date:20150226

Very interesting to say: Todays modern computing software programs that are
available or sold are use for forensic tools. Knowing this, I'm assuming they
could be re-engineer.

Example of hard drive forensic tools.

EnCase Portable

The Sleuth Kit Informer
http://www.sleuthkit.org/informer/sleuthkit-informer-20.txt

http://www.sleuthkit.org/informer
http://sleuthkit.sourceforge.net/informer

File System Forensic Analysis

Hiding Data in Hard-Drive’s Service Areas
http://www.recover.co.il/SA-cover/SA-cover.pdf

http://www.vidstrom.net/stools/taft/
TAFT is an ATA (IDE) forensics tool that communicates directly with the ATA
controller. It can retrieve various information about a hard disk, as well as
look at and change the HPA and DCO settings.

HDD Guru http://hddguru.com/

Hidden Disk Areas: HPA and DCO
https://utica.edu/academic/institutes/ecii/publications/articles/EFE36584-D13F-2962-67BEB146864A2671.pdf

Device configuration overlay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_configuration_overlay\

Device configuration overlay (DCO) is a hidden area on many of today’s hard
disk drives (HDDs). Usually when information is stored in either the DCO or
host protected area (HPA), it is not accessible by the BIOS, OS, or the user.
However, certain tools can be used to modify the HPA or DCO. The system uses
the IDENTIFY_DEVICE command to determine the supported features of a given
hard drive, but the DCO can report to this command that supported features
are nonexistent or that the drive is smaller than it actually is. To
determine the actual size and features of a disk, the
DEVICE_CONFIGURATION_IDENTIFY command is used, and the output of this command
can be compared to the output of IDENTIFY_DEVICE to see if a DCO is present
on a given hard drive. Most major tools will remove the DCO in order to fully
image a hard drive, using the DEVICE_CONFIGURATION_RESET command. This
permanently alters the disk, unlike with the Host Protected Area (HPA), which
can be temporarily removed for a power cycle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area
Host protected area
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The host protected area (also referred to as hidden protected area[1]) is an
area of a hard drive that is not normally visible to an operating system
(OS).

Re: [Trisquel-users] Join the Trisquel Cafe!

quantumgravity said: You got it wrong... this thread is NOT the trisquel cafe  
;)


Quantum YOU JUST GOT FISHED IN WITH MY FISHING LURE!
 I'm reeling you, WITH MY Master Troller FISHING POLE!
LOL

ANOTHER FAT FISH TO THE PAN!

Re: [Trisquel-users] Brother DCP-7055 printer

2015-02-26 Thread amilopowers

Thanky again for your video. Should it work now directly or are there any  
other steps to perform?

Re: [Trisquel-users] Spying software hidden deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers


http://www.wired.com/2015/02/nsa-firmware-hacking/

ANOTHER ARTICLE
How the NSA’s Firmware Hacking Works and Why It’s So Unsettling

By Kim Zetter
02.22.15

One of the most shocking parts of the recently discovered spying network  
Equation Group is its mysterious module designed to reprogram or reflash a  
computer hard drive’s firmware with malicious code. The Kaspersky  
researchers who uncovered this said its ability to subvert hard drive  
firmware—the guts of any computer—“surpasses anything else” they had  
ever seen.


The hacking tool, believed to be a product of the NSA, is significant because  
subverting the firmware gives the attackers God-like control of the system in  
a way that is stealthy and persistent even through software updates. The  
module, named “nls_933w.dll”, is the first of its kind found in the wild  
and is used with both the EquationDrug and GrayFish spy platforms Kaspersky  
uncovered.


It also has another capability: to create invisible storage space on the hard  
drive to hide data stolen from the system so the attackers can retrieve it  
later. This lets spies like the Equation Group bypass disk encryption by  
secreting documents they want to seize in areas that don’t get encrypted.


Kaspersky has so far uncovered 500 victims of the Equation Group, but only  
five of these had the firmware-flashing module on their systems. The flasher  
module is likely reserved for significant systems that present special  
surveillance challenges. Costin Raiu, director of Kaspersky’s Global  
Research and Analysis Team, believes these are high-value computers that are  
not connected to the internet and are protected with disk encryption.


Here’s what we know about the firmware-flashing module.
How It Works

Hard drive disks have a controller, essentially a mini-computer, that  
includes a memory chip or flash ROM where the firmware code for operating the  
hard drive resides.


When a machine is infected with EquationDrug or GrayFish, the firmware  
flasher module gets deposited onto the system and reaches out to a command  
server to obtain payload code that it then flashes to the firmware, replacing  
the existing firmware with a malicious one. The researchers uncovered two  
versions of the flasher module: one that appears to have been compiled in  
2010 and is used with EquatinoDrug and one with a 2013 compilation date that  
is used with GrayFish.


