Secure your devices. Bottom-line, there are malicious users on the web that can find your device (webcams, IP cameras, routers, SCADA and other devices). Change the default passwords and update software/firmware when it is available. Disable UPNP and look for vulnerabilities that may affect your device.
CNN’s Money on “Hacking anything connected to the internet“
The Computer Information Technology class continues to receive advanced training on the Ubiquiti AF24 Airfiber. The Ubiquiti AF24 Airfiber is a hi-power, linear 2X2 MIMO radio with enhanced receiver performance and reliability. The AF24 has a breakthrough speed of 1.4+ Gbps real data throughput.
These devices are specifically designed for outdoor Point to Point bridging between buildings and provide hi-performance network backhauls. These dual-independent 2×2 MIMO 24GHz hi-gain reflector antenna systems, can operate in FDD and HDD modes providing speed and spectral efficiency in the 24GHz band.
Students learn how to configure advanced wireless devices for real world information technology and hands-on experience.
Justin, Josh and Theo’s results during a configuration of the AF24s.
Students also participate in a wireless shoot-off. This contest challenges the students to design an antenna that will make an association between a standard access point and a laptop that will connect at extreme distances. The contest will start the second week of April.
(L-R) Jay Matlock, Jonathan Laine, Scott Hess (designer of a parabolic dish with a helical transceiver), Tyler Clift and Kenny Cooper.
Photo by D. Babian
Great details about building the Airfiber below (from 03:17 forward)
Photos above (D. Babian)
Photo Credit: (Wil McKamey)
Mickey found a great site that gives the approximate time it will take to break your password. The site, howsecureismypassword.net gives the approximate time and a background color that indicates how secure your password is. There are other things to worry about. One of the things people don’t realize is that the code in your website may reveal even the most complex passwords. It is up to the webmaster of your site to keep you secure.
So we played with the Surface Pro and the iPad and measured each for productivity. What did we find?
After using an iPad for a year and having the Surface Pro for just under a week, the Pro far out shines the iPad tablet and our Android we’ve had for two years; no comparison. Why? Here’s what we found.
With the Surface Pro 128 Gb, you have a stylus, USB and every application that a laptop has. The critics say the 128 Gb is wrong because you get less than you pay for. Part of this is used by the OS. Have you ever purchased a laptop? The Pro can be used with every application you ever had and with the VGA adapter, you can hook it to a full size monitor ($39.99). The USB can be hooked to a cheap USB hub ($1.99) and guess what? External hard drives can be used for storage (and don’t forget you have an SD slot), flash drives, external DVDs, a full size keyboard and 127 other USB accessories including printers. The same as Windows 7. The speed is much faster and the reliability and new features are an excellent addition to this OS compared to Windows 7. Why aren’t critics looking at that? Another great mystery of American consumerization. So there you go. You can have a full desktop by laying your tablet on your desk and plugging in two things. When you are ready to go, just disconnect and you have a tablet or with the keyboard, a laptop. So the $900+ price tag is a bargain.
Also navigation is NOT hard. All you have to do is remember corners…touch any corner and you have menus. Is that really hard? Nope. Are we overlooking a great OS? I truly think so. Thanks Kenny for bring the Pro to school. Mine’s on order.
The Surface Pro and what Microsoft is not telling you – it can replace your laptop and desktop.
For the IT Professionals – join it to a domain and use the policies you have to further control this device on your network.
How you find the optimal MTU settings is truly a matter of opinion. Here is what we do…remember setting firewalls, routers and your computer will truly tweak out your connection. Start on the outside and change your router or firewall first and then each computer (Use TCPOptimzer for computers). Don’t forget access points and other devices.
Other Operating Systems
Linux users
ping -s 1472 www.yourwebsiteaddress.com
Apple users:
ping -D -s 1472 www.yourwebsiteaddress.com
Linux and Apple commands are case sensitive.
Here’s a quick example where I ran all the way down to 1400. Therefore I would add 28bytes and the MaxMTU would be 1428.
C:\Users\x2370>ping -f -l 1450 http://www.somewhereoverthere (use your ISP here)
Pinging http://www.somewhereoverthere [ IP Address] with 1450 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Ping statistics for IP Address:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost = 3 (75% loss),
C:\Users\x2370>ping -f -l 1400 www.somewhereoverthere (use your ISP here)
Pinging http://www.somewhereoverthere IP Address] with 1400 bytes of data:
Reply from IP Address: bytes=1400 time=161ms TTL=110
Reply from IP Address: bytes=1400 time=80ms TTL=110
Reply from IP Address: bytes=1400 time=60ms TTL=110
Reply from IP Address: bytes=1400 time=124ms TTL=110
Ping statistics for IP Address:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 60ms, Maximum = 161ms, Average = 106ms
Always test your internet before and after. Use a true speed test such as Testmy.net
Testmy.net has been around since 1996 and uses real world speed test. Testmy.net also is NOT owned by an ISP so there isn’t a chance of inflated scores or speeds.
