Open Source Routers!

Netgear has announced the launch of its WGR614L open source Wireless-G router.

The fully-featured wireless router is designed to support a variety of applications created by the open source community.

The router supports Linux-based Tomato and DD-WRT firmware and will soon support OpenWRT.

It is powered by a 240MHz MIPS32 CPU with 16KB of instruction cache, 16KB of data cache and 1KB of pre-fetch cache, and incorporates 4MB of Flash memory and 16MB of Ram.

"There has been growing demand for more powerful platforms to support open source enthusiasts seeking to create more robust, commercial-grade applications for their wireless routers," said Som Pal Choudhury, senior product line manager for advanced wireless at Netgear.

The router features a single 10/100 internet Wan port, a four-port 10/100 Lan switch, an 802.11g access point and all of the most common security and logging features.

"An important feature of our offering is the dedicated and responsive open source community which enables users to easily exchange ideas and troubleshoot issues," explained Choudhury.

"New applications currently being developed include traffic shaping applications, redirections to captive portals for hotspots, guest access via a separate SSID, upstream and downstream QOS and intelligent bandwidth monitoring. "

Ironically the router is also 'Works with Windows Vista' certified. The WGR614L is available now for around $69.

Vulnerabilities in the Tennesse Valley Authority Power Grid

Recently, in a disclosure by the US Government Accountability office- the UAO makes the following statement.

"Until the TVA fully implements these security program activities, it risks disruption of its operations as the result of a cyber incident, which could impact its customers," the GAO says. TVA delivers electricity to an area that includes most of Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia -- an area with a population of 8.7 million people.

The Authority Power grid is essentially not separate from its corporate network. The latter is ripe with vulnerabilities, including faulty hardware, Anti-virus free machines, poorly patched control systems and a myriad of other issues. The network has "Limited intrusion Detection" and ineffective management. Basically, if you happened upon a Wireless Access Point, with WEPCrack- Your have access to the world's largest public power grid.

I find this to be disgusting, and an absolute slap in the face for the IT community. How hard is it, admins, to set a 14 digit pass code, configure a router, or even mass install a freaking Anti-Virus? Remember, people depend on you for their livelihoods- take the responsibility seriously.

Dear God

Recently, I was browsing government websites to see if there were any new articles to read. However when I came to www.NSA.gov (National Security Agency), their website was offline. Baffled by this National Security Issue,  seeing as how the NSA is supposed to be the pinnacle of Intelligence and Technology, I decided to do some digging.

So who was the "Super hacker" that executed such a technologically advanced, planning intensive attack upon the US government? Well, as it turns out the super hacker was a incompetent mole. No, not a double agent. Someone who was hired,  because there was extra room in the Budget.  DNS misconfiguration in my NSA? Its more likely than you think.

              First, a web server was running on the same computer or the same IP address as one of the so-called authoritative name servers for nsa.gov. The authoritative name servers are the primary and secondary servers that translate the web addresses humans understand (i.e., NSA.gov) to machine-readable IP addresses (in the NSA.gov case, 189.182.93.126).

             Moreover, the primary and secondary authoritative name servers were both downstream from the Qwest edge access router in Washington, D.C. They should have been separated topologically within the network infrastructure, according to McPherson.

Come On Guys, thats basic network design. If the Top Security Agency can't design a network properly- what does that say about our national network infrastructure.