Posts by Vic

Re: I wonder

They certainly make something that they call coffee in North America.

I make something I call "premium lager".

it flows into the urinal in regular batches...

Vic.

Caffeine and alcohol are a dangerous combination

"One bourbon, one scotch, one latte..."

I went skiing in Italy a few years ago. One day, I'd had a hankering for Black Russians all afternoon.

We went to a bar where the barman prided himself on knowing about cocktails. So I asked for my Black Russian, and watched his face fall...

He looked it up in his book, and then came over to our table looking sheepish. Apparently, they didn't have any Tia Maria, but they did have a local coffee liqueur, and would that do? Of course, I agreed.

It turned out that the local liqueur was made from espresso. So I was drinking a large slug of vodka with a significant percentage of a Bulgarian funbag of caffeine.

Three of those, and I was climbing the walls...

Vic.

Re: I drive a Berlingo.

People comaining about Citroen build quality bought the wrong cars.

Go back to the '80s and Citroen had some shocking build quality...

Vic.

Re: I'm reminded of the old C6

the depreciation has been hefty

You should see the XM. In 1990, when they launched, they started at about £30k. ~10 years later, I was paying £200 each...

as would be the first repair bill that came in shortly after buying one

The first repair quote I got[1] from a Citroen main stealer nearly took me off my feet. There's no way I could afford it. It turns out that these cars are actually quite easy to work on yourself - and it's a lot cheaper that way...

Vic.

[1] It was 1994, and time for my XM's MOT. I'd only had it a few months. They failed it because the steering clocked if you span it end-to-end. Apparently, that meant it needed a new rack. I'd only ever replaced a rack on an Escort before that, so I was expecting a similar price. They quoted me £728.32[2] + fitting + VAT: £1200-odd quid in all. I fixed the problem in 20 minutes using no parts.

[2] I'm not sure I'll ever forget that figure. It was a shock.

Re: Meh...@smudge

Terrible rust problems but the GS was a remarkably nice car to drive

I always wanted a CX (still do, really) - but they rust even worse than the GS/GSA...

Citroen got themselves such a bad reputation in that era that they did something about it - when they produced the XM, they went to town on the rust-proofing. If you ever see a rusty XM, it's been in a crash.

Shame about the electrical build quality on them, though...

Vic.

Re: Meh...

Main drawback was that the near-horizontal rear window meant that the rear-seat covering was reduced to baked dust after a few summers' sun.

Nah - main drawback was the 5-sided adjusters on the front brake calipers.

Vic.

Re: Meh...

The DS was a magnificent car, there was hardly a single part of the car that was 'normal'

The steering system was rather excellent on many models - they had the Diravi power steering system. This gave you speed-dependent variable assist and didn't give you a directinal change if you hit a pothole or similar. It also made electronics control very much simpler - which is why TRRL used the car for its automatic steering tests.

Sadly, most of the UK ones only had a conventional steering system.

Vic.

Re: Well that's a good solution

p.s. Yes, I know this is properly paranoid. But over the last few years, I keep finding that what I think of as paranoid projections actually don't go nearly far enough to match reality...

Vic.

Re: He asked the wrong person...... since Al invented the Internet.

Maybe El Reg needs a small competition for which country elects the biggest idiot when they could have had a decent President or Prime Minister?

Yeah, but we'd all lose...

Vic.

Re: Well that's a good solution

It is quite possible to host an unregistered web site or to register it with an alternative registry

I expect to see a rather different approach. Bear with me - this works in several phases...

Firstly, you get hold of a botnet. You install nameservers on the bots, and allow recursive lookups. Initially, you use this for DDoS by way of an DNS amplification attack[1]. This appears to be the purpose of the malware - but is actually a smokescreen. Each botnet member spewing forged UDP DNS requests to a different member means the botnet is pretty much self-sustaining in its attack.

The second step - assuming you haven't over-blown the first step and gotten the botnet shut down - is to use your DNS botnet for a little spoofing. Using malware to change people's nameservers, you get innocent people to use your DNS resolvers - installing a counterfeit root CA will also make things a lot easier, But occasionally, you send spoofed DNS responses, causing some traffic to be redirected to spoofed sites[2]. There's a little profit to be made in this phase, but it is yet again a smokescreen.

Now comes phase three. This is the real purpose of the setup. Your bad guys get themselves infected with the malware that causes the nameserver change. This is the deniability bit - they're innocent victims of known malware, right? Now your operatives search Google for some fairly innocent term - but, they are redirected to a server[3] you control, and are given the comms you want them to get. It looks like traffic-hijacking, but it becomes a covert comms channel.

