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A history of my experience with FreeBSD and a warning to users….

So a rant about how a great project can go bad, and how it’s still doing stuff that should never be done and why I’ve decided to ‘fix it myself’ or move away from it completely.

Back in 2003 Paul Vixie forced me into using FreeBSD on one of my servers, it was not a welcome change for me, I was an avid Linux user until this point…. and it didn’t go well.. I started on 4.x, found there was no threading support, so “upgraded” the system to 5.x… which went badly…very badly… and every upgrade through 5.x was as bad…. Partly because of what I did, partly because of my lack of knowledge and partly because of system limitations.

Out came 6.0 and I started working with it and soon I had a whole slew of machines that were on 6.0 and with 6.1 and 6.2 things only got better. I had build servers, I had package servers, I could boot one of the servers off the network and have it completely re-install the server with the latest OS, Patches and Packages within 23 minutes (bare metal to built, configured and in production in 23 minutes…!)

Then came 7.0 and my ‘burnout’ – personal, profession life clashed, I ‘burnt out’ and my technical issues took a back burner, then before you knew it 7.3 and 7.4 were out and I had sold my company… and I was back working on getting things patched and upgraded… however some major changes had happened and the ‘ports’ tree no longer worked on 6.x hosts… so the entire system was frozen…. no new security patches, no upgrades, however along with the sale of the company came new hope… new hardware… and an opportunity to upgrade by replacing the hardware… New hardware was installed to 7.3 (as this was all that was available on Softlayer) and then my attention was diverted to getting my software upgraded to a new major revision and with it my attention and priorities changed from Sys-Admin work to developer and the older systems remained. Not long later the company that ‘bought me’, ‘sold me’ to another (my current) employer, Proofpoint Inc and new priorities were given… along with more new servers.. the result was 8.x systems being installed and with the advent of FreeBSD upgrading ‘bmake’ more stuff got changed in the ports tree, again making them non-working on pre 7.4 systems… more things got changed/patched on my servers and I ended up with new hardware again, this time running 9.0 and 9.1… at this point in time (2013) I had the following versions of FreeBSD in production:

  • FreeBSD 6.0
  • FreeBSD 6.1
  • FreeBSD 6.2
  • FreeBSD 7.2
  • FreeBSD 7.3
  • FreeBSD 8.1
  • FreeBSD 8.2
  • FreeBSD 8.3
  • FreeBSD 8.4
  • FreeBSD 9.0
  • FreeBSD 9.1

Which for any sys-admin you can guess would be a nightmare.  Further Proofpoint has policy and puppet, policies about how things are managed and puppet to manage everything.  It was suggested that my systems should be managed by puppet… so after Oct 2013 when the databases were finally migrated to the new hardware and then I could work on upgrading everything off old hardware and onto new OS’s and patches I setup a puppet server, a number of build servers and a test suite, all of my own creation and similar to what I had done in 2005… to take back control…  I also ended up with FreeBSD 9.2 on some servers, so I decided i would standardise on:

  • FreeBSD 8.4
  • FreeBSD 9.0
  • FreeBSD 9.1
  • FreeBSD 9.2

…at least until I could spend the time getting everything to a single OS level…  FreeBSD 10.0 came out, and later FreeBSD 9.3, but by that time I had the basic systems working and so adding these to the build and test suite was a matter of adding new build and test hosts… which just took a few hours.

As part of this build change I learned new tools:

  • Jenkins
  • Poudriere
  • Puppet
  • VirtualBox

I learned how to create my own ports, I learned how to patch my own ports privately.  I learned how to submit bugs back to FreeBSD ports maintainers.  I became a FreeBSD port maintainer myself.  I noted that as of 1st September 2014 the old pkg_* tools that had been around since day dot were about to be End-Of-Life’d in favour of a new ‘PKGNG‘ system.  I read the linked blog entry and decided that it was something I would have to look at, but later, because the EOL (as most sys-admins know) just means no new patches and something may start breaking that wouldn’t be supported by the developers.  At the end of July 2014 I spoke with the main protagonist of the change and was informed bluntly and to the point that they had already got a patch built and waiting to be applied, not to EOL the tools but to actually and deliberately break the existing tools thereby forcing people to use the new system.

Needless to say with less than 5 weeks of time before this was due to occur there was no chance of me converting all 57 servers, so I suggested that they shouldn’t I was told, its going to happen regardless… and that I should know that EOL means the product would no longer work, not that it would just not be supported anymore.  I guess all those years I had worked for the likes of Netscape, Oracle etc meant they all got it wrong… even Microsoft got it wrong, I mean Windows XP was ‘EOL’d a while back and well all those Window XP machines around the world just stopped working the same day… NOT!

So I continued with my build system and tried to get a stable patched repository of packages so I could at least continue my plan to get the servers to the standardised OS levels…  During testing of the packages I noted bugs, reported them to the developers, then pushed the maintainers (with mixed levels of success) to implement the fixes before the dead line (more appropriately named rather than EOL)… I failed.. several patches were not put into the ports tree until 7 days after the dead line (and that may have been deliberate on the developers aspect – though will never know.)  So the ports tree was patched on time, it rendered the old tools dead and my entire build, test and development system was broken.

I set about repairing it, for a while just copying pre-DeadLine files for building seemed to work with some local changes, so I continued to build out my systems to cope with this, and finally at the beginning of Dec 2014 I got a stable and complete repository.

