- Roundtable - muug.ca

Job posting (IT Systems Integration & Support Specialist - UofM Computer Science)
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 19 Jul '21

19 Jul '21

I've just posted the following to the "jobs" mailing list... http://www.muug.ca/pipermail/jobs/2021-July/000099.html ... in case you, or someone you know, may be interested. Gilbert -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Winnipeg MB CANADA R3T 2N2

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Re: [RndTbl] FreeSWITCH, WAN PBXs - Word to the wise
by Alex Weber 08 Jul '21

08 Jul '21

Very funny Troy. I made an even worsee mistake a few months ago. I exposed a new system (intended to be a router) with 'root:root' to the world thinking my brand new nftables knowledge was sound, and it was not. Literally the definition of "enough to be dangerous!". Had multiple successful SSH root logins in the course of only a few hours and decided I was better off wiping and starting over. Fun times! -Alex > Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2021 13:42:55 -0500 > From: Troy Denton <trdenton(a)gmail.com> > To: Continuation of Round Table discussion <roundtable(a)muug.ca> > Subject: [RndTbl] FreeSWITCH, WAN PBXs - Word to the wise > Message-ID: > <CAN8-H5_ONESqpnNu_78_taq8Uu9bnK9Po4FTyq_gkf_y8WKvOg(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Yesterday I modified my freeswitch config to allow phone registration over > the WAN for a very specific and short-term use case. You may remember a > warning about this in my FreeSWITCH presentation - this open registration > is a big no-no. You can probably see where this is going. > > Not being entirely foolish, I introduced an ACL to limit it to my household > IP - or so I thought! The ACL I modified had a default "allow" policy > (woops!!). Within 2 hours, I had hackers trying to authenticate. Within 24 > hours, they were making calls to the Caribbean and Palestine! > > I'm still doing a postmortem to see exactly how they were able to register > - the accounts they were able to use did not (and still do not) exist in my > dialplan. That one's a headscratcher. It's probably a goofy config on my > part. At worst, there was a freeswitch exploit used. > > Luckily les.net has some very good piracy detection, and they were able to > turn off my service before I had any serious financial impact - I'm out > about 25 cents. > > Moral of the story- don't open your PBX's internal registration to the > internet - even if you think you know what you're doing ;) >

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FreeSWITCH, WAN PBXs - Word to the wise
by Troy Denton 07 Jul '21

07 Jul '21

Yesterday I modified my freeswitch config to allow phone registration over the WAN for a very specific and short-term use case. You may remember a warning about this in my FreeSWITCH presentation - this open registration is a big no-no. You can probably see where this is going. Not being entirely foolish, I introduced an ACL to limit it to my household IP - or so I thought! The ACL I modified had a default "allow" policy (woops!!). Within 2 hours, I had hackers trying to authenticate. Within 24 hours, they were making calls to the Caribbean and Palestine! I'm still doing a postmortem to see exactly how they were able to register - the accounts they were able to use did not (and still do not) exist in my dialplan. That one's a headscratcher. It's probably a goofy config on my part. At worst, there was a freeswitch exploit used. Luckily les.net has some very good piracy detection, and they were able to turn off my service before I had any serious financial impact - I'm out about 25 cents. Moral of the story- don't open your PBX's internal registration to the internet - even if you think you know what you're doing ;)

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The Atlantic: The Internet Is Rotting
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 05 Jul '21

05 Jul '21

I found the following article on "link rot" interesting... The Internet Is Rotting "Too much has been lost already. The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone." https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-co… Hope the above link will still work for a while!... ;) Gilbert

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Open Source Animation Project
by Troy Denton 05 Jul '21

05 Jul '21

Hey all - I just finished up a fun little project. I made my first animation in over 10 years, completely with open source software. The software I used: Tahoma2D (https://tahoma2d.org/ <https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLU…>) , kdenlive (https://kdenlive.org <https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLU…>), Ardour (https://ardour.org/ <https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLU…>), Debian - and a lot of patience :) You can see the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KTT8-B9ku4 -Troy

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WIRED: Tech Companies Don’t Need to Be Creepy to Make Money
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 25 Jun '21

25 Jun '21

I thought the following article was interesting... *Tech Companies Don’t Need to Be Creepy to Make Money* The unlikely survival—and success—of DuckDuckGo suggests a way to escape surveillance capitalism. Read in WIRED: https://apple.news/AQkH0EtdBQ5mm846r1zeg7A Gilbert

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iOS bug breaks WiFi if SSID contains "%" characters
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

This one made me laugh. Someone didn't clean up their input strings before passing them along to a formatting function... https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/iphone-bug-breaks-wifi-when-… https://www.engadget.com/iphone-wifi-network-name-bug-191550155.html Watch out for a proliferation of goofy-named hotspots until this one is fixed! Gilbert -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Winnipeg MB CANADA R3T 2N2 For best service, contact <cstech(a)cs.umanitoba.ca>.

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Accusations against Stallman at last night meeting
by Bill Reid 10 Jun '21

10 Jun '21

I was somewhat surprised at the vitriol expressed last night against Richard Stallman. I was aware of his statement about Epstein but not the other accusations. I understand that sexual abuse allegations should not be ignored but also that because it is an emotional topic allegations often depart from reality. Here is one of many articles defending Stallman: https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-against-richard-sta… <https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-against-richard-sta…> -- Bill

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Reminder: MUUG Online Meeting, Tonight, June 8, 7:30pm -- Intro to PeerTube
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 08 Jun '21

08 Jun '21

A reminder that the MUUG online meeting will be on Jitsi this evening... The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting online, on Tuesday, June 8th, at 7:30pm: Introduction to PeerTube: A Free and Decentralized Video Hosting Platform The internet continues to trend towards large, corporate owned websites and platforms. No one can deny that large platforms are amazing and convenient! But due to their sheer scale, social networks have difficulty with moderation and preventing abuse. Rules that work well for one set of users might be unacceptable to others, and automated moderation tools perform poorly outside of the culture and language they were developed in. These concerns have encouraged a wave of federated, decentralized social networks, loosely labeled the "fediverse." Similar to how email servers work today, any admin can run an instance of a social network, which then associates with other servers to share content and hosting costs. PeerTube is the most popular federated video hosting platform in this space, with an active community and many instances. Join us this month, as Chris Audet explores a possible future direction for video driven social networks. Chris will discuss why you might want to host a PeerTube instance, the cool underlying tech, and the role of alternative social networks in a world dominated by giants. Join the meeting: https://jitsi.merlin.mb.ca/muug.2021.06 The group holds its meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their web server: https://muug.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board, or linking to it on social media: https://muug.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://muug.ca/

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Looking for a used rack mount UPS
by Wyatt Zacharias 03 Jun '21

03 Jun '21

Hey everyone, I'm looking to buy a used rack mount UPS to replace a couple of standalone units I've got sitting on a shelf in my rack. Specifically I'm looking for one with expandable capacity to get extended run time for my network gear if there's a long power outage. Realistically I only need about 1000VA since I just run a couple single socket machines, but larger would be fine too. If you've got one let me know, I'll be happy to lug it out of your basement for you! -- Wyatt Zacharias

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