Here’s an easy game to play.
Here’s an easy thing to say:

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted ’cause the index doesn’t hash,
Then your situation’s hopeless, and your system’s gonna crash!

You can’t say this?
What a shame sir!
We’ll find you
Another game sir.

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That’s repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
‘Cause as sure as I’m a poet, the sucker’s gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy’s getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc,
Then you have to flash your memory and you’ll want to RAM your ROM.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!

~Enjoy.

Aanval v7 is available for download, free usage, commercial purchase and just all around good times.

We are excited, quite proud and very, very tired. Take a look (links below).

Remember, Aanval v7 as with previous releases of Aanval continues to support the Information Security and Snort communities by allowing users to use it freely with 1 Snort and / or 1 Syslog sensor for an unlimited amount of time in both personal and commercial environments.

If you are not yet using Aanval, or do not know much about it, the following is a short description of the product, otherwise you are free to visit the Aanval website and see it for yourself.

“Aanval is the industry’s leading Snort and Syslog SIEM (“Security Information and Event Management”) console. Government security and defense organizations from more than a half dozen countries, educational institutions from around the world, global financial organizations as well as space exploration and military weapons manufacturers rely upon Aanval as a part of their security infrastructure.”

Aanval Screenshots and Product Details

http://loyal.ms/yzZ8nw

I am positive that many of you have questions about this new release. It is by far the largest update we’ve made to Aanval in its 9 years on the market. It was many, many months in the making as we re-wrote much of the code from scratch, ultimately tossing Adobe Flash to the side and focusing back on standards based HTML and Javascript.

A few of Aanval v7′s highlighted changes:

» No more Adobe Flash!
» 100% HTML and Javascript
» Of course, an all new look and feel (a throwback and very similar to v3)
» Completely re-written codebase
» Supports multi-machine architecture deployments
» New BPU system provides as much as 10x the performance of Aanval v6
» New user message notification bar
» New scrolling event data notification bar
» New Google Maps Geo Location / integration
» New real-time events per second, per hour and day displays
» New console-wide consistent event display renderers
» New Tag system allows default or custom tags to be added to events
» New Frequent Tags display
» New Frequent Sensors display
» Added signature details within event detail display
» Reports are available in HTML, XML and Text

Aanval v7 Release FAQ

We put a small FAQ available to list some of the changes in the new release as well as included some screenshots on the main Aanval product page. We’ll be updating the FAQ to help answer any questions that arise over the next few weeks.

http://loyal.ms/xx6Zup

Aanval Website

http://loyal.ms/pjMrdl

Enjoy.

It was an enjoyable and extremely educational experience, and I am grateful to the entire publishing team that relentlessly tugged me along and kept me on schedule for more than a year.

More information and of course to get your hot little hands on a copy:

http://www.packtpub.com/iphone-applications-tune-up/book

Traveling at the moment, but when I get some additional time and can sit down for more than a few minutes, I’ll put together a few details on the overall experience; even point out some efficiencies I discovered and traps I blindly walked into.

Who this book is for

A/V Addiction

I mentioned in a few earlier blog posts that I recently began dabbling in the audio / video world. Amongst my dabbling, a few of my first purchases happen to be an M-Audio Fast Track Pro and a set of KRK Rokit studio monitor speakers. Initially connecting and setting up the new device was simple, but brought with it a challenge of identifying a confusing (for me) static / noise that was heard over everything played through the device.

Getting to the point; The purpose behind this post is to hopefully help anyone who might run into the same problem I did when installing the M-Audio Fast Track Pro on Mac OS X 10.6.8, specifically an i7 3.4Ghz iMac.

(my setup on the right)

Issue

Upon connecting the USB interface for the M-Audio device and installing the appropriate device drivers for OS X (these change the default behaviour of the audio sub-system), each of the Rokit studio monitors were emitting static and noise during any and all audio playback.

Re-installing had no positive effect and all static was limited to audio playback through the M-Audio device.

Remedy

Opening the M-Audio Preference pane (OS X System Preferences) and deselecting all but the first option, cured the static / noise problem completely. In my case it turned out to be a simple driver / compatibility problem that was remedied with a little configuration change. A screenshot is included below that shows the only option enabled being the “Outputs 1 & 2 (balanced and unbalanced)”.

I hope this finds usefullness for someone. I had absolutely no luck finding a solution anywhere else online including the M-Audio forums, which unfortunately included instructions to return the device. Fortunately for me, it was a simple fix. Only took a few minutes of experimentation to find it.

Enjoy.