The Trojanized firmware lets attackers stay on the system even through  
software updates. If a victim, thinking his or her computer is infected,  
wipes the computer’s operating system and reinstalls it to eliminate any  
malicious code, the malicious firmware code remains untouched. It can then  
reach out to the command server to restore all of the other malicious  
components that got wiped from the system.


Even if the firmware itself is updated with a new vendor release, the  
malicious firmware code may still persist because some firmware updates  
replace only parts of the firmware, meaning the malicious portions may not  
get overwritten with the update. The only solution for victims is to trash  
their hard drive and start over with a new one.


The attack works because firmware was never designed with security in mind.  
Hard disk makers don’t cryptographically sign the firmware they install on  
drives the way software vendors do. Nor do hard drive disk designs have  
authentication built in to check for signed firmware. This makes it possible  
for someone to change the firmware. And firmware is the perfect place to  
conceal malware because antivirus scanners don’t examine it. There’s also  
no easy way for users to read the firmware and manually check if it’s been  
altered.


The firmware flasher module can reprogram the firmware of more than a dozen  
different hard drive brands, including IBM, Seagate, Western Digital, and  
Toshiba.


“You know how much effort it takes to land just one firmware for a hard  
drive? You need to know specifications, the CPU, the architecture of the  
firmware, how it works,” Raiu says. The Kaspersky researchers have called  
it “an astonishing technical accomplishment and is testament to the  
group’s abilities.”


Once the firmware is replaced with the Trojanized version, the flasher module  
creates an API that can communicate with other malicious modules on the  
system and also access hidden sectors of the disk where the attackers want to  
conceal data they intend to steal. They hide this data in the so-called  
service area of the hard drive disk where the hard disk stores data needed  
for its internal operation.

Hidden Storage Is the Holy Grail

The revelation that the firmware hack helps store data the attackers want to  
steal didn’t get much play when the story broke last week, but it’s the  
most significant part of the hack. It also raises a number of questions about  
how exactly the attackers are pulling this off. Without an actual copy of the  
firmware

Re: [Trisquel-users] Trisquel-users Digest, Vol 68, Issue 119

2015-02-26 Thread MACANAS VALVERDE, PEDRO ANTONIO

Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2015 20:20:58 -0600
From: J.B. Nicholson-Owens j...@forestfield.org
To: trisquel-users@listas.trisquel.info
Subject: Re: [Trisquel-users] The truth about Purism
Message-ID: 54ee830a.6030...@forestfield.org
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

gary02121...@openmailbox.org wrote:
 What if Purism is a set up by people like Microsoft or those anti-free
 people? In effect, it pisses people of and in time reduces free software
 supporters. H...

Claims like this require evidence. I don't see the evidence that Purism
is a set up by people like Microsoft or those anti-free people. 

Could include a RYF certification? 
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Open-source_hardwareoldid=648931184#RYF_certification

If you
know of some, I'd like to see that evidence. I also don't see the
evidence that people in the market for an FSF Respects Your
Freedom-qualifying laptop are fairly characterized as pissed off or
that support for free software is reduced by Purism, regardless of what
comes of the effort.

I see the work those against software freedom do. But that work is
typically clumsy and usually involves the greenwashing open source
movement (see Brad Kuhn's recent talk[1] for more on this). I don't
think any serious anti-freedom zealot like software proprietors would
frame their work around software freedom when the open source movement
has had some popularity; that movement has convinced some developers to
relinquish not only their software freedom but the software freedom of
their users and those of users of derivative works.

Finally, it appears to me to be easier to assemble and sell laptops that
don't even try to address a user's freedoms to control their computer.
Companies make a great deal of money doing exactly this every day.

[1]
http://mirror.slingshot.co.nz/pub/linux.conf.au/2015/Case_Room_2/Thursday and
/Considering_the_Future_of_Copyleft_How_Will_The_Next_Generation_Perceive_GPL.webm
http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/linux.conf.au/2015/Case_Room_2/Thursday/Considering_the_Future_of_Copyleft_How_Will_The_Next_Generation_Perceive_GPL.webm
are a couple of mirrors of this talk.

--

___
Trisquel-users mailing list
Trisquel-users@listas.trisquel.info
http://listas.trisquel.info/mailman/listinfo/trisquel-users

End of Trisquel-users Digest, Vol 68, Issue 119
***

Re: [Trisquel-users] Join the Trisquel Cafe!

2015-02-26 Thread maestro

:P

Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs

2015-02-26 Thread blade . vp2020


ftp://a...@aag.owncloud.arvixe.com/public_ftp/ports.tar.gz

[Trisquel-users] Re : How to check whether the software is free or not?

