Allworx Training Prerequisite Reading List (Downloads)

As of 2013, this list is no longer on the Allworx portal, so I am posting it here for posterity. Most of these links are PDF. If this violates  copyright, please leave a comment below and I will remove the link.

Suggested Reading:

1. TCP/IP Illustrated: Volume 1 (ISBN: 0201633469)
2. SIP Demystified (2002) (ISBN: 0071373403) 
3. Allworx Networking White Paper
4. Allworx VoIP White Paper
5. Telecom for Dummies (ISBN: 0-471-77085-X)
6. The Essential Guide to Telecommunications (ISBN: 0-13-148725-6)
7. Allworx Classroom Training Manual - this was in the Allworx Portal

Chromium Pepper Flash Plugin (PPAPI) Downloads

I was looking around with different versions of Chrome's Pepper Flash plugin, and decided to upload all the versions that I had laying around my laptop's hard drive. Even though Chromium Portable comes with a Pepper Flash plugin, it does not work by default without adding this parameter:

--ppapi-flash-path="C:\PortableApps\ChromiumPortable25\App\Chromium\PepperFlash\pepflashplayer.dll"

The PortableApps.com launcher supports passing command-line parameters to the real chrome.exe. It also supports passing parameters on all other apps.

Here's the archive with all the different versions I was able to find. It has version 11.5, 13, 11.6, 11.4, 11.9, 12, and 16 beta. The Version.txt file in the downloaded archvie has the more exact version of Chrome that the Pepper Flash plugin came from.

https://mega.co.nz/#!AZZEiTaJ!4ip9bfNxf_QWsBxt6kPukXYYkMEnq51fZ4bzjzwDH98

Scanner Crashing Computer When Plugged Into USB 3.0 Port (Fujitsu Scansnap)

If you have a usb scanner that causes a computer to crash (and I have even seen them prevent the computer from booting) try plugging it into a USB 2.0 port. This should resolve the problem.

Google Fiber Might Be Coming To Atlanta!

As seen on the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts mailing list:


https://fiber.google.com/newcities/


https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/11785877

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/14348109

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/14411648

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/25071454

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/20878588

No official announcement yet, but the rumor is that they're going to Brookhaven and Smyrna.

Atlanta's endless concrete jungle

I wonder what is the furthest distance that one can drive in the greater Atlanta area by staying in parking lots. I would imagine its about a mile or so, with the endless strip malls that congeal into one giant megamall.

#suburban #wasteland #concretejungle

Alternatives To Publishing And Sharing Calendars To Office.com

Use these:

iCal Exchange
http://www.icalx.com/

https://www.keepandshare.com/

Google Emu Messenger Download

Here is version 1.0b4 of the "Emu Messenger" A.I based text-messaging app before being purchased by Google. I expect it will be subsequent;y infected by the Google+ virus. The filename is is.emu.chat-3a404b3e9dc06b1c5c22a3f404a03c10.apk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_myiKjl8zhZcDhrZlNoUEEyVTA/edit?usp=sharing

Media coverage:

Here is the virustotal virus scan result of the above file:

https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/d77107ae009c234e2d171a282c1b464716bdc780412ad0a3081e89a2020cadf9/analysis/

Hitachi HGST 4K Sector Alignment Tool (Acronis) Download

Here's the link:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130314211331/http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/downloads/AcronisAlignmentTool.exe

OpenSSL Heartbleed Vulnerable Server Testing

It seems that the OpenSSL heartbeat vulnerability (heartbleed) has not caused that many issues so far, and many servers are patched already. I believe there's a lot of hype behind it. However, time will tell if it causes any impact. Also we may never know what exactly is leaked, we can only know that a hack was attempted by using snort or another IDS/IPS. The version command doesn't really say if you're running 1.0.1[a-f], but it's safe to say that if your version is 1.0.1.[anything] and it's timestamp is older than April 2014, then that version is vulnerable.

