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Welcome to my digital home! There are lots of articles you might find helpful buried in this site on topics such as modifying an Alfa Romeo 159, rebuilding a Lotus 7 (Robin Hood 2B), not to mention a ton of stuff on technology in general. It's all here somewhere, so use the search function or navigate using the menu structure. if you want to talk, reach out via the contact function, I usually do answer!

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InfoSecSo here we are again, a few months on, and just when so many were licking their wounds after the last infection, along comes another. Guess what, if you had your eyes shut my sympathy is not going to be that forthcoming! malware has come along way since its anarchistic pre-pubescent   beginnings, and is now a fully fledged teenager, displaying all the fire, passion and unpredictability you would expect from one. Once upon a time, you could be sure your malware was simple in its intention, written by an unorganised person or persons, with the typical agenda of notoriety or malicious damage. Although bad, quite easy to deal with. Modern malware however is a whole new ball game. Written to order, with a menu of “features” available from stealing data to placing a sleeper inside the system, all with standard issue mass infection mechanisms anti malware detection programming, the latest in self defence techniques and with the underlying drive of a typically well organised or at least very motivated . Yet despite this significant step change in what we are seeing as the attack, as a world of experts I am still not seeing a change in the controls, strategies or defence tactics of many organisations. This I find astounding. How anyone who is considered a responsible person in an organisation can sleep at night thinking that a firewall and a few layers of anti-virus is going to cut it as the total form of protection is seriously miss-informed. Equally, those companies out there pedalling the silver bullets of the security world ” ultimate anti-malware solution (TM)” are doing nothing but compound a problem that will continue to evolve and get more sophisticated. The simple fact is that ANY malware solution on the planet today from any vendor works on the same detection methods. They look for something they have seen before or something that looks like something they have seen before and block it, It's that simple. And for that reason alone, you cannot rely on that control alone as the only form of defence. Equally, the firewall and all that other perimeter based paraphernalia you invested in, don't get me wrong, all well and good, but its not going to stop this stuff. Why? Web 2.0, Social Networking, Unified Communications, Chat, Mail, you name it. Any medium of communication that can facilitate the transfer of a file, and that includes just good old browsing of the web, will bring malware to your door, invited in so to speak, through all that perimeter protection, and straight to the desktop. The truth is, the only way to protect yourself against this stuff is to stop thinking it's “the good old days” and get with the times. The only way you're going to stand a chance of surviving one of these incidents is by thinking about the entire control landscape and how they interact with each other. A good model for this is Defence in Depth as that provides a very good method of visualising the controls at each layer of your environment and allows you to map attacks through the controls to see if they would be successful or not. This simple visualisation strategy can bring value beyond your wildest dreams, giving you the opportunity to stop, think and adjust what you're doing, justify investment, demonstrate control and rationalise spend. All very important concepts for the times. There is a world of products, vendors control choices and equipment with pretty flashing led's on it. The only way to figure out which ones will help you is to understand what you have, what you need and why.Related Images: [...]
