Confessions of a Pilgrim

After a very brief search using Google, Sourceforge, and Freshmeat I’ve come to the rather under educationed conclusion that there are no freeware file signature lists out there. Pity that. So, with a particular need in mind, I have begun alittle experiment.

The thing I want to find in this first part of the experiment, the key offsets on a floppy disk. For those “in the know”, please correct me if I have these all wrong.

I took a floppy disk from my stack and reformatted it. I then grabbed an image of the disk using:

dd if=\\\\.\a: of=floppy.dd bs=512 conv=noerror

The image created can be found here. The md5 of the zip file is 69f4d2d4f12f73c083e62271806e2d04.

The MD5 of the image itself is 82b34b5225782e9938d5858ba9d8f7cf.

Now then, I took the image and loaded into my trusty hex editor. I noticed the following offsets on the disk that MAY be particular areas of interest for forensic work. Again, if I’m wrong lemme know.

00000000:00000202 looks like header info for the drive to include FStype
inside this offset at 000001a1 we have what seems to be the default error for NTLoader?

Which leaves us with 000001f2-00000202 which makes little sense to me except what appears to be a common refrain throughout my analysis “f0 ff ff”. Perhaps it’s the end of the diskette header?

From 00000203 – 000013ff we have nulls.

At 00001400-00001402 we have another “f0 ff ff”. End of the FAT?

From 00001403 – 000025ff we have nulls.

At 00002600-00002619 appears to be the label of diskette. Now, when I formatted the drive I called it “for-exp1″. That’s 8 characters for the math impaired. Maximum was 11 but the space provided is a bit more than than that…what’s the extra space for?

From 0000261a – 000041ff we have nulls.

From 00004200 – 00167dff uninterrupted is f6 repeated.

From 00167e00 – 00167fff we have nulls.

So that’s it for a forensic look at a recently formatted floppy drive. Next up we’ll put some stuff on the same floppy and have another look at it.

I posted this here and on The Command Post a couple weeks ago. The post has generated some comments that have left me pretty worked up. Erik the Red(aptly named I think) made the claim that NOTHING that I have was by my own hand. I had to walk away from the machine to calm down alittle bit and still my anger crept back in to my reply.

Go. Read. And see what the other side seems to think about the American Government and what they should be doing.

Once again I’m left all but BREATHLESS by an episode of 24. Had a phone call to tend to just as the Secret Service, under orders by a hopelessly inept 25th Amendment President, arrived to arrest Jack.(Thanks Singlemind and sorry I cut you off!)

Oh. My. Goodness. Chloe with a rifle. **shudder**(in a very VERY good way). I just LOVE that character. Strong. No Nonsense. Straight forward to a fault and NOW we have evidence to support the “fiesty” comment I made here. And I won’t even comment on the pitiful excuse of a “show” before 24 now. I guess trading spouses didn’t cut it so Fox decided to show a different angle to dysfunctional families. Still Sad.

I know it’s only Hollywood but I can’t help but think that the writers of this show are trying to make some points this season:

1. We cannot fight an assymetric war symetrically.
2. Sometimes our Civil Rights Laws MUST be set aside for the good of the Country.
3. A Vice President selected for votes or because of political favors is NEVER a good idea.

Learned over the past day or two of another child butchered in Florida by a known sex offender. How many more are we going to allow?

Here in Kentucky there are several registered sex offenders that are non-compiant with their registration according to the State Police’s online registry which they state is NOT OFFICIAL…but still a good place to check to protect your kids. Just go here and supply the county in which you live to get a complete list of registered sex offenders in your area.

A reminder – these people MUST be considered law abiding citizens if they are compliant with their registration. We do not know the circumstances that landed them on the SOR. Consider your own self at the age of 18. If your boyfriend or girlfriend at the time was under 18 and you were sexually involved you were, by statute, committing rape and if charged would have been placed on the SOR. Something to consider before going overboard with this thing.

There is a rant here as well. What in the WORLD is going on in Florida??? How can ANY JUDGE allow a convicted sex offender walk out on a SECOND CHARGE with bail at $200??? Why offer bail at all? Don’t these bone heads know that it’s OUR children at risk? Our daughters, sons, sisters, and mothers??? You notice that these cowards won’t try this crap with men. They have to have something to control, to torture while they scream for mercy. There is no penalty too steep for anyone who would harm a child. Castration is too easy. Skinned alive and submerged in paint thinner occassionally might do it but even then they would bleed out too fast.

Any child rapists out there…come visit me for alittle mountain justice sometime. I’ll cure you…I promise.

