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Latest News and Blog Posts from Wayne “Pendragon” Owens.
RTL – Sherlock – Bringing the classic into the Modern age
The BBC have just finished showing a new three part mini-series call “Sherlock” which brings the Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes detective stories into the modern day, with modern technology. You have Holmes armed with smartphones, the Internet, modern forensic labs and all the benefits of modern technology. While Watson who’s just back from serving in Afghanistan no longer writes in leather bound journal, but instead has an online blog. Even the famous phrases from the books have been updated, Holmes’s statement when struggling with a hard problem of “This is a three pipe problem” now calmly states “This is a three patch problem” London is mostly no-smoking these days.
Episode 1: “A Study in Pink”
The first episode in any series (even a mini-series) is basically all about introducing the characters, and setting everything up. This can occasionally lead to a slightly slower “starter”. This was not the case with Sherlock, Yes they introduced the characters of Holmes & Watson, and showed their meeting for the first time, and moving into 221b Baker Street. While that was going on they also had time to show shadowy groups, secret criminal masterminds, and one of the best games of Russians roulette you could imagine. (With strong leanings to the princess bride)
Episode 2: “The Blind Banker”
Another brilliant episode that’s starts simply with Watson making Holmes take a simple case (They need the money) from Holmes’ old school friend. A simple “how did someone break into a secure room” case. It’s not long before the case expands into hidden codes, Chinese Triad assassins, Ancient Artifacts, Murder & Romance. With a very tense ending. There’s no relaxing in the middle episode.
Episode 3: “The Great Game”
WOW. What can I say about the season finally that will not give away any spoilers? It starts with a double case, Mycroft Holmes requests help investigating a suspicious suicide and some missing top top secret plans. Meanwhile after a suspected gas explosion across from Holmes flat a locked strong box is found with a letter addressed to Holmes inside. This leads Holmes on a series of challenges set by some mysterious person. Holmes gets less and less time to solve cases before some innocent gets blown up. This all leads to a climatic meeting in a swimming pool, and the most annoying “I NEED to see how it ends” endings you could hate to witness.
Basically this show is one of the best things I’ve seen on BBC for a long time, and the way they have brought such a classic character into the modern day is amazing. And I am now waiting for a Second and longer series to begin filming.
This Article was 1st posted @ rocktheLAN.com
CyberSecurityChallenge Cipher – Walkthrough
After seeing all the people posting on Twitter/Facebook/Blogs how they have solved the cipher challenge on the CyberSecurityChallenge website when all they have done is take the first step, I thought it might be nice to post a small walkthrough to give some pointers, help, and show them that first impressions are not always correct.
Only read on if you have stopped trying to solve the puzzle yourself, or if you just need a push in the right direction. AKA, here be spoilers.
Step 1: The starting line.
So you went to https://cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk/cipher.html and looked at the big pile of gibberish. While wondering how to start you noticed the gibberish had a familiar look & feel. Kind of like images in emails. You have an eureka moment and base64 decrypt the gibberish and get an image. When you stop cheering, please pay attention to the Image. You are not at the end of the rabbit hole yet.
Step 2: Into the Rabbit Hole.
Look at the picture above, does anything look a bit Hinky? What about that odd looking border to the image? Do the pixels give you any ideas? (Nope its not Morse, but good thinking) What if I Say the pixels are lengths 1-7? That’s right they are binary 1’s and 0’s. Here is the binary output going from top, right, bottom, left:
0100001101111001011100100110111001100110011100100010000001110 0110110001001111001011110010110001001101010001000000110011101 1101010111011001100110001000000111100101110110011000010111100 000111010001000000010000000100000001000000010000000100000 01110101011001110110011101100011011001100011101000101111001011 11011100000110110001101111011100100110010101100110011100100111 0000011010000110010101110110011001110110110001110000011101010 11011100111100101111001011100100110000101110100011100100010111 0011000100110010101110100001011100110100001111000001011110011 10000011001100110100011101110110011101100011001011100111010101 10011101111010011110010010000001110101011001110110011101100011 01100110001110100010111100101111011100000110110001101111011100 1001100101011001100111001001110000011010000110010101110110011 00111011011000111000001110101011011100111100101111001011100100 1100001011101000111001000101110011000100110010101110100001011 1001101000011110000010111100111000001100110011010001110111011 00111011000110010111001110101011001110111101001111001000000
So a quick conversion to ASCII using one of the many free online app’s gives us :-
Cyrnfr sbyybj guvf yvax: uggcf://plorefrphevglpunyyratr.bet.hx/834wgc.ugzy uggcf://plorefrphevglpunyyratr.bet.hx/834wgc.ugzy
Step 3: That’s almost readable.