Alfa 159 / ElectronicsFor a while now I have been looking into alternative power solutions for the alfa due to its power hungry nature that is not helped by the many auxiliary systems I have added over time. For the most part, the stock battery can cope just fine, but I have always wondered about the use of capacitors and what real value they hold. In years gone by, the capacitors you could get hold of were simply not that useful. A 1 Farad 12v capacitor like you would use in an car audio installation was simply too expensive and had far too little power storage.  One reason I had been considering capacitors was not for power storage but for the side effect of cleaning up the overall noise introduced by the power system in the car. This would serve to improve the overall sound quality of the entire system as well as benefit all electrical systems with a cleaner supply. A good explanation and test is here: Capacitors have come on a long way though and the new generation of “Super” or “Ultra” Capacitors are starting to become a viable alternative to a battery in a car. Because of this, I thought it only sensible to buy some parts and see what it was all about 🙂 Here is a video of a car replacement battery using 6x 2.7v, 500F super capacitors to show you what I mean: Obviously starting the car and providing long term, offline power for the systems when its not running are two different things, so if you seriously wanted to replace your traditional battery you would need a hybrid solution that combined batteries with capacitors.  I'll be looking into that next 😉 Super capacitors come in a few common shapes and sizes but by far the cheapest for the power are the common 2.7v 500 farad units. To hit the target voltage I needed (12-14v) I needed a few wired in series to increase the overall voltage. Fortunately this is a common solution as its a typical voltage used in solar installations. Wiring the capacitors in serial actually decreases the overall farads of the bank, so 6 x 2.7v = 16.2v but the farads are divided by 6 to give you 83.333F. You could add a number of additional banks in parallel to bring the farads back up, but it starts to get a bit big then and you would be better looking into a different style capacitor. such as the Maxwell Ultra 2.7V 3000F, 6 of which would deliver a 16.2v 500F pack ! Also, a point of note is that even though the planned bank has a capacity of 16.2v it will only operate at the voltage its charged too, so if the car charges at 13.5v then the bank will be charged to 13.5v. Its also important to balance the load across a serialized bank of capacitors to prevent damage. Fortunately due to the commonality of the target bank design, a balance board was readily available: The plan was to build a 12v 83 farad bank that would act as a power reserve for the bass amplifier in the boot as this would be a good starting point and bolster the overall power system on easily accessible, existing 4AWG wiring I first bought a few common, cheap and easily accessible parts off ebay: 6 x Green-Cap (Black) Super Farad Capacitor Parallel Battery 2.7V 500F 35*60MM @ 26.99 6 String 2.7V Super Capacitor Protection Balancing Board 100F – 500F 240x40mm @ 8.75 10 rubber lined 35mm pipe clamps @ £7.29 8 AWG power cable with in line fuse holder and fuse @ 4.99 So for less than £50 I had everything I needed for the experiment. I could have bought a pre-made board with unknown capacitors on for about £26 but I have read a few things about the capacitors being junk so went for a known good brand and DIY. I first assembled the capacitor bank with the balance board to achieve the target solution. Hot gluing the capacitors to the board before soldering them to make sure the finished unit was as solid as possible. It took some real heat on the iron to get the solder flowing, especially soldering in the 8AWG wires. I soldered the 8AWG cables directly to the board to ensure maximum power transfer: Once the bank was ready I used the pipe clamps to install the unit in a free space within the amp enclosure and connected it to the positive and negative 4AWG distribution blocks I already had in place from the original installation of the enclosure: I must admit, I was extremely worried when I first connected the fuse that it would just explode in my face, so it was a tentative and careful moment! Some people recommend installing a resistor inline initially to slow charge the capacitors and protect the systems in between, but as I was on a 4AWG connection direct to the battery I was not worried about the charge / discharge issues. They did make a fizzing sound for a few seconds when they took there initial charge but I was stood by with a fire extinguisher!  Once the fizzing stopped and nothing looked like it wasd going to explode I checked the units for discharge / earth shorts and also for temperature. As everything was ok, I decided to start the car and run the amp. The car started quicker than normal so clearly the extra high current supply had already made an impact on the overall electrical system. Its actually possible to start and run an normal engine on a bank of capacitors like this and replace the battery with them as can be seen in one of the videos at the top of the page. Although for the Alfa, I would need a larger bank with more capacity as the 2.4 is a bit of a power hungry beast! I ran a Bass test loop to get the amp hot and push the sub to its limits for 30 minutes. The amp got very hot as expected but the capacitors only got a little warm which is great as if they got very hot that would be a problem. Once it was all back together you could hardly notice the upgrade unless you looked very closely at the vent holes! All in all this was a great upgrade and I am definitely going to explore more super capacitors in the engine bay in some sort of hybrid battery/capacitor solution next! Related Images: [...]