[update] I love this guy. Ya gotta go read about the dangers of .45 caliber brain tumors.

Fellow Republicans, it’s time to be crystal clear in our transparency. We simply cannot endure the ethics whining about Congressman Delay, Governor Fletcher, and Kentucky Senate President David Williams.

How difficult is it to play the game without the APPEARANCE of impropriety? I’m not saying DeLay, Fletcher, and Williams are crooked. I AM saying their behavior hurts the party and we just don’t need that right now when Democrats, local and national, are doing everything they can to stop this national conservative swing. Clean up your acts fellas. Like Senator Santorum said today:

I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves

So come on lads…quit giving the Dems something to crow about.

Ordinarilly I’m a geek that spends an inordinate amount of time tinkering with code and breaking things. Lately I’ve spent alot of time reading about privacy issues, tools, and where all this is going. The more I read about the abuses of privacy rights the more wild-eyed I get. I’ve caught myself ranting about the invasion of the government into my privacy. While I stand by that rant my feelings about this kind of thing seems to be bumping into a grey area that I’m not sure I’m comfortable with.
(more…)

Nope…not a tribute to HS Thompson.

I’m looking for an infosec-aware-attorney that I can ask a confidential question to without fear of them running to the media, finding a plaintiff, and sueing someone’s pants off.

I have a client that is in a bit of a situation. I don’t think any laws have been broken but the potential for nastiness is there had events taken a different turn. I’m interested in finding out what exposure my client would have had if things had gone south…rather than slight south of west.

Lastly, and it’s sad I have to say this, just because this is for a client of mine doesn’t mean you can demand money from me for helping point me in the right direction. I don’t have any money anyway…I’m a public servant!

Leave email addresses or suggestions in the comments.

A case in Georgia seems to be playing out similiar to the Schiavo case in Florida last month.

Read this and find out how the Culture of Death is slowly taking over our World.

UPDATE: KyProgress has done his homework. It seems now that Georgia Right To Life has come to the rescue and all is as well as it can be. The story is still an interesting read and shows what IS possible in this dark age we seem to be living in.

What does Illegal Immigration and Social Security have in common? The NYT reports it could be boon to the struggling program.

This article has some of the most incredible claims I’ve ever read(aside from the DU that is). They begin the article with a tale of woe:

STOCKTON, Calif. – Since illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States six years ago, Ángel Martínez has done backbreaking work, harvesting asparagus, pruning grapevines and picking the ripe fruit. More recently, he has also washed trucks, often working as much as 70 hours a week, earning $8.50 to $12.75 an hour.

And then the wrapper for this diatribe:

Not surprisingly, Mr. Martínez, 28, has not given much thought to Social Security’s long-term financial problems. But Mr. Martínez – who comes from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico and hiked for two days through the desert to enter the United States near Tecate, some 20 miles east of Tijuana – contributes more than most Americans to the solvency of the nation’s public retirement system.

So here we have Mr. Martinez busting his tired and obviously oppressed arse while contributing to my parent’s Social Security. Am I supposed to say “Thank You”? How about “Get the 4377 out of my country if you don’t want to enter it legally!”.

I could continue with the illegal immigration rant but the Times has a different idea…

Last year, Mr. Martínez paid about $2,000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through payroll taxes withheld from his wages. Yet unlike most Americans, who will receive some form of a public pension in retirement and will be eligible for Medicare as soon as they turn 65, Mr. Martínez is not entitled to benefits.

He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

Oh! So I *AM* supposed to say “THANK YOU” as well as offer the benefits to this criminal? “Thank you Sir! May I have another”? Good Grief. Someone have a paperbag? I think I’m hyperventilating!

After reading a bit further I find that it’s actually a GOOD thing that the criminals will not receive benefits:

Illegal immigrants help even more because they will never collect benefits. According to Mr. Goss, without the flow of payroll taxes from wages in the suspense file, the system’s long-term funding hole over 75 years would be 10 percent deeper.

Yet to immigrants, the lack of retirement benefits is just part of the package of hardship they took on when they decided to make the trek north. Tying vines in a vineyard some 30 miles north of Stockton, Florencio Tapia, 20, from Guerrero, along Mexico’s Pacific coast, has no idea what the money being withheld from his paycheck is for. “I haven’t asked,” Mr. Tapia said.

The “suspence file” mentioned in the above quote is where the SocSec Admin places all W2’s that have false SSNs. I’m not even getting into that argument…it’s just one more episode of not enforcing our laws.

