Tag: view

SQL Server Agent unable to view network drives

I am unable to get agent jobs to output to a network path. I have pushed the IT guy to set up a domain authenticated user that logs in when the agent starts. That login does have access to the domain and is able to see the network drives. If I set the location of the output file to be the local c: then this works without issue. However if I set the drive to be a network location I get the following message;

[SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 0)Unable to open Step output file. The step succeeded.

Any help would be very much appreciated

What are the three points of view in Kolmogorov Complexity?

I was reviewing for my finals and find this question that I have totally no clue.

Compare the following to statements from three points of view:

  1. There exists a constant $ c > 0$ such that for all palindromes $ x \in \{0, 1\}^*$ we have $ K(x) \leq \lfloor x / 2 \rfloor + c$ .

  2. There exists a constant $ c > 0$ such that for all $ x \in \{0, 1\}^*$ we have $ K(\overline{x}) \leq K(x) + c$ where $ \overline{x}$ is the complement of $ x$ .

So what are the three points of view am I suppose to use and where should I start?

OpenVPN: test security from external point of view

How would I test an OpenVPN environment from external, kind of black box pentest. I have the public server-IP (port 1194, udp, tun).

I have found NO online ressources on how to do that, or whether some tools are available (e.g. for IPsec there is the ike-scan tools), nmap has no scripts for that, metasploit has no plugins, kali has no tools (only OpenVAS looks like it has a module, didnt try that yet).

Is there any way to test or analyse the security of OpenVPN from an external point of view?

Making height of 3D Plot more clear from top view

I’m plotting a 3d function and looking at it from above. here is the function definition:

lagz[n_, m_, z_, zbar_] :=   1/Sqrt[Pi*a^2*n!*m!]* E^(z*zbar/(2.*a^4)) * (a)^(m + n)*    D[ E^(-(z*zbar)/a^4), {z, n}, {zbar, m}] /. {a -> 1} lagnlz[n_, l_, z_, zbar_] :=   Sqrt[n!/(Pi*a^2*(n + l)!)]* (z/a)^l LaguerreL[n, l, z*zbar/a^2]*    E^(-z*zbar/(2.*a^2)) /. {a -> 1} lag[n_, l_, r_, \[Theta]_] :=   lagnlz[n, l, z, zbar] /. {z -> r*E^(I*\[Theta]),     zbar -> r*E^(-I*\[Theta])} lagcc[n_, l_, r_, \[Theta]_] :=   lagnlz[n, l, z, zbar] /. {z -> r*E^(-I*\[Theta]),     zbar -> r*E^(I*\[Theta])}

And here is the code I’m using to plot:

RevolutionPlot3D[  lag[1, 1, r, \[Theta]]*lagcc[1, 1, r, \[Theta]], {r, 0,    3}, {\[Theta], 0, 2 Pi}, ViewPoint -> Above]

From the “Above” view, it is not at all clear (at least to me) that the height of the inner ring is larger than the height of the outer ring. Is there some setting or coloring I can use that will make the height difference much more apparent from this “Above” view?

Getting numerous HEAD requests by Java user agents to resources that require authentication to view within a web application. Should I block them?

I have recently started using Cloudflare’s firewall in front of a web application. This app has a limited user base of selected applicants and they must log in to view anything. There is no public registration form and nothing within the portal can be accessed without an account.

Since moving the DNS to Cloudflare I can see we are receiving numerous daily HEAD requests to paths that are only accessible within the portal.

These requests come from one of two groups of IP addresses from the United States (we are not a US-based company; our own hosting is based in AWS Ireland region and we’re pretty sure at least 99% of our users have never been US-based):

Java User Agents

  • User agent is Java/1.8.0_171 or some other minor update version.
  • The ASN is listed as Digital Ocean.
  • The IP addresses all seem to have had similar behaviour reported previously, almost all against WordPress sites. Note that we’re not using WordPress here.

Empty User Agent

  • No user agent string.
  • The ASN is listed as Amazon Web Services.
  • The IP addresses have very little reported activity and do not seem at all connected to the Java requests.

Other Notes

  • The resources being requested are dynamic URLs containing what are essentially order numbers. We generate new orders every day, and they are visible to everyone using the portal.
  • I was unable to find any of the URLs indexed by Google. They don’t seem to be publicly available anywhere. There is only one publicly accessible page of the site, which is indexed.
  • We have potentially identified one user who seems to have viewed all the pages that are showing up in the firewall logs (we know this because he shows up in our custom analytics for the web app itself). We have a working relationship with our users and we’re almost certain he’s not based in the US.

