Fortysomething Geek

So I have a Lenovo Miix that happens to fall under the time period of the Superfish security bug. I just checked and I'm free and clear. This is why I hate bloatware. Unfortunately, this problem really soiled Lenovo's reputation.

If you have a Lenovo and want to check your machine, there are some online sites that check your SSL for the man-in-the-middle hijack attack.
Here is a good tester: https://filippo.io/Badfish/

I notice something interesting with the new Guest login on Yosemite. If you have an encrypted file-system, the guest login is completely different from the normal guest login of a non-encrypted drive.

With an encrypted filesystem (File Vault), you have to re-boot into an ultra-secure mode. This is almost analogous to a Chromebook and I like it. The new guest mode only has one app running and that is Safari.

As many of my readers know, I carry two phones. An iOS and an Android phone. However, when it comes to any real work, I use my iPhone. It has been very reliable and I've been using different versions of the iPhone to avert disaster in the last 7 years. Sure, many of these things you can do with Android. However, I have had problems mostly with VPN connectivity. As many already know, Android did not support IPSEC group cisco-vpn for many, many years. Thus, I've been using iOS as my go-to device. The largest screen in the world can't help you if you don't have connectivity access.
I also prefer some of the iOS equivalent apps. For example, Connectbot and JuiceSSH are no equivalent to iSSH.

Well, here is an example I would share with some of my readers why the iPhone still rocks!
Typical crisis scenario: Waiting in line for the latest movie, Guardian of the Galaxy, and the phone is ringing off the hook with NAGIOS notifications. NAGIOS is telling you that some servers are degraded or offline. You can either rush to the car or back to the office or.... Server meltdown and crisis needs to be fixed ASAP. What do you do? Well, that has happen to me on many, many occasions. When it does happen, I rely on my iPhone. It also happend over the past weekend.

I use NAGIOS which is an enterprise grade network and intrusion monitoring. And boy, I constantly get text and email messages for down servers or degraded services. You know, the kind where Russian and Chinese hackers are chomping away. It is good to SSH in and apply a firewall rule just like that. I can restart services or launch redundant failovers.



Besides sysadmin duties, there are plenty of other scenarios where it comes in handy. Often times, I may be at lunch and a client wants me to export a MySQL report into an Excel spreadsheet. Easy. MysqlDump the query to a CSV delineated file then convert into Excel .XLS on the iPhone. And yes, I do this on a small 4" screen. iSSH has really good multi-touch gestures that makes up for a smaller screen. I actually prefer using iSSH over JuiceSSH on my HTC ONE M8. Thus, you can see why I a still a dedicated iOS user.

The other day, a client's email server was getting hammered with a brute dictionary attack. Within 15 minutes, I installed Fail2Ban and scp (Secure shell copied) a working configuration that monitors SASL intrusion with my iPhone. The attack was a coordinated brute force password "guessing" on the SMTP mail server. They hit the servers hundreds of times per second so that the server can't handle regular requests. With my iPhone, I logged in via SSH and scp a working /etc/ config (from another server) and bam, Fail2Ban was monitoring the mail logs and blocking African, Russian, and Chinese hackers in real-time. All of this was done in real time. And it was done using an iPhone.

Fail2Ban is actually very cool but that can be a different subject on a different blog post. Basically, it is a POSIX daemon that monitors log files and can be configured to block malicious intruders. You can configure it to monitor different services and if there are so many attempts (say 3-4), you can deny them via deny-host of through a firewall IPFW rule. If this sounds all alien to you, lets just say, all you need is console access to install, configure and set-up.


If I can get root and shell access, I can handle crisis like this with my 4" wonder gadget. Another crisis averted. So the point is, devices are tools and you make it is what you want it to be. Thus, I still get a laugh when people say you can't do real work on a mobile device.

My house is three floors with 7 doors and around 12 accessible windows. I recently secured it with a Monitronics alarm system as well as equipping it with several Foscam IP cameras around the house.
I have to say I am very pleased with the set-up.





