Cave. Ramp-up to Age of Ultron.

Sky has created a hard drive that's encrypted based upon her GPS. Yes, it's possible! All you'd have to do is change PGP opensource code to incorporate GPS coordinates into the keypair.

Better yet - incorporate different sets of GPS data for each side of the process: Encrypt at home, but only decrypt when you've reached DizzlyLand.

Since we're messing with space, why not work on time? Incorporate a timeout to ensure JIT location, and poof! Awesomeness.

?? - what if someone spoofs GPS data? Well - there's more to a GPS packet than just coordinates. Zone in on 2-3 additional random data points (perhaps based on specific date/time?), and all-the-harder to replicate.

Yumminess!

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" - Acheron

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 19:38:00 +0000

http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/17/technology/security/malware-nsa/index.html?iid=HP_LN

Honestly, many of these types of articles don't really alarm me anymore. What does scare me? The highest-funded hacker organization doing their thing. Once their products hit the streets, it's out of their control. Just like any other product: anybody can crack it open, look at it, and repurpose those ideas for other, hugely awesome projects. We see this all the time. (Tesla v Edison, MS v Apple, IBM vs MS.....) It's often the not-so-pretty side to invention and innovation. Two sides of the coin, people.

What scares me are articles that tell me about how pieces of Stuxnet, or other superfunded code are being recycled.

I remember the quote from Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park: "Nature finds a way"
Even human nature.

Artistic license vs. Historically accurate dramatization

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 07:16:00 +0000

I totally understand the need for modern media to dress up and dramatize historical events. Ratings, ratings. Somehow, though, I cannot reconcile the following statement from Ben Franklin upon concluding that the colonies would not receive rights and liberties as British Subjects. This from History Channel's mini-series, "Sons of Liberty" http://www.history.com/shows/sons-of-liberty

"Well, that uh...that's an absolutely batshit crazy idea."

NSL: Particle Physics Parallels

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the latest NOVA program today. Here is what I learned/relearned:

When I was in High School, they taught us that the atom was the building block of matter. Lowest common denominator per se. Lo, this wasn't precisely correct. Everything is made from particles. Matter Particles = quarks, leptons. Force Particles = photons, gluons, w^z, and bosons. This particle taxonomy is called the Standard Model.

Science has now found evidence for all of these particles. The most difficult detection came with the Higgs-Boson type particle.

“Within a fraction of a second of the big bang, physicists believe that the absolute symmetry of the universe was shattered by a tiny fluctuation: the Higgs (Higgs-Boson) field appeared in all of space. The forces split apart, the particles of the standard model became distinct. Structure emerged. This fall from perfection is what allowed us to come into being” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/big-bang-machine.html

Big Bang Machine (2015) NOVA

Perfection is unstable.

At the beginning of the universe :: Perfection/Balance/Symmetry :: everything was the same.

A fraction of a second later, something happened, and Perfection was lost. Individual particles became distinct and visible. If I understand this correctly, physicists believe that it was the Boson particle that broke Perfection. This is why some people call the Higgs “The God Particle”

I fully realize that I am missing large chunks of information that is frankly over my head. Yet, I am amazed at how many parallels I see here. Just two:

1. S*IT happens. Everything's nice and pretty, and along comes the Higgs particle to crash the party. Shortly after the mayhem begins, he disappears. The only evidence of his existence is a pile of empty metaphorical pizza boxes.

2. "Fall from perfection is what allowed us to come into being" (direct quote there) verbiage is reminiscent of scripture. Perhaps this is the scientific basis for the Garden of Eden. Personally, I don't think so. I am far more likely to believe that this is merely a simulacrum of an oft-repeated tenet of physical and spiritual reality.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/big-bang-machine.html

Big Bang Machine (2015) NOVA

Never Stop Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 23:39:00 +0000

As I go about my days and nights, I have many unique opportunities to grow and learn. Going forward, I think that I'll write a few articles about what I see and learn going forward. While much of this may be simple ponderings of a geeky mind, I hope to be able to cite and reference my meanderings appropriate to a research-driven ever-expanding explorer.