Over Christmas 2014 I set myself the task of upgrading all servers to one of the standardised OS’s and at the same time patching all the existing OS’s on one of those versions.  Of 57 servers, 31 became un-usable in some way during the patch update process (freebsd-update)  Some became un-bootable, some couldn’t access the network, some (even going from 9.3-RELEASE to 9.3-P5) broke packages such as ‘sudo’ leaving me unable to gain increased privileges to finish the patch process…. after over 160 hours of work, only stopping Christmas day and New Years day, all systems were patched to 9.2 or 9.3 with all the security patches…as they had to be because of the NTPd remote root exploit…. only having to reinstall 2 of the systems from scratch as they were un-recoverable.

Early January 2015 the build system failed again when trying to patch new security issues and I found it was related to more changes by the same culprit so decided after seeing similar rants by other long standing advocates to ask for some help and got a working set of Mk/* files with the intention of fixing it again.  The files I got wouldn’t work so I merged the tree by hand (27900+ lines) only to find the system not quite working… a week later and I have a working build system for most of the ports.  I set it going and get a working repository and decide to re-run the build because of a failed patch, and it all broke again…

So for the warning to all FreeBSD Users:

IF YOU RUN PRODUCTION SERVERS THAT REQUIRE TESTING AND STABILITY BEFORE MAJOR CHANGES, YOU PROBABLY ARE STILL ON PKG_* TOOLS, DON’T UPGRADE, DON’T PATCH AND LOOK AT OTHER SOLUTIONS! Here’s why:

  • running ‘freebsd-update‘ the extra pass to “delete old” will delete all pkg_* tools (even if you haven’t converted to pkgng)
  • updating the ports tree and updating something will automatically convert the system to use pkgng (whether tested and working or not)
  • if you build your own packages using poudriere 3.1 or above it will also “upgrade” your system without confirmation or warning.

Basically whether tested or not, whether working or not, the FreeBSD developers (not the kernel devs as far as I know) will change your production systems to configurations that will probably render your automated systems completely ineffective, without warning and without notification.

What am I doing about it, well at the moment I have created a ports tree ( svn co http://svn.sorbs.net/repos/ports/head ) on http://svn.sorbs.net/repos/ports that can be put into poudriere (as SVN_HOST=svn.sorbs.net/repos ) and it will in theory build most packages for pkg_* tools – it’s not complete and is being changed on a daily basis currently as new changes go in, and with the latest “HEADSUP” announced on the FreeBSD Ports mailing list detailing another change in syntax that is not backward compatible with existing systems (even pkgng ones) I expect it won’t work for long….  My advice as the culprit seems hell bent on changing systems to the way Linux has been for years and ignoring all input from users of FreeBSD that does not agree with his vision, find an alternative.

After 12 years of promoting FreeBSD I am not any more, I’m not going to stop my employer moving everything to Linux, and I’m *NOT* going to upgrade anything to 10.x (and as 9.4 will probably not have pkg_* tools available, I won’t be going there either.)

Sadly, thinking about the whole issue, with a little work it could have been avoided, ensuring all variables in the ports are backwards compatible and having separate Mk/* repositories (even unmaintained/EOLd) would have made the whole process less painful an allowed the developers to continue their path, whether right or wrong, to completion, and allow us insignificant users to continue without pain.  In fact had someone had the for-sight I think even pre-bmake systems would still be patchable and working, even back to the 6.x tree! .. well at least until the new changes in the plist files… which most can be back-ported despite the claim that progress is impossible with the old pkg_* tools.

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Spam in your fridge? Yeah sure, but what about spam from your fridge?

Well in light of the recent fascination and media-hype about spam from a new range of devices dubbed, the “Internet of Things”  I thought I post some information.

The media-hype is a little surprising in some ways as this ‘hack’ is old news, old technology and has been happening for years.  I first identified and tested for it publicly with the Spam and Open Relay Blocking System’s (SORBS) automated proxy tester.  The only thing that is different is now is the devices that can be exploited.  It used to be home routers, and computers directly connected to the Internet, but now it’s phones (Smart, VOIP and others), it’s Televisions, it’s Fridges, Cameras (usually security cameras, but not always), Digital Video Recorders, Set-Top boxes (Satellite receives, cable receivers, and Media Players etc), Audio Amplifiers, and many many more…

It was published by Proofpoint that ‘Thingbots” are sending spam.  Unfortunately it was taken by the media that “Thingbots” are the resulting robots from someone breaking into these devices and installing some software that sends spam, in a similar way that hackers try to trick people to download malicious software to their computers and laptops.  Whilst this is possible and undoubtably will happen in the near future, this is completely wrong at the present time.  Thingbots is a reference to the device being and ‘thing’ and being commanded to do something other than it’s designed purpose, regardless as to what that device or it’s purpose is.

