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

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

#211

Post by daveidol »

wink wrote: post #26
magicalhippo wrote: post #23

Reminds me of this[1] good old quote from the IRC days hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is. [1]: http://bash.org/?5273

I've also had this problem once, on a university campus though. "net send 'If you can read this, please call IT SUPPORT at ... and tell us'". It worked :)

Ah “net send” - I remember getting a friend in trouble in high school for telling him how to use it.

He sent one to “*” saying something about the FBI or some such, and evidently it ended up reaching computers across the entire local school system (not just our public school).

He was called out of class days later after they looked up the IP and library computer access logs.

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

#212

Post by BlueTemplar »

jokoon wrote: post #13

I'm rather curious, why can't the RPi have soldered flash memory? How much would it cost to add 2, 4, or 8GB of flash memory on it? Because I would gladly pay for a Rpi with such memory if it added 10 dollars. I'm suspecting it would require for them to make a new SOC, breaking compability?

Thus tripling the cost of the cheapest Pi - which costs $5.

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

#213

Post by BlueTemplar »

numpad0 wrote: post #22
jokoon wrote: post #13

I'm rather curious, why can't the RPi have soldered flash memory? How much would it cost to add 2, 4, or 8GB of flash memory on it? Because I would gladly pay for a Rpi with such memory if it added 10 dollars. I'm suspecting it would require for them to make a new SOC, breaking compability?

Compute module has eMMC, and they haven’t been excessively costly because of it or reportedly unreliable in the way SDs are. But either way I suspect that the Foundation design team has some issues in designing power circuits rather than that SD cards being unfit or people are throwing in cheap ones.

Well, that was the issue with older Pis is that they were running powered by (micro) USB 2.0, which officially tops out at 2.5 W. While IIRC the 3rd Pi tended to top out at trying to draw 15 W - SIX TIMES MORE !!! No wonder that SD cards got destroyed in the process !

But AFAIK this shouldn't be an issue any more (assuming a non-counterfeit charger) with USB-C 3.0 (RPi 4+ ?) which starts at 15 W ?

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

#214

Post by mindslight »

cgriswald wrote: post #192
AlecSchueler wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder what effect treating legal adults as children has on their maturity trajectory.

Well the effect of applying draconian computer intrusion laws is extremely damaging to anybody's trajectory, so it's understandable to want to find some empathizeable reason to soften the blow. "Kids" get punished by paying damages and a stern "don't do that again", whereas for adults it's like here's your ten year federal prison sentence for being a witch.

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

#216

Post by BlueTemplar »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #165
pantalaimon wrote: post #6

The nRF52832-MDK has neither WiFi nor RFID capabilities

Sure it does! https://wiki.makerdiary.com/nrf52832-mdk/

Because you can use the 2.4 Ghz chip antenna for anything you want to, including WiFi ?

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

#218

Post by teddyh »

Inhibit wrote: post #205
teddyh wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Initial idea and C++ implementation (using TLS with X.509 certificates and explicit UDP broadcasts) was done in 2007 by another person. Redesign of the protocol (to TLS with OpenPGP keys¹ and DNS Service Discovery²), and re-implementation in Python and C, I did in collaboration with that person. In addition to ongoing maintenance, the relatively recent switch from TLS with OpenPGP keys to TLS with Raw Public Keys³ wa…

That looks like an awesome project but I'm not sure building an LFS system would help developing a system like that. Possibly in understanding and configuring it. I still recall how to build a Linux system from go. Coding what you're working on up in Python/C would take a large unrelated amount of knowledge.

The knowledge about how to write a program comes naturally when you know, in fine enough detail, both the problem which the program should solve, how to solve it, and the environment in which the program should run. In this case, writing a Python server program to respond to requests was relatively simple; Python provides built-in modules which makes writing servers easy. And when you know what the client program (i.e. the program running on the currently locked host) should do, and you know what environment the program has to operate in, the program more or less writes itself.

The first version of the program used a simple UDP broadcasting method to a hard-coded port to find servers, which required some rudimentary networking knowledge, but only basic TCP/IP stuff.

Later, both the server and client parts have gone through numerous refactorings which brought in many features (like a plugin system on the client side, and a D-Bus interface on the server side), but those were manageable chunks to add to an already mature and working system.

But sure, in addition to the knowledge one could acquire from LFS, I also had some high-level knowledge of how TLS and its handshake worked, I knew that there was some way to use OpenPGP keys instead of X.509 certificates in TLS, and I knew a little about how DNS-SD worked. The rest I needed I read up on as I wrote the code.

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

#219

Post by genera1 »

nitrogen wrote: post #194
jaywalk wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAC address filtering isn't a first step towards 802.1x, precisely because of the reason you mentioned. It's damn near pointless for all but the most basic security scenarios.

Obviously it's not a first step toward certificates, but it is a first step away from "anyone can casually plug in a hidden Pi."

Anyone who knows how to setup that RPi to do anything meaningful knows how to spoof mac

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

#220

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

soheil wrote: post #159

I honestly think instead of the username if an email was found and published the author would be receiving so many offers for work from Silicon Valley companies. There aren't that many talented engineers even in SV who could pull something like this off. Sad to see amoral behavior from otherwise smart creative people who're stuck in shitty jobs with shittier bosses.

Are you serious?

Monitor BLE traffic, filter it to a known device (his boss') and update an IoT server with that information when it changes?

On an RPi, that's not even an afternoon of work. I mean, it's cool and I would definitely want to interview someone who did this, but it's hardly "hire this person now!!!" material.

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