Gibberish right? did you guess the binary thing wrong? But, uggcf:// looks very much like https://, in fact the characters are just 13 apart from each other? Yes, it really could be that simple. a ROT13 cipher.
we now have. :-
Please follow this link: https://cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk/834jtp.html https://cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk/834jtp.html
Step 4: The New Code.
68edcdec4e2c8eae8d2c8e2dedcd6e04d2042fedae52ceac04ccedaecd8c042ccd 8c046cedad0e8dac8eac8c048e0dac044aa82889046c0d2c8d8daccdecacc504 2bedae4e04ee2dcd046ced8cac042d6e04046c2f4c664ea76e666cae4e268e2f4 56c0d088d8d66cdecac6546c6a506e6a546062606c504a141a1410a8dac2c6ea c04acad2c2d8d048e0d2d6e046ced8cac048eed04edae4e048eac2cad042c8e0 4adac8c2d2c086c2f4cac4e6eac6cae4e2d8e2f6c0d2c8d8daccdecacc5ed4eecc5 ae6dc50429cc042fedae524eac048e0dac04cc2d4e6e8e040eac4e6eedcd048ee d048ced046eed85042ccd8c046c2ccd040e4eedceac042fedae04adacac8e048 e0dac04ac8d2dec2d4c2d8d2d8e2f046c4e2d8eac4e2d2c0405484e2d8e2d6e0 d046c2d8e2d4faccd046cae4e4eaccd8e8d2f044eac6e2d8caccd8e042dcd048 e0dac04aa692504eeac04ee2d8d8d044cac042dcd048eedae6c0d048eed042c 8cce2d6eac040dedee048eed046c8d2c2dad042fedae4e040e4e2d4facc504eaa c8d8d048cedcdac042ccd8c04eceded8c048dae6c6d042dcd048e0dac04682f4 cac4e046aac6cae4e2d8e2f04680d2c8d8daccdecac046cedad0eac8e2d8e2ded cd6e048e2c6d2dcdec040e8d2c6cac048e0d4eedaeec0dedae8e048e0dac044e ac6e8e04edcc048e0dac042fac2c4ec5
I added the carriage returns to make the code fit on the page better. So are you wondering if there is a light at the end of the tunnel yet? and if there is, will it turn out to be a train?
Do not worry, you are just one step away from completing the challenge. there is nothing fancy about this last code, its a simple text substitution code, swamping letters, numbers, & symbols with two bit hex values. So using simple Number frequency analysis you can work out most the text in the message. (A clue to start you off, 04 appears 77 times so lets say space. c5 is the last character so lets say . Adding the next 4 most popular characters will give you enough of a URL to get more characters)
Now using this method you will solve the message telling you how to report your success. You will just not get the actual code to use. But come on, you have the substituted vales for a, b, c, d, e, f, etc. You should be able to realise the system they used to pick the substitutions.
Step 4: The end
Congratulations d2 you’ve found and completed the REAL challenge. Your win code is REDACTED.
Please email this code to our team at REDACTED. If you’re the first person to do so, and can prove you meet the eligibility criteria (British citizen currently resident in the UK) we will be in touch to advise how to claim your prize. well done and good luck in the Cyber Security Challenge competitions taking place throughout the rest of the year.
