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The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

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171–180 of 269 posts

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is completely irresponsible and without excuse for any main network operator/owner to not be completely aware of what each and every cable does which is connected to a switch/network router. If the owner refuses to determine this, they are responsible if there is a nefarious device on the network until they do. Wireless makes this much more complicated so any responsible admin will ensure the wireless network is c…

This is a silly take. People and orgs have a million reasons why their cables might be unlabeled. Shame on you for binary thinking without considering real world confounding factors.

What I am hearing is that is that it is not practical to expect network admins to be in control of their networks and sub-sequentially it is not practical to ensure no malicious devices are plugged into enterprise networks. Just because it’s difficult to do doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any plans to release to code? I would love to take a look.

The license.md does not say it is open source :)

The person who has the device never agreed to that license…

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#173
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if this guy is just a hell of an introvert who is more comfortable rigging something like this up than with interacting with this boss. If this kid was in his early 20s I'd probably slap his wrist and impress on him the dangers of screwing with the company network closet. If he is an adult he really ought to know better

just came here to say that while I understand the sentiment, people in their 20s can vote, and should be considered adults, not kids.

Legally that's true but I think you know as well as anyone that people don't just suddenly mature on the day of their 18th birthday.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#174
post #46

>And what do we do, when we want to find out a location associated with a wifi name? We go to wigle.net, enter the SSID (=wifi name) and it tells us where on the world it is found. I've always enjoyed having unique/personal SSIDs, but had never seriously considered this consequence. I wonder what the worlds generic SSIDs are.

Consequence of the generic SSID is that your device will try to connect to any instance of this SSID and re-prompt for a password when it fails to do so.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is completely irresponsible and without excuse for any main network operator/owner to not be completely aware of what each and every cable does which is connected to a switch/network router. If the owner refuses to determine this, they are responsible if there is a nefarious device on the network until they do. Wireless makes this much more complicated so any responsible admin will ensure the wireless network is c…

This is a silly take. People and orgs have a million reasons why their cables might be unlabeled. Shame on you for binary thinking without considering real world confounding factors.

It’s the thinking of someone who has only worked as places that are three years old and the person who built out the network still works there.

If you’re hired because the old person didn’t follow basic maintenance procedures, you’re still ignorant until you rewire or trace the whole company’s network.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#177
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An encrypted disk would be kind of useless in such a device as it would require the user to login every time the device reboots There is actually a solution for that (shameless plug): https://www.recompile.se/mandos

While I'm sure I could configure this on a system, the level of understanding required to actually create it honestly is fantastic. Is this something you created yourself, or was it a community project?

Hardware security modules are no cakewalk either. For webservers I think most people consider them overkill. They mostly IME get used to handle code signing.

And at one company they were worried about the devices getting stolen, so they could had HSMs and still couldn’t reboot unattended (though most of the signing keys were with humans rather that automated)

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#178
post #37

Gripping! Would love to read more articles in this “genre”. I’m wondering if there was an easy way for the attacker to encrypt or obfuscate some of these configuration files, so that defenders can’t extract settings even when physically connected to the device.

Read The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. An oldie but a goldie.

There’s a PBS made for TV movie about this story too, don’t know if it can still be found on streaming:

https://imdb.com/title/tt0308449/

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#179
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. An oldie but a goldie.

I’ve owned a copy for a while now. This might just be the push I needed to pick it up.

The first time I read it I could not put it down. Incredible book.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#180
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Gifted” individuals are selected at early ages to run through rigorous education programs that greatly push them ahead of their peers. It is a pipeline to create intellectual elites and captains of industry. Gifted kids are widely accepted as the most intelligent kids of a school and held up as the finest examples of the school’s educational abilities.

Do kids in gifted programs go on to become intellectual elites and “captains of industry” at higher rates than their peers?

Anecdotes are not data, but I was in the Gifted And Talented program in high school and I sure did not become either of those. I'm eking out a living as an obscure freelance artist. A lot of my friends are former G/T kids who did not live up to their supposed promise, too.

It got me some interesting opportunities here and there but I am fundamentally kind of a slacker :)

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