dc0de’s & friends notes…

This is why I'm not getting one...

The iPad may be “cool” but I fail to see the point.  It’s not going to be the “next big thing”, tablets have been out for YEARS people, and they are relegated to minimalistic roles in the computing industry.  Would I use a tablet? Sure, if I had a way to input information as fast as I can type, which at last test was in the 55/wpm range.  Voice recognition isn’t there, handwriting analysis isn’t there, so what is the purpose of a “tablet” based computer?  Here’s what I can see as a viable use for such a product:

• reading documentation (similar to a kindle & other ebook readers)
• drawing and sketching
• surfing the web with a mouse only, as typing is cripplingly slow on any tablet interface
• performing tasks that currently have specialized equipment, such as retail inventory systems and bar code scanning
• a new pretty interface for McDonalds(tm) POS terminals

Aside from those, this is just another pretty toy.  When you couple it’s fixed configuration and limited battery life, you’re going to be sending it to the scrap pile in 3 years, adding to the pile of trash that we as Americans produce.  I’m still not giving up my laptop or my netbook, as they are both upgradeable (to a point), and provide all of the same functionality that I could get with the iPad.  Until there is a fully upgradeable tablet computer with a full keyboard that has the battery life of my netbook, I really don’t need this toy.

Way to go Apple, another non-green product for our future.

Cisco wireless LAN vulnerability could open ‘back door’ – Network World.

Ok, really? Come on, you must be bluffing.  People ask me all the time why I don’t pursue a Cisco Certification path in my career.  Here is why.  This is the company that has foisted such slogans as

• “Changing the way we work, live, play, and learn.” (1996)
• “The Worldwide Leader in Networking for the Internet”(1997-2002)
• “Empowering the Internet generation.” (1998-2002)
• “The fastest way to increase your Internet Quotient.” (1999-2001)
• “This is the Power of the Network. now.” (2003)
• “Discover a new world of Productivity.” (2003)
• “The Network Works. No Excuses.” (????)
• “Data Center 3.0″ (????)
• “Welcome to the Human Network” (????)
• “The Network is the Platform” (????)
• “The Self-Healing Network” (????)

I mean really.  John Chambers should be PISSED.  This is the kind of engineering I expect from a “has-been” company, or a really STUPID startup.  However, if Cisco would have embraced the “hacker community” instead of shunning it, perhaps Cisco’s technical expertise and prowess would be still employed at Cisco, instead of being at Juniper Networks, CheckPoint, Microsoft, and others.

I’ve been saying this for years, but perhaps it’s now the clearest time for someone at Cisco to listen.  Get back to your core competency; Routing.  Everything else you try to do is a distraction.  Come on, do you really think that I’m going to build a data center with Cisco blade servers? (Who? Cisco? Servers? What?)  Pluuuheeese.  Stop trying to do everything, and do ONE THING RIGHT.

I refuse to believe that Cisco didn’t know about the above vulnerability when they purchased the product (We all know that Cisco doesn’t invent stuff anymore, unless it’s trying to patent someone else’s fix for a broken protocol), but really, I’m sure that a cost-benefit-analysis was done on the vulnerability, and it wasn’t “important” enough to fix at the time that they purchased, re-badged, and shipped out the “new” lightweight access points.

Any idiot with 1/2 a brain and has spent more than 30 minutes working on Wireless networks knows that you don’t send anything in the clear that you don’t want subverted, so really Cisco, how did this happen?

How about you reach out to the information security industry, (the same one that you claim to belong to), and ask for help?  There are many researchers who would be willing to help you, as long as you’ll sign a waiver to never sue…

Finally, I’m happy to be working on my Juniper certifications.  They aren’t perfect either, but at least they don’t sue researchers to not release vulnerabilities that you refuse to fix.  Oh, and they have a much faster platform.

That’s my 2¢, YMMV.

(Note, the comments above represent my personal opinion, and in no way are related to any positions I may have held in the past, present or with future companies.  These opinions are mine, and mine alone, and are not representative of any company, service, system, software, hardware, automobile, table, chair, any person (dead or alive), or anything.  If you want to try to sue someone, please sue yourself.)

Here’s a cool tool I found, by accident.  It may be old to some of you, but I find it to be very useful.  It allows me to make bootable USB sticks, very easily. Sourceforge Project Page Wikipedia Entry UNetbootin is an amazing tool, well written and multi-platform.  I have used this tool to create several USB Bootable flash drives, and really enjoy it’s ease of use.  There are several options for well known distributions, that will create a bootable USB flash disk, and download the latest iso image to build your flash distro. **You can also install your own distribution of choice, as seen in the screen shot below:

Options in the current version, are: Arch Linux, BackTrack, CentOS, CloneZilla, Damn Small Linux, Debian, Dream Linux, Elive, FaunOS, Fedora, FreeBSD, FreeDOS, FrugalWare, Gentoo, Gujin, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Mandriva, NetBSD, NTPasswd, openSUSE, Ophcrack, Parted Magic, PCLinuxOS, Puppy Linux, Slax, SliTaz, Smart Boot Manager, Super Grub Disk, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Zenwalk.

If you don’t see your distro of choice, you can simply download the iso image, and select it from your hard drive.  I used it to install SumoLinux from iso onto a 32GB usb stick recently, and it worked flawlessly.   As I am writing this, I’m also installing SliTaz onto a 1MB USB stick, and including the download of the ISO, from start to finish, took only a few steps.

1. Insert the target usb stick
2. Launch UNetbootin
3. Select the drive from the dropdown, (My only USB inserted was F:\, and was preselected)
4. Select the distribution from the dropdown list
5. Press “OK”

The Slitaz distro was 26Mb, so it took a minute or two to download, and then the build process begins:

Once downloaded, the process only takes about 60 seconds:

I am very happy to have found it, and wish to thank Geza Kovacs (tuxcantfly) [The Author of UNetbootin], and all those who helped.  This is a great tool!