InfoSecOk, its been ages since I actually had snort up and running, so long in fact that the last time I used it, ACID was still the best way to deal with the alerts! Well after a couple of days (well a couple of hours here and there at least) I have a fully functional set of snort sensors in place on public and private segments of my networks, all feeding to a centralised database with “BASE” handling the analysis! woohoo. small victories are the best! I can definatley say its come a long way. It was much easier to install, and only took a small amount of syntax debugging to figure out the configs. During my / re-learning curve though it would seem that version 2.8 with the stream5 processor is not as good as version 2.4 with the flow processor at detecting portscans. This was certainley the concensus of the community, and after a bit of playing I can agree. However, I now have sfPortscan running with stream5 and its seems pretty accurate to me, so I am certainly happy with the results. BASE is also a welcome move onwards from what used to be a very clunky interface. It seems light and intuitive, with decent features. I think it could do with the addition of some basic graphs, rather than having to use the graph engine to define your graphs each time, but on the whole i think it is certainly a good alternative to spending a large amount of money on a commercial product. Certainly the ability to abstract the managemnet interface, data storage and sensors from each other gives you a highly scaleable model to use a basis for a large scale deployment. Of course, if you don't fancy the pain of compiling code from scratch, or your just dam lazy, check out EasyIDS for a complete “IDS in a box” that gives you everything I just said with none of the hastle! ….You just can't ingore the momentum that opensource has gained 😉 Related Images: [...]
GeneralI have decided to plan my new musical platform in advance this time, rather than the usual method of buy something, expand on it, realise its not up to the job and then replace it. This essentially means that I am going to spend a great deal of time on google deciding something, then finding a better version of something and so one, until I eventually bite the bullet and invest. What I have at this stage is a premise and an outline set of requirements. The premise is simple, go fully digital, but retain analogue controls. The outline components are as follows: A powerful PC/MAC + Essential Apps such as Live A High quality Multi-channel sound card A midi trigger device A Good quality Mixer A Sampler/Effects Unit Now, its actually possible to have all of the above in a single box, and in fact, many solutions exist for sub £250, but to be honest, its just not going to give me the flexibility and expandability that I desire. What I want is complete fluidity in the solution so that I can expand upon for many years, giving me not only multi-channel mixing, but the real-time capability that I desire So where next? Well, I already have a decent mixer (DJM600), a powerful PC (Multi-Xeon Monster) and Ableton, so the most important piece and crux of the system is what I need to acquire first. This would be the multi-channel sound card! I have had a look around and found many options, but this one seems to be the best by a mile: Motu Ultralite MK3 This unit has all the features I could need, from 192Khz sample rates, through to 6 channels of input and 10 channels of output to give me as many feeds as I could possibly deal with! The spec list goes on forever on this thing, which is why it can command a £500+ price tag. But if I am going to invest, this is the way forward. Related Images: [...]
RH2B Build DiarySo after installing my lovely new OMP race wheel it was apparent that all was not well with the steering column! In fact, this was an understatement as there was a good 1-2″ of play side to side on the column whcih was just not going to do. a quick investigation identified the issue. A 30+ year old bush that had given up the ghost! Sierra Steering Column bush from the donor car! probably 83-90 so quite old now! After a bit of time on google I established that this was a standard Sierra steering column bush, and also that Kit Spares held them in stock (probably should have started there 🙂 ) £20 including shipping and a couple of days later it was time to pull the column apart and figure out how this all hangs together. Fortunately, its as easy as you would expect. The column is hung on the original mount points at the top and passes through a 3mm steel holder at the bottom, so all that was needed was to loosen the joiner in the engine bay, remove the bolts off the column top and slide the whole thing out. Once out the old bush litter ally fell out into the foot well! installing the new bush was a little more fiddly as it actually fitted snugly and needed some fettering with fairy liquid and some random tools. Once in, the column could be slid back into place and I could set about bolting the top half back in. When i removed the top half I was less than impressed with the mounting solution. What is becoming a trend with this vehicle is the original builders approach to solving technical problems was, lets say, a bit garden shed; and I wanted to be a little more professional about it! So where the Sierra steering column mounts were 18mm open voids that clearly took a bush of some kind once upon a time, and instead had been friction mounted with an M10 and a large washer, I decided to pop along to my favourite hardware supplier, Stirling Nut and Bolt. This is heaven for fasteners of any kind. They literally have everything you could ever want and at trade prices so you don't spend an arm and a leg! A quick tour of the warehouse and 15 minutes later I had 2 x M10.9×50 High tensile bolts, 2 x M10x50 washers, 20x 18mm M10 spacer washers and an assortment of other similar things to work with just in case. A whole £7 later…… (i'll let you stew on that), I was back home and assembling my newly acquired parts into an M10 spacer bolt arrangement that went, M10 Bolt, 50mm washer, 6 x 18mm spacer washers inside of the column mount, then the frame mount point, then a nylock high tensile nut. This solution made the column extremely rigid and removed flex at the lower end where the bush took up the remaining pivot movement and the column was firm, central and more aligned that its previous installation! Under side of steering column Come the winter this is all coming apart again as part of the big rebuild, but for now, I have a safe, secure steering solution for this summers fun! Related Images: [...]
