Kali Linux 2020.1 with the newest Raspberry Pi 4 Model B

    While it has been a while since the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B's release. This model was initially released in June of 2019 and revision 1.2 was released quietly sometime later. The revision of the RPi4 was due to increase SD card lifetime, and to quietly fix an issue with the USB C power, which would when powered was supplied from a computer would identify the RPi4 as a peripheral device and then throttles the power lower on the USB port. The issue can be avoided by the use of "dumb" cables when connecting to pc or by the use of a RPi4 power adapter. To determine if your RPi4 might have this issue visually you can for a small 3 prong surface mounted ic that is on the bottom side of the RPi4 just above the SD card slot. Also, this can be determined at the command line in Linux with the command "cat /proc/cpuinfo" check the hardware revision code on the table below:

Code	Model	Revision	RAM	Manufacturer
a03111	4B	1.1	1GB	Sony UK
b03111	4B	1.1	2GB	Sony UK
b03112	4B	1.2	2GB	Sony UK
c03111	4B	1.1	4GB	Sony UK
c03112	4B	1.2	bGB	Sony UK

     Now after identifying any issues with the RPi4, other features can be discussed. For video the new RPi features two micro HDMI ports to support monitors. Other features have been discussed by others increases in the amounts of RAM available and other general improvements.

      The operating system Kali Linux 2020.1.  Kali.org provides RPi4 ARM images from the following link: Kali Linux Arm Images.  Once downloaded the installation of Kali Linux is quiet simple to perform.  One can use the Win 32 Disk Writer or other disk images to write the image to the SD card.  This time my preference is Balena Etcher which wrote the image without issues to the SD card.  Once written to the card can be loaded into the RPi4 and booted from. 

      There have been a few changes and many modifications that were used in previous versions of Kali Linux are no longer necessary. 

Kali Linux 2019.2 On the Raspberry Pi Zero W H

The Raspberry Pi Zero WH is the next step for the Pi Zero W product. As with the other Zero W device, the WH provides both wireless networking, and bluetooth on the smaller Raspberry Pi models. The distinct feature addition with the Zero WH is the header pins have been added, thus no additional soldering to the device is needed. These small footprint devices can be utilized for many purposes such as modification of a non-internet enabled device to be monitored and accessed from a network to their use in computer forensics.

The Zero WH is still running a 32 bit 1 Ghz processor, and 512Mb of RAM (the same as the Zero W). This is in contrast to the newly released Raspberry Pi 4 that runs 64bit 1.5 Ghz processor with 1, 2 or 4 Gb of RAM.

Now Kali Linux provided by Offensive Security is a Debian Linux variant that is intended to be utilized as a Penetration Testing OS. and not a daily use operating system. Kali provides weekly updates and it is advise to perform routine device updates if one intends to continue use of the product.

Installation of KAli 2019.2.

1. Secure a micro sd card for use in the Raspberry Pi device. In my efforts a 64 GB sd card was used as it was now close to the same price as the 32 Gb Micro SD card.

2. Navigate to the Kali Linux site and to their download page. On the bottom half of the page is a button to access the Kali Linux ARM images for various devices.

3. Follow the page and select the Raspberry Pi Foundation section, at the bottom of the various images is one entitled "Kali Linux RPi" Download this as other variants are headless variants or are intended for specific purposes.

4. Unzip the compressed file once it is downloaded. Using a file compression software decompress the image file.

5. Writing the image to the Micro SD card. Utilizing a USB or other card reading device, and image writing software such as Etcher or Win32DiskImager write the image to the Micro SD card.

6. Insert the Micro SD card and power up / boot the RPiZWH. Note: Kali Linux Ri P Z images utilize Re4son kernels who is a developer of the Linux OS Kernels for the 32 bit devices. Also the image will perform functions to expand the file system and utilize the full disk space area available on the Micro SD card. These processes were required to be executed by the user in earlier software images.

7. Login Kali Linux default root user account is "Root" and the password "toor"

8. Update and upgrade the system. The Kali Linux distro that the disk image provides is a small footprint without many of the software packages that are available on a full version of the Kali Linux distribution. If other software is needed for one's efforts metapackages "tools" are available. While a complete list of "tools" that are available is here: "tool lists"

9. Updating, open a console terminal and enter the following command: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. follow the queues in the terminal and updating and upgrading will begin.