Well you did not expect me to just give you the code/email address so you could claim you solved it without doing some of the work?
Britain’s Got Computer Talent.
On Monday the 26th July 2010 the UK Minister for Security Declares Cyber Security Challenge UK Open.
The Cyber Security Challenge is a series of national online games and competitions that will test the cyber security abilities of individuals and teams from every walk of life. It is designed to excite and inspire anyone considering a career in the cyber security industry.
The Challenge will identify talented individuals capable of becoming part of the UK’s cyber security profession now and in the future.
Why should I participate?
Participation in the Challenge offers three fantastic opportunities:
- The Challenge will award more than 30 superb prizes. These will include:
- Places on the Detica Academy
- Funded or part-funded places for masters-level university security courses
- Funded security courses provided by SANS Institute.
- Memberships of trade bodies and professional associations
- Professional mentoring sessions
- Time on the CREST penetration test rig
- Delegate passes to industry conferences
- An internship at one of the UK’s premier security companies
- Prizes will be allocated based on individuals’ ambitions and the stage they are at in their career.
- The Challenge will provide participants with the opportunity to use world-class technology and facilities that would otherwise be inaccessible.
- It will also provide a way for individuals to meet with, work with, and learn from some of the UK’s most prominent organisations in cyber security, education and politics.
Those who demonstrate excellent levels of skill and talent will be exposed to potential employers who will look favourably on anyone who can perform well throughout the Challenge. - The Challenge offers an opportunity for all participants to publicly demonstrate their cyber security skills and build their reputation with peers and potential employers as the UK’s most talented security experts.
The first challenge to get yourself started with is up here
Get playing!.
And Now for Something Completely Different
Time seems to be flowing a lot faster than normal these days, I swear I only have to blink and several days have flown past. For example I was considering writing this post Monday, I blinked, made myself a cup of Coffee and its now Thursday Friday? Anyway, here goes the actual post :-
Its been a few years now since I have done a “what I did the Weekend” style post. And I’m feeling nostalgic for reasons you will discover by the time you finish reading this post, so here goes for old time sake.
What I did The Weekend.
Saturday.
Got up slightly earlier than I would normally so that I could do the packing I had been putting off all week. Yes I know I should not put things off till the last-last-leaving the door now moment. I filled up the car with diesel thinking I would need many pit stops (This was 1st time I was doing a long trip in my car, and it is a mid size 4×4), stocked up the car with wine gums and left Wales and its torrential rain. Several miles into my trip I realised a bottle of water would probably have been a good idea as well.
The further I got into England the sunnier & hotter it got until I decided dressing in a black t-shirt was not my cleverest idea. Also, has anyone else noticed that the bit of M6 that runs past Birmingham has had road works on it for about 10 years now? and the only bit finished are the speed cameras, the lanes, signs etc are all unfinished but the speed cameras are all sorted? Also have you noticed how FLAT huge chunks of England are? I mean I drove through miles and miles of just open spaces, What’s wrong with mountains people?
So most of Sat was spent driving to Sussex, Suffolk, err Some place beginning with S. Errrr, where did I go? ::Quick check of emails:: Suffolk. The trip itself was not so bad, apart from towards the end when I was getting into arguments with my SatNav.
SatNav: “In .4 miles turn right“
Me: “No! Shant!“
SatNav: “Turn Right“
Me: “No, not going to, and you cant make me!“
SatNav: “Turn right… Turn right…. Recalculating!”
So I finally arrived at my destination, and noticed that instead of having to stop when almost there to topup my tank, I still had a load of diesel left, meaning my cars not as fuel-thirsty as I suspected. Then the fun began, I got to meet some friends I have known for 15/16 years but had never gotten around to meeting in real life. (What was I saying about time flying).
It was good to finally meet them, there was chilli, talking, Wii playing, Working out how to inflate Beds, Toy showing, And all round chilling out. And more snacks/drinks options than you could shake a stick at.
Sunday.