These services may be vulnerable:
Any service that runs OpenSSL and uses the STARTTLS method
The TOR client
SMTPS
IMAPS
Android OS
Postgres database
The Salt Stack cluster execution manager


Here's the original vulnerability:
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2014-0160

Here's the OpenSSL patch to the vulnerable portion of code:
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/731f431497f463f3a2a97236fe0187b11c44aead

Here's a google search for all mentions of heartbeat (but not heartbleed) under github.com/openssl:
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agithub.com%2Fopenssl+heartbeat&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

This is a search of github.com for heartbleed:
https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=site%3Agithub.com+heartbleed&oq=site%3Agithub.com+heartbleed

Here is a quick tool in Python to test for the vulnerability,
http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/32745/

There's a great writeup at heartbleed.com which goes into detail about the issue. To quote their website:

We have tested some of our own services from attacker's perspective. We attacked ourselves from outside, without leaving a trace. Without using any privileged information or credentials we were able steal from ourselves the secret keys used for our X.509 certificates, user names and passwords, instant messages, emails and business critical documents and communication.

There is a metasploit script available for use:

https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/tree/master/modules/auxiliary/scanner/ssl

You can type this OpenSSL command (tested with gnuwin32 openssl binary version 1.0.1.6, dated 1/14/2014). By the way, this version does not have the -tlsextdebug parameter, perhaps it was compiled by the gnuwin32 team without this option.

s_client -connect a23-75-248-141.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com:443 -debug -state

Once connected type B and you'll see on a vulnerable host and you won't be disconnected:


B

HEARTBEATING
write to 0x801c17160 [0x801cbc003] (66 bytes => 66 (0x42))
0000 - 18 03 03 00 3d 8f 6f 3c-52 11 83 20 9c a2 c0 49   ....=.o 5 (0x5))
0000 - 18 03 03 00 3d    ....=
read from 0x801c17160 [0x801cb7008] (61 bytes => 61 (0x3D))
0000 - 05 4d f5 c0 db 96 d1 f5-c7 07 e5 17 1f 3b 48 34   .M...........;H4
0010 - 6e 11 9d ba 10 0c 3a 34-eb 7b a5 7c c4 b6 c0 c0   n.....:4.{.|....
0020 - b0 75 0e fe b7 fa 9e 04-e9 4e 4a 7d 51 d3 11 1f   .u.......NJ}Q...
0030 - e2 23 16 77 cb a6 e1 8e-77 84 2b f8 7f    .#.w....w.+..
read R BLOCK

You will get a heartbeat response that looks similar to this one.


On a patched host, you will see a response similar to below and you'll be disconnected:

Enter B

HEARTBEATING
write to 0x801818160 [0x8019d5803] (101 bytes => 101 (0x65))
0000 - 18 03 03 00 60 9c a3 1e-fc 3b 3f 1f 0e 3a fe 4c   ....`....;?..:.L
0010 - a9 33 08 cc 3d 43 54 75-44 7d 2c 7b f3 47 b9 56   .3..=CTuD},{.G.V
0020 - 89 37 c1 43 1c 80 7b 87-66 ff cb 55 5f 8d 1a 95   .7.C..{.f..U_...
0030 - 1b 4c 65 14 21 a1 95 ac-7a 70 79 fc cc a0 cf 51   .Le.!...zpy....Q
0040 - 0f 7e c5 56 14 c8 37 c1-40 0b b8 cb 43 96 8a e6   .~.V..7.@...C...
0050 - 21 42 64 58 62 15 fb 51-82 e6 7f ef 21 1b 6f 87   !BdXb..Q....!.o.
0060 - b9 c2 04 c8 47    ....G

Here's my source for the OpenSSL s_client command above:

https://blog.ipredator.se/2014/04/how-to-test-if-your-openssl-heartbleeds.html

There's also these tools:

https://github.com/titanous/heartbleeder

Web based:
http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/

Test results of Alex top 1000 websites:
https://github.com/musalbas/heartbleed-masstest

Conspiracy Theory Mode
Perhaps NSA introduced this bug into OpenSSL to be able to crack users of The Onion Router?
/Conspiracy Theory Mode

Update: Here's another tool which is supposedly more accurate:
http://possible.lv/tools/hb/

Update (10:37pm est 2014/04/09)
Packetstorm's files related to the vulnerability:
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/cve/CVE-2014-0160

Batch Files To Launch VMWare Workstation 7 and VMWare player Services And Close On Exit

I created batch files to start VMWare Workstation 7.0 and VMWare player. It starts the different VMWare services and stops them when VMWare is closed. This was tested on XP, Vista and later may be different.