For example, a ‘smart fridge’ is designed to keep food cool, keep track of the contents and alert the owner (maybe by email) if there is a problem with the fridge itself or with some of the contents (eg, like there being no milk left.)  The fridge is not designed evade security/anti-spam systems and to proxy or relay emails to a third party, but is is currently possible via a variety of devices.  How, you might ask, well I’ll get into that below, but first you might be asking why are these devices even connected to the internet?  Well it’s because people do not have a clue from a security perspective.  Neither the people that own the device nor (in a lot of cases) the designers.  The manufacturers are embedding computers into the devices and as a home appliance manufacturer (whether it be a fridge, a TV or other device) they are not experienced in IT Security, its not their job (yet) to be concerned with security, they want the functionality at the cheapest price.  To this end, they get people in their IT developer section (if they even have one, some just ask another supplier to provide them with the embedded software) straight from University, or school, with one very experienced manager most of which have no idea about security of the devices but they can code….  Worse, they make fatal management decisions giving the commands.. “Make it work!  Make it work quickly. Make it work cheaply!” When they have a developer that says, “Hey, what about security?” the answer comes back, don’t worry about it, it’s in the home, it’s safe behind the owners’ firewall, or “well put a password on it!”.. and so it begins..

Why this is bad..

Seems like a no brainer, the device is behind a firewall, it’s being NAT’d (Network Address Translation) so it’s not available on the Internet.. or is it?

Well most of these devices are running one of two Operating Systems, Windows or Linux, both operating system types have embedded versions, ‘Embedded Windows’ for Windows, or ‘BusyBox’ for Linux (amongst others, but that seems the most common.)

I’m not going to mention Embedded Windows here at all as I know nothing about it, and to be honest, at the moment, I don’t want to…  personal prejudice and all that..

Now in the case of Linux, the kernel itself is mostly secure and requires detailed and specialised knowledge to break into in the later versions.  The problem is they kernel is just part of the OS.  Linux is a UNIX variant and as such it relies on many applications as part of the OS for configuration, testing and usability. In the case of BusyBox these applications are often special versions that are cut down and trimmed as much as possible to save on space as embedded devices are usually limited on available memory, and they are all rolled into the same executable that operates as a multi-purpose tool “The Swiss Army knife of Embedded Linux” (it is given multiple names but only stored once in memory, and depending on the name you use to execute it, will depend on what function it performs.)  This is great, it makes devices very easy to build and makes it very versatile, for example, the Patriot Box Office, AC Ryan, Masscool and CinemaTube media players all run on the Realtek RTD1073 chipset BusyBox and a Linux kernel is an ideal OS for the device..  However, they are yet another example of the Internet of Things..  and in the case of the Masscool device a particularly good example of whats wrong…

My Masscool Media player…

I bought it in 2010 as it was one of the first HD capable media players that I could find with a good review, it also was one of the only ones with a HDMI port on the back..  Very quickly I found that it wouldn’t play some of the updated media formats so I went looking for firmware updates.  Non available, I relegated the box to the junk pile for a couple of years…  Recently I set up my games room and thought I’d get it out again and see if I could hack it to work with Plex as this is an XMBC fork that works well as a Media Server and has a DNLA server built in and the DNLA server can be hacked to transcode to various formats.

My first job was to see if I could get a firmware update, and went looking again.  What I found was two things, first, Masscool had not released a single update to the media player and in fact had stopped producing any Media Players.  Second, there is a sub-culture around the Patriot Box Office media players and firmware updates, and on the forums I found someone had posted the PBO unit was the same Chipset and board layout as a Masscool device. So I found a PBO firmware on their official site, downloaded it and started the firmware update to install it.. 30 seconds later I was told it was not made for this device and the update was aborted.  After this, the unit was a ‘brick’ .. it had killed it.  It could have been the boot code, it could have been something else.. don’t know but to many it would be dead and useless junk now, to me it was an opportunity to play.  I had no concerns about ‘bricking it’ as it was already bricked so I looked for hardware modifications and found with an old mobile phone sync cable I could interact with the Realtek chip directly and as such I could load just about any firmware I wanted on it.  The box within a few minutes was back operating in a really nice version of the Patriot Box Office software and playing all those newer media formats that I wanted to get in the first place.  Of course having “hacked” it I suddenly had all the details of what it’s running and how it could be easily attacked.  I had the default passwords, it was already listening for Telnet connections but I had been unable to get the information to logon to it until I hacked it… So I logged on and found that the Busybox installation had been complied with the ‘telnet’ option and therefore it is a device that can be a “ThingBot”.

More on how to exploit later…

My Dreambox DM500HD…

At home I have two Dreamboxes, a DM500HD and a DM800. both running ‘Enigma 2’, running OpenPLi 3.0 and OpenPLi 2.1 respectively… Running on an IBM STBx25xx Digital Set-Top Box Integrated Controller, and a 400 MHz Broadcom 7400 respectively.  Enigma 2 is another Busybox embedded device, however is significantly different from other media devices as it is being actively developed, supported, upgraded and patched.  All being said, by default DreamBoxes and the VU Plus, VU Duo devices and any other ‘Enigma 2’ device have a default password, login and open telnet port, in the case of Dreambox devices it is ‘root’ with a password of ‘dreambox’.  Worse, not only does it have telnet built in, it also has a web interface which by default is NOT password protected and allows you to get to all the system settings, including login security options and files with passwords…!

Further as this is a ‘feature rich’ device with whole store full of plugins and applications most of which are written in Python which is also embedded in the OS as an application.  This device is definitely a ‘ThingBot’, and it would be very easy to create a ‘Bot’ application that could be installed used to do a variety of other things – including compromise other devices.