Give it a try and use the Download and Upload link from the menu.
Recently my niece dropped her laptop and the hard drive stopped working. Normally an easy fix, I looked for the access panel for the hard drive so that I could replace it. What? No access panel? Oh, easy fix, lets rip the laptop apart, remove the motherboard and every screw so that I can now find the hard drive mounted and attached to the bottom of the motherboard. Do you think any home user could perform this task? Oh, and the screws were so tight the guys had to hold a screw driver on the screw and use pliers to turn it. Thanks Kyle and Matt….
Numion has several excellent tools in order to estimate how long it takes a file to transfer on a network or to be downloaded from the internet. Of course these are estimates that are affected by overhead and other factors.
For example, if you have a 2.3 Gigabyte iso that you want to download and you don’t have anything on your network that is using traffic , you can estimate 4 hours and 19+ mins on a T1 with a 20% overhead.
You can download the calculator page and use it offline (Noted on the site).
Other calculators include stopwatch to measure your website loading speed, server requirements, server capacity and others.
Years ago we made a list of phrases we’ve heard in IT. These are phrases you may hear in the server room or when someone is on the phone with end-users.
“Try it and see…”
“Who knows?”
“Reboot it” ”It’s working now.”
“Ok, let me get this straight… “
“Is Google dumb today?”
“Why does every forum say check for a virus?”
“Did that hard drive just click?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Are we busy? Nah.”
“It worked yesterday.”
“How did they do that?”
“Try it again.”
“Try it now.”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“What do you think?”
“It should work now.”
“I don’t get it.”
“What the…”
“Really, did that just happen?”
“Is your caps-lock on?”
“Don’t tell me that.”
“I hope that just broke.”
“Did you see that?”
“Watch this.”
“That ain’t good.”
“That’s just great.”
“Did you see that?”
“How did that happen?”
“Don’t touch it until we can send someone.”
“Don’t let them touch anything.”
“They could break a steel block with a feather.”
“Did the lights just blink?”
“I don’t know.”
“You got me.”
“Let me think.” This is the time a manager will walk by when you are just sitting there.
“It’s a mystery.”
“We’re doing what?”
“Have you seen the DVD for _______?” Fill in the blank, this is the DVD you need…now.
“They need what?” This is always followed by “When?” Which in turn is followed by an answer
with the shortest possible deadline.
“Slow down. Now say that again.” This is an indicator of not listening even though you are
trying your best to not focus on the other 3000 things you have on your mind.
“Put paper in it.”
“How many times did they push print?”
“Do you hear that?”
“Where does this cable go?”
“Why does stuff always break on Monday?”
“Why does stuff always break on Friday?”
“What is that noise?”
“Hit it on the side.”
“Do you smell smoke?”
“Get your book off of the keyboard.”
“They need a what?”
“Who let them touch it?”
“They have a virus but they never get on the web?”
“You ever seen this?” This is almost always met with a “Nope.”
“When did you first notice this?” “Last month?” ”Why didn’t you say something?”
“You dropped it behind the rack?” This is usually met with a matter-of-fact look and the
response – “It will stay there until the end of time.” or ”It’ll be just fine.”
“Where did this come from?”
“I’m scared to reboot, it’s running fine now.”
“It was running fine until we rebooted.”
“That software is 10 years old and they want it installed?
“Don’t touch that!”
“Where’s a pen?”
“We’ll get that tomorrow?”
“Where did we put that memo?”
“What did we do with ________?”
“Where’s that adapter?”
“Who wrote these instructions?”
“You figure that out yet?”
“It’s ip was…”
Actions you will see -
IT personnel with eyes closed and their head when rebooting some servers.
Looking away during a reboot.
Looking down during a reboot.
Eyes looking at ceiling when thinking.
Leg shaking when sitting.
Pen tapping.
Pen clicking.
Pen wiggling.
Mouse shaking.
Hitting the spacebar really fast to wake a computer.
Mouse moving in slow circles during software installation.
Grabbing the installation window of software and moving it in slow circles during an install of
software.
Three or more IT personnel crowded around a monitor.
Heard a phrase in IT? Send us a comment.
VMware Player allows for the installation of a virtual machine onto your workstation. This means of creating a second operating system within your operating system allows you to test or use an operating system of your choice. The user-friendly interface is truly the easiest virtualization software there is. Anyone wanting to try Windows 8 or any Linux distro can use this software to test operating systems. VMWare Player can be downloaded here.
VMware Player is fully customizable and the wizard provides instructions that are well written and with easy to find settings. Kudos to VMware for providing this excellent piece of software in an easy to use interface.
Remember, once you start the VM, if you click the mouse in the window, it will take focus. To release the mouse, press Ctrl-Alt.
You must also remember to protect any OS in a VM. (Antivirus information)
The first thing you will need is an .iso of your operating system of choice.