Workstation batch file:

net start ufad-ws60
net start VMAuthdservice
net start vmnetdhcp
net start "vmware nat service"
net start vmusbarbservice

f:
cd "\VMWare Workstation 7"
vmware.exe

net stop ufad-ws60
net stop VMAuthdservice
net stop vmnetdhcp
net stop "vmware nat service"
net stop vmusbarbservice

Player batch file:

net start ufad-ws60
net start VMAuthdservice
net start vmnetdhcp
net start "vmware nat service"
net start vmusbarbservice

f:
cd "\VMWare Workstation 7"
vmplayer.exe

net stop ufad-ws60
net stop VMAuthdservice
net stop vmnetdhcp
net stop "vmware nat service"
net stop vmusbarbservice

Install Chrome Web Store Plugins In Chromium Or SRWare Iron

If you use Iron, the version of Chrome that is privacy enhanced by default, you can install plugins from the official Chrome Webstore.

Proxy Switchy for example, uses this URL for browsing from the webstore:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/proxy-switchysharp/https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/proxy-switchy/caehdcpeofiiigpdhbabniblemipncjj

But this is the actual installation URL for the CRX file:

https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&x=id%3Dcaehdcpeofiiigpdhbabniblemipncjj%26uc%26lang%3Dde&prod=chrome

Note the parameter after the id%3D in the url. Once you find the extension you'd like to install in the Webstore, simply replace the red text in the installation URL with the portion of the Webstore URL that looks like random letters and numbers such as the gobbledygook below, and paste the url into the iron or chromium "OneBar", then it should install the extension.

fdsjfkddddkkddjfjghttjfurjvvhggg

These ID's are thirty-two characters long and made up of lowercase letters.

There's a page on the Gentoo Linux Wiki that explains this as well.

Febuary 4, 2015 Update:
It appears that this method no longer works for some reason.

Schemer - Another Google service shutting down

Dear Schemers,

The time has come for
Schemer to power down.

Schemer launched in beta
over a year ago to help
inspire and motivate people
to do more awesome stuff,
and though the app is
shutting down, the
adventures will continue.
You can use the "Explore"
section on Google Maps for
Android and iOS to find
interesting things to do
around you, or Field Trip to
uncover hidden or unique
things in your city, among
others.

All your schemes are
available for download until
February 7, 2014, after
which all data will be
permanently and irrevocably
deleted. You can find the
simple steps to download
your data here.

In the meantime, stay
curious, ambitious, daring,
and above all, stay
adventurous!

Thank you for all your
support on this journey!

- The Schemer Team

I've started pumping iron again. Mainly free weights with upper body using a dumbbell. Legs and anything that put force on my back not possible at the moment due to possible slipped disc.

I remember as a freshman at Mandeville High School (yes I went there for one year and sat next to miss teen louisiana, Sarah Price, CHS Lions fans) the football players had a chart that shows, given the maximum weight you can lift for a given lift, curl, press etc..., how much to increase your weight lifting at each workout. Does anyone have a chart like this or follow a general rule for upping your weights? Is it better to increase by a fixed rate, say, 5 lbs, or a certain percent? I am aware that to get bulkier you want to do shorter repetitions with heavier weights and for leaner, endurance-type muscle you should do more repititions with less weight.

I am leaning toward just doing whatever I can whenever I can (this will save time as well) until a given weight is easy, and then increase the weight. This would be simpler to stick to as I'm not aiming to be Bruce Lee, just increase my overall strength and long-term health. My favorite quote of Bruce Lee's is (well really the only quote I know, hah) "A man must constantly exceed his level."