2015-02-26 Thread lcerf

The first thing to do is to check out the license it is distributed under.  
The mere name of the license may be listed in  
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html that will tell you whether it  
is a free software license.


That said, it might be harder: software under a permissive license can depend  
on a proprietary library for instance; Linux, under the GNU GPL, includes  
blobs disguised as source code; etc. Also, be aware that a free software  
application may recommend proprietary software (for example Firefox  
recommends Adobe Flash).

Re: [Trisquel-users] How to check whether the software is free or not?

2015-02-26 Thread marioxcc . MT

Check that the licenses are free software licenses (some free licenses may be  
missing from there, but most free software packages use one of these  
licenses), and that the package has complete source code available. You can  
check the license by downloading the source code. For the GNU licenses and  
some other licenses, there should be a copy of the license itself distributed  
along with the software; not complying with this requisite doesn't makes the  
program proprietary; but it's a sign that the developer is sloppy about  
licensing and he may unintentionally have included proprietary dependencies  
or failed to unambiguously make his program free software. It must be clear  
which license apply to each file. Just including the license in the source  
distribution without further licensing information leaves uncertain whether  
the license applies to the program, and hence it can not be considered free  
software (See the GNU GPL FAQ).


Check the section How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs in the GNU  
General Public License. These are guidelines, though. It's not a necessary  
condition to follow these guidelines in order for a program to be free  
software, but it's a sufficient condition provided that entire package is  
under that license, and that source code is included.


Some software packages have no license, and that makes them proprietary (See  
the GNU GPL FAQ § No License). If you find software like this that would be  
useful in a fully free system, consider writing to the author to make him  
aware that because of the lack of license, his software is proprietary  
(despite that he may have intended otherwise), and ask him to make it free  
software (preferentially under the GNU GPL). This is almost always due to  
indolence of the author, specifically, a disliking for Copyright law coupled  
with the erroneous belief that ignoring it will make it not apply.


Note that sometimes there is object code in the form of human readable  
programming language code. Notably, this is the case with Linux, but I don't  
know of any other package doing the same.


Apart from being fully free itself, you should make sure that the program  
doesn't has mandatory proprietary dependencies but this not necessary to do  
explicitly if you have checked that the package itself is free and you have  
no proprietary software installed (you would notice if that was the case  
because the package will not compile or will not run properly).

Re: [Trisquel-users] How to enable in Abrowser: 60 fps , 1080p and other options

2015-02-26 Thread jei

MSE != EME, however in YouTube's case the Javascript code that they use MSE  
with is of course non-free.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Join the Trisquel Cafe!

2015-02-26 Thread ka1cey

Keep eating that fish; its brain food;  LOL!  And I'm another that just got  
reeled in; not with good taste, but tasting good;  HaHaHa.  I really need to  
start visiting this Trisquel Cafe Place;  look at all the gnus and penguins!

Re: [Trisquel-users] Abrowser's default sans-serif font

2015-02-26 Thread arielgnu

I had the same question some time ago. I don't know if still the same, but it  
used to be droid sans.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Trisquel-users Digest, Vol 68, Issue 119

2015-02-26 Thread J.B. Nicholson-Owens


MACANAS VALVERDE, PEDRO ANTONIO wrote:

Could include a RYF certification?


Maybe they'll pursue RYF certification if they could find a way to ship 
100% free software firmware for the computer. But I'll need a clear 
explanation of how a lack of RYF certification here is evidence of some 
proprietor trying to do something malicious as opposed to working on a 
product that users can operate fully in freedom.

Re: [Trisquel-users] I can not press the right click

2015-02-26 Thread ka1cey

Until you figure how to make right-clicking work, use the keys 'ctrl+f10' on  
the desktop and panels, to get the menu with options like new folder, add  
launcher, add to panel, etc.  In Nautilus, you can use 'shift+f10', to get  
the context menu with properties, move to, etc...



HTH,


Dave

Re: [Trisquel-users] Libreboinc: A totally free Boinc, only for free projects

2015-02-26 Thread jabjabs

That is a brilliant idea! Shame I cannot help out in terms of the technology,  
but the idea is a great start.

Re: [Trisquel-users] The truth about Purism

2015-02-26 Thread jabjabs

I remember it well, that ad hominem attack was just one of many warning bells  
about the character of the project.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Join the Trisquel Cafe!

Once a wise man told me: Try to have sex, while standing up, at the same time  
eating a granola bar with a glass of milk. I did today, only in my dreams...

Re: [Trisquel-users] Join the Trisquel Cafe!