Above is the ISO for 32 bit Windows 7 with SP 1.
Next, install the VMWare Player. The installation is straight forward and easy even for a novice.
Now start the VMware Player by double clicking on the icon on your desktop. In this scenario we created a new virtual machine.
The New Virtual Machine Wizard walks you through step by step in setting up your operating system.
The wizard will ask for a location of the ISO or you can install from your DVD drive. Select the appropriate location at this time (below).
Enter your product key and information if prompted to do so. The Easy Install Information automates the installation process. You can of course customize Windows and reset passwords, enable the Administrator account and change information once the operating system is installed.
Once the wizard reaches the customization stages for your hard drive, you can adjust this to meet your needs.
You can select the Customize Hardware button to adjust memory, processors and other hardware. Remember to give your host machine plenty of memory. Do not use more resources than you have. This may cause lockups or other errors upon launching your OS.
One of the best features is the Network Adapter Advanced Settings. It allows you to bridge or NAT (Put your OS on a separate network – hidden from other computers on your network). Bridging your network allows your virtual computer to be ‘seen’ by other computers as though it is a physical computer. Because you are sharing a network card, you can limited the bandwidth (Inbound and Outbound traffic) of the virtual computer.
You can also generate a MAC address for the computer at this time.
The screenshot below (post install) shows the virtual computer when bridged (on the same network).
It is important to keep an eye on the resources of your host computer. You can do this by using the Windows Task Manager.
Once you finish, Windows will launch into setup mode. You will see a message alerting you to other devices that can be used (Webcams and other devices) if they are available.
As you can see from the screen shot below, the IP address is on the network with my other computers. This allows the computer to share out documents and to utilize any device within the network.
The VMware player tools provides drivers and other features.
Installing the tools
Once the tools are installed, a restart should be made to the operating system.
Remember the option to use other devices during the setup – items such as the Webcam? Click on Player when the VM starts and you will see the other devices.
You should also run a side by side comparison on the Task Manager’s to ‘see’ how much resources you are using. As you can see, the host (left) is maxing out the memory of the host computer. The virtual computer is not utilizing all of the allocated memory. Therefore the 2Gb of RAM allocated can be tweaked by decreasing the memory if performance is not an issue.
Once the VM is shutdown, you can adjust the settings in the console.
With dozens of tweaks and configurations, one of the best is the defragment, expansion and compact option under the hard disk in the virtual machine settings. (Compact only sorts the graintables but has no effect on size – optimizing your vm)
Overall VMware’s Player is an excellent tool that can be used (non-commercially) by anyone wanting to experiment with or run other operating systems. VMware Player is an excellent virtualization tool that allows users to install and test or run another operating system. The performance is based on shared resources of the host computer. The ease of setup is definitely a pro. Users should make every effort to ensure they have adequate resources on the host computer and the maximum amount of memory and other resources can be dedicated to the virtual machine.
This post is for educational purposes and any use of these tools against a network without explicit permission could be illegal. Metasploit is designed to identify weaknesses in networks and hardware/software on a network. Do NOT use metasploit for other reasons.
Want to protect your network and the computers in your network? You can get updates for your operating systems (Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows or whatever) along with updates for third party programs yet you can still be unsecure. When updating these products, you also have to remember firmware and updates for wireless devices, access points, bridges, firewalls, routers, switches, SCADA devices, robots, mobile devices, printers and any device on your network.
Metasploit
http://www.metasploit.com/download/
Metasploit Community is free and allows for a free scan of your network or server. Although limited (Try Pro for details and Brute Force), Metasploit Community is a first step in finding open services and ports on your operating system, hardware devices such as routers and other devices. The trick to installing Metasploit is to disable your antivirus or make exceptions to what your antivirus finds. You should truly install the software inside of a VM (Virtual Machine) so that your computer remains protected.
You can use Metasploit to protect your network by ‘seeing’ what a hacker or malicious person would see. Truly for network professionals and auditors, this software can help you identify services, ports and weaknesses in your network.
There are several versions of Metasploit – Community, Pro, Express and Framework (Compare Editions)
The above scan was in a controlled lab. Malicious scanning of networks may be illegal. Read Penetration Basics on Metasploit’s website.
Tutorials (Videos)
As this year comes to a close, take a look at Rick’s Bookmarks4Techs site. A comprehensive list of nearly 500 blogs. This list is a valuable resource for anyone in today’s world who enjoys technology.
Just a few of the blogs -
Bill Mullins Tech Thoughts Daily News – A great site that has the latest news, terminology and freeware along with how-to articles, reviews and other great information.
Whats On My PC – Reviews, articles, portable-cloud-software apps and tons more.
Visit Bookmarks4Techs.
“Online and offline, in IT departments and across organizations, the bring your own device (BYOD) debate is raging….For midsize businesses, there is a new way to spell risk: BYOD.
