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      "author": "steemitboard",
      "permlink": "steemitboard-notify-veemun-20190816t163038000z",
      "title": "",
      "body": "Congratulations @veemun! You received a personal award!\n\n<table><tr><td>https://steemitimages.com/70x70/http://steemitboard.com/@veemun/birthday3.png</td><td>Happy Birthday! - You are on the Steem blockchain for 3 years!</td></tr></table>\n\n<sub>_You can view [your badges on your Steem Board](https://steemitboard.com/@veemun) and compare to others on the [Steem Ranking](https://steemitboard.com/ranking/index.php?name=veemun)_</sub>\n\n\n###### [Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness](https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=steemitboard&approve=1) to get one more award and increased upvotes!",
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      "body": "Nice post! I will follow you from now on.  <p><img src=\"https://preview.ibb.co/fGAMyx/up1.jpg\" width=\"200\"/></p>",
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      "permlink": "steemitboard-notify-veemun-20170816t172302000z",
      "title": "",
      "body": "Congratulations @veemun! You have received a personal award!\n\n[![](https://steemitimages.com/70x70/http://steemitboard.com/@veemun/birthday1.png)](http://steemitboard.com/@veemun)  Happy Birthday - 1 Year on Steemit Happy Birthday - 1 Year on Steemit\nClick on the badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.\n\nFor more information about this award, click [here](https://steemit.com/steemitboard/@steemitboard/steemitboard-update-8-happy-birthday)\n> By upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how [here](https://steemit.com/steemitboard/@steemitboard/http-i-cubeupload-com-7ciqeo-png)!",
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      "permlink": "re-baodog-re-survivalistcom-personal-security-what-are-you-doing-wrong-20160826t184852286z",
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      "body": "No, this is not accurate. Here's what I can and can't do.\n\nIf you are accessing a public wifi hotspot to do banking here's what I can do. I can trick your machine into thinking that I am the gateway, which is the way out of the local wifi network and to the internet. What this will do is make your computer send all its packets to me and I get to look at them. This is called a \"man-in-the-middle\" attack because I am now in the middle of you and your banking website. However, If you're connecting to that website through SSL which you should be, it's pretty standard now, then your connection is competently encrypted. I can't see what you're doing. I can tell you've gone to a banking website but I can't just take over your connection at the snap of my fingers.\n\nWhat i might do at this stage is also convince you that I am the DNS server. So when you ask how to get to bankofamerica.com or whatever I give you a bogus ip address and you go to my webpage that I manage instead. What could I do on this webpage? Anything really. If there is a vulnerability in your web browser I could compromise it that way. I could have a fake website that looks a lot like BoA's website and hope you try to log into it. I could try to get you to download something.\n\nThis all sounds kinda scary but don't worry too much. As long as you make sure you're going through a secure connection and the web browser is not giving you SSL connection errors, you have anti-virus, and you install all the latest software patches, you're most likely fine.\n\nIt is still a good idea to not use public networks for private use, but sometimes you travel and you have no choice, what to do then? OpenVPN. Back at your house set up an OpenVPN server that you can connect to FIRST before doing any activity on an open network then I can't tell anything it'll all be encrypted. \n\nSo not 100% safe to use open wifi but also not an instant death wish.\n\nOh and I can create a portable cell tower to make your little MiFi 4G device connect to me since I'll have the strongest signal then I've got your traffic that way too. If you don't believe any of this then I encourage you to do your own research. Cheers.\n\nOn the second point, yeah don't take pictures of your private info and put it online. I agree with you there.",
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      "body": "I suggest Spybot's Anti-Beacon for turning off all of M$ telemetry and spying features as well as Bing and some ad-tracking.\nhttps://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/",
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      "body": "This actually came up at work today and I work at a very large organization that manages a large enterprise of machines. Basically some people who I struggle to call \"Engineers\" or even \"Professionals\" needed a way to test if certain ports are allowed through a firewall from two separate networks.\n\nTheir solution was to use portqry, which is a little tool made by Microsoft that allows you to make arbitrary connections to whatever port you want using TCP and UDP protocols. There's nothing inherently wrong with portqry, it works just fine and it will tell you when you've connected to a TCP port on a remote machine. However with UDP, portqry's best answer it can give you is  ¯\\\\_(ツ)_/¯ \"I dunno\".\n\nIf you don't know why this is the case I can explain it if you want to listen. Just keep in mind this is all very overly simplified and I encourage you to do your own research. But here we go\n\nHow TCP works\n===\nVery simply, the TCP protocol cares that your data reaches the endpoint so there is a series of requests, requests for acknowledgement, and acknowledging these requests and verifying the last 1500bytes got there. Here are some diagrams that will explain this. Hope fully these are easy enough to read, but if not they are linked to the original image that you can see in better detail.