10. Currently it appears that Firefox is crashing when opening. Alternative browsers range from Luakit, Midori, Lynx and others. My current alternative is Midori. To install Midori enter the command below:

sudo apt install midori

Midori can be accessed from the internet tab on the applications dropdown.

Next we will set up the remote desktop connection

Google AIY Voice Kit

Welcome to the new year! Last time we posted we talked about working with the google AIY voice project kit. This was a while ago, but here is a condensed update on the AIY Google Voice Kit.

The Google voice kit is available for any price from around 5 dollars, to the price at Target which is 49.99.

It makes me sad that some stores would take advantage of the interest of developers and interested adventures to mark the product up so high, but please check the price where you buy it to insure you are getting a fair market price for your expense.

Alright, the Google Voice Kit, all the parts add to the Raspberry Pi are included in the kit. These parts include the daughter board, a button, stereo microphone board, and speaker. Along with the various wires need to connect this project. A cardboard box is included as part of the kit that is designed to house both a Raspberry Pi and all the kit parts.

However, with my Raspberry Pi it is already mounted to a 7 inch touch screen in a form fitting case. So the question that was left will the case allow for the new daughter board? The answer is yes it can be fitted inside of the case, however due to the height of the daughter board the rear panel will not remain on, without tape.

The instructions are easy to follow. Their is one point to press in the development of this kit, the AIY kit to follow the projects within the kit, utilize a Raspbian image. This image is downloaded and installed on an micro SD card for use as the operating system on the Raspberry Pi.

It is available at this link: The AIY Raspbian OS.

Once all assembled the Raspberry Pi can utilize the new daughter board to listen to and record sounds, as well as a speaker to provide output and feedback. The microphone is useful and can easily pick up a conversation around it. A bit of python code is provided already written when installed on the desktop. With this code examples are provided that check the network connections, speaker, and microphone. After using this code one can follow the project book and discover ways to utilize the Voice Kit with the Raspberry Pi.

If one inspects the daughter board, one will see that the board can be a more versatile board in that it has unused pin outs to add a second speaker for stereo sound, as well as four pin outs for servo connections.

Google AIY Project can be found here.

Google(or should I say Alphabet) is now getting into the add on module market with a few kits that they are releasing through AIY Kits from Google. One can find these kits now at your local shops or online at the shops that are selling the Raspberry Pi. Currently there are two kits available one is a "Voice" kit and the other "Vision". At my local store I was able to pick up the voice kit for around 5 dollars. After beginning assembly of the Raspberry Pi Voice kit, I was disappointed that the voice hat was going to have an issue as my primary Raspberry Pi was using the 7 inch touch screen. There is however another Raspberry Pi out which I am considering purchasing to build the voice kit, this is the Raspberry Pi Zero WH (with header). The Pi zero is a 1 Ghz single core computer, with 512Mb of ram, WiFi and BLE support (wireless networking and low energy bluetooth). Standby for now and I will finish writing the report on it in a bit.
Google AIY Project can be found here.

The City of Houston and Microsoft has partnered to create the nation’s first “Internet of Things” alliance.  This partnership will be aimed at digital literacy. Microsoft says they will focus on 5 communities where they will be giving people the skills they need to develop careers in an increasingly digital world. The focus is on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education programs.

The “internet of things” has far reaching potential and benefits.  One common example is when smartphones receive software upgrades to fix bugs. Another impressive one comes from electric car company Tesla, which resolves problems in cars without recalling them to the dealership. For example, upon discovering that a charger plug was a potential fire hazard, it was able to fix the issue in 29,222 vehicles via a software update.

Another overriding benefits of the “internet of things” for marketers is the vast amount of data that can be harnessed from devices. Not only can this data help to inform wider product development, but it can also be used to create meaningful and personalised interactions with consumers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Alongside this, it also means that customer service will be able to evolve. If a non-connected device malfunctions, it would currently be up to the consumer to take action. Whether that means searching for a solution online, enquiring of customer service, or returning it to the manufacturer. 