The Alarm system is completely wireless; relying on Verizon cell service. This means no need for a land line. Monitronics sell under various re-sellers and I am content with the one I got. I'm sure I can get a cheaper alarm system as many of my friends can attest to. However, I didn't want to get involved with the installation and buying the equipment. I pay 40ドル a month with a three year contract which comes out to the same as buying the equipment outright and going through some 8ドル-10 a month service. I don't have the added cost of a land line so the cheapest alarm system would be in the 20ドル-25 range if you included a land line telephone. In three years when my contract is up, I can take the equipment and go elsewhere. The house was already armed with another contract but I wanted to start fresh with newer technology.


The system has a nice touch pad panel system and pretty much everything can be controlled via a smartphone, tablet or web browser. You can arm the doors/windows and motion sensors or just the doors/windows alone. There are some nice touches like multi-user pin numbers and the chimes for different doors and windows. Since I have three floors, the panel chimes if my kids are coming from the side door in the basement. It chimes in a voice, "Basement side door open" or "Kitchen window open." The only thing it doesn't have that I like is the ability to arm by floors. For example, I would simply just like to arm everything in my basement and leave the other two floors disarmed.

Overall, it works and I can't complain yet.



Next, surveillance cameras. I ended up standardizing on Foscam fi8910w and fi8918w cameras. I can't tell you what the differences are and I'm sure someone out there has a comparison chart. I picked the Foscam for their price, reliability, reputation, and most importantly the price. I usually pick them up when they hit the 60ドル price mark on sale.

The great thing about the Foscams are the great third party application support. In the past, most cameras relied on Active-X and Internet Explorer support. The new ones work pretty much with anything. Sure, I use the server push web browser to configure but there are apps for phone, tablet, and computers.

Here is FoscamPro for the iPad.


I also use a few on the Android app store. Here is IP Cam Viewer Basic running on my 99ドル firesale HP TouchPad. I finally put that gadget to use and out of the sock drawer. I was previously using a spare Windows laptop but I figure an old, unused tablet will consume less power running 24x7. I'll end up re-purposing my old tablets for each room to use as portable multi-cam viewers.



Most of the tablet and phone apps are great for quickly viewing the grid of cameras and controlling them. The Foscam are PTZ (Pan, Tilt, and zoom) and works even under low light conditions with IR sensors. The Wi-Fi range is pretty good considering I have them across three floors.

However, the thing I really like is the ability to listen to sound and send sound. My house was wired with an ancient intercom system and I can't seem to find modern multi-room intercoms any more. The Foscams now serve that purpose. From my phone, I can hit a microphone icon and tell my kids to get upstairs for dinner. Extremely handy!

Now, the smartphone and tablet apps are great but one thing I need is the ability to record and review video. I couldn't find much for non-window platforms (OSX and Linux) so I ended up building myself a Windows XP build running inside a VM on my VMware ESXi vSphere home server. I made a 20GB VM with several 60GB data drive disk containers and installed iSpy Connect. It is free and open source. I thought about spending 50ドル for something popular like Blue Iris but so far iSpy does everything I need. I can record on motion or sound. As for multi-view web interface, I don't need that paid feature from iSpy or even Blue Iris since I already have them on my smartphone and tablet.

Running the DVR recording in a Virtual Machine is pretty handy as well. I can clone and provision the build easily for backups and with a low wattage ESXi server, I don't think I consume more than .020 kWH per hour. If I need to control the software, I simply RDP or VNC into it from my other computers.





Conclusion.

So far, I think everything is working as it should. I am very pleased with the set-up. For privacy reasons, I blurred out some of the photos/views. I hope this blog posts help you on your security and home surveillance needs.




Links:

Foscam Pro
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/foscam-pro-two-way-audio-recording/id509546027?mt=8

IPCam Viewer Basic
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rcreations.ipcamviewerBasic&hl=en

iSpy Connect:
http://www.ispyconnect.com/