\n\n[![OversimplifiedTCPconnection1ec4cf.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/26/OversimplifiedTCPconnection1ec4cf.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gN8lu)\n\nAs you can see there's not only a lot of actual data going back and forth there is also a lot of preparation to send the data and a lot of making sure the data got there. This is how you can download that really good quality mp3 from itunes because your machine and the itunes server makes sure you get every bit of that mp3. This is in contrast to how UDP works.\n\nHow UDP Works\n===\nUDP is often called a \"connection-less\" protocol because there is not solid connection made between you and the server on the other end. With UDP the client just throws data at the server in hopes that the data gets there. Again see the diagram below.\n\n[![OversimplifiedUDP145f84.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/26/OversimplifiedUDP145f84.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gNDmD)\n\nNotice that there is no acknowledgement that the server got the logs, it is just accepting them at full speed and your client has to trust that the data it is sending reached then endpoint. That is an example using a service (syslog) that not everyone uses or cares about. Lets look at an example using a service that everyone cares about DNS (Domain Name Service). DNS is the reason that typing steemit.com into your web browser actually takes you to the steemit website. DNS translates the domain name into an ip address so your machine knows where to send its packets. See below for a diagram.\n\n[![OverSimpleDNSa8b2a.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/26/OverSimpleDNSa8b2a.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gNSRZ)\n\nSo this seems kind of important right? Wouldn't we want to make sure that we get a DNS response and wouldn't we want to make sure that the response is getting back to the client? So lets take a theoretical look at what DNS would look like going through TCP.\n\n[![IfDNSwasTCP1d1cac.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/26/IfDNSwasTCP1d1cac.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gNWsh)\n\nThat is a lot more steps. Waiting for those steps to complete takes time and I can't wait that long when I'm refreshing my latest steemit post to see how many cents I've made. The worst that could happen with a DNS request is that your client forgets what the ip address was for the host. If it does then another DNS request is very quick to do. Also to mitigate the risk of not being able to resolve addresses, your machine caches requests it has already made to cut down on the amount of requests. \n\nWhy scanning UDP ports is dumb and what is a better way.\n===\nSo I hope you've realized at this point that if you just try to make an arbitrary connection to a UDP port you're not going to get anything in return. There's nothing on the other end that is going to answer you for just sending it a network packet. This is what port scanners do, they send a packet of random data to a port to see what comes back, if anything. Since UDP doesn't send back anything unless specifically asked (like DNS) you won't be able to tell if the port is open from the client this way. So what is a better way?\n\nThe better way is to understand what services use what ports and protocols. You want to make sure you make DNS requests to a server through a firewall? Just actually make a DNS request. Open a web browser and go somewhere. If you can get there then your client has made a DNS request and it was successful. If you want to get more granular and make sure you're asking a specific server for a DNS request, use tools like nslookup. \n\nSo actually try to use the service for what its job is and tell people that scanned a machine to see if UDP port 53 was open that they are dumb. Thanks.\n\n--Veemun",
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      "body": "@@ -2322,18 +2322,18 @@\n  just ac\n+c\n e\n-p\n pting th\n",
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      "author": "veemun",
      "permlink": "why-port-scanning-udp-ports-is-dumb",
      "title": "Why port scanning UDP ports is dumb.",
      "body": "This actually came up at work today and I work at a very large organization that manages a large enterprise of machines. Basically some people who I struggle to call \"Engineers\" or even \"Professionals\" needed a way to test if certain ports are allowed through a firewall from two separate networks.\n\nTheir solution was to use portqry, which is a little tool made by Microsoft that allows you to make arbitrary connections to whatever port you want using TCP and UDP protocols. There's nothing inherently wrong with portqry, it works just fine and it will tell you when you've connected to a TCP port on a remote machine. However with UDP, portqry's best answer it can give you is  ¯\\\\_(ツ)_/¯ \"I dunno\".\n\nIf you don't know why this is the case I can explain it if you want to listen. Just keep in mind this is all very overly simplified and I encourage you to do your own research. But here we go\n\nHow TCP works\n===\nVery simply, the TCP protocol cares that your data reaches the endpoint so there is a series of requests, requests for acknowledgement, and acknowledging these requests and verifying the last 1500bytes got there. Here are some diagrams that will explain this. Hope fully these are easy enough to read, but if not they are linked to the original image that you can see in better detail.\n\n[![OversimplifiedTCPconnection1ec4cf.