February 2004 - NZNOG - lists.nznog.org

Solution to spam problem
by Andy Linton 05 Feb '04

05 Feb '04

Just when you thought the Internet sucked beyond redemption your faith in the net gods gets restored. Now let's find an answer for world hunger and peace. http://www.thespeciousreport.com/03031216nospam.html Has anybody idea how they make this work? (:-)

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NOG Conference stuff
by Peter Macaulay 03 Feb '04

03 Feb '04

Great Event. Well run, good attendance. Attaboys all round. Sorry to miss the curry though. InternetNZ has enjoyed supporting the NOG, and has agreed to consider of more initiatives such as the IPV6 lab. Lotto results: Confirming that Craig Whitmore won the Linksys WRT54G. This was shipped to him yesterday. After a shipping saga, the Mulitcast books arrived here in Wellington today via Auckland, Hamilton, Auckland, Wellington. Michael Sutton is preparing the list, and Janet will ship these in the next day or so. We have yet to decide whether to order more than the original 25 so no one misses out. Commercial break --- if you are not a member of InternetNZ sign up now! https://secure.internetnz.net.nz/membership/individmem.html -- Peter Macaulay Executive Director InternetNZ Direct +64 4 495 2113

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Dean Moreton/Christchurch/Foodstuffs is out of the office.
by Dean Moreton 03 Feb '04

03 Feb '04

I will be out of the office starting 02/02/2004 and will not return until 09/02/2004. I will respond to your message when I return. If you have any urgent queries please contact another member of the PC Support team. ##################################################################################### This e-mail message has been scanned for Viruses and Content by both MailMarshal and Norton's Antivirus. Attention: The information contained in this message and or attachments is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any system and destroy any copies. Please note that the views and opinions expressed in this message may be those of the individual and not necessarily those of Foodstuffs (South Island) Ltd #####################################################################################

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Re: [nznog] The Internet for n00bs
by Ewen McNeill 02 Feb '04

02 Feb '04

In message <401C49BA.5040507(a)saarinen.org>, Juha Saarinen writes: >There's something wrong about neutering the 'Net for newbies instead of >going after those who spoil it for them. FWIW, Dean's talk wasn't solely about people spoiling the net for newbies (although there's a lot of that too), but also that they're inadvertantly doing dumb things because it's not obvious that it's dumb and it's not obvious that there's a better way to do it. (For instance consider a newbie mailing out a 10MB attachement to the whole company when they could have just sent a link.) To that end I think that "seamless integration" of the local network (and local machine) and the Internet is counterproductive -- there really are differences and sometimes you've still got to be aware of them. (Not everyone has a gigabit link to their house yet.) >Given how spammers, phishers, crackers, VXers et al have so far managed >to work around every countermeasure devised against them, I have reason >to believe even NewbieNet would only be a temporary fix. Indeed. That was basically my point in one of the talks, that whatever restrictions you put in place would be "routed around" by those with an incentive to do so. Okay you're down to "mere applications", but applications -- especially those used by newbies -- are notoriously insecure. (Some of them even have extra, designed in, insecurity.) Jamie (Baddeley)'s suggestion of thin client is perhaps one of the few ways you might get enough control over the end appliance to control things; another is perhaps Knoppix-style bootable-readonly-device (or perhaps something PS/2, Xbox, etc like). My point was that you can get 75% of the immediate benefit of a "newbie applicance network" right now simply by firewalling customer connections at the edge -- and that if you do, please provide an opt-out mechanism. (I'd really prefer that it wasn't necessary to buy, say, a E1 link (wholesale connectivity) in order to get reasonably unfiltered access. And tunnelling everywhere sucks.) That said, short of a rigorous punishment technique,[0] rigorously applied, I don't think we're going to get all of those that spoil the 'net. Ewen [0] Death. Or perhaps transportation to the colonies. I hear Mars isn't too crowded this time of year.

