Secure Computing: Sec-C

A couple of days ago I wrote about my need for wireless network capabilities when traveling, and my fear of becoming an early adopter of new peripherals. The feedback I got back was amazing. A few people posted comments but nearly a dozen people wrote to me directly with advice, suggestions, and horror stories.

The feedback identified three classes of solutions:

Standalone hubs. There is a class of 3G router that connects to the network and acts like a local WiFi hotspot. As long as your computer can talk regular 802.11 (a/b/g/i/whatever), it can connect to the hub. The hub connects to the 3G network, giving you Internet access. Dr. Silk recommended the MiFi 2200 from Verizon. I gotta agree with him -- this looks like an excellent solution, especially for residences that cannot get cable or DSL but with 3G coverage (like my friend who lives a few miles outside the city limits). The downsides are not too extreme: claimed 4 hour battery life (forums make it sound like 2 hours with heavy use) and tied to Verizon's 5GB limit for an expensive $60/month. Again, if you can keep it plugged in and have a couple of people at home using it, then $60/month isn't bad at all.

Tethered. A tethered solution is where you have a USB cable going from your computer to your cell phone. The cell phone provides the modem/router support and connectivity to the 3G/Edge/4G/etc. network. As long as your cell phone works, you should have network connectivity. This is a great solution for anyone with a smartphone (like the iPhone or Android) -- particularly since you are probably already paying for the bandwidth and you're just not using it.

Every now and then I looked into smartphones. Right now the battery life isn't acceptable for me. My current phone can go nearly a week with heavy use (well, heavy use for me) before needing a charge. It can go nearly 2 weeks if I rarely use it and leave it turned on. My EeePC gets about 7 hours per charge and that includes heavy use (programming and compiling and networking). In contrast, most smartphones last 4-8 hours at best.

In my case, I don't have a smartphone. While I do have a cell phone, it is almost always turned off. (I don't like cell phones and I only use it when traveling.) I'm actually on a pay-as-you-go plan and I usually spend about $100 a year on the phone. For my use model, the prepaid option is a great and inexpensive choice. For this reason, I cannot justify getting another phone (a smartphone to replace my Motorola v195) for the sole purpose of having network access when I travel.

Frankly, I'm griping about paying $10/day for Internet use at hotels. For the $60/month plan, then means I need to stay at hotels more than 6 days per month for this to be a viable option. And this doesn't take into account the $50-$200 price of the smartphone with a 2-year commitment. (Some smartphones are free with a 2-year contract, but they are either not iPhone/Android, or are running older operating system versions.)

USB Dongle. At first glance, these USB dongles seem perfect for me. The calling plans are usually not as expensive as a smartphone, there's no extra power supply (it runs off the USB power), and the use model is intended for laptops and travelers. However... these dongles are not just regular modems.

My Bad Experience

After a lot of soul searching, I finally settled on the T-Mobile webConnect USB dongle. As I understood it, there is a 200MB plan with overage fees and a 5GB plan with no overages for $40. And best yet, T-Mobile is having a sale, so the webConnect is only $20 instead of $45 (with 2 year contract). While the device only says that it supports Windows and Macs, there are plenty of people in the forums who say that have it working for Linux.

Well, spoiler alert: nothing is as it appears.

Remember the old days when modems spoke that Hayes "AT" control code stuff over a serial port? It didn't matter what kind of computer you had as long as you spoke RS232 and used the standard AT command sequences. That's not the case today. +++

Today, the USB dongles do speak the AT command set (with additional commands for broadband negotiation). However, there is nothing standard about how you access the modem. There are three types of devices on the market right now, and if you choose wrong, you'll get screwed.

Plain modem or NIC. There are a few USB dongles that plugin and look either like a serial modem or like a network interface card. These have out-of-the-box support by most Linux distributions. Unfortunately, these seem to be limited to the older devices. Some don't support 3G and most have no means for supporting the new 4G and HSPA+ networks.

Dual device and ZeroCD. The description from the usb-modeswitch package for Linux describes this very well:

Several new USB devices have their proprietary Windows drivers onboard, especially WAN dongles. When plugged in for the first time, they act like a flash storage and start installing the driver from there. If the driver is already installed, the storage device vanishes and a new device, such as an USB modem, shows up. This is called the "ZeroCD" feature.