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/26/OversimplifiedTCPconnection1ec4cf.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gN8lu)\n\nAs you can see there's not only a lot of actual data going back and forth there is also a lot of preparation to send the data and a lot of making sure the data got there. This is how you can download that really good quality mp3 from itunes because your machine and the itunes server makes sure you get every bit of that mp3. This is in contrast to how UDP works.\n\nHow UDP Works\n===\nUDP is often called a \"connection-less\" protocol because there is not solid connection made between you and the server on the other end. With UDP the client just throws data at the server in hopes that the data gets there. Again see the diagram below.\n\n[![OversimplifiedUDP145f84.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/26/OversimplifiedUDP145f84.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gNDmD)\n\nNotice that there is no acknowledgement that the server got the logs, it is just aceppting them at full speed and your client has to trust that the data it is sending reached then endpoint. That is an example using a service (syslog) that not everyone uses or cares about. Lets look at an example using a service that everyone cares about DNS (Domain Name Service). DNS is the reason that typing steemit.com into your web browser actually takes you to the steemit website. DNS translates the domain name into an ip address so your machine knows where to send its packets. See below for a diagram.\n\n[![OverSimpleDNSa8b2a.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/26/OverSimpleDNSa8b2a.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gNSRZ)\n\nSo this seems kind of important right? Wouldn't we want to make sure that we get a DNS response and wouldn't we want to make sure that the response is getting back to the client? So lets take a theoretical look at what DNS would look like going through TCP.\n\n[![IfDNSwasTCP1d1cac.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/26/IfDNSwasTCP1d1cac.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gNWsh)\n\nThat is a lot more steps. Waiting for those steps to complete takes time and I can't wait that long when I'm refreshing my latest steemit post to see how many cents I've made. The worst that could happen with a DNS request is that your client forgets what the ip address was for the host. If it does then another DNS request is very quick to do. Also to mitigate the risk of not being able to resolve addresses, your machine caches requests it has already made to cut down on the amount of requests. \n\nWhy scanning UDP ports is dumb and what is a better way.\n===\nSo I hope you've realized at this point that if you just try to make an arbitrary connection to a UDP port you're not going to get anything in return. There's nothing on the other end that is going to answer you for just sending it a network packet. This is what port scanners do, they send a packet of random data to a port to see what comes back, if anything. Since UDP doesn't send back anything unless specifically asked (like DNS) you won't be able to tell if the port is open from the client this way. So what is a better way?\n\nThe better way is to understand what services use what ports and protocols. You want to make sure you make DNS requests to a server through a firewall? Just actually make a DNS request. Open a web browser and go somewhere. If you can get there then your client has made a DNS request and it was successful. If you want to get more granular and make sure you're asking a specific server for a DNS request, use tools like nslookup. \n\nSo actually try to use the service for what its job is and tell people that scanned a machine to see if UDP port 53 was open that they are dumb. Thanks.\n\n--Veemun",
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      "title": "",
      "body": "Thanks!",
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      "body": "Nice graphical explanation!",
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      "permlink": "the-problem-and-amazing-solution-of-secure-cryptographic-key-exchange",
      "title": "The problem and amazing solution of secure cryptographic key exchange",
      "body": "Cryptography is a subject I've been interested in for a long time. I think it started with that movie that runs every Christmas for 24 hours in the States. The main character worked so hard to decrypt that special message.\n\nhttp://s2.quickmeme.com/img/a3/a3cadb6d177c555079acd80b908e31cb801adf4466d9ba853bf82f67cfab6d2b.jpg\n\nSince then, knowing that secret messages existed, I've always been fascinated with codes and ciphers and encryption. This technology forms the very backbone of the internet and blockchain technology in general. Securing communications has been a problem for a long time, many governments struggled and still struggle with it today. So I'd like to talk more about Cryptography. \n\nIn this article I intend to talk about the main problem with the exchange of encryption keys that existed, who tackled this problem, and what the solution to that problem ended up being. There have been many solutions to this over the decades and people have independently come to similar conclusions, this article is just one such conclusion. So here we go I suppose.\n\nThe Problem with exchanging cryptographic keys\n==========================================\nThe problem with encrypting something like an important message to an ally for example, is that you must not only get the message to the ally but you must also get them the  means to decrypt the message. The whole purpose of encryption is that if the encrypted text is intercepted in someway, it doesn't really matter. The intercepting party will not be able to read the message without the key. However, if the party can intercept the message then they surely also have the ability to intercept the key.