Hither, thither, but not yon.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 11:42:00 +0000

Scientists have been able to transport data 15.5 miles.
I'll admit, I don't really have a solid grip on quantum teleportation, but I do know that quantum movement (per se) is here, there, but never in-transit or anywhere in between.
Anybody want to take a stab at explaining quantum teleportation?
http://www.livescience.com/49028-farthest-quantum-teleportation.html

Scientific Rigor in Today's Media

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Dec 2014 06:04:00 +0000

Recently I watched an interesting program on the Discovery/Science Channel called Biblical Conspiracies.
Hosted by Jacobovici Simcha. This particular episode deals with the concept of the "Bride of God"
Here's the nuts & bolts.
1. Mary Magdalena was not a prostitute
2. Take a look at Michelangelo's Pieta. Why is her face so young? Assuming Mary bore Jesus somewhere between 15-20, she would be around 50 years old at the Crucifixion. We aren't the first to notice. Michelangelo himself said that he depicted her as young in deference to her innocence and virginity.

3. But wait! Michelangelo frequently created small sculpture models depicting his vision of the completed work. The prototype for the Pieta has been found. Supposedly. According to the program, Michelangelo preferred to create terra cotta prototypes using a specific lighter-colored clay. Based upon spectrography, compared against known-Michelangelo prototypes, the recipe used with the Pieta was the same. Therefore, the prototype must be valid and real.

4. It's hard to see, but looking at the prototype, there is another figure whose head is missing. Upon inspection (sorry, I couldn't find any online pics for that) the figure at Mary's left hand appears to have wings broken off. Also, there's a strap that may have attached to a quiver of arrows.

5. It must be Cupid! Well, this puts an entirely different light on the picture. Michelangelo must have originally intended that this was a depiction of Jesus and his grieving widow, Mary Magdalena. After all, nobody would put Eros, a god of love, in a scene with Mary Mother of Christ. The Pieta that we know and love was commissioned by the Vatican, and thus was reorganized slightly to remove all references to Eros.

6. Nevertheless, if Mary Magdalena was the wife of Jesus, surely there must be some more evidence that survived despite efforts made by the church in antiquity.
7. Ruins in Beit Shean contain a mosaic of a man carrying a cornucopia topped with a cross.
8. Additional ruins in a monastery in Beit Alpha contain a mosaic of a man surrounded with a halo that also resembles the regalia of a sun god. Helios.
9. The sun god's lunar counterpart was Artemis.
10. Could it be that the ancient Christians adapted Helios and Artemis to be Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalena?

11. Yes! A mosaic in a Beit Shean monastery shows Jesus (Helios) and Mary Magdalena (Artemis) surrounded by a circle of twelve men. Of course, a piece of art that shows a guy surrounded by 12 men, MUST be Jesus!

That would be awesome, right? Of course, I wanted to research this a bit more.
1. Duh. Read the scriptures, people. Apparently Mary was a common name in antiquity.
2. Ummmm...
3. Good grief. The recipe should be very common. While artists frequently mix their own media, recipes are often passed from master to student. Contemporaries who may have used the same recipe: Michelangelo's master, his students, any other renaissance sculptor in the area who had access to the same quarries and claypits.
4. Cherubim, people! The quiver may be indicative of a weapon used to protect the holy family during a private time of grief.
5. What's more, the Bible indicates that there were angels present to witness the resurrection. Why not the same during the crucifixion? Perhaps our Heavenly Father saw the need to protect his Son's body during those 3 days.
6. Yes, let's find some more reliable evidence.
3. This mosaic is from a synagogue that was part of an inn. It depicts the goddess of the region, Tyche. Whoops. Not a guy. Not even part of the actual synagogue. Good news: religious gatherings have been subletting larger public buildings for quite awhile. BTW - this is Byzantine era stuff. ca. 330AD at the earliest.

4. Yes, this mosaic is in what appears to be a monastery. Check the definition of monastery. Also, notice that Helios is surrounded by symbols of the zodiac. 12 of them. This particular detail was missing from the tv program.

5. Duh. Thing is, Helios is a 'more modern' name for Apollo. Artemis was his sister. Ummmm...Mr. Simcha, where exactly are we going with this?