Most versions of the T-Mobile webConnect device are in this category. If you put it in and it doesn't work as a serial modem, then install the usb-modeswitch package. This will temporarily turn off the ZeroCD feature and allow you to access the modem.

Total software solution. Beginning last December, a few manufacturers began to roll out "lite" versions of these USB modems. From what I can tell, they totally removed most of the firmware and do most things in software. I suspect that this was done more for cutting hardware costs than for any actual performance or flexibility gain. Unfortunately, there is unlikely to be any Linux support unless the manufacturers port their code to Linux.

Hear No Evil

At the time I was doing the purchase, I specifically asked about Linux support. The woman who was helping me at the T-Mobile store wanted to make sure too, so she called their technical support. The first two people she spoke with didn't know what Linux was. (OMG! Are you kidding me? It's 2010! My Grandmother knows what Linux is! Every sales person in the store knew about Linux! And this is the T-Mobile technical support?)

She finally reached one technical support person who basically said, "Does it work under Linux? I should know the answer to that, but I don't know and there really isn't anyone else if I escalate this." Since the Linux forums had many success stories with the webConnect (before I knew about the "lite" versions), I decided to risk it. Bad choice on my part.

As it turns out, the $20 "on sale" device from T-Mobile is actually a Huawei UMG1691 (also called the E1691). The 1690 and 1692 are ZeroCD devices and appear to be supported by usb-modeswitch. The 1691 is a lite version and only has software for Windows and Mac. After a few days of fighting with it, doing much more homework, and even calling tech support, I finally learned about the UMG1691 -- it is a total software solution and will never work under Linux (without additional software that doesn't exist today).

See No Evil

At this point, I had two options: return it or exchange it for a different version. As long as your CPU isn't running at a full load, the performance between the ZeroCD and Lite devices should be similar. I gave it a quick try in my Mac desktop system to see if it was worth exchanging. I ended up noticing two things.

First, the bandwidth was limited to 200MB. Huh? I paid for the 5GB and no overages for more than the advertised $40 price. Well, the offer on the web site doesn't match the offer in the store. In the store, it is 200MB with or without overages. The store does not offer an Internet-only plan for $40 with 5GB and no overages.

After you go over your monthly limit, they either charge you $0.05 per MB or nothing (no overages). In the latter case, they simply reduce your bandwidth.

So how fast is the bandwidth? My Mac's benchmark reported at about 400KB per second down, and much less up. Uh, I deal with computer forensics. I'm usually transferring very large files -- CDs or DVDs or on some occasions, multiple DVDs. For me, 1MB per second is slow and 400KB/sec is unacceptable.

T-Mobile is Evil

The upside is that I was allowed to return it to T-Mobile within the 2-week window for a refund. (I was 3 days into the contract.) No connection fee, reimbursed for the hardware, and they waved the 1MB of bandwidth I used (no prorating service since I couldn't get it to work on the desired system). However, they did keep a $10 "restocking fee" that was buried in the fine print. (Had I known that there was a chance of failure and a $10 restocking fee, I would have passed on this experiment.)

So to summarize: (1) Stay away from the UMG1691 like the plague -- it is the 3C501 of the USB wireless broadband world, (2) watch what they are selling and make sure it matches their offers on the web site, (3) if you have the option to use a hub or tethered solution, do that instead of the USB dongles, and (4) ask about any restocking fees -- even if they tell you that you will get a full refund within a 14 day grace period.

Finally, I have to think that there is something seriously wrong with the mobile phone market. Every store I went into (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint) had a huge number of customers hanging around. T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T each had a person adding names to a waiting list. In each case, the majority of customers were not there to buy -- they were there seeking returns, refunds, or corrections. The last time we saw something like this, the housing market collapsed and huge numbers of people defaulted on loans. Are we heading toward a communication breakdown since the phone companies are investing in an acceptable level of service?

The hardest parts of forensic analysis isn't the tools; it's the training. Anyone can buy rubber gloves, swabs for collecting blood samples, and plastic evidence bags. But if you are not trained to properly collect, handle, and evaluate evidence, then the tools and methods are meaningless.

The learning curve is the hardest part. To address this, I've been working on documentation and worksheets for digital image analysis and photo forensics. While there is still a steep learning curve, the investigator can review the worksheets as a checklist for common things to evaluate. The associated documentation provides details regarding the checklist items, in case the investigator needs to review how a particular system works.

