Full Circle Magazine: Issue 22

Another month gone by, so you know what that means! Another issue of FCM. This month, we have:

1. Command and Conquer - Resizing Images With FFMPEG.
2. How-To : Program in C - Part 6, Web Development - Part 3
3. Installing CrunchEEE To The EEE PC, and Spreading Ubuntu.
4. My Story - Making The Switch
5. Book Review - Ubuntu For Non-Geeks 3rd Edition
6. MOTU Interview - Emanuele Gentili
7. Top 5 - DVD Rippers
8. PLUS: all the usual goodness…

Read More
http://fullcirclemagazine.org/2009/02/28/heres-issue-22/

Get it while it's hot!
http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-22/

Issues 0 - Current
http://fullcirclemagazine.org/downloads/

Forums:
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270

Wiki:
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine

Bad Actors Part 4 - HostFresh

Bad Actors Part 4 - HostFresh

There was an excellent report published in 2008 by HostExploit that showed the connections between Atrivo and those for whom it provided downstream services. One of those such customers was a Chinese provider called HostFresh. I thought it might be interesting to look at two IP blocks which were previously part of the Atrivo network - 58.65.232.0/21 and 116.50.8.0/21 - but are now routed by others.

Below we can see the information registered about HostFresh:

aut-num: AS23898
as-name: HOSTFRESH-AS-AP
descr: HostFresh Internet
descr: Internet Service Provider
country: HK
notify: ipadmin@hostfresh.com

I encourage you to read the blog archive and review parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series to familiarize yourself with the format.

Read the full story
http://blog.fireeye.com/research/2009/02/bad-actors-part-4---hostfresh.html

Beijing's Top Internet Spy Arrested

The head of the internet monitoring department of Beijing's Municipal Public Security Bureau was arrested on suspicion of taking more than RMB 40 million ($5.8 million) in bribes to help an anti-virus company defeat its competitor. Yu Bing, whose bureau monitors e-mail and web usage in the country as part of China's Great Firewall surveillance system, is accused of taking money from Rising, an anti-virus firm, to frame an executive at its competitor, Micropoint Technology. A vice president of Rising has been arrested as well under suspicion of bribing Yu. Yu and fellow police officers allegedly manufactured evidence against Micropoint Vice President Tian Yakui proving that he spread computer viruses and broke into a computer system to steal trade secrets. Tian reportedly spent 11 months in prison on the charges, and Micropoint encountered three years of obstacles to launch its anti-virus software. Tian was targeted apparently because he was a former vice president at Rising who left the company with Rising's former managing director to build Micropoint.

Micropoint is planning to sue Rising for an estimated RMB 30 million ($4.3 million) in losses.

Rising has fired back at the allegations accusing Micropoint of manufacturing the claims to ruin Rising.

Read the full article
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/beijings-top-in.html

Kudos to MAD for the heads up!

Astaro Security Gateway Free Home Edition

Haven't tried this myself yet, but it looks promising, and the free home version covers 10 machines, which is more than enough for most :o)

What Is It?

The Astaro Security Gateway Home Edition is a free license for full network protection (Network, Web and Mail Security) without any runtime restrictions. In contrast to a commercial license however, it is limited to 10 Users.

The term “users” in the sense of ASG software licensing refers to workstations, clients, servers and other devices which have an IP address and are protected by the Astaro Gateway. No differentiation is made whether the “user” is communicating with the Internet or with a device in another LAN segment. DNS or DHCP gateway queries are also counted, as is the use of proxies.

http://www.astaro.com/our_products/product_overview/landing_pages/free_home_edition?ubb

Spambot Search Tool v0.23

This release incorporates fixes, modifications and an addition, all of which are listed below.

Version: 0.23

Date: 25-02-2009

+ Added error handling in case file_put_contents() is not available (used for the counter and dumping results to text file)
+ Added error handling in case get_headers() is not available (used for the isURLOnline() function)

Special thanks to ShadowPuterDude (malwareteks.com) for reporting these issues to me

Date: 26-02-2009

+ Added error handling in case SBST is forced to use PHP 5 on a system with PHP4 + 5 via .htaccess
* Modified check_spammers.php so the SimpleXMLElement availability check is done prior to the queries running
* Modified isURLOnline to check for PHP5 (skips and defaults to true if < PHP 5)

Special thanks to ShadowPuterDude (malwareteks.com) for reporting the above issues to me

+ Added selective matching so you can have the SBST block only if more than one of the spammers details match (see config.php) (requested)

Download:
http://support.it-mate.co.uk/?mode=Products&p=spambotsearchtool