\n\nImagine if your will (and if you can because of my bad drawings) that a three letter agency has a box with a lock on it. The lock happens to be red. Lets assume for the sake of argument this box and the lock are impenetrable.\n![BoxRedLock-28ff32.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/25/BoxRedLock-28ff32.png)\n\nIn this box is some very important information about a foreign government. The agency wants to send this information to an allied government but the only way to get this box to the ally is through hostile territory. The agency sends the box to their ally and it gets intercepted. The agency also needs to send a key to the lock to their ally and that too gets intercepted\n\n![BoxRedLock-28ff32.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/25/BoxRedLock-28ff32.png)![RedKey6fdf7.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/25/RedKey6fdf7.png)\n  \nNow your could put the key in another box but then you'd need to put the key to that box in yet another box and so on. There is no way transport the key openly through hostile territory and expect it to not get intercepted. So what is the solution?\n\nThe theory of secure key exchange\n=============================\nTo simplify this way down, the answer is to not transport the key openly in the first place. You instead transport the locks.\n [![BlueLockc76d0.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/25/BlueLockc76d0.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gQwk1)\nThe ally sends the agency their nice blue lock to use when the agency is  sending them important information and the agency sends their ally their nice red lock. The keys are kept by the individual agencies and never sent out into the world and kept private.\n[![BoxBlueLockebc3a.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/25/BoxBlueLockebc3a.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gQdCw)\nThe box is filled with important info locked with the blue lock and sent back to the ally. The ally then sends his blue lock back, unlocked of course.\n\nTo speed this up a little, what they could be exchanging is a common key and another lock. This forms the basis of secure key exchange. Lets make this one purple and the box transparent so we know what is inside.\n\n![PubleExchangece5a8.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/25/PubleExchangece5a8.png)\n\nThe agency sends a different lock and a copy of the key to their ally. Since the agency has the original key and the ally has a copy of that key, both agencies can unlock the purple lock. This speeds up communication between the groups since it cuts out the need for the return of an unlocked blue lock.\n\nHow does this work for real?\n========================\nThe above thought experiment is great, but padlocks can be picked and boxes can be broken. So how does this work in the real world? Maths.\n\nhttps://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/66263515.jpg\n\n__Warning: Do not use any of this to create your own encryption algorithm. Use ones provided by professionals and have gone through vigorous scrutiny. These numbers are too small to provide any protection. This is for demonstration purposes only.__\n\nPeople that are way smarter than I am worked on this issue for a long time. One method to this issue was first published by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman in 1976. They explained a method for secure key exchange using modular arithmetic. \n\nWhat they came up with was  a method using the multiplicative group of integers modulo p, where p is prime, and g is a primitive root modulo p. These two values are chosen in this way to ensure that the resulting shared secret can take on any value from 1 to p–1. Here is an example of the protocol, with secret values in **bold**. Also I'm going to switch to the classic Bob and Alice names for ease and consistency elsewhere that speaks about encryption.\n\nAlice and Bob first have to agree to a few values for  the numbers *p*  and *g*. It's perfectly fine for these values to be known and intercepted even.\nLets say they agree on p= 23 and g = 5.\nAlice chooses a secret integer a = **6**, then sends Bob the result of  g^a mod p\n5^**6** mod 23 = 8 (call this result A)\nBob chooses a secret integer b = **15**, then sends Alice the result of g^b mod p\n 5^**15** mod 23 = 19 (call this result B)\n Alice computes  the shared value (call the shared value s) using the result she got from Bob s = B^a mod p\n 19^**6** mod 23 = 2\nBob computes the shared value using the result he got from Alice s = A^b mod p\n 8^**15** mod 23 = 2\n\nNow they have a shared value, the number 2. Note that they did not agree to the number 2, they arrived there after first agreeing upon starting numbers for p and g and computed the shared number. What would an eavesdropper see during this exchange? The original values 23 and 5 and the \"encrypted\" values 8 and 19. Any further communications will happen with the shared value of 2 using a different algorithm that had already been established prior to the Diffie–Hellman exchange.\n\nThe Wrap-up\n==========\nSo to pull this together with my analogy above. 8 is Alice's \"lock\", 6 is Alice's key. 19 is Bob's \"lock\", 15 is his key. The algorithm is the box and the shared value 2 is another key inside that box that they will use for a different lock (algorithm) that could be contained inside that box as well or already determined. \n\nHope you enjoyed and learned a little about how secure key exchange is done. Thanks\n\n--Veemun",