An Eye For Details

While luminance gradient and error level analysis draw pretty pictures, the most important tool is basic observation. It is one thing to see the big and obvious signs of manipulation. It is something else to remember all of the fine details.

The folks at Photoshop Disasters recently posted a couple of amazingly bad shopped pictures that clearly illustrate the power of observation for detecting image modifications.

The first picture comes from an ad campaign for fingernail polish. The picture is supposed to show a model and some nail polish. The magical stars that go from her elbow to the picture frame are just artistic. However, it is the fine details that make this such an obvious disaster... Just using your eyes, what stands out as abnormal and not intentionally artistic? Give yourself a minute to look over it, then scroll down and see how many things you noticed.



If you only saw the disconnected leg, then give yourself one point. (If you didn't notice the leg, then go back and try again. As Thall commented at PsD, "That women could birth a horse or two with those hips!") Other oddities include:

• Her waist is out of proportion.
  
• There is a black triangle between her torso and floating leg. The artist forgot to cut out this area.
  
• Her left forearm (photo right) is significantly longer than her right forearm.
  
• She has two thumbs on her lower hand. (One thumb could be her foot showing through a strap in the shoe, but it is actually blended into the hand.) Oh, and don't mind the "S" on her finger; other photos show it as a tattoo or something.
  
• Her neck is showing a tendon, indicating that her head is turned. However, her head is looking straight and is not centered on the neck. Yes, they cut off her head and pasted on a different head.
  
• She is missing a clavicle (shoulder bone) -- one is there, but the other was erased.
  
• Her boobs are different sizes, and not in a natural way (unless the left one is half as long and deflated...).
  
• The shadow under her head indicates a bright light to the upper right. But the floating leg isn't casting the same shadow onto the other leg. And the shadow from the sleeve onto her straight arm has a shadow going the other direction. Inconsistent lighting means splices.
  
• Of course, all of these are issues with the woman. Over at PsD, ZaphodQB noticed that the reflection of the black polish does not meet the bottom of the black bottle.

This isn't the full list. What else do you see? No wonder their product is called "Oops!"

The Perfect Model

I'm always looking for good sample images that demonstrate specific points. Ideally, I want one picture that only demonstrates one thing, then another that demonstrates the same thing with more complexity, and finally an example that brings everything together.

From the Oops! example, we know to look for different classes of manipulation. These attributes become our checklist:

• Limbs: Are all of them accounted for? Are all connected? Are they the right proportions?
  
• Reflections: Do items line up properly?
  
• Shadows and lighting: Are they consistent?

Now we can apply this to a new set of pictures.

At Photoshop Disasters, they featured a picture from the French fashion house, Louis Vuitton. However, the web page at Fashion Gone Rogue contains many pictures from the "Louis Vuitton Fall 2010 Campaign" (also available at Fashionologie). It is an homage to digital distortions.

Starting at the top is the banner for Fashion Gone Rogue. Her upper arms are very different lengths. It is also faint (better seen with luminance gradient), but it looks like there is a strap or something going across her shoulder and down her cleavage. (This could be where the artist stopped altering the skin.)

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

The various photos from Louis Vuitton have been equally mangled. Let's use our new checklist...

The picture claims to show three women in a dressing room. Each has different color hair: red, blonde, and brunette.

Limbs
Every person has two arms? Check! Extra fingers? Nope. Legs and feet? Uh... the brunette on the right has an ankle but is missing toes.

Reflections
The right-most mirror (behind the toe-less brunette) is not reflecting anyone in the room. The blonde has her hand up in the room but her hand is down in the mirror. That same mirror also shows a light bulb in the reflection, but the bulb does not exist in the room.

The second mirror from the right shows bulbs but they don't align with the bulbs in the room.

The mirror on the far left shows red's head from the back. However, red's head is not turned to show her back to that mirror. And the mirror's reflection shows the lamp on the wrong side. The reflection does not match the room.

Lights and Shadows
When an item sits next to a illuminated light, it is made brighter. And when items are facing away from the light, they are in shadow. Complex lighting, such as floods, reflectors, and bright ambient lighting, can mitigate shadows.

However, those mirrors have a lot of bright lights. The women should have brightly lit backs. But this isn't what we're seeing. The brunette has bright reflections off her chest but not her back. The blonde has a bright clavicle but an under-lit neck. The pile of junk in the back has a brown fabric thing above the handbag; it is lying next to a light bulb and not lit up.

