Matt's Life Bytes

GNOME Security is based on the Fedora Security Spin. The spin includes many tools for security auditing, but comes with the LXDE Desktop Environment, of which I’m not a big fan. So I removed LXDE and added GNOME. The result is a fast and easy to use security auditing tool set based on Fedora that fits on one bootable CD or 1GB USB flash drive.

Interested? Read more over at the GNOME Security page!

A month or two ago I gave a lecture about the rather magical software suite Ettercap for the Information Assurance Student Group at Iowa State University (IASG @ ISU).  Ettercap can do crazy things with Ethernet traffic, including packet tampering, injection, and dropping.  Anyone with an interest in security should watch this; I post it hoping it gives you a better understanding of an Ettercap attack.

Ethics Statement:

Please take this knowledge and use it to better understand the mindset of an attacker and the anatomy of a network attack.  I do not support unethical behavior in any way.  I will not answer any questions regarding malicious use.  This video does not show you how to cover your tracks, meaning that any malicious activities you perform using Ettercap can easily be traced, so don’t do anything stupid!

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Download Lecture Slides:

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 with Hi-res Graphics & Backgrounds (pptx @ 562kb)
Adobe PDF With Backgrounds & Graphics Removed, Basic Text (pdf @ 1,792kb)

I Wish More People Would Use Linux

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Microsoft products, I’ll be honest. Windows 7 feels wonderful on my laptop and desktop, and there’s nothing bad I can really say about it (once you outfit it with Chrome and Firefox that is).

But at the same time, I’m a big Linux fan, and a supporter of open-source software. A lot of people don’t want to take the plunge into dual-booting their computers out of fear of breaking their existing installations of Windows. So getting Linux exposure to the average computer nerd is often difficult.

Here’s where “Live CDs” come in. These CDs are full releases of Linux, burned to a CD, and run directly by your computer upon start-up. They don’t access or modify your data unless you tell it to. Problem is, you can’t make these installations truly yours. After rebooting the system, any fine-tuning you performed will be lost, and your Linux install will reset right back to when you started.

Why Fedora on a USB Flash Drive?

Fedora, a free “distribution” (or flavor) of Linux can be easily installed to a USB flash drive. I have a 16GB flash drive in my left pocket, right next to my cell phone. I always have it, I never leave home without my cell and my 16GB. I’ve installed Fedora 12 to this 16GB flash drive (and still have 15GB free for whatever else I want, mind you). When I go anywhere, I can simply plug the flash drive into any computer that allows booting from USB devices (most personal and public school computers, excluding university or corporate computers).

Once I’ve plugged the flash drive into the computer, I start the computer and voilà – my own personalized, speedy, instantly-mobile computing environment, loaded before my very eyes in less than 30 seconds.

It’s very snappy – loading from the flash drive, launching applications such as Firefox take less time than loading them from my normal Windows 7 installation. The entire operation runs like a dream, and the best part is that it’s 100% my own, and 100% portable.

When used on my laptop, I can get an extra 2 hours more battery life than when using Windows 7 (because the hard drive isn’t running). Such power savings is life-saving for those times when I really need to stretch out my use of the laptop.

Even as I type this post, my battery is almost drained from having the computer on during classes all day. But not to worry, I have plenty of power left to drain thanks to my current use of Fedora 12 on my flash drive. Practicing what I preach, woohoo!

Believe Me Yet?

You do? And you want to install Fedora 12 to a USB flash drive drive right now? Awesome! Here’s how:

Download the Fedora 12 Live CD and save it to your Desktop or Downloads folder, we’ll use this later. Now you’ll need to download and install the liveusb-creator utility published by the Fedora people. Clear off as much free space as you can from your flash drive, it will be in your best interests to have at least 3GB free (though a 2GB stick could work too).

Put the flash drive in your computer if you haven’t already. Run the liveusb-creator utility and click Browse and find the Live CD image you downloaded a bit ago. Make sure that “target device” is your USB flash drive. Now the important part, the persistent storage option. Persistent storage refers to how much space you’ll have for downloads, extra installed software, internet cache files, etc. Trust me, you’ll want to make this big.

I recommend taking that slider all the way over as far as it will go to the right. This will probably be around 2,000MB, but can be larger/smaller depending on your flash drive. Done that? Great, now press that big wonderful “Create Live USB” button and away you go!

So, You Know Linux Pretty Well, Eh?

If you don’t want technical jargon for experts, you can consider your work done; experts: let’s keep moving!

Now you’ve booted into your awesome new USB flash drive installation of Fedora 12. First thing: let’s get real accounts going (none of this autologin password-free crap). If you aren’t already in the automatic login account, go ahead and click it. Once you are at the desktop, do “Applications” -> “System Tools” -> “Terminal”.

Issue the following commands:

• su
• passwd root
  (you’ll be asked to set your new root password, don’t forget it!
• useradd tony
  (replace tony with whatever login you’d like)
• passwd tony
  (set a new password for your standard user account, not to be confused with the root password)

Go ahead and close Terminal now. Do “System” -> “Log Out xxxxx”. When you get to the login screen, choose to login to your new account. Now you are in your more permanent, secure, and all-around amazing account. If you can’t login (it keeps sending you back to the login screen when you click the new account), you’ll have to restart the computer, this is a bug.

Feel free to delete the automatic login account at this point. That’s found at “System” -> “Administration” -> “Users and Groups”.

Go ahead and restart your computer to get the full changes to take effect.