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      "body": "Coming up to the end of August and into September we're going to be seeing some of my most favorite seasonal beers from brewers across the world. Yes soon is the time for...\n\nhttp://58f58f4a1114ab47cb21-2505896bcdaa615e2448c0cd0aa4b208.r92.cf2.rackcdn.com/6ce97a6b0ce5438298ecba1d5fa3292f.png\n\nHeld annually in Bavaria, Oktoberfest started as a wedding celebration for Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The original attractions included wine and beer tastings as well as horse races. But I'm not here to talk about the festival or the wenches, I'm interested in the beer. Even though the only beer that can be served at Oktoberfest are ones that meet the Reinheitsgebot (German Beer Purity Law), and are brewed within the city limits of Munich, this doesn't stop many breweries from around the world to make their own Oktoberfest inspired beer.\n\nhttps://distilledopinion.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/octoberfest_group.jpg\n\nThese brews are very popular for their  full body, malty flavor, and a clean dry finish. What are these beers really? Where did they come from and how long do they take to make?\n\nMärzen beer (March beer) arose in Bavaria due to a decree that beer can only be brewed between September and April and was designed to last through those terrible months were brewing of new beer was not allowed. They needed a beer that could be stored for a long time mature in a controlled environment and last them through to the end of summer. This brought rise to Laggering.\n\nhttp://www.drinkswinesspirits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/4350198726-430x287.jpg\n\nLager (aside from being a popular beer type) is German for *storeroom* or *warehouse*. So in beer terms a  lager is a beer that has been stored, for a while, a long while.\n\nhttps://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51L9TrpTH3L.jpg\n\nAll beer is made by one of two methods, the Ale method or the Lager method. The main difference is the type of yeast used and the cold storage for maturation that the Lager must go through. An ale takes around 4-6 weeks to ferment while a lager can take 4-6 **months**.  So enjoy your March beers, they've taken a really long time to get here! Cheers!\n\n<b>- Veemun</b>",
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      "body": "I'm veemun, my username is a play on my last name (It starts with a V and people use to call me V-Man). I've been a part of many social media platforms over the years from Friendster (remember that one?) to MySpace, LiveJournal, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and so on. Though one thing that I've always been is someone that prefers to sit-back and take in the world around me. I have offered opinions and comments on other people's topics in the past especially if the topic interests me. However, for the most part, I've been a lurker. \n\nhttp://www.politicsforum.org/images/flame_warriors/lurker.jpg\n\nNow, I'm not sitting in the dark hating what everyone else is saying, and I'm not a troll. I'm an observer to the world around me. I think I've always been this way for the most part, more of an observer and less of someone who interacts fully. That is until you get to know me and until I get to know you. I tend to open up a bit after that.\n\nThroughout life this has given me several stigmas I have to keep in mind and deal with when meeting new people. New people think I'm elitist or think I believe I'm so great and look down on others. This has caused problems in my professional life as well since some of our more junior team members didn't want to approach me with issues.  Once I had learned one of our straight out of college employees was \"afraid of me\" I immediately switched gears and tried to become more of a mentor to him the way others have done for me. I find mentorship to be very rewarding as long as the mentee is open to learning new things. The old adage of you can lead a horse to water applies. \n\nhttps://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAIsAAAAJDUyN2NkNWExLTY4ZDEtNGI2OS05NjlkLTQ0NTZiZTI0N2ExZg.jpg\n\nProfessionally I started as a Junior Software Developer after obtaining a degree in Computer Science. Over the years I've slid into Computer Systems Engineering. I tend to have an innate ability to understand how thing work under the hood and that's helped me a great deal. Also, I love the field since there is always something new to learn. Once you believe you know everything about computers or any high-level field that is when you start to fail and fall down into stagnation. I never like to be stagnant, doing the same thing over and over. I never want to be the cynical company computer guy\n\nhttp://s2.quickmeme.com/img/44/4463d682735d1cb300ce7e5032c9128e3dd4a553f5a2fc44273e07f8a3ae07bd.jpg\n\nIn my Personal life,  I have a thirst for knowledge of all kinds. Space, technology, physics, beer (a literal thirst for the last one). I feel that if there is a large community interested in a topic then they probably know something I don't and I want to know what they know (within reason, I'm not interested in bungee jumping for example). That is how I started to learn about GNU/Linux, about brewing beer, about bourbon and whiskey, about cooking really good steak, about cars, about playing guitar and music, and a lot of other things. I tend to do well at trivia nights.\n\nNot sure what I'm going to share on this platform, it's never been easy for me to talk about myself, but I know that I'd like to be less of a lurker and more of a member and have a larger part in a community. So hello steemit.\n\n<b>- Veemun</b>",
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