This isn't a comprehensive list and there are other oddities that are not in our checklist. For example, the blonde's dress seems to have a layering issue with red's chair. The dress fabric suddenly becomes semi-transparent and you can see the chair through it.

Frankly, I kind of doubt that these three women even posed together for this picture.

Some of the pictures in this series are much worse than others...


Dear Louis: While fabrics may be diaphanous, people are not. And while models may be vamps, they are not vampires. Please fix the left mirrors. You know, the ones with the time-delay reflections that show the brunette in two alternate positions and don't reflect the blonde.

Dress For Success

While I can criticize these ads for pasting in people, changing reflections, and digitally altering lighting, I have to give Vuitton one piece of credit:

Beyond expected color enhancements (applied to the entire picture) and spicing blends (expected from a composite image), I have not detected any modifications to the clothing. Well done. Unlike Ralph Lauren and Victoria's Secret, Vuitton's pictures do not appear to be a product bait-and-switch.

When I was much younger (and had hair), I was an early adopter of new technologies. I had a touch screen on my computer back when this meant affixing a semi-transparent plastic sheet to the monitor and plugging it into the joystick port. I had one of the first Apple ][c computers (with amber monitor), I remember the excitement when EGA superseded CGA graphics, and I actually bought AMI Pro when it first came out for OS/2.

Unfortunately, there are three big problems with being an early adopter. (1) New technology is usually buggy, (2) new technology lacks support, and (3) new technology will probably become outdated quickly. The plastic touch screen didn't work very well and was very hard to program. Touch screens didn't become popular until the technology matured -- two decades later. EGA was quickly replaced by VGA and SVGA. And AMI Pro was so buggy that I ended up writing my dissertation in WordPerfect. (I still think that 1992's WordPerfect 5.2 is better than today's Microsoft Word.)

Due to my past experiences, I'm rarely an early adopter of new technologies. For example, I didn't buy my first DVD player until years after DVDs came out. Shortly after DVDs came out, there was a rumor about a better technology. Just as records were replaced by CDs overnight, I didn't want to start buying DVDs when everyone was switching to HD DVDs. I waited until I was sure that DVDs were not superseded. And I'm glad I waited; BluRay beat out HD DVDs, but the slow adoption rate tells me that my DVDs won't be outdated in the near future. (I know two guys who spent a small fortunes on their betamax and laserdisc collections.)

Wireless Broadband

More and more, I'm finding myself in situations where I need network access. Hotels, for example, either have very slow access for free, or no access at all. I hate driving 10 miles to find a bookstore or coffee shop that has free WiFi, and I cannot justify spending $12 to $25 per day for a hotel's paid Internet service. Besides the outrageous prices, there are limitations regarding when the 24-hour period ends. Some hotels are 24-hours from purchase, others are noon-to-noon or midnight-to-midnight. And if you shutdown your computer, then you may forfeit your paid 24-hour service.

More than once, I've found myself in an airport or parking lot and needing Internet access. I almost missed a contract because I couldn't get Internet access during a two-hour layover -- I had to wait 5 hours before I could get online.

Because of this, I've finally decided to break down and buy one of those wireless broadband services. Oh, what a nightmare! Right now, I'm just pricing and comparing services. Some of the things I have found so far:

• Unless you go with one of the big four (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile), you will likely not have coverage outside of a limited number of metro areas. Cricket's coverage map, for example, says that they don't offer 3G over most of Silicon Valley.
  
  
• Most either want a 2-year contract (with a $200 - $400 cancellation fee) or offer a no-contract option. Currently with T-Mobile, the only difference is the cost of the device (no contract means paying full price for the device), but there is no difference in the monthly rate. Verizon has a no-contract rate that is really expensive. They want as much as $15 per day for the days you use it (that matches most hotel's $12-$25 rate, and I don't have to buy a special device for hotel Internet access and hotels usually don't have a bandwidth limit).
  
  
• They all seem to offer two to three levels of Internet access. The lowest level is usually 50MB to 250MB per month. The mid range is 3GB to 5GB per month (a DVD is 4.7GB, so you can do the math -- it's 2-3 Hulu feature films per month). A few providers offer "unlimited" bandwidth, but then you're talking $60-$80 or more per month. That's really expensive for something that I really would only use when I am not in the office.
  
