Update: Likely Data Security Breach at iContact.com

On the day I posted Suspected Data Security Breach at iContact.com I was contacted via Facebook by someone with an email address @icontact.com. I forwarded them the same information that I sent to their abuse team. I’ve not heard anything back since.

Others have picked up on this likely breach at iContact.com:

• Joshua Baer on the deliverability.com blog
• Laura Atkins on the wordtothewise.com blog
• @sandheepks on Twitter

iContact have answered some concerns: they are looking into the problem.

I have been contacted by one of the sites/services whose address-list has been breached, simply to ask to be kept in the loop with iContact.com’s response.

I have done some further research into my mail folders. I have found one address which iContact.com have on record which has not yet received any spam. As a result, this address hasn’t been compromised and has been replaced by HIDDEN on this public website. iContact’s abuse team has been provided with the full details, however:

Received: from smtp7.icpbounce.com ([::ffff:216.27.93.119])
 by faelix.net with esmtp; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:12:36 +0000
 id 000013C1.47799384.00003B72
Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
       by smtp7.icpbounce.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 43D6197750
       for <HIDDEN>; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:54:34 -0500 (EST)
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:54:34 -0500

This address hasn’t received any emails this month:

mail:~# ls -l /var/log/mail.log*
-rw-r----- 1 root adm  9351785 2010-01-28 11:45 /var/log/mail.log
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 13870643 2010-01-24 06:23 /var/log/mail.log.1
-rw-r----- 1 root adm  1451508 2010-01-17 06:24 /var/log/mail.log.2.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root adm  1257403 2010-01-10 06:24 /var/log/mail.log.3.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root adm  1828195 2010-01-03 06:25 /var/log/mail.log.4.gz
mail:~# zgrep HIDDEN /var/log/mail.log*
mail:~# 

The last email sent to this address was via iContact.com on 17th July 2009:

Received: from smtp15.icpbounce.com ([::ffff:216.27.93.111])
 by faelix.net with esmtp; Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:30:51 +0100
 id 000010FE.4A60FB9D.000039C9
Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1])
       by smtp15.icpbounce.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D37AA6A0C98
       for <HIDDEN>; Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:01:58 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:01:58 -0400

Timeline

March 2002

photonlight@maz.nu receives its first iContact.com mail

1st January 2008

HIDDEN receives its first iContact.com mail

7th Feb 2009

macheist.com@maz.nu receives its first iContact.com mail

1st April 2009

macheist.com@maz.nu receives its last iContact.com mail (address now blacklisted)

2nd April 2009

bloomsbury.com@maz.nu receives its first iContact.com mail

14th May 2009

slimes@maz.nu receives its first iContact.com mail

17th July 2009

HIDDEN receives its last iContact.com mail (address still valid)

27th July 2009

bloomsbury.com@maz.nu receives its last iContact.com mail (address now blacklisted)

30th December 2009

photonlight@maz.nu receives its last iContact.com mail (address now blacklisted)

18th January 2010

slimes@maz.nu receives its last iContact.com mail (address now blacklisted)

At first I wondered if the anomalous address, HIDDEN, was an indicator that perhaps only addresses recently sent a newsletter by iContact.com had been breached (i.e. those contacted after 17th July 2009). The counter-example is macheist.com@maz.nu which has been receiving emails only via Google’s mailers since April 1st 2009, so that theory doesn’t hold water. However, it would appear that not all of my addresses on file at iContact have been spammed yet, so perhaps this isn’t a total breach… or perhaps I’m still waiting for HIDDEN to be hit!

SSHKeychain on Snow Leopard

I am an avid user of MacPorts, but it seems some things are broken with Snow Leopard. In particular it seems one cannot build SSHKeychain:

[~]% sudo port install SSHKeychain
--->  Computing dependencies for SSHKeychain
--->  Fetching SSHKeychain
--->  Verifying checksum(s) for SSHKeychain
--->  Extracting SSHKeychain
--->  Applying patches to SSHKeychain
--->  Configuring SSHKeychain
--->  Building SSHKeychain
Error: Target org.macports.build returned: shell command "cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_aqua_SSHKeychain/work/0.8.2" && xcodebuild  -target "SSHKeychain" -configuration Deployment build OBJROOT=build/ SYMROOT=build/ MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6 ARCHS=x86_64 SDKROOT= ARCHS=i386" returned error 1
Command output: 
=== BUILD NATIVE TARGET TunnelRunner OF PROJECT SSHKeychain WITH CONFIGURATION Deployment ===
Check dependencies
GCC 4.2 is not compatible with the Mac OS X 10.4 SDK (file TunnelRunner.c)
GCC 4.2 is not compatible with the Mac OS X 10.4 SDK (file TunnelRunner.c)
** BUILD FAILED **


Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.
Before reporting a bug, first run the command again with the -d flag to get complete output.