So why would it be on the Internet?  Well simple (and in fact I put mine on the Internet) you can watch TV from anywhere in the world using the webinterface and if you had an Andriod or iOS based smart phone or tablet you can download an application to give you TV on the device anywhere in the world.. (and it works very well with Apple iPads, I use it when I visit the USA as all 600 channels over there seem to be full of rubbish and it works well on the hotel wireless!)

My D-Link DNS-325 Disk Arrays (Home NAS devices)…

I have two at home, one has two 2T drives, the other has two 3T drives, one is a backup for the other and is mass storage for me, it’s based on the 1.2 GHz Marvell® 88F6281 (Kirkwood) chipset..  I moved all my Music from my Macs to there, I moved all my Movies there, I moved all my photos there… and they are both full, so I bought a new Netgear this Christmas (more on that below.)  Now these devices are also Busybox based… what a surprise you may say.. no windows so far.. well that’s because I don’t buy windows anything, so this is all going to be something Linux based and mostly Busybox.. so anyhow, plugins available for it, eg, you can put a Database server (MySQL) on it, you can run a blog server on it, and of course you can put custom plugins on it by putting them in the root of the shared drive and rebooting it.. or using the web-interface. This includes adding an SSH server.. but why bother?  It has a telnet server built in, and you don’t even need to use a username and password (in fact you can’t even set it to have a username and password unless you are quite technical as any changes are automatically lost when you reboot as the password has to be saved to the boot flash and it is not using the provided tools.)

Again once you’re in you can telnet out elsewhere..

 My Netgear RN10400 NAS…

Built on the Marvell® Armada 370 1.2GHz chipset, it is also Linux though this is built on Debian Linux 7.1 (ReadyNAS version 6.x firmware) and unlike the others it’s secure(ish) by default.  You have to turn on shell access via the web-interface before you can get access to the shell.  However, unlike the others it has an extensive online plugin ‘store’ and you can install everything from a RADIUS server to a MySQL database server (by default with no credentials for root access) to your own blog and website.  However, like the Engima 2 systems it is also extensively supported by the manufacturer and community so firmware patches are forthcoming on a regular basis.

Would this be on the Internet, well yes, many of the applications are designed to give simple ‘SOHO’ services at low cost, so it is very likely this device will be placed on the Internet, either directly or by using the ‘DMZ’ or ‘Port Forward’ capabilities of most home routers.  Being a linux server under the hood, and not just a Busybox embedded device it also runs most if not all software that will run on a Debian Linux PC.. in fact it can even compile and run third party software that does not have packages capable of being installed on the NAS.

My Yamaha RX-A1030 A/V Receiver…

My latest toy, and very impressive one at that.. complete with it’s own gigabit network interface on the back.  As I only got it a month ago I haven’t had time to poke around with it above look at the web-interface, port-scan it, and install the ‘Tablet’ remote control application.  What I found was as follows:

michelle$ nmap -p1-65535 10.10.0.70

Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2014-01-21 13:07 CET
Nmap scan report for 10.10.0.70
Host is up (0.0030s latency).
Not shown: 65529 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
80/tcp open http
1040/tcp open netsaint
1900/tcp open upnp
8080/tcp open http-proxy
10200/tcp open unknown
50000/tcp open ibm-db2

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 11.06 seconds

michelle$

Whoopsie!  More on that a little later, but I can tell you it has an iTunes streaming service , as well as ‘Net Radio’ and AirPlay.  (The important one to note here is the UPnP port.. more below)

My Thomson ‘Smart’ TV…

Another new addition (I got it at the same time as the Yamaha) and have not yet poked around with it, but it has it’s own App Store and Web Browser.. which is Embedded Opera and when you hit a webpage, with Flash content, it automatically attempts to download the flash plugin..  Do I really need to mention all the Flash vulnerabilities recently?  As for the scan it only has port 13000 open, which I have no idea about yet except it isn’t as webservice.

My LG Smart TV…

Another device (and one I haven’t poked around with) except I know it is embedded Linux and has various plugins available, including the Plex media client which historically has been written in Python.  LG have had a bad rap with their Smart TVs because of the fact they have been caught ‘calling home’, however like the Thomson and most other Smart TVs it is running embedded Linux.

So what about it…?

Well enough of the list of ‘ThingBots’ or devices that could be made to be ThingBots (Not even going to go into what on the LG Blu-Ray player and Melita HD Cable Set-top box – both Linux based)..  As you can see many of these devices are running an OS that is available in the mainstream and therefore compilers, software and plugins are available.  Some are securely setup by default, but most are not.

Some of these devices you can expect to see put on the Internet with out a security by the naive or experimenter, others you would not..  Or would you?

You see one of the problems with many of these devices is they all want to get access to the Internet, and even if you don’t give them access most of them are equipped to get access without you needing to know how.  Most people barely know how to setup a home router, so there is no way they would be able to configure port forwarding if needed, and certainly they would not know how to do that securely for protocols such as H.323 (video conferencing protocol that also used in MSN Messenger for example) so to get around this back in the late 1990s developers came up with UPnP aka Universal Plug and Play.

UPnP (Universal Plug and Play)…

This protocol/software is built into most routers, home-firewalls and devices.  It is a set of networking protocols that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other’s presence on the network and establish functional network services for data sharing, communications, and entertainment. UPnP is intended primarily for residential networks without enterprise-class devices.