  
• Every single one of them says that they support Mac and Windows. Uh, what about Linux? I have that "Early adopter means buggy code" fear...
  
  
• While nearly all wireless broadband providers support 3G networks, some provide support for newer networks. For example, Sprint is rolling out their 4G network. T-Mobile is offering "HSPA+". And WiMax isn't dead yet. To me, this sounds like DVD vs BluRay vs HD DVD all over again -- but with a two-year contract that will lock me into the loser. I really want to wait until this settles out, but I'm hitting a business necessity.

Measuring Network Usage

Each of these services charge based on bandwidth usage. However, they don't really tell you much about it. For example, is 250MB per month a lot or a little -- for checking email, surfing the web, and doing basic business tasks (not downloading videos or playing online games).

While there are many programs for measuring real-time network usage, I couldn't find a program to tell me the cumulative total usage. Command-line programs like 'netstat -i' show the total number of packets, but not the total number of bytes. 'ifconfig' and 'nload' show the current byte totals, but that's from the start of the network interface and not from when I say "start measuring now!"

Anyway, using nload, I decided to monitor my network usage. Checking email, reading the web sites I usually read (CNN, USA Today, Photoshop Disasters, Facebook, and typical Google searches), and running VNC over SSH to access my office systems.

The net result? I consumed 50MB in the first 30 minutes. That's half of the allocation of Verizon's $15 pay-by-day plan and 25% of T-Mobile's monthly 200MB allocation. Over the course of the day, I will probably use between 200MB and 750MB of bandwidth. (I'm not always surfing the web.) Any plan offering less than 1GB per month is an expensive rip-off. (Your mileage will vary based on how you use the Internet.)

Fortunately, I'm only going to need this type of service for 1-2 hours per day and not more than 10 days per month. That comes out to about 20 hours at 100MB per hour, or 2G per month. However, that's based on today's usage. I'm very likely to see overages as I approach the middle of a 2 year contract and my needs expand.

Defcon!

Defcon is coming up next month. One of the big problems with Las Vegas is that there really is no good, free Internet on the Strip. Krispy Kreme (in Excalibur) and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (Planet Hollywood) offer hit-and-miss free WiFi -- when it works, it works well enough, but when it is down, they rarely know how to reboot the router. All of the Starbucks (in every hotel) only offer fee-based services -- if they offer WiFi at all. The Apple Store in the Fashion Mall has free WiFi, but that isn't exactly convenient. None of these free locations are open 24-hours a day.

Nearly all hotels offer fee-based Internet in your room. Some are wireless only, others have wired but you might need to bring your own cable. (I've been in too many hotel rooms where the in-room network cable was busted.)

Defcon does offer free WiFi to attendees, but I won't go near it. It is an actively hostile network. Even if you are not worried about someone hijacking your SSH or SSL connection (with client-side certs), they can still DoS your connection and attack the server's IP address. Oh, and don't think that Tor or SSL (without client certs) will save you -- last year, I heard that the Wall of Sheep ran their own Tor node as well as used man-in-the-middle attacks on SSL.

With Defcon coming up, I'm looking for a solid, reliable, secure-enough solution for Internet access. If I go 3G, I still won't use it at the conference... but back at the hotel room should be fine. (Right?) Is 3G the way to go? Are there other options? Which providers are best and include support for Linux? Hopefully this year I will guess correctly and choose well for the duration of a two-year contract. Oh, and what do people use in other countries? I might travel in the future and BlackHat in Europe sounds fun!

A little over a week ago a US intelligence analyst was arrested for submitting classified documents to Wikileaks. I have some serious issues about this arrest. While the analyst may have thought he was doing something ethically right, he went about it by doing something legally wrong. For example, while some of his wikileaked materials probably did need to be exposed (like the mistaken killing of two journalists and the subsequent cover up), how many operations and soldiers lives were put in danger by the leak?

I can hear some people right now saying "Huh? What?" Think about it. With the exception of leaked videos, the general public do not know our full, technical capabilities. As I recently heard on an NCIS repeat: the schematics for Air Force One are a secret. Hollywood just guesses at the layout. But here is SPC Bradley Manning, showing how things are really done. This is information that the enemy can use against us. By leaking an uncensored video with audio, Manning may have done far more harm than good; he exposed a cover up, as well as processes, procedures, and technologies that the United States and its allies use against real terrorists and threats to our nation.