LiveMixesWell, this one is definatley better quality, on all fronts!! music, mix & production. Let me know if you like it! https://jabawoki.com/wp-content/mp3/DJJD__ElectroFied__04082008.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download Related Images: [...]
InfoSecThere is often a lot of talk about this concept, specifically in the vs debate that has gone on for what seems like forever now. I have, as you would expect, my own take on this. Lets start with a history lesson and the basics. White Hats are the “good guys” and Black Hats are the “bad guys”, why? because back in the good old days of spaghetti westerns, good guys always wore White Hats and the bad guys wore Black Hats, it's that simple! Of course, in the scripted world of the western, it was that simple, the bad guy was that easy to spot and the good guys rode off into the sunset, but back in the real world it's a little more difficult to identify. The line between Black and White is often understood to be the law itself, i.e. if you're a , cracker or even a “skidie”, your hat changes colour the minute you go from having permission to do something to not having permission.  I however wager that if we were to exact that understanding on every security expert in this field of expertise, today, it would be a near 100% perfect sea of Black Hats. So the question becomes, if that's the case, are we all really the “bad guys”? I put to you a different concept, I different way of thinking about this that, personally, I think fits much better. First of all let's forget about hats and the law and look at a couple of basic concepts. Motivation is the activation or energization of goal-oriented behaviour and  is defined as intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from rewards inherent to a task or activity itself – the enjoyment of a puzzle or the love of playing whereas Extrinsic motivation comes from outside of the performer. Money is the most obvious example, but coercion and threat of punishment are also common extrinsic motivations. Another point of consideration is Goal orientation, often seen as an aspect of an individual's motivation. An individual's goal orientation describes the goals that they choose and the methods used to pursue those goals. One of the most common conceptualizations of goal orientation is the three factor model, that is, individuals can be described in terms of goal orientation based on three factors: mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoid. Individuals with a mastery goal orientation seek challenging tasks and value learning. Highly performance-approach oriented individuals seek tasks that allow them to demonstrate the skills they already possess, and highly performance-avoidant tend to avoid tasks where they may fail and thus appear incompetent. The final aspect to consider in this equation is an agent's intention in performing an action. In so much as his or her specific purpose in doing so, the end or goal that is aimed at, or intended to accomplish. In recent years, there has been a large amount of work done on the concept of intentional action in experimental philosophy. This work has aimed at illuminating and understanding the factors which influence people's judgments of whether an action was done intentionally. For instance, research has shown that unintended side-effects are often considered to be done intentionally if the side-effect is considered bad and the person acting knew the side-effect would occur before acting. Yet when the side-effect is considered good, people generally don't think it was done intentionally, even if the person knew it would occur before acting. The most well-known example involves a chairman who implements a new business program for the sole purpose to make money but ends up affecting the environment in the process. If he implements his business plan and in the process he ends up helping the environment, then people generally say he unintentionally helped the environment; if he implements his business plan and in the process he ends up harming the environment, then people generally say he intentionally harmed the environment. The important point is that in both cases his only goal was to make money. While there have been many explanations proposed for why the “side-effect effect” occurs, researchers on this topic have not yet reached a consensus. So now we understand a little about motivation, goals & Intentions, what really makes the “bad guy” bad? Well its worth adding into themix that the “good guys” and “bad guys” all have the same level of skill, they all learned it the same way and they all have the same aptitude (loosely speaking of course). In fact during the learning process its probably fair to wager that on occasion everyone ended up, purely through exploration, somewhere they shouldn't have been.  