The UPnP technology is promoted by the UPnP Forum. The UPnP Forum is a computer industry initiative to enable simple and robust connectivity to stand-alone devices and personal computers from many different vendors. The Forum consists of over eight hundred vendors involved in everything from consumer electronics to network computing.

The concept of UPnP is an extension of plug-and-play, a technology for dynamically attaching devices directly to a computer, although UPnP is not directly related to the earlier plug-and-play technology. UPnP devices are “plug-and-play” in that when connected to a network they automatically establish working configurations with other devices.

The UPnP architecture allows device-to-device networking of personal computers, networked home appliances, consumer electronics devices and wireless devices. It is a distributed, open architecture protocol based on established standards such as the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP), HTTP, XML, and SOAP. UPnP control points are devices which use UPnP protocols to control UPnP devices.

The UPnP architecture supports zero configuration networking. A UPnP compatible device from any vendor can dynamically join a network, obtain an IP address, announce its name, convey its capabilities upon request, and learn about the presence and capabilities of other devices. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Domain Name System (DNS) servers are optional and are only used if they are available on the network. Devices can disconnect from the network automatically without leaving state information.

UPnP was published as a 73-part international standard, ISO/IEC 29341, in December, 2008.

What does this mean? well simply a UPnP device can tell the UPnP enabled firewall or router can open the ports without your knowledge – WITHOUT ANY AUTHENTICATION!

This is why back in 2002, Juniper Networks issued the following statement about their lack of support for UPnP in their devices:

SUMMARY:

Support for Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)

PROBLEM OR GOAL:

Universal Plug and Play Some chat programs are UPnP aware

SOLUTION:

NetScreen investigated UPnP, and have decided not to embrace this technology (as of mid 2002). Several factors went into this decision: a compromised host (say, with a trojan) could open the firewall entirely and permit other attacks and intrusions; all of the UPnP specs indicated that it is designed for the residential environment which is not NetScreen’s target market.

 

So how do they do it?

Follows is a series of images that show how it can be done.  I will *not* be showing how to manipulate a UPnP firewall remotely, I will also not be doing this remotely as my network is secure against things like UPnP especially as my border is protected with a Juniper SSG520.

First the D-Link DNS-325 NAS…

Spamming through a D-Link DNS-325

Now the Dreambox DM500HD (Remembering where the password is the default is ‘dreambox’ – which the malware “linux.darloz” is known to exploit):

Dreambox DM500HD proxy spam example.

The DM800 will work the same way, and in fact one could even install their own spamming program or proxy server using these set top boxes as this video will show:

 Conclusion…

Until both manufacturers and end users understand the security risks of devices on the Internet any device is is an attack vector for spammers and hackers, and as that device may not be monitored you could have the FBI, NSA, Interpol or Australian Federal Police (or other law enforcement) come knocking on your door to arrest and jail you for something you know nothing about…  Like trying to hack a nuclear reactor in Korea…

The final word…

I don’t have an Internet enabled fridge, and unless a manufacturer “donated” one to me I doubt I’ll ever have one (and no, I don’t need a new fridge, my Samsung 2009 side-by-side is perfect for my needs).. so no I can’t show you how to hack a fridge, just the same way I couldn’t show my employer.  All I know is, “yup there is at least one out there that is hacked” it might not be the fridge is hacked, it might be another device sharing the connection, but the spamming host is showing an Internet enabled fridge when querying it… one can only draw conclusions.

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New Computer for Xmas? From Amazon? Watch out you might need a HazMat suit….!!

What is it with me, I seem to attract trouble at the moment, either that or I just don’t take s**t like others do…

So I’m not going to talk about the ripoff known as Ebay seller StuffUSell who sells stuff that they know doesn’t match the description… that’s Ebay and par for the course… No this is about someone you would think would know better… Amazon…!

Yeah the price of globalisation.. they’re so big in every country that when searching for stuff you don’t even see Ebay at the top of the list anymore, you just see 100’s of Amazon links leaving you little choice about where you can purchase items…  Even if they can’t/won’t deliver.

Many of you the readers know I live in Malta (Europe, not the town in the USA) it’s a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean sea and unfortunately getting stuff that is available to the rest of the world can be a task… and it’s not cheap (sometimes as much as double to RRP.)  For this reason I often use online services such as Amazon to get what I need at a reasonable price, paying extra for shipping.  Obviously because of Tax and VAT I prefer to order from Amazon EU/UK where ever possible.

So what is the subject about, you’re thinking.. well simple are you in Europe, are you thinking about ordering a computer/tablet for Christmas 2013…?  Well my advice is avoid Amazon at all cost as you might find yourself without what you are waiting for until after Christmas, with the excuse the Item you are ordering has a HAZMAT sticker on it and we can’t ship it to you…

Here’s the screenshot of the item I ordered over a week ago.. (click for hi-res version)

Thecus N4510UR 12TB NAS
Thecus N4510UR 12TB NAS

So as you can see ‘Ordered on 21 November 2013’ .. however lets take a look at ‘My Orders’ (click for hi-res)…

My Orders at Amazon
My Orders at Amazon

So I didn’t get any delivery, so I checked the order status, found it not yet dispatched so I got onto Customer Support (politely at first)… and after 24 hours I got this response:

 Hello,

I am writing to let you know about your order #202-2620275-0284318.

I have received an update from our fulfillment center stating that this item has been held up at JKPT this is because the item has been identified as having HAZMAT control on it and therefore can not be shipped to the address used as we can not ship this type of product to an overseas address.