There were also better ways to expose a cover-up. For example, he could have anonymously contacted a congressman. This would make the information public without releasing the video. Any anti-war congressman would have been a good choice.

While Manning may have thought that he was ethically correct in releasing the video, I cannot think of anything that would make leaking "an entire repository of classified foreign policy" documents, "260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables", or "a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat" ethically correct. Manning's actions look like treason to me.

From Bad to Worse

Wikileaks is intended as a forum for anonymous whistle blowers. If you are going to do something anonymously, then do it anonymously. Don't go around telling people that you were actually behind it. And if you're going to tell someone it was you, then don't tell it to a reporter. And of all the reporters you could talk to, don't choose one who has a history of unethical behavior!

That's right: Manning chatted with Wired's Adrian Lamo. When people create lists of hackers, they always include the notorious ones: Kevin Mitnick, Jonathan James (aka c0mrade), Max Ray Butler (aka Max Vision), Kevin Poulsen (aka Dark Dante), and others -- including Adrian Lamo (aka The Homeless Hacker). Even lists that don't list the "most notorious" include Lamo. (Thanks Adam for the link.)

Is there any reason to think that Lamo would not turn in Manning? I think not. Frankly, there are few reporters that I trust (very few). Most are more interested in sensationalism than accuracy. That, along with Lamo's established ethical lapses makes me distrust him more than most reporters. Manning put his trust in a reporter with a criminal record, and the reporter exposed his source for notoriety.

Looking for the Good

Every list of "hackers" that I found online mentioned the evil ones. The lawbreakers, criminals, and socially deviant ones. However, not all hackers are evil. I've recently had conversations about identifying good hackers. (Thanks to Mike, Bill, R., and the Internet Storm Center's handlers for the great insight.)

When it comes to naming hackers, people immediately recall the bad guys. I mean, everyone has heard of Kevin Mitnick, but who can remember the name of the guy who caught him -- without consulting Wikipedia or Google? (answer: Tsutomu Shimomura; half credit if you remembered John Markoff.)

Perhaps one reason is the postage stamp mentality. The US Post Office won't put someone on a stamp until they are dead. The reason: Bad people may continue to do bad things without harming their reputation. However, a good person may screw up at the end and tarnish everything they have previously done. So someone who is an awesome, positive role model and hacker today could be tomorrow's villain.

The other problem comes from the large number of good hackers who are better known by their software than their own actions. For example, Snort is an awesome piece of software, but who can remember that Martin Roesch created it? Roesch is a good guy hacker, but his software is better known than him. The same goes for Tatu Ylonen and Bjorn Gronvall (SSHv1 and SSHv2), Giorgio Maone (NoScript), and many other people.

The real question is: What sets a notable good guy apart from the rest? If writing good code is good enough, then certainly Flash, HTML, and Photoshop could also be included. (Their developers were not intentionally evil...) But can you actually say that someone changed how we act (or react) in a positive way?

I guess what I'm really wondering...
If you had one team of evil villains (Mitnick, Lamo, Poulsen, etc.) on one side, who would you stack against them as memorable good guys on the other side? (Mitnick vs Frank Abagnale Jr. -- after Frank turned good; Poulsen vs Mudge? Lamo vs ?)

Here's my short list of good guy hackers who's influence is far more than just code.

• Jim Christy and Clifford Stoll. They cracked the Hannover Hackers and brought international awareness to hacking as cyber espionage. Before that point, nobody realized the threat and all discussions were theoretical. Jim went on to found the Pentagon's first digital forensic lab and was the director of the Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) -- the first and largest computer forensics lab. (It just goes to show that a $0.75 accounting error can lead to more than a few pennies.)
  
  
• Mark Rasch. He spent nine years as the head of the United States Department of Justice computer crime unit. During that time, he was responsible for investigating the Hannover Hackers, Kevin Mitnick, and Robert T. Morris. He also helped the FBI and Treasury Department develop their procedures on handling electronic evidence.
  
  
• Phil Zimmermann. Without Phil, public crypto would probably still be nothing but underground software and munitions. Phil is more than just PGP -- today's PGP was created by a slew of developers. The remarkable element is how Phil paved the way for the world to use cryptography.
  