To fix this, I simply changed “10.4u” and “10.4” on lines 922 and 924 to “10.5” in the xcodeproj file:

/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_aqua_SSHKeychain/work/0.8.2/SSHKeychain.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj

	  	CC39D6380921118A00FE3BC5 /* Development */ = {
                        isa = XCBuildConfiguration;
	           	buildSettings = {
				ARCHS = (
                                	ppc,
		                        i386,
		                );
		                MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET_i386 = 10.5;
		                MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET_ppc = 10.3;
		                SDKROOT_i386 = /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk;
		                SDKROOT_ppc = /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk;
		        };
		        name = Development;
		};

Also further down on lines 936 and 938:

/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_aqua_SSHKeychain/work/0.8.2/SSHKeychain.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj

		CC39D6390921118A00FE3BC5 /* Deployment */ = {
		        isa = XCBuildConfiguration;
		        buildSettings = {
		                ARCHS = (
                                        ppc,
                                        i386,
				);
                                MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET_i386 = 10.5;
				MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET_ppc = 10.3;
				SDKROOT_i386 = /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk;
				SDKROOT_ppc = /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk;
			};
                        name = Deployment;
		};

…and then…

[~]% sudo port install SSHKeychain
--->  Computing dependencies for SSHKeychain
--->  Building SSHKeychain
--->  Staging SSHKeychain into destroot
--->  Installing SSHKeychain @0.8.2_0
--->  Activating SSHKeychain @0.8.2_0
--->  Cleaning SSHKeychain

Alternatively, if you wish to just download it, it is available at http://fs.maz.nu/sshkeychain-0.8.2-sl.app.zip.

Fingerprints versus Eczema 2009

In 2005 I wrote my blog post Fingerprints versus Eczema. While I have determined many of the allergens and chemicals which provoke my eczema in the intervening years — and eliminated them — from time to time my skin gets dry and cracked, particularly as the winter months approach. On the day after I spotted the campaign for the Manchester launch of the notional identity card I decided to have another look at my fingerprints. Different fingers, but same old problems. What am I going to do!?

New PGP Key

Every Christmas I generate a new public key for the year ahead, and sign it with my master key and the outgoing key:

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin)
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=gqPO
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Fingerprints versus Eczema

I am one of the allergic individuals who suffer from eczema. Thankfully mine is quite mild, and is generally limited to a few areas of skin: backs of knees, hands/fingers and occasionally feet. What effect does this skin condition have on my fingerprints?

For the past few months the skin some of my fingers has been particularly dry and flaky, with the result that my fingerprints have worn away to nothing. Looking closely at them there are deep cracks or grooves in the skin, and a shiny smoothness where one would normally see loops, whorls and arches.

Methodology

First, I looked at my fingers in daylight. Various fingers are in different states of dermatitis. I chose four fingers showing different signs of print deterioration. I used a smooth ink-pad and smooth paper to make prints, applying approximately equal force to each finger (a firm press). These were then scanned, cropped and reduced, and saved using identical compression/quality settings for each image.

A representative portion of the full print of each finger is shown below. Image compression has been set high (30% JPEG quality on all images). Both of these are deliberate: I do not want to publish my notional identity for all and sundry (I’m going to have enough trouble getting fingerprinted for a national identity card that I don’t need other people forging my fingerprints and stealing my identity).

Fingerprint Pictures

Perfect Fingerprint

This finger has an almost perfect fingerprint.

Good Fingerprint

The horizontal line about two-thirds of the way down is a groove/crack showing that the skin on this finger is getting dry. The dark patch in the upper-right of the image is where the skin is starting to wear away.

Dry, Cracked Fingerprint

The cracks in the skin of this finger produce more noticable features than the ridges and grooves of the pad. When I first saw this scan it reminded me of mycology slides I once saw, depicting fungal growth in animal tissue!

Eroded Fingerprint

Looking at this finger in the light shows an almost completely smooth surface. The print confirms this: wear-and-tear have eroded the ridges to an almost completely flat surface.