Mr. Martinez and Mr. Tapia are being used. They are criminals that are being used. At first, as usual, I thought of the days of the “peculiar institution” where the Plantation owners lived on the backs of their slaves but this is worse. The Times and their sources seem to be supporting the idea of illegals paying into the Soc Sec system. They are willing to look past the violation of at least TWO federal laws for the sake of the Marxist Ideal of Income Redistribution under the guise of the Social Security System.

For a long time I’ve wondered what the Democrats plan is for Social Security Reform. I guess we know what it is now.

• Help Immigration Criminals by giving them driver’s licenses
• Placing the kids of Immigration Criminals in public schools and Universities
• Allow their employers to falsify W2s
• Take that money and prop up the Social Security System

Now don’t remind me that the children born in the US are Citizens. Those aren’t the kids I’m talking about….of course we would never know if they were born here or carried in like so much luggage because we as a Nation just don’t seem to give a …um… an excrement.

No no no…Lorne Michael’s isn’t getting into the InfoSec business. This is from Bruce Schneier’s blog today where he talks about Sandia National Lab’s press release from 3/17/05:

But the most chilling quote of all:

“The goal here is to abolish anonymity, the terrorist’s friend,” says Sandia researcher Peter Chew. “We’re not talking about abolishing privacy — that’s another issue. We’re only considering the effect of setting up an electronic situation where all the people in a mall, subway, or airport ‘know’ each other — via, say, Bluetooth — as they would have, personally, in a small town. This would help malls and communities become bad targets.”

Anonymity is now the terrorist’s friend? I like to think of it as democracy’s friend.

wow. This article has some very interesting notions but the above paragraph is just scary. I would love for Dr. Chew to explain how anonymity is a friend to the barbarians. Is it because anonymity means when the shooting breaks out or the bomb goes off the people in the mall won’t know who’s the good guys and who’s the bad guys? Or is it as blatant as it appears…tag everyone so the good guys know who they are?

John Whitley of ACG makes an interesting comment:

“Because their goal is to terrorize us, one point is to take the terror out of terror,” says John Whitley, another ACG group member. “Consider fire: At one time, fire was a major threat to cities and even burned a number of them down. Now we have fire engines, water hydrants, fire insurance. We live with the danger almost without thinking about it. We need to set up the same kind of standby mechanisms against terrorism, and do so in an affordable manner.”

Having mechanisms in place to combat the threats is a wonderful idea…wish he had thought of it first. The problem is we have no idea what to look for when it comes to identifying the attackers. We are fighting an ideology here and ideology knows no race or color. Unfortunately the barbarians are too cowardly to wear indentifying garb…except women and children as shields. {move away from that soapbox Pilgrim}

The idea that we can be made safer by electronically announcing our presence is hogwash. All that will do is make it easier to find the bodies after the gunfire stops and the rubble settles.

I guess when the rubble settles they won’t know if I’m a good guy or a bad guy then.

Revelations 13:16-17

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Revelations 14:9-10

9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand 10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

Not worth it lads.

I understand that this may have been in the works for a while but the timing of it…wow.

Let me see if I understand that math here…Citizens that want to volunteer their time to prevent illegal aliens from entering our country are considered “vigilantes“. But LAW ABIDING CITIZENS who happen to be returning HOME are required to show passports???

Would someone please check the Chef in the Whitehouse? I think President Bush has been eating or drinking something that’s gone bad.

With the killing of Terri Schiavo, the death of Pope John Paul II, and the NCAA tournament there has been precious little media time for the goings on on the Mexican – Arizona/US border. Depending on who you read you might read:

• Armed volunteers plan to patrol Mexican border; some fear bloodshed could result
• Minuteman Project causes concern in Mexico
• A volatile situation building on U.S.-Mexico border

The AP gets closer to “journalism” with this title: “Volunteers to help patrol Mexican border”

I wasn’t there for the big shindig last week but from the reports I’ve read…as well as the silence from the Anti-Christian Left Union…I can only guess that there was no Poncho Villa-esque slaughter of “militia” members nor Black Jack Pershing raids into Mexico. The Immigration Blog and the Freeps had their “reporters” on the scene.

For the life of me I can’t understand why President Bush doesn’t support the necessity of protecting our southern border. I know he has a long relationship with President Fox of Mexico but it should be pretty clear that El Presidente’ is ENCOURAGING his people to violate US Law. Now with the birth of the Minutemen he sends his army to the border region. Why? Does he really think that these citizens are a threat to Mexico? Probably so since his people are literally killing themselves to get into the US…must be pretty bad south of the border.