  
• Marcus Sachs. A voice of reason, advising Presidents and helping set national policies on cyber threats. He's a hacker who's influence is more than just a piece of code. Marcus also heads the Internet Storm Center -- the ISC handlers are like the Super Friends or Justice League. (Is Swa Frantzen the Belgium equivalent of Gleek?)
  
  
• Jeff Moss (aka Dark Tangent). While not known for code or exploits, this geek has put together a world-renowned set of hacker conferences: Defcon and Black Hat. More earth shattering updates come from one week of these conferences than an entire year of Patch Tuesdays.
  
  
• Bruce Schneier. This cryptography guru continually exposes security theater, where peddlers use snake-oil and provably inaccurate beliefs to influence and set policies.

A couple of people mentioned Dan Kaminsky. Dan's a nice guy and has done oodles of good things by making vulnerabilities public -- and I am still in awe of how he handled that world-wide DNS update. However, he likes to get drunk while giving presentations at Defcon and other conferences... While Dan is fun to watch, public drunkenness doesn't exactly scream "role model".

There are plenty of other people I could add to this list. I'm curious who other people think should be listed here. Remember the requirements: good guy, computer security or computer forensics, hackers, and most of all, influence beyond their immediate field or software.

Last week was entertaining. I had the opportunity to assist in an interesting project -- part development, part forensics, and part penetration testing. Fortunately for me, I had a couple of Firefox plugins that really made the work easier. All of these plugins can be found by using the Tools -> Add-Ons menu under the Firefox web browser, or by going to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/.

NoScript

The NoScript plugin is an absolute must-have. As far as I am concerned, it should be part of the default Firefox installation. This plugin stops all JavaScript, Flash, and other objects from automatically starting. You can also block access to some web servers, or if you really like a site, then you can add it to a white-list of permitted, trusted sites. If there happens to be something you want to run, you can permit it on a case-by-case basis.

From a user's viewpoint, this is awesome. You don't have to worry about an unknown site sending malware to your browser. In my case, I didn't want to download videos, Java, and other stuff that would waste my CPU cycles and bandwidth.

Httpfox

When evaluating any kind of web-based service, either as a developer or as an auditor, you need to know what is being transmitted across the network. Usually I use Wireshark or Snort. The problem is, these only work well if you use HTTP and not HTTPS. With HTTPS, you cannot see the traffic inside the tunnel (without compromising the tunnel).

Fortunately, I had Httpfox. This plugin is like having Wireshark in the browser! It shows you all data that the browser sends and receives -- the URLs, request and response headers, cookies, post data, and query parameters.

This plugin is great for auditing, but does have a few minor limitations. Specifically, if any of the values are longer than the visible fields, you don't get scroll bars. You can work around this by copying values to the clipboard, but that isn't an ideal solution.

Firebug

While Httpfox shows the network traffic, Firebug shows the HTML content. And this isn't just the HTML that was sent to your browser... it is the HTML that is displayed. If the web page includes JavaScript or active CSS content that alters the web page, then Firebug will show you the rendered values.

Besides viewing the page, you can also edit the currently-displayed web page. If you are testing parameters, playing with web forms, or trying out different style sheet settings, then this is a must-have.

Finally, you can click on the little arrow icon and it enables an inspector. As you hover the mouse over various elements on the web page, Firebug displays the active HTML elements (both HTML code and style sheet values). As a web developer, you've probably had times where you wondered "Where do I define that border?" Well, the inspector quickly answers this.

Add N Edit Cookies

This plugin is an oldie but goodie. Httpfox shows you queries, but does not allow you to edit. Firebug allows you to change the active HTML, so you can edit query parameters and URLs, but you cannot alter cookies. The "Add N Edit Cookies" plugin completes the set by allowing you to view and edit cookie values. (There are two versions of it. One is for older browsers and the other is for newer browsers.)

There are a couple of other plugins for editing cookies. However, I like this one because it is simple to use.

All Together

With these four plugins, we were able to easily access our web services, debug the network traffic, view and test dynamic web content, and even validate cookie settings. With NoScript, we were able to restrict the content that the server sent to the browser and control exactly when different calls were made.

In the old days, we would need to hack the SSL tunnel and use custom scripts to manage queries. Today, we can evaluate and modify the system in real-time and with just a few plugins.