I hope this helps you.

We loo forward seeing you again soon.

Warmest regards,

Ruban S.

It’s like ‘WFT?!?!?!’ HAZMAT?!?!??!  its a computer – it doesn’t even contain battery backup batteries!!

I got back to Customer support (again politly(ish) at first).. and couldn’t get a response as to what “JKPT” is … eventually I persuaded the Customer Support person to email me later what it meant, I got the following:

Hello,

I’m writing regarding your order #202-2620275-0284318.

Please be informed that, JKPT is a condition that an item is put into when we have no shipping method for the item due to HAZMAT regulations. It is usually to either an overseas address or a PO box address, locker or a parcel motel type place.

If we can be of further assistance, you can reply directly to this e-mail. You can reach us by chat or phone from this link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/contact-us

Customer Service can be reached by phone and chat 7 days a week 06.00 to midnight, local UK time.

If you need to call us, we can be reached on Freephone (within the UK) 0800 496 1081. International customers can reach us on +44 207 084 7911.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Warmest regards,

Babuvignesh S.

At this point I got a little narcky and phoned them on the 0800 number for the UK and pointed out, that the address for delivery is a real address that they have delivered to previously, and that whilst they are correct ‘overseas’ pretty much everywhere in Europe could be classified as such if the origination point is Jersey as they previously indicated… and again the response:

 Hello,

Regarding your Order No: 202-2620275-0284318, we’ve got an update from our fulfilment team:

”  I’m sorry but this item has been held up at JKPT this is because the item has been identified as having HAZMAT control on it and therefore can not be shipped to the address used as we can not ship this type of product to an overseas address ”

Warmest regards,

Thangjam M

Then 24 hours later I get this:

Hello,

I’m sorry for the inconvenience caused to you with the restrictions to Malta.

I do understand your concern regarding the item being allowed to ship to Malta.

I’ve checked and can see that my colleague has already contacted appropriate department to investigate this issue.

As it is not yet possible to provide you with a resolution, we continue to work hard to provide an update and we still expect to be in contact with you on the date provided by my colleague, November 29, 2013.

Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience; we want to be sure to address this matter as thoroughly as possible.

If you don’t hear back from us by November 29, 2013, please contact us again by replying directly to this email.

I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Warmest regards,

Imran A.

So the moral, if you want/need something quick (even as a business user buying business class items) don’t bother with Amazon, and certainly if it’s a computer or tablet (as tablets are computers).. go down the high street and buy over the counter – even if it costs more or takes your time, at least you’ll get it, and the shop is likely to be still there next time you need something!!

 

UPDATE [5th December 2013], this just in from Amazon:

Hello,

We’re writing about your Amazon.co.uk order 202-2620275-0284318 which included the following:

——————————————————

B009E0X9Q4

Thecus N4510UR 12TB (4 x 3TB) 4 Bay 1U Rackmount NAS with McAfee Antivirus Protection

——————————————————

Unfortunately, due to delivery restrictions on such items, we won’t be able to send you this item and have cancelled it from your order.  This is because this item contains flammable, pressurised, corrosive, environmentally hazardous or otherwise harmful substances classified as dangerous goods under the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Air.

Although the amount of these substances in these products is usually quite limited, these products need to be transported in a certain way to ensure that they are handled with care and are therefore assigned to a specialist carrier.  Unfortunately this means that we can’t dispatch this to any destination outside of mainland UK.

We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused and hope to see you again soon.

Warmest regards

Customer Service Department

Amazon.co.uk

Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that can’t accept incoming e-mail.  Please don’t reply to this message.

So there you have it, if you are buying a computer from Amazon (UK) and are not in the UK they cannot and will not ship the item – even if it is marked as being sold by Amazon Europe (S.a.r.L.) and even if it is marked as available for delivery to your country…

UPDATE 2:  Bit the bullet today, and went to one of the local computer stores and bought the non rackmount version of the NAS, found for €1123.00 (less than Amazon) I was able to get a 16TB version.. then I thought about it…  We’re on an island, everything is flown in.. but wait, Amazon said it was a HAZMAT marked item….!

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Facebook, why didn’t I receive that update…?

 
Noticed how sometimes you don’t get notified of someone’s update, an event or a post in your interest lists/groups?  Missed that party for your friends’ birthdays?  Here’s why…
 
So many of you will have seen posts similar to the following:

Facebook is now pushing administrators to pay to promote every post/update from their page. In an attempt to make page administrators and users pay for “promoted posts,” Facebook will now only notify 7% of you receive each update posted. Meaning that now, in order to receive all messages/posts from things you have ‘liked’, you must do the following:

1) Go to the the page (eg: http://www.facebook.com/mhix.org for ‘Shells Shots’).

2) Hover your mouse over where it says “LIKED” and click on “ADD TO INTERESTS LISTS”

For users/friends:

1) Goto their timeline, or hover over their name in one of their posts in your newsfeed.

2) Hover the mouse over the ‘Friends’ Button.

3) Click ‘Settings’

4) Click ‘All updates’

By doing this, you will be able to see all posts for pages and friends alike in your news feed. Please “share” this post with your friends.

Note: They also set the ‘Sort’ on the newsfeed to only put the top posts (those that have paid to be at the top) at the top, change it to ‘most recent’ to see what people are posting when they post..

