AltSci Blog

Greetings,

As of today, this site is totally upgraded. The features that it supports are:

If you're just looking for my latest blog, find the yellow Articles tab, click the Blog with the latest date, and you'll probably find a link to my latest work. What is AltSci Cell about? If you got here through the domain cell-game.com, you probably know that I am writing a video game called Cell. This website will show pictures of it until it's completion, at which point it will have downloads available and it will allow you to purchase the game.

What type of game will Cell be? Cell is a game about the technology of communication and how we use it to define our reality. Even before I owned a cell phone, I wanted to write a satire on the high cost of cell phones. Now that I have a cell phone myself that costs $80-100 per month (don't ask me how), the satire hits home. While satire is still a motivation for Cell, it's not the main motivation. Now that I understand the idea of cell phones, I am much better equipped to ask and perhaps to answer the question "Why do we really need a cell phone?" Don't expect me to lecture you on your bill.

More specifically, Cell will have a semi-traditional gameplay based on the love sim genre with a bit of American style mystery and plenty of philosophy. I'm going to try my best to script as little as possible in AltSci Cell (opposed to Hack Mars, which will have over hundred scripted sequences) so that the player is the engine through which the plot is explained. People seem to like controlling their own destiny and video games give them a very weird (read: unique) way to express it.

Good Bad Attitude

jvoss@altsci.com
jvoss@myuw.net
May 26 - June 2, 2006

Bad Attitude 0.2 Source [sig]

This program grabs a list of good processes from /proc, then it monitors /proc and kills any new process. It is meant to be used in extremely hostile environments. It is a general use tool, but it can and should be modified as necessary. Obviously it should be modified to allow the user to re-login in case s/he loses shell.

It's original use is for Defcon 14 ACTF. If a vulnerable server gives non-root access (quite likely), attackers that re-attack the server will be able to kill the original attacker. This means that the original attacker should put up defenses quickly to ensure that attackers are ejected. One way is to fix the vulnerability in the server. If this is not possible, this script is a simple solution.

OpenSSL Blowfish Bruteforce Attack

jvoss@altsci.com
jvoss@myuw.net
Jan 20, 2006

OpenSSL Blowfish Bruteforce Attack 0.2 Source [sig]
OpenSSL Blowfish Bruteforce Attack 0.1 Source [sig]

OpenSSL is a useful tool with many uses. The openssl command is not used much by normal users, but for hackers, it is essential for encryption, generation of keys, encryption attacks, and so forth. A specific command, enc has been used by hackers for encrypting data with various ciphers. An especially useful cipher is Blowfish.

openssl enc -bf-cbc is the command used. A simple bruteforce attack can be successful on bad passwords and good password. Since Blowfish takes a long time to generate keys, it is slow, but works. My code uses any known parts of the password to make the search faster. The attack requires a know file regularity to test the crack. In this case we use tar archive filename plus nulls at the start of the tar archive. A similar known plaintext can be used on a large variety of file types (avi, zip, jpeg, png, etc).

by Javantea aka. Joel R. Voss
Sept. 7, 2006
Slideshow format
Botnets Neg9 Hands-On Tutorial

Botnets are groups of computers running malicious software that group together to achieve a common goal. Botnets are possible because of rampant security flaws in commonly used operating systems and programs. While software developers release patches, there isn't a perfect system of updating in place and there is evidence that there never will be. Lack of patching leaves programs open to exploitation. However, many exploits could be prevented by using simple security software (firewall, anti-virus) or by simple design of the operating system (no ports open). Some exploits, however, are in programs that are required for business (eg. web servers). I plan to discuss the methods and motivations for botnets and the methods for discovery and destruction of Botnets. I don't have perfect solutions, but I have some good ideas that can be put into use today to affect the number of botnets.

Botnets are a quite recent addition to security literature. They have appeared mainly as a result of obvious security vulnerabilities. Most botnets are targeted at the Win32 OS because of the number of vulnerabilities [1] and the massive number of unpatched machines available (250,000-1.5M+ Sasser infections, 200M update downloads) [2]. However, botnets have targeted many platforms. The first Linux/Apache worm was quite recent (Dec 20  2004), targetting a vulnerability in phpBB which was caused by PHP. The worm used Perl, Google, and left an obvious trace [3]. Although it did not become a botnet, it easily could have. More recently I have detected a botnet gathering using the AWStats and Mambo vulnerabilities [4]. In response to increased patching and firewalls in remote services of Microsoft Windows, botnets have targetted IE6, which is often unpatched.