Steve Friedl at Unixwiz.net has done a fantastic job designing a full explanation of how DNS works and why it's vulnerable to kaminsky's flaw

From unixwiz.net:
"The big security news of Summer 2008 has been Dan Kaminsky's discovery of a serious vulnerability in DNS. This vulnerability could allow an attacker to redirect network clients to alternate servers of his own choosing, presumably for ill ends.

This all led to a mad dash to patch DNS servers worldwide, and though there have been many writeups of just how the vulnerability manifests itself, we felt the need for one in far more detail. Hence, one of our Illustrated Guides. This paper covers how DNS works: first at a high level, then by picking apart an individual packet exchange field by field. Next, we'll use this knowledge to see how weaknesses in common implementations can lead to cache poisoning. By fully understanding the issues at play, the reader may be better equipped to mitigate the risks in his or her own environment. We hope everybody who runs a DNS server patches soon. "

See the whole article at: http://www.unixwiz.net

Note: The following article is a repost from the Matasano Blog from google cache (http://tinyurl.com/5qkjco) which was apparently pulled.

While recently remotely troubleshooting an email problem, I found messages being rejected due to a 452 insufficient system storage error. When I examined the email server I found no such storage issue existed, and eventually involved Microsoft (Exchange) to help diagnose the issue. After hours of work MS gave up. Eventually, I found that if telnet’d locally into the mail server I didn’t get the error, but did if I was connecting in from the net. After quizzing the client as to what’s plugged into what, regarding there infrastructure, The client explained that there previous vendor had left a mysterious white box connected between there network and the internet. Ah Ha, a Linux based firewall was setup in line and just happened to be performing transparent spam filtering, when the device ran out of hard drive space the error manifested.

After going though these steps I realize transparent filtering devices are becoming more and more common, and so searched and found a great tool to quickly detect and trace out TCP connections. Welcome to tracetcp

Think Vista's secure? Think again.

According to a recent computer world article "...58,000 PCs running Vista were compromised by at least one piece of malware over the six months to May 2008, equivalent to 27 percent of all Vista machines probed. Vista made up 12.6 percent, or 190,692, of the 1,513,502 machines running Windows in the user base."

For more info see: computerworld.com.au

iPhone modifcations - This list will be updated as new mods are made public

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1. Install SSHD & Apache: See natetrue.com, or ifastnet.com (easier)

2. Laptop Tethering: From cre.ations.net

3. Custom Ring Tones: Easy Mac instructions or harder windows instructions

4. Change the iPhone's icons: From:hacktheiphone.com

5. Use the iPhone without activation: DVD Jon's activation crack

6. VNC from your iPhone:WinVNC/WebVNC for windows or AjaxVNC for OSX

7. Access Field Test Mode: Enter *3001#12345#* then hit call.

8. Nintendo emulator for Apple's iPhone

9. Instructions to unlock the phone and use it with a provider other then at&t here or here

10. Simple gui app to unlock the iPhone anySIM from the Iphone Dev Team

11. Installer.app is a UIKit based package manager for the iPhone. It works by downloading packages over WiFi (wireless networking) or EDGE. It supports installing, updating and uninstalling applications from multiple sources.

12. SummerBoard is an extension to the iPhone's SpringBoard user experience. SummerBoard adds a variety of useful and fun features to your iPhone, including scrolling icons, wallpaper and themes.

13. HD Moore to develop Metasploit frame work for the iPhone. .

According to various sources, ebay was compromised at 6am PDT. The attacker or attackers began posting user information directly to eBay forums including users name, address, phone, and complete credit card info. For more information see: PLMK.COM. To check and see if your information was disclosed see shenemanfamily.com which has posted a list of all the ID's of the accounts that were listed.

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As PLMK authors note It beggars belief that eBay took over an hour and a half to close down the board completely!

According to a recent infoworld.com article a Non disclosure agreement that was preventing David Maynor from releasing the details of a wireless attack against Apple Computers is now no longer valid. As such David has released a paper on uninformed.org describing the attack in detail.

See uninformed.org to read the paper.

CNET writter Chris Soghoian describes how to automate TV show downloads for linux, Mac OSX, and Windows in this little gem on Cnet.com

For more info see http://www.tvrss.net/

Tweakguides.com has released an all inclusive guide for Windows Vista (all versions). If you're new to windows vista or an advanced user looking to speed up or lock down your vista machine this guide is equally useful and effectively replaces any printed reference material. Best of all it's free.

Note as of writing this post the guide was last update 7/5/07