Here in Kentucky we have a seasonal influx of Mexican workers. One has to wonder how many are legal and how many are not. Perhaps it’s time for the “Hunters of Kentucky” to help the illegals get legal. No, that is not a veiled threat. If we have illegal immigrants in our State we should give them an opportunity to get legal. If they choose NOT to get legal…we deport them back to Mexico and send President Fox the bill.

Since I can’t seem to get folks to think alittle beyond the Schiavo case, I’ll say my piece on it here.

I don’t trust Michael Schiavo. I think he had something to do with her injury and feared discovery if she didn’t die. As her legal decision maker he withheld further medical treatment to the point of simple dental care. He acted like an ogre by putting her parents through hell even while their daughter was being starved to death. Not sure I can fault him for getting on with his life but he should have divorced her first. No one would have thought less of him in this world. But he didn’t…and I do.

Courts refused to reconsider the case even as evidence piled upon evidence that something was up. The Senate had no business getting involved with their Bill of Attainder. The House Bill, authored by Mel Martinez(D-FL), made more sense and may have resulted in the 11th Circuit looking into it. House Bill failed because some representatives wanted more time to consider it and debate on it. Can’t fault them there really.

Final analysis…a woman was starved to death on the whim of her husband and by order of State.

I simply MUST look at it this simply. If I don’t I would be forced to act on this injustice in the most dramatic of ways. Rounding up a “posse”, dropping anyone who got in our way, and taking her away. This would result in more of a media circus, much gunfire, and probably the death or imprisonment of everyone involved.

Back to my point in the post below. When we are ready to make that kind of gamble(death and/or imprisonment for life) to stop an obvious injustice we will retake control of our justice system. Until then we wait for Aldous Huxley’s society to overtake us.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I don’t know why this infuriates me so. I mean we knew the man was incompetent but his testimony yesterday after pleading guilty just crawls under my skin. His testimony ANY day regarding this is just pathetic.

“I exercised very poor judgment in the course of reviewing the files,” Berger told reporters outside the courthouse after pleading guilty. “I deeply regret it. It was mistaken and it was wrong.”
…
“My motivation was to help prepare myself and others,” he said.

Hmmm…so you “mistakenly” stole documents from the National Archives, took them home, and destroyed them by cutting them up with scizzors? Ya know, I came up with some pretty good tales attempting to get away without doing my homework in grade school but this one would have gotten me a very sore butt.

$10,000 and no jail time for stealing National Security Documents? G. Gordon Liddy was convicted of a felony and served 4 years in prison for attempting to steal campaign material. Sure…that makes sense.

This line makes me wonder how much he was paid by the Kerry campaign/Clinton cabal:

He would not answer questions as to why he decided to destroy three of the documents.

So far this week we have watched a woman starve to death because the Judicial System said it was OK while a Trade Lawyer/former NSA walks for stealing and destroying National Security Documents. Is it just me or is something askew here?

I’ve been torn about the Schiavo Case. The law is what the law is and the Courts had their say which amounts to State Sponsored Torture in my view. No one had the stones to do anything about it…although doing something about it would mean Jeb Bush calling out his “posse” to go liberate Mrs. Schiavo and placing his brother in a terrible position. The laws that put her, and us, in this position need to be changed. The US Senate passed an Unconstitutional Bill of Attainder and folks screamed about the 11th Circuit ignoring what it said. Whatever. The Senate screwed up in a BIG way but I’m growing used to that. The Republican Leadership won’t step up to the plate and stop the unconstitutional actions of the democratic minority for reasons that escape me. So…a woman dies a painful agonizing death and we all pat ourselves on the back because, once again, we have let the Judicial System work it’s magic on a case originating in Florida.

I’m not at all torn about the Burger case. He’s a thief. He stole from MY National Archives. He stole National Security Documents because MY Congress trusted him. He’s a thief of the worst kind. He betrayed the trust MY Country placed in him. Treason? No. IDIOCY? Certainly. But once again we’re faced with allowing the Judicial System to work it’s magic or forming our own little gang of vigilantes and taking care of this problem. Clearly the vigilante approach is out of the question. I wouldn’t touch Mr. Burger for fear of catching something and he’s not worth the bullet or the rope anyway. So he walks.

As I am typing this the Pope is near death in Rome. It’s clear he’s gonna die and has no quality of life right now. Let’s just go ahead and kill him. He can’t eat or drink on his own so remove that feeding tube and watch him dry up and starve. The US Supremes have quoted International Law…why not apply US Law to the Vatican? Put him out of his misery right? That’s what we did in Florida right?

While we pat ourselves on the back for killing Mrs. Schiavo and the Pope I think I’ll go to the National Archives and steal the Declaration of Independence. $10,000 is a small price to pay compared to what I could get for it on Ebay.