Torrents and Usenet Downloading with an iPhone

No idea if this is a new feature introduced with a newer version of Dropbox, but it is possible to download nzb and torrent files through the Mobile Safari app.

What you need is the following (for a complete downloading system):

• A Dropbox account (the 2GB version is free!!!!)
• A torrent application with the possibility of using a so-called watch-folder (e.g. Vuze)
• An usenet application with a watch-folder capability (e.g. SabNZBd+)
• An iPhone with the Dropbox app.

First you need to setup Dropbox. This is the easiest part. Just create two folders called 'NZB' and 'Torrent'. These folders will contain the downloaded torrent and nzb files.

After that you need to configure the Vuze and/or NZB download application to use a watch-folder.
I use these apps on my Mac Mini server. So it's operational 24/7.

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Wireshark on Ubuntu 10.10

Last week, I acquired a small netbook @ work for testing purposes (HP Mini 5103). You don't want to know how handy a second laptop is when you're testing authentication environments.

For flexibility purposes I installed a dual-boot with Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise and Ubuntu Linux v10.10 from a USB Flashdrive (1, 2), erasing all the preinstalled HP/McAfee crap. This all worked like a charm, up to the installtion of Wireshark in Ubuntu. Starting the sniffer application resulted in an empty list of network adapters. No network adapters mean no capturing capabilities.

This was probably related to the lack of rights while starting the application. Running it from the terminal with sudo resulted in some weird error regarding a display-thingy (which is still the main reason why Linux isn't penetrating the desktop market).

While searching the Interwebs, I found the following solution. Which, after some alterations to the commands, the following worked for me;

In a terminal session, execute these commands:

sudo addgroup –quiet –system wireshark (this command simply didn't work in my case)
sudo chown root:wireshark /usr/bin/dumpcap
sudo setcap cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin=eip /usr/bin/dumpcap

usermod -a -G wireshark <my user name>

Reconfigure the Wireshark Common package and answer ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Should non-superusers be able to capture packets?

sudo dpkg-reconfigure wireshark-common (I needed to add the sudo part on this command)

After rebooting the laptop, Wireshark started normally with all the network interfaces available for capturing traffic.

UPDATE: I did a reinstall of the OS, and this time Wireshark started 'properly' from the Terminal application by typing (without the quotes) 'sudo wireshark'.

Cisco Secure ACS 5.x and Apple OSX Directory (LDAP)

For testing and development purposes I run a Cisco Secure ACS 5.x in a virtual machine at home. In this environment I also run an Apple Directory Service. I'll be using this setup to test several 802.1x and RADIUS authentication schemes.

To get things going I needed to connect to the ACS to my LDAP Directory. The Apple Directory Service is a bit different from the regular LDAP implementations. They seem to add the 'apple' reference in a lot of attribute values. Thankfully the ACS has a very versatile configuration interface.

Apple references in attribute valuesNormally, the group definition would be 'group' instead of 'apple-group'. So the configuration of the ACS should reflect these variations to the standard.

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Lousy Adobe Reader 10.0.1 Update

Earlier this week I got the announcement (I opened an Adobe application) that there was an update for the Adobe Reader app. Security-conscious as I am, I fired up the update process.

Each time, this process stopped at the (near??) end of the installation with the following error:

The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.adobe.ARM error 1807.)

The error also suggested looking at the log file. Examination of this file showed nothing out of the ordinary. At least not that made sense to me.
There were some lines in the log that made me try to do a work-around (in bold);

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PGP Services Menu Integration

During the clean-up of my personal data on my Mac's, I found several PGP encrypted containers, and encrypted files. To see what was stored in them, I needed to install PGP (again).

After installing the software I dug up my keyrings and everything worked fine, until I tried to encrypt an e-mail. In the old days you had a button for encrypting the body of an e-mail message, but today things have changed. PGP is using some sort of (local) proxy to encrypt, decrypt, sign and verify e-mail messages. BUT there's also the possibility to do this with text on the clipboard, or text you selected with your mouse/keyboard.

This is where I ran into some missing functionality; Normally the PGP actions are visible under the 'right-mouse' click -> Services, but no PGP actions available. Further investigation showed that no PGP actions were available on (plain) text in editors. PGP actions on entire files were no problem.

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802.1x: Machine Access Restriction 'Vulnerability'

Today we ran into a feature of the Machine Authentication Restrictions (MAR) option in the Cisco Secure ACS Radius server. It seems that when you're using the ACS for 802.1x authentication, you have the option of demanding that the authenticating users can only be authenticated when the computer is already authenticated. This way, you make sure that no user can access the network without a legitimate PC.

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Geotagging Nikon P7000 RAW files (NRW)

PhotoLinkerI tend to geotag most of my photos. This way I have location information with the photo for future reference. It's also a neat feature that you might exploit when creating photo albums with e.g. iPhoto. The GPS coordinates in the images creates the option to create maps in iPhoto albums.

I use geotagging in two different ways. I use the jf Geocoding plugin in Lightroom and the PhotoLinker application. Both have their (dis)advantages. Something I won't go into in this post.

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Microsoft Office 2008:Mac - Office did not install correctly

Come on.... it isn't even Monday. It's Friday for crying out loud.

What happened you ask? Well.....

I got an e-mail with a XLS file attached (I know.. shit happens). So I tried to open it, but I got a reminder that I hadn't (re)installed Office 2008 on my new iMac. But not to worry. I have the official Microsoft Office 2008 DMG (with matching serial number) on my Drobo, so the installation was done in a matter of minutes.

This is when it happened. Starting office resulted in this error: "Office did not install correctly". It even had a link to a Microsoft article explaining I needed an update. But the update wouldn't install since it was for OSX 10.4 (or something). Installing the latest update didn't solve it either.

Well, remove Office and reinstall it then... That didn't work either. Still the same error.

Searching the Interwebs resulted in a suggestion to remove everything Microsoft from the Mac.... And so I did. Especially the locations like:

/Library/Preferences/
~/Library/Preferences/

should be free of everything Microsoft. After trashing the Trash I reinstalled Office 2008. This time I was asked to enter my name and serial number. Something that didn't happen the first times. Then it occurred to me; I had copied my preferences (and other settings) when I migrated from my old to my new iMac. I guess that Microsoft doesn't support that.

It would have been nice if they had an option in the Removal Tool (which they generously supply) to remove EVERYTHING. I think that they didn't forget it. I think that this is by design. Just to screw with us Mac user.

iMac with Multiple Monitors

One can not have enough screen "real-estate" when working with photos, or while exploring your web-development skillz. So, a single display is simply not an option in my case......

Next to my 27" iMac stands a Dell 24" TFT Display. This Dell display is being abused for two things;

1. extended display for my iMac, and
2. as a main monitor for my (Windows) work laptop

using the input selector on the TFT display.

Since I'm a guy and I rock at multitasking (*cough*), I have both my Windows (work) laptop and my iMac powered on. In this scenario I have only one active display on my iMac. The second display should therefor not be used, and this is where Apple fails miserably.

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Adobe Coldfusion 8 and 9 Vulnerable to Hijacking

Adobe released a security bulletin regarding the Coldfusion web engine. Upgrade / patch your Coldfusion server if you like to stay in control of your webserver. The patch has been classified as important.

An important vulnerability has been identified in ColdFusion 8.0, 8.0.1, 9.0, 9.0.1 for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX. This directory traversal vulnerability could lead to information disclosure (CVE-2010-2861). Adobe has provided a solution to the reported vulnerability. It is recommended that users update their product installation using the instructions provided above.

The patch/update get be downloaded here.