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RE: [nznog] OT: Looking For Work
by Tristram Cheer 02 Feb '04

02 Feb '04

Just one of those days, format and reinstall and a little rushed. Too hot in Wellington I think ############################ Tristram Cheer Mobile: - 021-334-766 Work: - 04-499-9486 Fax: - 04-499-9586 After Hours: - 04-237-7593 ############################################################################ ######### This correspondence is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential or legally privileged information, or both. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this correspondence in error, please immediately delete it from your system and notify the sender. You must not disclose copy or rely on any part of this correspondence if you are not the intended recipient. -----Original Message----- From: Kim Shepherd [mailto:kims(a)waikato.ac.nz] Sent: Tuesday, 3 February 2004 2:32 p.m. To: 'Trisram Cheer' Subject: RE: [nznog] OT: Looking For Work I can't offer you a job, sorry, but I can remind you that you've fogotten the second 't' in your name in your "From" line... Which might help with prospective employers? ;) > -----Original Message----- > From: Trisram Cheer [mailto:james.edward(a)paradise.net.nz] > Sent: Tuesday, 3 February 2004 2:25 p.m. > To: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > Subject: RE: [nznog] OT: Looking For Work > > Whops! > > > > Wellington > > > > ############################################ > > Tristram Cheer > > Mobile: - 021-334-766 > > Work: - 04-499-9486 > > Fax: - 04-499-9586 > > After Hours: - 04-237-7593 > > > > ############################################################## > ####################### > > This correspondence is for the named person's use only. It > may contain confidential or legally privileged information, > or both. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by > any mistransmission. If you receive this correspondence in > error, please immediately delete it from your system and > notify the sender. You must not disclose copy or rely on any > part of this correspondence if you are not the intended recipient. > > ________________________________ > > From: Dan Clark [mailto:dan(a)scarfies.net] > Sent: Tuesday, 3 February 2004 2:28 p.m. > To: Trisram Cheer > Subject: Re: [nznog] OT: Looking For Work > > > > what area? > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Trisram Cheer <mailto:james.edward(a)paradise.net.nz> > > To: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > > Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 2:21 PM > > Subject: [nznog] OT: Looking For Work > > > > Apologies if this is too OT > > > > I've recently been made redundant and work finishes end > of this week. If anyone knows of any Helpdesk, User support > or Hardware support (workshop etc) Then please drop me a line > off list > > > > > > Thanks > > > > ############################################ > > Tristram Cheer > > Mobile: - 021-334-766 > > Work: - 04-499-9486 > > Fax: - 04-499-9586 > > After Hours: - 04-237-7593 > > > > > ############################################################## > ####################### > > This correspondence is for the named person's use only. > It may contain confidential or legally privileged > information, or both. No confidentiality or privilege is > waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this > correspondence in error, please immediately delete it from > your system and notify the sender. You must not disclose copy > or rely on any part of this correspondence if you are not the > intended recipient. > > > > > ________________________________ > > > _______________________________________________ > NZNOG mailing list > NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog > >

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RE: [nznog] OT: Looking For Work
by Trisram Cheer 02 Feb '04

02 Feb '04

Whops! Wellington ############################################ Tristram Cheer Mobile: - 021-334-766 Work: - 04-499-9486 Fax: - 04-499-9586 After Hours: - 04-237-7593 ############################################################################ ######### This correspondence is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential or legally privileged information, or both. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this correspondence in error, please immediately delete it from your system and notify the sender. You must not disclose copy or rely on any part of this correspondence if you are not the intended recipient. _____ From: Dan Clark [mailto:dan(a)scarfies.net] Sent: Tuesday, 3 February 2004 2:28 p.m. To: Trisram Cheer Subject: Re: [nznog] OT: Looking For Work what area? ----- Original Message ----- From: Trisram <mailto:james.edward(a)paradise.net.nz> Cheer To: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 2:21 PM Subject: [nznog] OT: Looking For Work Apologies if this is too OT I've recently been made redundant and work finishes end of this week. If anyone knows of any Helpdesk, User support or Hardware support (workshop etc) Then please drop me a line off list Thanks ############################################ Tristram Cheer Mobile: - 021-334-766 Work: - 04-499-9486 Fax: - 04-499-9586 After Hours: - 04-237-7593 ############################################################################ ######### This correspondence is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential or legally privileged information, or both. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this correspondence in error, please immediately delete it from your system and notify the sender. You must not disclose copy or rely on any part of this correspondence if you are not the intended recipient. _____ _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog

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JetStream Games Realm Adminitrator...
by Dan Clark 02 Feb '04

02 Feb '04

Hi all, Can someone please point me in the direction of the JetStream Games Realm administrator, or his/her boss please. Offlist. Kind Regards Dan Clark Network Manager Scarfies.Net Ltd

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Credit card fraudsters......
by Steve Withers 02 Feb '04

02 Feb '04

In my e-mail this morning, with a clickable button to take me to their 'secure site': From: security(a)visa-security.com Dear Sir/Madam, We were informed that your credit card is used by another person or stolen. It could happen if you have been shopping on-line, and someone got your "Billing information" including your credit card number. To avoid and prevent any further fraud and billing mistakes and to refund your credit card, it is strongly recommended to proceed filling in the secure form on our site and applying for our Zero Liability program. Program is free and it will help us to confirm the fact of fraud and investigate this accident as soon as possible. Sincerely yours, Visa Support Assistant, Alwin Desagun.

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The Internet for n00bs
by Ewen McNeill 02 Feb '04

02 Feb '04

One of the things discussed at the (excellent, thanks everyone) NZNOG 2004 conference was that the Internet sucks, and that a large portion of this suckage is due to ignorant n00bs who do the wrong thing, get 0wned, etc. It was suggested that the "only" fix to this problem was to kill the end to end Internet, making the "Internet" a core exchange network (a la telco style), and allowing users only access to a local proxy at their ISP for a very limited set of services. Aside from my objection that this won't help much except in the short term (plenty of protocols already tunnel around such firewall limitations -- eg, look at everything that's been tunneled through HTTP), this really sucks for the l33t who find it awfully restrictive. An alternative approach to that type of thing is possibly just to heavily firewall -- at the ISP end of the link -- connections to all "potential n00b" users (SMTP to ISP mail server, POP/IMAP/HTTP/HTTPS to whereever and a few other common things) by default. And then provide an "opt out" system that anyone with a clue can use to disable the default firewalling. I would suggest: telnet ihaveaclue.$ISP where you have to enter "My name is $NAME, and I have a clue" (with $NAME expanded, but otherwise literally). Possibly that setting could be sticky; possibly it would need to be done on each reconnection.[0] The remaining aspect is that anyone who claimed to have a clue in this manner and then lets something on their connection get 0wned or otherwise abuses the privilege, (a) loses the ability to unblock themselves, and (b) gets their name published on a list of shame. This could pretty much be implemented today by anyone with a firewall (or customer facing ACLs) which can be set on a per-customer basis. Various RAS boxes have this sort of facility already; at least one ISP I know of firewalls accounts that are over due so they can reach the accounting website and that's about it. The alternative seems to be that the clueful will just tunnel everything through whatever still works. Tunnelling through DNS requests is painful but doable; tunnelling through most other things is almost tolerably efficient by comparision. And I guess bandwidth is cheap enough now that we can cope with a 20-50% overhead due to tunnelling.[1] Ewen [0] Anyone who can't automate doing it on each reconnection doesn't have a clue. [1] Still, it'll make the ATM tax look cheap.

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RE: [nznog] The Internet for n00bs
by Regan Murphy 01 Feb '04

01 Feb '04

> From: Seton Wingfield [mailto:SWingfield(a)atl.co.nz] > Sent: Sunday, 1 February 2004 7:00 p.m. > > I recently read the "Changes to Functionality in Microsoft > Windows XP Service Pack 2" and in it, it states that the > Internet Connection Firewall will be turned on by default. > Changes like this and Microsoft's long term commitment to > security via their "Trustworthy Computing" initiative may > make the problems that you are trying to solve a thing of the past. > Unfotunately it will be a long time until all net people shift from Windows 95 et al and move to WinXP etc. Also with the growth of linux variants can we expect the same default security options to be set there as well (remember all the sendmail exploits and the redhat vunerabilities)? Beyond that there are a lot of people that like to run programs such as p2p file sharing applications and irc and ftp and these unfortunately don't work too well with misconfigured firewalls. The typical answer to "how do I get p2p app working?" is "oh, you're running XP? Then disable the default firewall and it will all work". i.e. n00bs will always unwittingly impact the internet through miseducation and ignorance -- Regan

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