Ngozi

Gilliland, N., & Econsultancy. (2018, May 02). How the internet of things can improve customer experience. Retrieved from https://www.econsultancy.com/blog/69988-how-the-internet-of-things-can-improve-customer-experience

May the Fourth

Today is May the fourth, and when we think of IoT today we think of small devices that monitor the house, stream radio, and check how burnt my toast is. However, with it being May the fourth we can talk about projects that are in the spirit of the day.

First over on the website hackernoon.com, is an article about various challenges in building and IoT devices that were made, Droid Translator Helmets which will pick up the speaker’s voice and translate the speech into beeps and buzzes, a Death Star Clock, a Force detector, and others. While there is an article over on makezine.com on building an R2-D2. After building the R2-D2 unit, one can easily make it better with a bit of work and a Raspberry Pi.

References

Are You an IoT Jedi? Create Your Own Star Wars Inspired Tech. (2017, 12 15). Retrieved from Hackrnoon.com: https://hackernoon.com/are-you-an-iot-jedi-create-your-own-star-wars-inspired-tech-4c36ce8d4535

Gentile, P. (2016, March 7). The Comprehensive Guide to Building a Realistic R2-D2 Replica. Retrieved from Makezine.com: https://makezine.com/projects/building-your-first-r2/

Using IoT devices for IDS applications Cont...

About a month ago I started describing the the process to use a Raspberry Pi device as an IDS. Now I continue with the process.

From this base of the installed and updated OS, to install the following applications Snort, Barnyard2, PulledPork, and WebSnort the project followed the following instructions and used the Snorter installation script that is available at the following site: https://github.com/joanbono/Snorter. Once this process was completed and configured the NIDS completed and functional. Another application that can be installed is Kismet. While an explanation of the installed applications will be listed in the project results section.

Another application that was installed was the remote desktop application, XRDP. This application which will allow remote access should it be necessary to the RPZW. However, during configuration use of the remote desktop often delayed or hampered with the downloading of application packages.

By following the installation processes on the various pages, installation of the software should fairly simple to complete.

Listing of Sites used for the installation processes:
• https://docs.kali.org/introduction/download-official-kali-linux-images
• https://etcher.io/
• https://whitedome.com.au/re4son/kali-pi/#swap
• https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/.
• https://whitedome.com.au/re4son/re4son-kernel/
• https://docs.kali.org/general-use/kali-linux-sources-list-repositories
• https://github.com/joanbono/Snorter

Due to the non-standard configuration of a RPZW computer system and that this project was conducted on a highly compressed time-cycle certain items. In configuration of the RPZW as a NIDS the project found that the initial off the shelf configuration of the RPZW required an additional Wi-Fi connector known as a USB “On the Go” adapter, while the OS footprint and the installation of the applications required at least a 16 GBs of disk space. In consideration of the limitations the project was a success.

The project group noted some benefits to the use of the particular OS, as the Kali Linux derivative is designed as a Penetration Testing Linux for those specializing in network security evaluations. Due to this specific intention of the distribution the project has developed a standalone tool that can provide a complete evaluation of network security. This project installed successful for use the following applications Snort, BarnYard2, WebSnort, Pulled Pork and Kismet as well as from the default installation Wireshark, a short summary of the applications is below.

Snort is as the snort.org web-page documentation states “is an open source network intrusion prevention system, capable of performing real-time traffic analysis and packet logging on IP networks.” In the use of Snort we can monitor and detect network attacks when they are active in the network

BarnYard2 is an application that is deployed to translate the output of Snort. It is used by other applications to provide a translation service to understand the output of Snort.

PulledPork is a set of rules for usage in Snort they are provided by maintainers of Snort. The maintainers of the Snort application provide a public, a private version and a paid access version of these rule sets. The usage of the predefined ruleset provides an efficient method of automating the detection of network issues.

WebSnort is a browser based interface for displaying the output of what is referred to as a pcap file. Pcap files are the generated output produced by Snort. During analyst of Snort output WebSnort can manipulate the output files.

Wireshark is an application that be used monitor network protocols. While running Wireshark, the project can monitor the data packets traversing the network. This application can provide information on not only the packet header, but can be used to reconstruct the actual webpages that have been transferred across the network.

Kismet is used as wireless network detector, sniffer and an IDS application in itself. This application can itself work as the IDS over a wi-fi network. Similar to Wireshark and Snort it too needs the Wi-Fi chipset to allow for promiscuous mode. The application is passive in nature of its monitoring of the network. Kismet can provide a survey report for the Wi-Fi networks in the area.

