Antisec Attacks Missouri Sheriff's Association

First a little back story. On July 30, 2011, a hacker group (most likely Anonymous) using the antisec mantra attacked Missouri law enforcement personnel through a release of 7000+ username/passwords including some Social Security Numbers. The information was released through the website pastebin.com, http://pastebin.com/v1H455Na (post has been removed). Shortly after that, another pastebin post from the user AnonymousIRC claimed credit for the attack, http://pastebin.com/iwnA90E6.

So what is the damage? Law enforcement personnel from across Missouri had personally identifiable information released on a public website for several hours. In addition, it is unknown what Anonymous may have done with this information besides the public disclosure. Despite the dump information being removed, the damage has already been done. Anyone who had information disclosed in this dump needs to take this seriously and immediately begin monitoring their personal accounts.

The released information includes things such as name, address, and phone numbers. The most damaging information disclosed was username/passwords and Social Security Numbers. It is important to note that not all people had Social Security Numbers disclosed. I think it is obvious what damage could be done with the SSN disclosure, however most people seem to be undervaluing the username/passsword dump.

The problem with any password compromise is many people will reuse usernames and passwords across multiple accounts. They will use the same username and password combination for email, online banking, and forum accounts. These accounts represent vastly different levels of trust and should be protected by different passwords. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case.

The bottom line is these law enforcement personnel need to be taking immediate steps to protect their identity and finances. The first thing to do is change your passwords and never reuse the compromised password. Choose strong passwords and protect your accounts by using different passwords and if possible different usernames for each account. Begin monitoring credit reports and financial statements and report any unauthorized activity. Free credit reports are available through https://www.annualcreditreport.com. This is not an issue to take lightly and may haunt these people for years.

Caleb Spelled Out in Dominoes

This is a short, fun video I made with my son on a day off of work and school.

Banish Sprint Activation Nag Screen On Samsung Galaxy Tab

If you have seen the screen above and are annoyed by it then this blog post needs no further explanation. For the rest of the world here is the story, I have a Sprint Galaxy Tab. Every time I cold boot it, I am presented with the activation screen above. Since the Tab was purchased sans 3G contract, the activation fails. I have found the screen can be disabled by deleting an apk file, SprintAndroidExtension.apk. This post will detail how to remove SprintAndroidExtension.apk and be free of the activation nag screen.

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Here is where my standard disclaimer goes. I was able to do this but if you break your device, I am not in any way liable for that. Proceed at your own risk. Blah, blah,blah...

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The first thing you need is a rooted Sprint Samsung Galaxy Tab. If you need help with that, my previous blog post will walk you through a method for rooting. I will build on that and use adb.exe from SuperOneClick. If you have another adb.exe installation, that will work also.


On the back of your Galaxy Tab, find the model. Mine is an SPH-P100. To get the drivers, go to http://www.samsung.com/us/support/. Download and install the appropriate driver package on your Windows computer. Before you connect the USB cable, power on your Galaxy Tab. Go to Settings->Applications->Development and enable USB debugging. If you have connected the USB cable you will not be able to enable or disable USB debugging until you unplug the cable. After you have enabled USB debugging, go ahead and plug in the USB cable to the tablet and the computer.


First, open a command prompt and change to your SuperOneClick directory. For me that means, click Start, Run, and type "cmd" followed by enter. Then I enter "cd C:\SuperOneClickv1.7-ShortFuse" and am now sitting in the right directory to proceed.

Now, make sure adb knows about your Tab. Type "adb devices" and you should see your device listed like below. If your device is not listed, make sure USB debugging is enabled and you have installed the Tab drivers.


Make a backup of SprintAndroidExtension.apk in case you decide you need to restore it in the future. From the command prompt, enter "adb pull /system/app/SprintAndroidExtension.apk" without the quotes. This copies SprintAndroidExtension.apk from the Tab to the current directory.




Now, find out what device is mounted on the /system filesystem. Type "adb shell mount" and try not to be overwhelmed. Look for the line that has "/system" similar to the highlighted below. In my case the device is /dev/block/stl9. Your should be the same but double check before you proceed.


Notice the "ro" on that line after /system? That means the filesystem is read-only and we will not be able to remove SprintAndroidExtension.apk until we remount it read-write. From your command prompt enter "adb shell" at the prompt. This will get you to an adb shell prompt.


Make sure you have your Tab unlocked and in front of you. You will need to be able to grant adb root permissions with Superuser. Type "su" at the adb command prompt and then look at your Tab. Superuser should prompt you to grant root priveleges to an unknown application. The end result should be a root prompt (#).



The next command will remount the /system filesystem read-write. Type the following "mount -o rw,remount -t ext2 /dev/block/stl9 /system" and press Enter. If your device is different from /dev/block/stl9, then make the appropriate substitution in the previous command. If you get an error message like Operation not permitted or Permission denied then you most likely are not running as root.


Finally, this command will remove the activation application, "rm /system/app/SprintAndroidExtension.apk" is what you need to type. WARNING!!! rm is the delete command and if you remove the wrong file you could potentially bork your Tab. After this, type exit twice to leave the adb shell.


The last thing to do is reboot and verify the Sprint activation nag is gone. The command "adb reboot" will reboot the Tab and you will be nag screen free!