~moses

Myself along with the rest of the Tactical FLEX team will descend upon Vegas sometime around Thursday afternoon for DEF CON® 19.

TACTICAL FLEX, DEF CON EDITION SWAG

This year we put together a little custom / limited edition t-shirt and other bits of swag specifically for DEF CON and will be giving it away to those we meet and greet.

I WANT SOME!

If you would like something, follow @aanval or myself (@loyalmoses) on Twitter, find us or let us know where you’re at and if we cross paths we’ll give you some. That easy.

We’ll be updating twitter often as we move about, so this will be the most efficient manner of communicating with us.

Come meet with us, hang out, swap stories, trade biz cards and pick up some swag.

See you there,

Enjoy.

~moses

The net is buzzing with fierce and fiery comments about Apple and their recently released Final Cut Pro X.

However, for me it doesn’t really matter. I’ve played with previous releases of FCP and although there is no doubt that Apple released FCPX very and admittedly early, for the non-pro user (like myself), it is simply an amazing application.

I grabbed a copy of it along with Compressor and Motion to work on a few promotional / marketing videos for Aanval (http://www.aanval.com). The change in technology-realms helps to clear my mind and removes me from my daily grind of information security, development and book writing.

Surprisingly, I found I really enjoyed working with FCPX and have since grabbed a Blue Yeti, M-Audio FastTrack Pro and a couple of KRK Rokit studio monitor speakers to create my own tiny audio / video editing studio. I can now definitely understand the magnetic addiction that so many people have to audio / video editing. So much fun.

Ultimately after investing a little bit into my new hobby, I wanted to first throw together a short video preview of Aanval to cut my teeth and put some of my newly learned skills to test.

I did this in the form of a 1 minute, Aanval Preview (Rough Edit — I call it this, because it still needs quite a bit of work). It can be found at http://www.aanval.com/preview/ or on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY1uhlqR1BI.

Have a look and enjoy.

~moses

All of those hours I thought I had wasted playing in flight simulators paid off as we took off from Boeing Field, headed north for a quick touch-and-go at Paine Field, then turned out over Puget Sound to eventually land back at Boeing Field.

Running through the pre-flight checklist.

I was busy focusing on that giant piece of earth coming at the windshield, while a buddy snapped a picture. That is Boeing Field in south Seattle, WA.

This is a snapshot of Paine Field in Everett, WA during our touch-and-go, before heading back to Boeing Field. Note all of the Boeing 787′s parked about.

Had an excellent time and a great instructor. There will definitely be more of this in the near future.

Enjoy.

~moses

To sum it up, it’s an action-thriller set in the medieval age of war-torn eastern Europe filled with empirical struggles between feudalism and aristocratic ideals. It’s not well known that Objective-C played a pivotal role in the dismantling of the populous western caste system responsible for the stagnant performance of current day mobile platform development.

I don’t want to give away too much, but there is a romantic interposition towards the end of the book that will leave readers highly suspicious and apprehensive of Android’s luring siren calls.

… but more seriously, details are below.

iPhone Applications Tune-Up
High performance tuning guide for real-world iOS projects

Details and pre-order @ Packt Publishing: http://loyal.ms/gwGfAa

Book description
The best iPhone applications are the ones that demonstrate smooth, fast, efficient and optimal performance. An application should be designed to run at 200 mph, but operate just as smoothly as it would at 5 mph. Developing an application that supports such a wide range of performance needs is no small task and requires an understanding of the basic elements of performance as well as a strong strategy.

This book covers every aspect of tuning, optimizing, and squeezing every last bit of performance out of an iOS project. From application architecture and design to development and deployment, readers will be guided through the entire process of tuning an iOS application for high performance.

Every line of code presents an opportunity to improve upon the effective performance of an application. This book begins with the fundamentals of performance, demonstrating the impact poor performance can have on the success of an application. Apple’s App Store is riddled with applications that fall just short of success and it isn’t too much of a stretch to attribute many of these failures to a lack of optimization. Readers will be lead through each chapter, learning every aspect of performance tuning from simple syntax tips and tricks to advanced process management, and network and memory optimizations.

In addition to theories, syntax, and detailed code examples, readers will learn to take advantage of Apple’s powerful performance measurement and benchmarking utilities to identify the specific components of an iOS project that might need attention.

Learn the fundamentals of performance driven development to remedy existing performance related issues or design high performance iOS applications from start to finish

Who this book is written for
This book is for iOS application developers who are interested in resolving application performance bottlenecks in both new and existing Xcode projects. Readers should be familiar with the basic concepts and principles of iOS development, Objective-C syntax, and use of Apple’s Xcode development environment.