The only really tricky part is to get the botnet up and running - but we know such things already exist. The malware to cause nameserver changes and root CA acceptance *should* be mickey-mouse; that will mean the real innocents will mostly avoid the infection, and the technical media can scoff at how unsophisticated the attack is. The people whom you want to infect - your covert operatives - will permit the infection, and create the channel. It's deniable, it would be as hard to trace as most botnet activity, and it can pass messages over SSL without looking overly suspicious.

The only way I can imagine to prevent such activity is to work to prevent botnets occurring in the first place. And that requires our glorious overseers to use their knowledge of zero-days to help the general population, rather than just hoarding vulnerabilities to backdoor machines...

Vic.

[1] DNS amplification attacks are already happening. One of my servers was once used for that purpose; it actually DOSed my connection. I had to shut down my external resolver - which had previously been very useful to me. But it had become a hazard to others.

[2] Nameserver changes and site hijacking are already happening.

[3] This server could indeed be distributed amongst the botnet, making tracing it yet harder.

Re: Using toys as tools...

I imagine that, like almost every other electrical system designed, there are ways that electricity can fail to just the cockpit outlets.

There you go, imagining again...

The only way what you're suggesting would happen is if the wires physcally fell off the back of the socket. An overload will blow the CB - so you remove the load and reset the CB.

Large aircraft have a generator in each engine and another in the APU. Power can be routed from any generator to any circuit - often automatically. In the event that both engines and the APU have all failed, there is still the RAT.

In the event that there is so little power that the load-shedding system activates, the lack of a tablet charger is not going to matter one jot - an emergency landing is the best you can hope for.

Of course, you'd know this if you'd spent any time around such aircraft...

Vic.

Re: Using toys as tools...

You're full of shit, Vic.

One of us is. I leave it to the peanut gallery to determine which. Pssst! I'm a pilot.

So get bent, mate

As a rule, I try never to become "mates" with bullshit artists. That sorta discounts you...

Vic.

Re: Using toys as tools...

It is airline pilots walking into the airline's aircraft with the airline's certified devices.

I wouldn't labour the "certified" bit too much...

I'm not ATPL, but I do talk to them on a regular basis. FWIU, the tablets are essentially just PDF readers - they're there mostly to provide airfield plates. They'll have a few calculator-style things on - probably provided by the airline - but the apps are pretty much the same as I've got on my phone, only with the appropriate parameters for the aircraft being flown...

These things are about reducing the amount of crap in the cabin, nothing more...

Vic.

Re: Using toys as tools...

Yes I have

For crying out loud, Trevor, cut out the bullshit. Earlier, you thought pilots were flying planes through their iPads.

What you are suggesting is nonsensical. Aircraft are not designed to have laptops plugged into them[1]. Even if you can find a diagnostic port, you're not going to get to it without stripping out quite a bit of the interior, and even then you're not going to know how to control anything through it.

Aircraft interiors are designed to be comparatively familiar throughout. Controls are, by and large[2], in simiar positions and do similar things. Labelling is very similar across all aircraft[3]. Instruments do the same things. No aircraft designer permits anyone to come in and plug laptops into the avionics because of the trouble that would inevitably cause.

Vic.

[1] Years ago, I did some work in avionics. Our entire processing cycle was 12.5ms. If you haven't processed all tasks in the queue in that time, the watchdog fires and blows the circuit breaker. Do you really imagine we'd put anything into that to allow remote conmtrol from a laptop?

[2] There is some variation with aircraft like the Airbus family using a side-stick rather than the yoke favoured by Boeing. But the operation of the control is just the same.

[3] We have some very old aircraft in the museum where the instrumentation is fractionally different from "normal" - it has evolved since they were built. But I teach people to fly a 1940s trainer, and the instrumentation is sufficiently similar to the aircraft I fly today that there can be no chance of misinterpreting any of it.

Re: Using toys as tools...

I've seen laptops used as the sole interface to multiple systems for these sorts of systems

No you haven't.

You have crossed over into fantasy-land. Please return to topics you know something about.

Vic.

I'm a taildragger pilot

This is the aircraft I fly. And it's incredible fun :-)

Vic.

Re: Using toys as tools...

I bloody well hope that Being, Airbus etc don't just allow a tablet to connect and give control inputs

They don't. These pilot aids do not form any part of the aircraft systems.