This day was mostly taken up with a Hog-Roast, Fish do type thing. In simple terms Loads of Meat & Fish & Strawberries, Nice Ale in wooden casks, and a blazing hot sun. Oh and decent live music. Was a damn fine event!
Then more chilling out, Wii sword fighting, TV Watching. I also saw part of the film “Cars” for the first time, and what I would like to know is. Why are there human sized houses & shops with human sized door when there are no humans? And was this film based on the Stephen King story “Maximum Overdrive”??
Monday
This was a day off work so I could travel home. So I got up early so I could spend time with the people I was staying with before leaving, and packed up ready to leave. My usual uselessness was countered by my friends who supplied me with fresh baked muffins, packets of crisps, and a bottle of water for the trip back. (and by the time I got home that water was a life saver, Blazing hot sun + black t-shirt + car = HOT)
The trip home seemed to take a hour or two less than the trip there. Mainly since the M6 in the direction I was travelling was not a car park. Also I only needed to stop off for petrol as I was about half way home, and I only did it then because services are far apart on the route I was taking home.
I got home, Made huge fuss of my dog who was feeling abandoned. and crashed out on the sofa watching the shows I had missed over the weekend.
So all in all, I had a great relaxing weekend in the sun, with good company, good food, and a brilliant chance to refresh my batteries.
Hackers 1 : Network Admin 0
I forget exactly when this incident happened. I do remember it was towards the end of the University season (either the year end, or midway). It was in my second to last year in University, and everyone was rushing about trying to finish papers, coursework and get everything handed in on time.
Of course the Lords of Chaos were out in force, and the Universities Network was down, and had been for about a week, people were seriously starting to panic. The network at the time was Windows 95 running of a Novell network. Now somehow (no info was ever posted) the windows image had become corrupted. You could log onto the network, and it would copy the global copy of windows to your workstation ok, only winsock, and several other network important files/libs were corrupt meaning windows could not talk to the network. This had a knock-on problem of all the program files & user data were stored on network drives. Basically you were left with a corrupt and damaged version of windows that was of no use to anyone.
Now some of the computer labs had computers that also had local copies of windows on them, for specific software/applications. Unfortunately these were not set up to use the network, or the internet, in fact they had been set up specifically to be unable to use the network. (for security and to help prevent the pirating of specialised software)
After a few days of no net-access a friend and myself got fed up and decided to do something about it. We found one of the small labs with local copy windows machines, and using some of the libraries off the corrupt net-work versions, plus manually rewriting sever config files we were able to get two machines fully running on the uni’s network, and hence the internet. So there we were happily using the internet to plan the weekends fun when a Lecturer wandered into the lab.
“What are you guys doing in here?”
“err, just finishing some coursework to email in”
“What, do you think I’m stupid? The network is down”
I pointed at my screen and invited her to come look, pointing at a couple of websites to show it was working, and pointed out since we were desperate to finish our coursework we “fixed” the two machines we were using. She looked thoughtful for a while, then asked could we do the same to all the others in the lab, since she had an important lesson that afternoon that she had already put off once due to the broken network.
It was another week and a half before they fixed the network and all the universities computers were usable. But for that week and a half there was one small computer lab that was fully functional, and its location was spread about like a secret. After all, if everyone knew about it, you’d never get a free computer.
I like to think we helped a few people be a little less stressed in the run up to exams.
Reclaiming the word Hacker
As The Next HOPE draws near I figured now would be an appropriate time for me to say a few words about the misappropriation of the term “Hacker“. To quote Randal from Clerks II. “I’m taking it back”
How often do you seen mention these days like :-
- “Hacker steals hundreds of credit card details” (Hello, that’s not Hacking its credit card fraud).
- “Hacker defaces ****’s website” (Try Vandalism not Hacking.)
- “Hacker steals companies data to sell” (Try Industrial Espionage)
Yes there are people out there that do illegal things, a lot of them can be described as Skript Kiddies, crackers, thieves, vandal, humans. Yes there are Hackers that do illegal things, but that does not mean all Hackers do. There was a case in the UK a few years ago of a doctor who killed hundreds of his patients, does that make all doctors mass murderers?