Does this make us all “bag guys”? I certainly do not think so. In my , motivation, goals & intent are what separate the good from the bad, and in this context the “White Hats” from the “Black Hats”. Let's look at an example. the CERT Coordination Centre came up with an interesting classification matrix, which I have provided below as a diagram: In the above diagram, we see six types of attacker (as well as a virtual 7th type that could be all 6 in a different context), six types of motivation and four goals.  It is assumed in  this classification, as insinuated by the word “Attacker”, that we are dealing with the “bag guys” or Black Hats here, however, I would argue that the first type, “Hacker” has a motivation and goal that is not negative or in fact malicious in any way, so should they also be considered a “bad guy”?  Its fair to say, someone hell bent on the quest for knowledge in that particular classification may take a devil may care approach that could have a negative impact on the systems they are exploring, but again, is this malicious intent, or just carelessness? In summary I put it to you that there are no White Hats, or Black hats in the world today, just Shades of Grey, and that only motivation, goals and intent separate those of us trying to help from those who have a more nefarious purpose. Related Images: [...]
LiveMixesWell, it's been a long time coming, but until today, there has always been a reason not to. Recently, I managed to cobble together my old Stanton Final Scratch V1.1, and sure enough, the old girl worked a treat. So here is the result. The first mix of 2008, and although I am obviously a little rusty, its not too shabby! (Appologies to any listeners, there is a small low level hum you pick up during quiet moments due to the old laptop I am using. The next mix will have this fixed) Enjoy! https://jabawoki.com/wp-content/mp3/DJJD__Dirty_House__16072008.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download Related Images: [...]
LiveMixesA fresh mix for you all – Happy New Year! Track List: Albin Myers – Time Like These Robbie Rivera – New Direction Oliver Twizt – Yo're Not Alone John Dahlback – More than I Wanted Chris Lake – If You Knew Doman & Gooding Feat Dru & Lincoln – Runnin Guetta Angello Gerraud Ingrosso Willis – Everytime We Touch Steve Angello & Laifdback Luke Feat Robin S – Show Me Love Planet Funk – Lemonade Kurd Maverick – Blue Monday Nari & Milani Feat Max C – Disco Nuff Kevin Bryant – Who You Wanna Be Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream https://jabawoki.com/wp-content/mp3/Jabawoki_Sunny_Side_Up_25012010.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download Related Images: [...]
RH2B Build DiaryAnother big issue with the hoody was the tune. It was all over the shop. really rough and just a bit shit. This was an easy fix though, I just needed to add a 14point7 Spartan 2 Lambda to the Megasquirt ECU and get some help! Lambda ready to go in! The main issue with the current engine setup is the horrific ITB's (f you can actually call them that). They are difficult to balance and will eventually be replaced with a whole new setup I am building on a new engine. That said, they needed to work for this summer so I called up a guy called Shaun who runs MS2 Tuning and knew the car from its previous owner. Shaun is awesome. A really friendly guy that gave me, a total stranger, support and advice over the phone and then came over to help me to a basic setup tune on the car for beer money. You dont get much better than that in this game. After about 3 hours playing, diagnosing and fixing some earthing issues, we had the ITB's balanced, the AFR dialled in, and the engine was purring. This was exactly what I had hoped for and the potential I knew was in the car when I bought it. I do love an underdog! Related Images: [...]

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