Black Hats, IP Law, CLI and Games...Black Hat 2012Computer security fascinates me. I freely admit that I don't have the chops that many do about cracking into or securing syststems, but I do alright for myself... on securing systems, that is. I'm certainly not claiming in any way that I spend time engaged in any activity that could be construed as subversive or illegal... Dang! Awkward... Of course, this is the situation one gets into when taking an interest in the "dark arts" of computing. People assume that you are claiming to be some sort of criminal mastermind or something when actually you are simply fascinated by the nature of how bad guys do things. Just as someone who likes to watch true crime documentaries on TV is not necessarily using it to plan their weekend, many people interested in "Black Hat" hacking are not looking to lead the next charge of Anonymous. So, it is likely that if you had an interest in attending the recent Black Hat 2012 conference in Las Vegas that it was hard to make a strong connection between that and what you are paid to do. That's OK. Though the event is over, there is a reasonable archive of confernce material on the web site, including papers, presentations and even some source code! (Use at your own risk.) There's not much in the way of video from the site right now, but a YouTube search brings up material-- though most of it is from Black Hat 2012 in Europe. I'm guessing, though, that techniques and vulnerabilities don't change much by crossing the ocean, so you can probably get a lot from them. I'll keep my eyes open and try to report additional material as I find it. IP Law TalkThe other day I was reading about a patent license agreement between a major software company and a minor company for an undisclosed amount regarding undisclosed patents. The story was non-news, unless you're into corporate celebrity, but the discussion had some interesting thoughts expressed. At least they tried to be interesting. They ultimately turned into the sort of juvenile brawl that such discussions do because everyone is out to win. The part of the discussion that really caught my attention was why a company might not want to disclose their patents. Since Linux and Open Source software frequently comes under fire for allegedly violating patents this is interesting to me. The conversation is often along these lines: Patent holding company: The villainous developers of these open-source projects are stealing our IP and violating our patents and they must pay. open source developers: Uhhh... we don't think we are. Patent holding company: Oh, yes you are. In fact we have been striking numerous deals with people who agree that this is a violation. open source developers: Wow, you really do seem to be making deals with people. Maybe there is something to this. What patents are we violating so that we can fix that? Crickets: (chirp) (chirp) (chirp) OK... that wasn't completely fair and read more like a Dilbert cartoon, but I hope you see the fun side of it. It seems to me that if my goal was to prevent people from infringing on my intellectual property that I would want to proclaim loudly and strongly what was being stolen from me so they could and would cease and desist. That doesn't seem to be the way that it works out for some reason. There are non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), behind-the scenes business, announcements that are simultaneously widespread and secretive. It can be very confusing. Well, it turns out that a new community has formed on trying to understand and relate to Intellectual Property Law. It's your chance to ask your questions and voice your own experiences with people who deal with this every day. It's called IP Law Talk, and should be a fascinating place. I wonder if they know about this weird patent slide show. Has the Command Line outstayed its welcome?This is the question asked by a Linux Insider story. I'm going to apologize for being a little prejudiced here, but I just don't understand someone who is technical who wants to do everything with a mouse. Even when I'm supporting Windows I will jump into the command line to get information because I can get information faster by typing "ipconfig /all" than I can browsing around with the mouse. I use icon-based launchers and I find them very handy. I recently talked about how I use them to keep my Firefox identities clear. However, there are some things that I can just flat do more efficiently using the command line. I can then combine those things into a script which I can place under an icon if I so desire. Macro recordings of mouse movements just don't seem to have the same capabilities. I know that many people get nervous about the command line. They don't type well. They don't have the commands memorized. It can be frustrating until you get used to it. But there is a heavy price for a graphical interface in system resources which could and should be used for other things if the interface is only rarely required. I hope that you aren't afraid of the command line. If you'd like to explore it in Linux there's a nice tutorial as part of our Learn Linux 101 series. Windows folks can look at this site. You don't have to use it all the time (though I admit that I do). It's nice to have it around, though for when the other tools aren't working. As an example, when I've had some program take over my graphical interface, it's nice to be able to switch to a command session to see what's happening and kill the offending processes. I've been able to use ssh from my phone to connect to my laptop when the keyboard wasn't responding and fix things without having to reboot. Is that geeky? You bet! But that skill comes in handy when you're dealing with bigger problems. Linux gamingThere has been some controversy about comments by Valve co-founder, Gabe Newell, calling Windows 8 a "catastrophe" and saying that Linux was part of Valve's future strategy. (Don't take my word for it. See the story by the BBC.) I admit that I haven't had as much time for games for a while, and when I do I am more likely to want to play a "human contact" game with dice and faces rather than having more computer time. However, it's no secret that Linux has been woefully thin in the gaming area. This is ironic, because I think that the tools and libraries available to Linux could make it an outstanding platform for media and gaming. It's just not where game creators focus. Perhaps something like the Steam platform working more with Linux will make a difference. Of course, this is a future play. Steam has announced enthusiasm but not a release for Linux. It could get pretty interesting, though. While browsing through the gaming world I found that Steam is looking to Linux. Another site, Good Old Games, does not support Linux now, but might respond to interest, especially if it works well for Steam. I did find a site, Desura, which already supports Linux. I downloaded a few of their free games to test and just might go for some of the paid titles as well. As entertainment becomes more network and browser based the native platform should matter less and less. I'm intersted to see what has happened. If anyone is already using Desura and knows games I should check out, let me know! |
Chris Walden's thoughts and adventures as an open-source kind of guy. The ideas stated here are his own and don't necessarily represent the positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or its partners.2018 VM Workshop - E...
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