I am aware that a HEAD request in itself is nothing malicious and that browsers sometimes make HEAD requests. Does the Java user agent, or lack of a user agent in some cases, make this activity suspicious? I already block empty user agents and Java user agents through the firewall, although I think Cloudflare by default blocks Java as part of its browser integrity checks.

Questions

  1. Is there any reason why these might be legitimate requests that I shouldn’t block? The fact it’s a HEAD request from a Java user agent suggests no, right?

  2. One idea we had is that one of the users is sharing links to these internal URLs via some outside channel, to outsource work or something. Is it possible some kind of scraper or something has picked up these links and is spamming them now? As I say, I was unable to find them publicly indexed.

  3. Is it possible the user we think is connected has some sort of malware on their machine which is picking up their browser activity and then making those requests?

  4. Could the user have some sort of software that is completely innocent which would make Java based HEAD requests like this, based on their web browsing activity?

Any advice as to how I should continue this investigation? Or other thoughts about what these requests are?

Is view equivalence unidirectional?

I am learning about serializability and I am not sure that if view serializability bidirectional or unidirectional. What I am meaning that, if S is view equivalent to S’, is it always true that S’ is also view equivalent to S? I think I have a counter example to that but I am not sure if I am missing something.

Suppose we have two transactions T1, T2 and T3 where R(x) denotes a read and W(x) denotes a write operation on x:

  • S: T3:R(x), T3:R(y), T2:W(x), T2:W(y), T1:R(x), T1:R(y)
  • S’: T3:R(x), T3:R(y), T1:R(x), T2:W(x), T2:W(y), T1:R(y)

View equivalence has three conditions:

  1. If a data item is read by a transaction first, then it must be read by the same transaction first for all other schedules
  2. For each Write -> Read conflict on the same item, order must be preserved
  3. If a data item written by transaction last, then it must be written by the same transaction last for all other schedules.

Now if we check if S’ is view equivalent to S:

  • T3 reads first for both the x and y in S’. Also in S.
  • T2 writes last for both the x and y in S’. Also in S.
  • R(y) operation in T1 appears after W(y) on T2 in S’. By rule 2 it must be preserved in S. It is in fact preserved in S.
  • Since there is no other Write to Read conflict, then S is view equivalent to S’.

Now if we check the other direction, if S is view equivalent to S’:

  • For conditions 1 and 3 are the same, they are satisfied.
  • Write to read conflict in the previous case also present here. But also there is another write to read conflict on x because in S T2 operates before T1. But in S’ read on x appears before T2. So the order is different between S and S’. Therefore S is not view equivalent to S’.

If what I am doing is correct, then view equivalence is not bidirectional. But I am not sure if I did no mistakes. Does my example correctly shows that property?

How to fully view cross-signed certificate signatures

Long story short: Security scan raised a flag about a cert, found that it was an expired root on a cross-signed cert. Yadda yadda, updated intermediates, fixed issue.

However, I noticed that openssl x509 -noout -text intermediate.crt only lists a single signature on the certificate, even though there are two. I’ve looked over the man page and I can’t find an option that prints additional signatures, and google searches are even less useful.

Is there a parser out there somewhere that will list all of the signatures on a certificate? I notice that Qualys enumerates and follows the various cert paths, but I’d prefer not to have to make prod changes to view certificate metadata.

“View frame source” is suddenly an option on every website loaded with Chrome

I’m running Google Chrome Version 83.0.4103.61 (64-bit) on Windows 10, and I’ve suddenly noticed that never mind what website I visit, when I right click “View frame source” is an option.

This strikes me as odd, as that option is usually only available when you’re wanting to view the source code of an iFrame. Whether I click “View frame source” or “View page source” the source code and URL are the same.

But why does Chrome suddenly think that any website I load is being displayed in a frame? Is this cause for concern or am I just being paranoid?

Can a spell be readied to trigger when its intended target comes into view?

Can I ready witch bolt, for instance, with the condition of attacking “the first goblin to come out of the cave” if I cannot see the goblin at the time of my (Ready) action? To be perfectly clear: at the time of the Ready action, the goblin is around a corner, in darkness: not targetable by witch bolt.

On the one hand: the Ready action states that (PHB p.193)

when you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy….”

Part of casting a spell is targeting (inferred from “Targeting” as a sub-heading under “Casting a Spell”, PHB pp.202-204).

You can’t target something that you can’t see, so it would seem that since you can’t target the goblin at the time of the Ready action you can’t cast the spell in the first place.

On the other hand: isn’t this use of “Ready” the same as the “I’ll attack the first goblin to come out of the cave” that is the classic use-case for Ready? Picking a target is part of the Attack action, after all.