Wikipedia describes the origin of the term Hack as thus :-
The term “hack” was first used by US university computing centre staff in the mid-1960s. The context determined whether the complimentary or derogatory meanings were implied. Phrases such as “ugly hack” or “quick hack” generally referred to the latter meaning; phrases such as “cool hack” or “neat hack”, to the former. In modern computer programming, a “hack” can refer to a solution or method which functions correctly but which is “ugly” in its concept, which works outside the accepted structures and norms of the environment, or which is not easily extendible or maintainable. The programmer keeps beating on it until a solution is found.
In a similar vein, a “hack” may refer to works outside of computer programming. For example, a math hack means a clever solution to a mathematical problem. The GNU General Public License has been described as a copyright hack because it cleverly uses the copyright laws for a purpose the lawmakers did not foresee. All of these uses now also seem to be spreading beyond MIT as well.
The term should be kept as it was originally intended, to describe those people who are curious about how things work, whether it be computers, networks, phones, electronics, maths, whatever. People who find ways to use things in ways that was not in the original specification. We used to cherish these people as innovators, explorers, etc. (Well apart from the early days when the church would burn them as heretics). We should go back to using “Hacker” as a positive description, and just call criminals “Criminals”. So Media People pay attention, I’m taking the word Hackers back.
To aid in the takeback, I will be posting a series of old Hacks, & examples of Hacking. None of them Illegal, none that caused Harm, Injury, disfigurement. There may have been some upset caused by some, but only in a “How come he can do that? why cant I? It’s not Fair”. They are all just examples of someone being curious, someone using things for more than they were designed for, someone helping others thanks to his playing.
Sometimes the World Works
I’d just like to share this motivational story you with Dear Reader, It really made my day and its good to see that sometimes stupidity gets its just deserts.It happened last night on my commute home.
I was driving along some country roads, just coming out of a nasty bend heading for a nice long straight bit. There was no traffic in front of me, and just a motorbike in the oncoming lane a short distance ahead. Just as I was getting to a junction on the right, a car pulled out of the junction directly in front of the motorbike.
Judging by the smug look on the drivers face he had seen the bike and decided he could pull out in front, or that it was just a bike so it would swerve. The poor biker had to jam his breaks on and the bike started swerving and juddering as you would expect from a near emergency stop at speed. I think a lesser driver could well have come off the bike.
Just as I was cursing the stupid car driver, and muttering the “there’s never a cop about when you need one” The bike managed to sort itself out, and started accelerating after the car, with some hidden blue lights starting to flash in the fairing… Yes!!! it was an unmarked police bike, and I wish I could have been there when he pulled the car over.
Sometimes, the world just works!…
Hello Mr Kettle, This is Mr Pot, You’re Black!
Basically the presenter was discussing a news story of the time (The podcast was a couple of weeks old). The story in question was :-
Veteran White House journalist Helen Thomas has quit her job after she was captured on video saying Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and suggesting they go “home” to Germany, Poland or the United States.
Now the podcast presenter was defending her, saying she was correct, and in response to one comment of “What would the outcry be if she had said that all the blacks should get out of America and go back to Africa” he made a big point of explaining that was different, and that the problem was the Israelis had gone to the country populated by another people and forcibly taken over that country. And that was what was wrong with the whole thing.
There followed a tirade on how occupying some other people country forcibly was very wrong. And all I could think of was. “But you are an American??? you are a people made up from the peoples of lots of other countries, who went to a country already populated by a native race, and forcibly took over that country, locking away the natives in small reserves.” So basically everything bad he was saying about Israel was things America were guilty off. I was wondering if he thought that the Americans should leave and return to the countries they were originally from?
It amused me, so I thought I would Share….
RTL – The Guild – Why You should be Looking forward to July 13th
The release date for the fourth season of “The Guild” has been announced as July 13th.