Please share this post/information with everyone so all can know what Facebook are doing…!

Thank you!!

 
 So what does it mean?
 
Well simply it’s the response to Facebook‘s latest attempt to get money for its investors.  Facebook’s stock is falling, people are loosing money, the company is failing… Privacy is required by many people, and laws have mandated it so they can’t sell your data to others as they once did, advertising is failing particularly as mobile devices don’t see most of it…  They need to make money…
 
So as most users of Facebook (the reported billions of users) are not actually real users (eg my Ex Katie Crothers has/had three “Officially her” accounts, plus at least 30 fake accounts in various alias names (eg Leon Mconnell etc) that she created to attack my account with, then later stalk me to try and to ‘collect evidence’ for my former employer to take me to court for breach of a non-disclosure agreement and right waiver that prevents me from taking them to court over the sexual harassment and discrimination I suffered whilst employed.)  Then we have those like me, where I have 3 accounts, one for me publicly, one for my closest only friends, and one that I use to investigate people with (as part of my job, and for evidential evidence against the stalking and harassment.)  Finally, I know many other people that have at least 2 accounts, one for employers, one for friends etc… So based on knowing many people with 2 legitimate accounts, I would suspect that Facebook’s user Total of 1.01 billion is actually around half that, despite their pathetic attempts to weed out fake accounts.
 
So back to the original question… what does it mean?
 
Well simply, they need to make money, and make money fast, so as they cannot get money from the fake accounts, and they can’t get people to pay for the newsfeeds they are relying on companies to pay for their ‘page’ posts to ensure that all their users get the updates.  The problem with this is they are targeting the vast majority of pages by asking for payment to those pages that have less than 5000 ‘likes’, ie all the less known ones.  The ones where people want to get themselves up on the limits so they don’t have to pay…
 
Here’s the problem though… it didn’t work, the little people won’t pay when the big ones get it free, and they worked out that if they have a second phone number and access to a limitless number of email addresses (like me) they can create ‘fake’ accounts, in this case the ‘fake’ is because they don’t represent a real person, they are the company, someone that can post adverts when they are your friend and you get them in your newsfeed as ‘Pages’ used to do…
 
To combat this, Facebook has been changing your ‘Newsfeed’, first they changed the ‘Sort Order’, it used to display the latest posts at the top, now by default it only displays ‘Top Stories’ – these ‘stories’ are those that go viral, ones that get shared, ones that get ‘liked’ ones that get lots of comments.  So when this happened, I amongst many others told people how to change it back..
 
Go to the ‘News Feed’ and hover your mouse over ‘Sort’ and select ‘Recent Updates’ instead of ‘Top Stories’ (Note that ‘Top Stories’ only shows ‘Sort’, where after it’s changed it says, ‘Sort: Recent Updates’ – quite deliberate so you as a user don’t realize.)
 
Problem is everyone changed it back when they saw the posts alerting them to the change, so they change it back every so often, because they want you to always see ‘Top Stories’ first…
 
So their next attempts (and the current issue) is to make everyone suffer the ‘promoted posts’ issue…  As a user, only 7% of your friends will only see any post you make, if you get a lot of people ‘Like’ing or ‘Comment’ing on your post it goes up the ‘Top Stories’ list and more of your friends *may* see the post…
 
Sooner or later Facebook is going to have to bite the bullet and start charging people for access.  The problem they have with that is the user base will fall dramatically, their number of active users will probably be just a small percentage of their current total..  Why is fairly obvious, fake accounts will vanish, people will only have access if they have access to a credit card, and of course some will refuse to pay as there are free alternatives out there…
 
So here’s a list of the Advantages I see with a ‘pay for’ Facebook (and I’m only talking about paying $5 per year as this would if they insist that majority of their 1.01b users are real, $5.05b in revenue):
  • Fraud and Fake accounts will be stamped out (one account per credit card number.)
  • Revenue is generated.
  • People will not abandon stolen accounts so readily.
  • They can better ensure that children (under 18s) are not allowed access without their parents knowledge.
  • Abuse by stalkers and harassers will be greatly reduced (it won’t stop it though, stalkers are psychotic and determined.)
  • Spam and other abuse will be reduced (though it is unlikely to stop it.)

Disadvantages:

  • Many people will just stop using it in favour of ‘free’ services.
  • The real figure of Facebook users can be accurately calculated, audited and reported (and if it is significantly lower will decimate the Stock Price.)
  • “Stolen accounts” trade will increase on the black market.
  • Facebook ‘Phishing’ attempts will greatly increase as abusers will attempt to steal other people’s accounts.
  • Facebook will have a contract with end-users so their legal obligations will significantly increase (terminating an account someone has paid for will require due cause/process and is auditable by a court – this would have significantly helped me in my received abuse and harassment by my ex..  Facebook would not want to get involved in such cases, but they would have no ability to get away from it.)
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A few questions answered…

Ok some questions and answers that keep popping up in the blog…

Question: Can Internet Dongles be traced?
Answer: Yes, very easily if you have the equipment and know how. However there are some caveats. If you have an ex with a dongle that you want to trace, no you can’t. However, if the ex has stolen your dongle (or you’re one of the idiots that think they can steal a dongle and get away with it) .. Yes you can. There are 2 serial numbers embedded in the dongle (known as EMSIs) one is programmable, the other is ‘hard coded’ (ie it cannot be changed) If you know the programmable one and not the hardware code, you have to hope the thief has not had it reprogrammed. On the other hand if you have the hard coded one you can trace it. I won’t discuss the details here (or in private questions) as you have to sign paperwork to get that information in most countries, but the one thing I can tell you is, knowing both makes things a hundred times easier.