2015-02-26 Thread shiretoko


You got it wrong... this thread is NOT the trisquel cafe ;)

Re: [Trisquel-users] Libreboinc: A totally free Boinc, only for free projects

Sorry it should be PS3Grid. For some reason there is a licensefile of  
PS3Grid, maybe an error.

Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs

2015-02-26 Thread mail


Same here. I can't log on, either.
(Oh, hey, you use Arvixe for Owncloud too! :D)
And might I ask, how did you deblob the ports tree?

[Trisquel-users] Re : Libreboinc: A totally free Boinc, only for free projects

2015-02-26 Thread lcerf


No problem here.

Re: [Trisquel-users] are there free software cameras with batteries?


Respectfully and don't scream at me. 
i don’t believe i ever did

i agree that there needs to be more forum folders
but until then i think its the only way people can
get there questions noticed

Re: [Trisquel-users] Watching vidoes on youtube


i don’t think you should of been down-voted and i didn’t down-vote you
but instead of posting lots of the same comment about how there needs
to be a different forum for off topic posts (which there rely should be)

you could try using this page as we currently don’t have a off topic fourm
https://trisquel.info/en/contact

Re: [Trisquel-users] Libreboinc: A totally free Boinc, only for free projects


Here is the LibreBoinc repository https://gitorious.org/libreboinc.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Brother DCP-7055 printer


at the end of the video i was saying
if the printer dose not work then
maby its the driver your installing that
dose not work (although it should)

because i do not have a printer i could not test these drivers out

if you installed the driver you should now be-able to set up your printer

Re: [Trisquel-users] Libreboinc: A totally free Boinc, only for free projects


I found 3 interesting things in the licenses.

1. Most is licensed under LGPL.

2. It has a restriction but maybe it isn´t a problem:

Restrictions

You may use this software on a computer system only if you own the system or  
have the permission of the owner.


3. PS2Grids license is non free. Maybe some one has to help me there, if I  
miss a file.


Momentary I use the materbranch on the latest code.
I will uplad the code to Gitorious. In a rather unmodified state.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Libreboinc: A totally free Boinc, only for free projects

2015-02-26 Thread mail


I'm pretty sure that restriction disqualifies it as free software.
Freedom 0- to run the program for any purpose. That's restricting freedom 1,  
isn't it?

Re: [Trisquel-users] Libreboinc: A totally free Boinc, only for free projects

2015-02-26 Thread legimet . calc


 2. It has a restriction but maybe it isn´t a problem:

 Restrictions

 You may use this software on a computer system only if you own the system  
or have the permission of the owner.


That's just a warning and not part of the license, so it isn't a problem. The  
license is LGPL.


 3. PS2Grids license is non free. Maybe some one has to help me there, if I  
miss a file.


What is PS2Grids? I grep'd the source code and couldn't find anything.

Re: [Trisquel-users] unetbootin fork

2015-02-26 Thread legimet . calc

You should get it into Trisquel. Make a package helper, and submit a merge  
request to the git repository.

Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs

2015-02-26 Thread gramex


What's the password for the FTP server? I can't log on.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Libreboinc: A totally free Boinc, only for free projects


Are any of these licenses nonfree?

// wxWidgets Library Licence, Version 3.1
// http://www.wxwidgets.org/
// Source: http://www.wxwidgets.org/
// Copyright (c) 1998-2012 Julian Smart, Robert Roebling et al
//
//
// cURL  libCURL
// http://curl.haxx.se/
// Source: http://curl.haxx.se/
// Copyright (c) 1996 - 2012, Daniel Stenberg, .
//
//
// OpenSSL  SSLeay
// http://www.openssl.org/
// Source: http://www.openssl.org/
// Copyright (c) 1998-2012 The OpenSSL Project.  All rights reserved.
// Copyright (C) 1995-1998 Eric Young (e...@cryptsoft.com)
//
//
// zLib Commpression Library
// http://www.zlib.org
// Source: http://www.zlib.org
// Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler
//
//
// International Components for Unicode
// http://www.icu-project.org/
// Source: http://www.icu-project.org/
// Copyright © 1995-2012 International Business Machines Corporation and  
others. All Rights Reserved.

//
//
// Liberation Fonts
// https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/
// Source: https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/
// Digitized data copyright (c) 2010 Google Corporation
//  with Reserved Font Arimo, Tinos and Cousine.
// Copyright (c) 2012 Red Hat, Inc.
//  with Reserved Font Name Liberation.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Libreboinc: A totally free Boinc, only for free projects


I think I could just delete this paragraph.
Maybe they had added this restriction, because the chefs were getting angry  
about the power consumption.

Re: [Trisquel-users] unetbootin fork