Various aspects of the flight require planning - things like "how much runway am I going to need?" These can be calculated on a piece of paper - which we had to do for one of the exams. But the calculation is easier and *generally* less error-prone if you use a tool on some sort of computer. I've got several on my phone. These tools are simple calculators; they do not constitute avionics, and it is the pilot's legal responsibility to ensure that they come up with appropriate numbers.

Vic.

The gross weight of the aircraft is not 'measurable'

There has been some work on putting strain gauges into the landing gear. From what I've read - I don't fly this sort of aircraft - there is an issue with whether they can get readings that are sufficiently accurate[1] for real calculations. Most of the documentation I've found seems to be about producing an reliable Weight-on-Wheels system[2].

Vic.

[1] Aircraft have large aerodynamic surfaces on them. Even a fairly gentle wind can generate enough lift to make the readings useless.

[2] WoW systems can produce their own difficulties. Numerous pilots have relied on the system to make the gear lift automatically on takeoff by preselecting the "up" position and relying on gear weight to prevent the raise. And then they hit a bump on takeoff...

There's also a graphic display of how WoW can screw up an Airbus landing. The FO flying was completely exonerated for that; the flight manuals were updated to describe that the plane doesn't do what many people expected it to...

Re: BYOD?

I wonder if pilots would like it if plane manufacturers added flight calculators and manuals to built in cockpit controls

No, absolutely not.

Aircraft can be expected to last a good 30-40 years. Can you imagine the hellish device they would have made 40 years ago for htis sort of thing? Flight aids are cheap and easily replaced; they do not constitute avionics.

Vic.

Re: No reason for downvotes for you

Obviously a bit of maintenance is needed afterwards.

I think it's more inspection, rather than maintenance. AIUI, most modern large aicraft have a sacrificial skid on the tail for exactly this reason.

Vic.

"planes aren't designed to drag their rears along runways" - modern commercial planes maybe but pre-WW2 it was pretty much standard. And yes, early ones had actual skids rater than wheels - hense skidmarks.

Many modern planes also have a wheel at the back - officially known as "tailwheel aircraft", but usually called "tail draggers".

They handle somewhat differently on the ground from the more conventional "tricycle"[1] undercarriage, and require a little difference training for a tricycle pilot to cross over.

Landing's fun :-)

Vic.

[1] Yes, I'm well aware that a taildragger, having 3 wheels, also constitutes a tricycle. I'm just using the standard terminology...

Re: Using toys as tools...

In case you haven't guessed a wanna be pilot typing this but at 45 I'm to old, fat and baldness would probably preclude me too.

You're too old to go for ATPL unless you are very rich - although you're within the hiring age range, an airline is unlikely to want to train you all the way up for a comparatively short career. But there's nothing to stop you flying privately.

We have a number of ATPL pilots at the club. They seem to enjoy flying light aircraft at the weekends...

Vic.

Re: Using toys as tools...

You cannot assume that. Not for mission critical gear.

Have you actually been in an aircraft cockpit?

Vic.

Re: Using toys as tools...

Well, I'm starting from the assumption that they use this device for more than simply inputting flight data. My guess is that it is the interface to any number of computers that don't have keyboards and screens

Don't start from that assumption. It is incorrect. Search for a flight manual for any modern aircraft to see what *is* provided - they're available on the Intertubes...

It is not exactly a stretch of the imagination to think that some (or even many) of these items might get pressed into service in an airplane

Not as part of the fitted avionics. The amount of work to certify any flight equipment is extensive; anything that goes in a cockpit is well-qualified and expected to work reliably for the lifetime of the aircraft. Consumer-grade kit just doesn't meet the grade.

There will always be a place for tools - I still carry my CRP-1 on most flights, even if I also carry a tablet running SkyDemon. But these are pilot aids only; it is the pilot's responsibility to assess the results from all of these tools and act appropriately - discarding anything he suspects to be erroneous.

But it's the least shit of the available options for this requirement set.

I really don't think you understand the requirements.

Vic.

Re: We're the only one...

So you mean in HTTPS if foo.com is a CNAME for bar.com a bar.com certificate is valid for foo.com?

No. We're not talking about HTTPS. We're talking about SMTP.

Moreover, you can't be sure the domain owner trusted that server, how could you know from the MX result alone?

If the MX record for one domain says to use the MTA for another, then you have an explicit, stated trust relationship. If, as a domain owner, you don't trust the domain's MTA, don't use it.