Question: Can you trace someone using a particular Internet dongle?
Answer: Yes

Question: Can you trace someone via your blog?
Answer: Yes if they keep connecting to it… Depending on your knowledge and control it might take some coding. However, if the person is stupid or careless, they will leave finger prints all over your blog… for example, someone who spends a lot of time in Florida (USA) is going to get a nasty surprise this year of 2012 if they don’t stop “checking up” as they are going to find themselves in court this year on similar charges of gender discrimination as my ex is. (Final warning: you know who you are, I might not be able to take you to court, but the European court will take the matter up themselves and I will just supply the evidence!)

Question: Can you see what people are searching for when they find your blog?
Answer: It’s simple, just check the ‘referrer’ header it will present the last page visited for example:

98.203.109.165 TwDoP0W3HEMAAAOTCbcAAAAB – – [01/Jan/2012:18:11:59 -0500] “GET / HTTP/1.1” 200 75800 “http://www.bing.com/search?q=michelle+sullivan+malta+blog&form=MSNH14&qs=n&sk=&sc=1-28&x=107&y=13” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)”

The ‘q=michelle+sullivan+malta+blog’ shows the person searched for “michelle sullivan malta blog” whilst using ‘Bing’ as the search engine as a matter of interest from Hollywood, Florida, using Windows 7 x64. (Similar things can be seen with Google, and image searches just the line format changes – Webalizer will decode most of them for you if you have trouble working it out.)

Question: If people have linked to your page, can you see where the original link was?
Answer: Yes, and the same thing works for spotting when someone uses some image on your site on their page, or even Facebook links. Again the ‘referrer’ header is the key field, for example a link from Facebook:

46.11.109.216 TwBOhEW3HEAAAArMSsQAAAAB – – [01/Jan/2012:07:16:04 -0500] “GET / HTTP/1.1” 200 75800 “http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.michellesullivan.org%2F&h=2AQElPj30AQHe6mHhKUmRDmzJE9YdYqc8FksLg6ql4Zxynw” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/535.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/16.0.912.63 Safari/535.7”

and an image used elsewhere linking back to the site (in this case my MySpace page):

70.127.86.50 TwEF00W3HEMAAAOTCt0AAAAB – – [01/Jan/2012:20:18:11 -0500] “GET /GalleryData/2009/July/12/thumbnails/DSC_4258.jpg HTTP/1.1” 200 4431 “http://www.myspace.com/michelle_i_sullivan” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)”

 

Question: I see you have had trouble with a stalker, I think I have a stalker as well, can I use the information to prosecute?
Answer: Yes, but you will need help, if you needed to ask this question you are not someone like myself that has given ‘expert evidence’ in court on multiple occasions so therefore you will need someone to help you gather the evidence. Important: Get advice from the local authorities on the matter as soon as possible if you need to, or think you might, go to court. The first thing you will need to do is turn on forensic logging, this is not as simple as using Apache’s “log_forensic” function, but it is a start. You will also need to dump packet headers from the offenders at a network level and record those packets in a format that is considered ‘untamperable’ (ie once recorded it cannot be altered.) You will also need to be able to follow basic tracing (as described in other articles) as you probably don’t want to record everything that hits your website. Lastly you will need to obtain, or have someone obtain court orders on your behalf, to gain access to the remote connections providers access logs so that you can tie the evidence collected to the offender. Be prepared, such issues are long and involved, and in countries such as Malta, unless you know who to call you rarely get to speak to anyone that actually knows what you’re talking about. You should also note that unless there is a serious crime committed (such as “Criminal Libel”, “Racial Discrimination”, “Gender Discrimination” or “Child Pornography”) you will not get any help from most police forces of the world.

Question: Will you help me trace my stalker?
Answer: I just did by posting this, however if you want someone to be your detective, sorry I don’t do that for others, as I don’t really have the time to waste on it myself, get your self in touch with the Police and if they can’t/won’t help, hire a private investigator to help. Tip: I have used a private investigator myself over the last year to help me as they double checked my ‘evidence’ for forensic ‘soundness’ and at times I just didn’t have the time to do all the work myself. Tracing people is not simple or quick when it comes to getting all the evidence needed for a court case. It’s quick and simple if you just want to ‘know’ without having to ‘prove’ it (also in some cases like mine when the tracing goes international, you either have to visit or get help from someone local – particularly when tracing devices such as dongles to a 50m radius.)

Question: My stalker is using proxies (including the “I’m hiding behind 7 proxies” bulls**t) can they be traced or can I stop them?
Answer: Not as simple as a yes or not because it depends on each proxy and the intent of the person who set each up. Most proxies are accidentally setup ‘open’ and therefore there is no malicious intent, if this is the case it doesn’t matter if there are 100 proxies between the stalker and you, it’s simply a matter of looking for the ‘X-Sent-Via:’ and/or ‘X-Forwarded-For:’ headers in your forensic logs (the latter header is pretty much standardised) if found you will find that all of the IP addresses (including the originators) are presented to you in a nice simple comma separated list.