About
This is the first (to be published) book of its kind and is very much focused on Objective-C tuning practices for all iOS platforms, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and iPad 2. Performance tuning is a recipe that includes some common sense, a little bit of obvious and of course generous helpings of technical know-how and all around development experience. No matter the size or depth of an iOS project, performance can play a key role in an applications success or failure on the market. iPhone Applications Tune-Up is designed to aid developers in squeezing every last bit of performance from every aspect of an application. A lot of experience and research has gone in to producing a book that highlights the areas in which performance gains are most critical and even commonly overlooked.

—

I have an absolute passion for technology and Objective-C represents this deep focus most simply because it encompasses the highest levels of programming technology and advancements in development languages. iPhone Applications Tune-Up will be the result of more than 1000 hours of my personal time; authoring, researching and generally staring at the screen. At this point I have only a couple of chapters remaining before the re-write and finalization work begins. It’s been a long and enjoyable road up to this point and I look forward to its final release.

Now, go pre-order it! http://loyal.ms/gwGfAa

Enjoy.

~Moses

I recently printed the entire book up to this point and was very surprised at the stack of paper that sat on my desk, and almost couldn’t remember writing all of it. Will be interesting to hold the final book in my hands and realize the whole thing came from these little fingers.

With 8 chapters under my author belt, here are a few lessons I have learned along with a selection of important observations.

• I can put an entire chapter together in 48 hours.
• I can’t really put an entire chapter together in 48 hours.
• Procrastination is still one of my personal characteristics.
• I absolutely loath Microsoft Word.
• Writing is just as much learning as it is teaching.
• its, it’s, effect and affect still haunt me.
• More screenshots equal less typing.
• Writing code at this point is still more enjoyable.
• My best writing is done early in the day before my mind gets tired.
• Most of my writing is done late at night after a long day of coding.
• Printing and reading each chapter helps find mistakes.
• Microsoft Word’s spell checker doesn’t recognize iPhone.
• Micro outlining is by far the best way to prepare a chapter.
• Don’t print chapters with an ink-jet, buy a laser and save your wallet.
• Auto-editing between brain and fingers gets easier to control.

… this is my short list.

With chapter 8 submitted and chapter 9 not due for a couple of weeks, it’s time to relax a bit and let the mind prepare for a much more technical chapter 9.

Enjoy.

~moses

As we’ve been commenting on over the past several months, Aanval v6 is a major interation and one we are sure greatly improves information security efficiency and security event management.

Although now would seem an appropriate time to catch up on sleep, we have a lengthy list of enhancements and features planned for v6 and will continue to aggressively roll out new builds following our release early, release often methodology.

The interface for Aanval v6 was completely re-written in Flex 4, scrapping the entire previous Flex 3 interface. The backend remains MySQL / PHP, however dozens of updates and optimizations were made to improve performance and stability.

Aanval is quite a large project, comprised of several hundred thousand lines of code. A major portion of time for this release was spent working on the interface (Flex 4). If you follow me on Twitter, you’d have witnessed a bit of my frustrations with the latest releases of Flash Builder (the unstable, Eclipse based pile of junk). But I’ll save all of that joy and excitement for another post.

A couple of more notable features of Aanval v6, besides the new multi-tasking interface are the GeoLocation displays and the re-introduced event correlation system.

• GeoLocation with integrated Google Maps is now available in both real-time and search displays to provide a global, visual reference of event attack sources.
• The event correlation system has been re-introduced with an updated interface to group and rank events that may be related to one another.

For more information on Aanval v6, including upgrade details, new license purchasing, etc – see  aanval.com

A short list of a few of Aanval v6′s new features and enhancements:

• All new live GeoLocation (Google Maps)
• All new event displays
• All new event correlation
• All new event browser
• All new live even monitor
• All new frequent X displays
• All new report management
• All new action management
• All new signature management
• All new datastore management
• All new policy management
• All new snort management
• All new syslog filter management
• All new installation and update system
• All new multi-tasking interface
• All new inter-display interaction
• All new look and feel
• And much… much, more
• Dozens of bug fixes are included, too numerous to list

A selection of screenshots, a few of these may be early release or even beta.

Aanval Snort & Syslog Intrusion Detection and Correlation Console

Aanval is the industry’s leading web-based gui for snort and syslog intrusion detection and correlation. Government security and defense organizations from more than a half dozen countries, educational institutions from around the world, global financial organizations as well as space exploration and military weapons manufacturers rely upon Aanval as a part of their security infrastructure.

http://www.aanval.com/

Enjoy.

~moses