6. We all know that clergy in the early church frequently adapted existing pagan mythologies to the stories of Christ. I mean, what's a poor monk to do? Mosaics are expensive! Plus, hey he can point to Helios there as Jesus and offer the new skinny on the not-pagan God. (in the form of the sermons on the mount)

7. And tucked away in this not-open-to-the-public monastery is the mosaic that ties Jesus and Mary Magdalena as man and wife. A more detailed look at the full work of art shows that the twelve men represent the months of the year. Even my rudimentary greek alphabet can put the words together.

This is the second time I've come across a 'scientific' program broadcast by Discovery/Science Channel that was fallacious beyond reason. Sensationalism with a subtext of hidden agenda.

I know not what this agenda may be, but one might look upon Mr. Simcha with a critical eye.

Otherwise, I would only urge that that perhaps this is not a direct attack upon the Bible, but an effort (perhaps misguided?) at opening our minds towards the possibility that while the Bible contains the essentials for spiritual salvation, additional elements of historical relevancy were intentional omissions.

Virus Aquarium

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 00:38:00 +0000

Frequently, we in the industry refer to viruses 'in the wild' meaning malware that's been found IRL. This particular XKCD comic shows a guy who essentially created a petri dish for malware havoc.

If you think about it, it shouldn't be that hard to do. VMWare, VMs, somewhat isolated for safety reasons.
WOOT!
HKCDs Virus Aquarium Made Real
viruszoo.com

Jurassic Park is still awesome

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 08:55:00 +0000

Watching Jurassic Park at home. Ohhh, the memories.

We saw it first time at the historic Phoenix Cine Capri. At one time this was the largest movie screen on the planet.
Of course, there was controversy. Parents reported that it caused nightmares with their children.
Nevertheless, we took our two year old Johnathan with us.

I remember feeling the awe and precious excitement when Drs Grant and Satler first saw the brachiosaur.
Dr. Grant got 'thuh vapuhs'. Teehee.

I also remember the science explosion that happened immediately after the movie released. Yes, there were small bits of extinct critter )bee) DNA that had been recovered via Amber, and other similar sources. Not enough to make Jurassic Park real. At the time, we had barely cracked the surface of the human genome project, and we had begun to realize that it wasn't so much DNA, but the protein folds that truly make life possible. Scientists said that even if dino DNA was retrieved, the chasm between frog and dinosaur DNA was too large to bridge the gap.

Ohh, but extinct bee DNA does not a dinosaur make. Scientists seem to agree that dino DNA is simply too old to retrieve viable samples. Think about it: bees = flowers, and flowers shows up only recently in the paleontological record. While I haven't looked it up, but I suspect that bees didn't exist at the time dinosaurs roamed the planet.

Here's what I've got as far as news on the forefront.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/dinosaur-cloning.htm
http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-dinosaur-dna-amber-01383.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/buzz/popular.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/dinosaurs/10303795/Jurassic-Park-ruled-out-dinosaur-DNA-could-not-survive-in-amber.html
http://www.livescience.com/23861-fossil-dna-half-life.html

Star Trek: Wrath of Khan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 22:07:00 +0000

Watching Wrath of Khan at UAT Underground club. Did you know that the first media representation of a remote console (RDP for Windows geeks) was in this movie? THAT is what makes it gloriously geeky!

Black Hat Defcon 2014 Prezi

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 02:01:00 +0000

Protocol Principia Informatica - Collaborative effort from Route & Switch

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 21:38:00 +0000

Apple Support has released an update for the Bash bug that has been around since 1992

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 03:07:00 +0000

So what to expect when you install the new Bash update from apple.support.com/downloads/ to help with the shellshock bug.

As shown the old bash version (3.2.51(1)) echoed back "vulnerable" as well as "this is a test"
The new version (3.2.53(1)) will now not do that. You can test this yourself by using the bash code
env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"

IR Flipboard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:21:00 +0000

Mobile & Cloud Flipboard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:20:00 +0000

Directory Service Admin Flipboard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:18:00 +0000

BC/DR Flipboard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:17:00 +0000

NetSec Flipboard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:16:00 +0000

Forensics Flipboard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:15:00 +0000

Route & Switch Flipboard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:10:00 +0000