Face it, SMTP security is broken

It isn't. It just needs more widespread adoption of the security measures in place. At present, hardly any are actually used, yet we still get encryption.

it needs a new RFC

So go and write one. And get others to adopt it.

In the meantime, leave the rest of us to get on with improving things to make the most of what we've got.

Vic.

Re: We're the only one...

It's not enough to check if a certificate is valid. You should ensure the certificate is the right one for the domain of the recipients

Yes. That's what's meant by "verifying" the certificate. MTAs are trivially configurable to do such verification - but as yet, there aren't enough with appropriate certificates in place for that to be worth doing.

That still doesn't mean that OE is useless, it just means that there is room for improvement - and the code to do it is already in place.

The problem is, as another commented pointed out, many MX records redirect to a different servers which hosts the mailboxes - often in its own different domain.

That is the domain owner's decision. That's what "ownership" means. It's also relatively easy to secure that link to the extent of the trust system in SSL by securing the MX record with DNSSEC.

The way SMTP is designed today it could only work if an MX record points to servers for the same domain - an MTA could check if recipient somebody@foo.com will be really delivered to a server using a foo.com certificate, after it obtained the server certificate.

And if it's important to you to secure the domain, you do that. If you choose not to do so, there's no grounds for complaint later.

But if I'm sending to foo.com, ask the MX record and get aspmx.1.google.com, EHLO/STARTTLS it and the server answer with a valid certificate for aspmx.1.google.com, what the the MTA should do?

Take it. If the domain owner has said he trusts that server, all you need is a verified certificate. If that's not enough security for you - don't trust someone else's server.

And what if the DNS is poisoned

If you can poison DNSSEC, you can poison anything, so all talk of security is moot. If you require security - use DNSSEC to obviate the DNS poisoning attacks.

Yes, you get some encryption which may be often better than nothing

It is better than nothing. Cleartext is a mistake far bigger than being vulnerable to a few privileged attackers.

And your email will still be in cleartext on the server, with no protection.

If your mail is important enough to you that that is a problem, make sure the server is encrypted. If you're using someone else's server, you probably don't care that mush.

TL;DR: security isn't an all-or-nothing affair; just because you're not protected against every single possible attack, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be proteecting yourself against what you can.

Vic.

Re: We're the only one...

SMTP encryption (as designed and implemented till now) it's useless

It is not. It might be far from perfect, but OE is still better than cleartext.

Most MTAs don't check the certificate, nor check the addresses domains against the certificate of the receiving end

I can't vouch for all MTAs, but it is usual for that to be a configurable option. It is rarely used because few MTAs are set up for such checks to succeed. Iff we get to the point where the majority do, then such checks will be turned on. Until then, certificate enforcement[1] is really only going to leave you with an inability to send email.

Vic.

[1] Certificate checking is commonplace - my server does it on every STARTTLS. But most verifications fail.

Re: Bathroom Refurbishment

Would gmail alert you to the recipient insisting on downgrading the security of your outgoing communications? If so, it would need to do a preparatory handshake test of the recipient email server to see what is supported, and then give the chance for the sender to think twice about sending the message

It would be easier to have a header to say that the mail requires TLS, and then return it as undeliverable if TLS is not available.

This, of course, only works for the first hop. There is no way to counter a well-behaved first hop forwarding onto a malicious second.

Vic.

Re: We're the only one...

I have never knowingly sent an encrypted message to anyone

Knowingly or not, it's almost certain that you will have sent one.

I discovered email encryption when looking through the logs on my mail server. It was using encryption because that was the default. I saw all the "verify=FAIL" messages, and had a quick panic; a bit of reading reassured me as to why this is (currently) quite normal.

Vic.

Re: Yeah, right.

It needs to be baked into the mail protocols so that encryption is the default. It would need to be phased in in a backwards compatible manner

You've already got that. SMTP aleady supports the STARTTLS verb, and you can configure your mailserver to require TLS for some or all of your connections. This isn't today's technology - it's been there a long time.

The problem you have is that many people simply do not use the capabilities there. Until and unless they do, you either need to fallback to no enxryption, or you need to balkanise email. So far, we've had the former, although I suspect the latter isn't all that far away.

What Google needs to do is start pushing RFCs for this

That's sorta what they're doing here - naming and shaming those that do not use the TLS capabilities that have existed for many years...

Vic.

Re: IPv6 + IoT

When they start to realize the sheer magnitude of it, they will just give up.

Perhaps that's the answer- we all fill up our networks with IoT crap that sends a perpetual stream of useless drivel to its masters...

Vic.