Now it is possible that this means nothing to you, Maybe you have never heard of the Guild, Or heard just bad things about it, or just that you saw the logo in this post and thought. “Nope. Not for me!“. Well Read on dear Reader, allow me the chance to change your mind!
The Guild is a Comedy Web Series, written by Felicia Day (Yes her from Doctor Horrible). Its a series about a group of Gamers who play WoW as a guild. And get themselves info some very odd situations. The best part is its broadcast on Xbox-Live, Zune, MSN, etc before being released on youtube and its own website http://www.watchtheguild.com/.
So put simply it is a Free web comedy you can watch on your xbox, and its about a group of geeky gamers and the problems that can cause in the real world. What’s not to like? Season 3 even had the Internets Wil Wheaton playing a evil character (Is anyone else spotting the tendency to put him as the badguy? it’s like he’s an English actor :o))
I will admit to having heard a few reasons not to watch the show, and I will address them here.
Reason: “I don’t play WoW, So I won’t get it!”
Answer: I have never played WoW either and I still enjoy the show. You don not have to be a WoW player to “get it”. Any internet gamer who plays multiplayer games should find themselves recognising situations and people, wether your an WoW Guild, A FPS clan, or whatever. Its more about Gamers and less WoW specific.
Reason: “Its got that red head from Buffy in it. I hate Buffy”
Answer: Seriously ? You refuse to watch a very funny show because you did not like Buffy? Madness, Yes Felicia Day had a part in the final season of Buffy, but why hold that against her. She’s an intelligent woman (she writes the guild shows, the comics, etc), She is a real life gamer, and if i dare to be sexist a nice bit of eye candy!.
Reason: “I don’t really have the time”
Answer: WTF? the episodes are like 10 minutes long if that. you can watch a whole season in under two hours. You can make time for that. And all the back episodes are online for you RIGHT NOW!
Now that we have dealt with the negative people out there, I suggest everyone else go to http://www.watchtheguild.com/the-guild/auto-tune-the-guild/* and go watch the Season 3 recap.
And on a final note we here at Rock The LAN Three-Ninjas would like to wish Felicia Day a Happy Birthday for today.
This Article was 1st posted @ rocktheLAN.com on Mon, 2010-06-28 13:31
RTL – The IT Crowd: Season 4 Premier
The IT Crowd Season 4 Premier airs next Friday, and the nice guys at Channel 4 have put up the 1st episode a week early as a treat for us. Unfortunately its only available for people in the UK. (Or anyone in the US with access to a UK IP/VPN/Proxy) So here’s a mostly spoiler free review.
The official episode writeup is as follows:
“Jen wants to stretch herself in the workplace so applies for the post of Entertainment Manager. But when she finds out that amusing her boss Douglas’ business connections has its darker side, she has to turn to Moss and Roy for help.”
The IT Crowd kicks off its new season with a classic episode, Roy is devastated after his long term girlfriend leaves him without even saying goodbye, Moss is busy creating the soundtrack to a D&D evening, and Jen wants a new challenge as company Entertainment Manager. Everyone keeps telling her that she is not suited for the job, but she is convinced otherwise. After all, how hard can it be to just take visiting businessmen to the odd show or cultural events?
At this point you know its going to go wrong, especially as people keep hinting the old entertainment manager was basically a pimp. And when she is asked to “entertain” three businessmen who are expecting a week of drinking, wenching, and down right debauchery.
quote: “You took us to something called the vagina monologue, and its just women talking, its false advertising.”
At the same time Douglasis trying to give back his “Shit head of the year” award, he won after a lovely interview with a womans magazine where he described women as beingessentially no different to radiators . along with other sexist views.
quote: “I like my women like I like my toast, Hot and consumable with butter”
I am going to leave it here so I do not give away the ending, or any of the other bits. I will say, this was a very funny episode, and the cast were on fine form. And if the rest of the season is as good as the 1st episode we are in for a good one. so to the writers & actors I say “Eiffel Tower“
I’ll leave you with the wise words of advice. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?“
This Article was 1st posted @ rocktheLAN.com