Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • May 11, 2013 1:55 AM

@ Nick P,

Like Mike pointed out, his host isn’t even connected to the Internet

You are repeating the mistake Mike made.

JohnP said his “hostOS is not connected to the Internet” not that the “host” (or the hardware for that matter).

Part of the problem is the word “host” has many meanings and depending on your view point you may be thinking something different to the person talking…

The first problem is the use of “host” is many fold if you are talking about VM systems the HostOS is the one closest to the metal of the system. This usage of “host” is fully independent of the meaning of “host” when talking specifficaly about networking, where unfortunatly host has different meanings to different people depending on who’s training course they took.

At one time a system with multiple network cards was a multi-host system so also was a system with one network card that responded to more than one unique IP address (but did not respond to all IP addresses in the network range). That is the “host” was the IP address and the network stack behind it not the network hardware or main system hardware or for that matter the OS software.

I could give the history of how the use of the term “Host” with respect to networking went wrong, but to be quick it was Microsoft’s Certification System documentation where the rot was first clearly seen by the masses.

It is possible to set up a HostOS to use local networking only and not to route, or to address/use a gateway that does not route but just dropps packets (like using a modern firewall the other way around). Such tricks were used to set up “Bastion Hosts” to make DMZ’s etc in the early days befor the term firewall got mutated to it’s current ‘network appliance’ meaning.

Now I don’t know what HostOS JohnP is using or what the VM client OS is but it is possible with some VM systems to have the VM ClientOS use the network with it’s own IP address and a different gateway to the HostOS, and impliment what is required for “full networking”.

Further there is the issue of which OS actually has control of the network device, the VM HostOS could just pass control through to the VM ClientOS.

So yes it’s possible to do what JohnP has said depending on what meaning you ascribe to “Host”. And I’ve mentioned similar in the past when talking about the next step back from using a CD only system using thin clients and or VM systems.

I guess if people want to know more about JohnP’s setup they will have to ask him.

Alternativly go have a dig into the likes of the HoneyNet projects docs on how to setup VM systems to do slightly unusual things.

Clive Robinson • May 11, 2013 2:36 AM

@ pfogg,

… angered the attacker who then began posting editorial emails on their Twitter account…

Possibly the only option left to them as it appears the US Treasury now owns all Syria domains that the attacker might otherwise have used,

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/05/trade-sanctions-cited-in-hundreds-of-syrian-domain-seizures/

Clive Robinson • May 11, 2013 5:20 PM

@ M.V.

I did read the article but the thing with the clams is an obvious flaw in their system especialy with the sunken ship making the disposal site easy to find 😉

Any way I was mainly joking about officious bureaucrats (well maybe not the H&S ones as they seriously ruin your day 😉

A true story about H&S gone mad…

As many of this blogs readers know war zones are not exactly healthy places to be as often there can be low flying FMJ lead poisoning buzzing around which kind of shows up the ridiculousness of the “managment speak” parrrot phrase of ‘taking one for the team’.

Well at a forward observation point a two story hardend structure had been made as a lean too against an existing compound wall the main components being stout timber and lots and lots of sand bags. This OP had come under morter and heavy machine gun attack on a number of occassions and survived.

Well apparently the “Modern” army feels the need to turn certain “junior officer” types into H&S droids and send them of into the field…

One warm afternoon a couple of snipers were holed up in the OP doing what they do best, being invisable and watching carefully to see what the enemy is doing. When they are suprised to hear a strange movment at the entrance to the OP, which is basically a four foot high hole in the tripple sand bag thick wall with very stout timber supporting the bags over it.

Being some what wary one of the snippers slips down and looks to see what is causing the noise. He is somewhat surprised to see a junior officer in freshly cleaned and ironed working dress standing there with a clip board and tape measuring the hole. One being ask WTF he’s doing the junior officer indicates he is the new H&S person and that the “hight of the door way was to low”… Well the sniper said a few things to the junior officer H&S Muppet that caused the Muppet to lodge a formal complaint with the Officer Commanding… The OC was less than impressed and said so in terms that were overheard by others… Suffice it to say the Muppet was not seen again and the OP lean too carried on it’s faithfull service unchanged.