Wrapping this up

The project’s efforts were focused on developing a NIDS that can serve the administrators or owners of the host network as a method of notification if there is unwelcome traffic, with the additional goals of maintaining a low entry point cost and providing efficient utilization or minimum use of power for the device, as well as providing documentation for the process.

Developed by the project efforts, was a RPZW device that is capable of using a host of applications to provide for the monitoring of the network. Installed on the device was several programs used to enable monitoring of a network. The applications included Snort, Kismet, WireShark, WebSnort, PulledPork, and BarnYard2. While all these applications alone can provide for a suitable monitoring of a network, combined these utilities offer a comprehensive ability to monitor a network.

Low cost efforts of the project can be maintained. All applications including the operating system are available as opensource software. Additionally, the device itself the RPZW was purchased for ten dollars, and accessories were available for an additional few dollars more. To further emphasize cost saving we can stress that this device also consumes very little power when in operation. The final goal of the project was to provide documentation as reference on how to replicate this endeavor. The project respectfully submits this document as that documentation. Efforts of the group within this document have been recorded.

Network monitoring tools are often thought of after an issue has been discovered. The ability for one to ensure that the network is uncompromised so that the information, passwords, credit card and other private information that is sent over that network remains confidential is also only valued after evidence that the network has been compromised is discovered. As a result, the value of a passive NIDS to monitor the network should be considered as valuable as the information that is available on that network. Likewise, the usefulness of the NIDS to monitor the network would only be noted after the network has been compromised.

As the project proceeded, the group must say that the project was not without issues. As a group, we managed to successfully overcome the issues as they arose. This project suffered from various issues from logistical, to configuration issues of the appliance.

One of the initial issues the project suffered from was the specialized hardware. Notably the as it is termed “USB On the Go” connector. This micro USB male to Female USB cable or adapter was initially ordered at the same time as the original RPZW. The first cable ordered was only arrived on July 19th, after being promised the standard 5-day delivery. After the arrival of other adapters made for the RPZW, a different “USB On the Go” cable adapter was ordered and arrived as promised two days later. While awaiting cables the group project used the time by writing disk images of various operating systems on to several micro SD cards.

Once all the cables arrived the RPZW was assembled, a second issue was discovered. This issue was the originally purchased RPZW was not operational. This was confirmed by using the a few of the already imaged micro SD cards successfully in another known good Raspberry Pi. Once this was discovered as a problem the device was returned to the store and exchanged for a working unit.

One issue was with the unfamiliarity of the group with initial RPZW, as with some distributions on with Raspberry Pi the installation can be completed on the slightly larger Raspberry PI 3b, which is 64-bit, the Micro SD card with the installed and configured OS could be simply transferred and updated on the RPZW. An initial selection of OpenSUSE as the OS was in error as that distribution no longer supports 32-bit hardware. Eventually, it was determined that a modified version of Kali Linux can be used on the RPZW and was installed on the RPZW.

The final issue encountered was during the first installation of the software. The first installation of the OS and supporting application was made on an 8 GB micro SD. After installation and upgrading of the base applications, the project suffered from a lack of space on the flash memory card. A larger 16 GB flash memory card was used and the installation of all applications was completed.

A small amount of changes would be made if the project was to be repeated by this group. First, on the ordering of parts, the group recommends ordering from vendors that are local or if the vendor has policies in place to guarantee prompt delivery of the ordered items. Another change would be that we start off with larger 16 GB micro SD cards rather than the smaller 8 GB.

Despite the issues that the project encountered during the effort. With the development of the NIDS system on the RPZW, the next step would be to install a one of the GUI interfaces Snort. One of the interfaces that can be evaluated is BASE, or Basic Analysis and Security Engine. Further another IDS service is Bro that could be installed as a comparative product. In using the RPZW as a test bed for various configurations could provide a solution to installations on more expensive hardware.

In closing there are still other opensource applications left to investigate their usefulness. However, the project was completed with the initial NIDS installed for monitor a wireless network. During the project, the group worked together to accomplish the goals, and succeeding to build a NIDS for monitoring Wi-Fi networks. Issues were overcome and dealt with as they arose. In closing this was the end of a successful project.

List o references used to build upon.