From pete at nomadlogic.org Thu May 9 19:45:06 2013 From: pete at nomadlogic.org (Pete Wright) Date: Thu, 09 May 2013 16:45:06 -0700 Subject: [nycbug-talk] Cdorked.A Backdoor Message-ID: <518C3502.5030809@nomadlogic.org> Hey - anyone else been able to find more reliable information on this backdoor? This is pretty much the only semi-useful information I've been able to dig up on it today: http://www.welivesecurity.com/2013/05/07/linuxcdorked-malware-lighttpd-and-nginx-web-servers-also-affected/ While I'm specifically interested to see is if this is an application level vuln, something to do with the linux kernel's only ,thus making my *BSD servers mostly safe, or what... Thanks! -pete -- Pete Wright pete at nomadlogic.org twitter => @nomadlogicLA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at nomadlogic.org Thu May 9 20:17:44 2013 From: pete at nomadlogic.org (Pete Wright) Date: Thu, 09 May 2013 17:17:44 -0700 Subject: [nycbug-talk] Cdorked.A Backdoor In-Reply-To: <518C3502.5030809@nomadlogic.org> References: <518C3502.5030809@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: <518C3CA8.80002@nomadlogic.org> On 05/09/13 16:45, Pete Wright wrote: > Hey - anyone else been able to find more reliable information on this > backdoor? This is pretty much the only semi-useful information I've > been able to dig up on it today: > > http://www.welivesecurity.com/2013/05/07/linuxcdorked-malware-lighttpd-and-nginx-web-servers-also-affected/ > > While I'm specifically interested to see is if this is an application > level vuln, something to do with the linux kernel's only ,thus making my > *BSD servers mostly safe, or what... > had some cycles to dig deeper - found a python script from eset.ie that they believe will detect this code. it's pretty simple - so i'm not sure how reliable it is tbh. here's a link to a wordpress site which is hosing the python script (that's not sketchy at all is it?): http://www.welivesecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/dump_cdorked_config.7z tl;dr version if you don't want to grab the script. - defines a key and size of a linux shared memory segment: 17 SHM_SIZE = 6118512 18 SHM_KEY = 63599 - attempts to load librt.so via ctypes python module so it scan interact directly with systems shared memory pool: 22 try: 23 rt = CDLL('librt.so') 24 except: 25 rt = CDLL('librt.so.1') - the scanning/detection bit is a little fuzzy to me atm - although i believe it looks for a chunk of shared memory allocated at SHM_KEY of SHM_SIZE assuming the backdoor exists if this pattern is matched. dunno...still scratching my head about this whole thing....my current suspicion is that if this backdoor is dependent upon linux shared memory then the non-linux systems *should* be OK (assuming said systems are not running httpd via linux compatibility layer)? dunno - still waiting for a good analysis about this whole thing :) -p -- Pete Wright pete at nomadlogic.org twitter => @nomadlogicLA From bob at redivi.com Thu May 9 20:45:41 2013 From: bob at redivi.com (Bob Ippolito) Date: Thu, 9 May 2013 17:45:41 -0700 Subject: [nycbug-talk] Cdorked.A Backdoor In-Reply-To: <518C3CA8.80002@nomadlogic.org> References: <518C3502.5030809@nomadlogic.org> <518C3CA8.80002@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: It looks like this just a backdoor that someone would install once they have already penetrated your system through some other vulnerability. The backdoor doesn't seem like it should be particularly platform specific, the shared memory APIs are cross-platform. I'm sure the author of this backdoor could easily generate binaries for any platform/web server combination that they decide is worth their time. In any case, finding this backdoor would just be a symptom that you have some vulnerability in addition to the one that the backdoor introduced. On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Pete Wright wrote: > On 05/09/13 16:45, Pete Wright wrote: > >> Hey - anyone else been able to find more reliable information on this >> backdoor? This is pretty much the only semi-useful information I've >> been able to dig up on it today: >> >> http://www.welivesecurity.com/**2013/05/07/linuxcdorked-** >> malware-lighttpd-and-nginx-**web-servers-also-affected/ >> >> While I'm specifically interested to see is if this is an application >> level vuln, something to do with the linux kernel's only ,thus making my >> *BSD servers mostly safe, or what... >> >> > > had some cycles to dig deeper - found a python script from eset.ie that > they believe will detect this code. it's pretty simple - so i'm not sure > how reliable it is tbh. here's a link to a wordpress site which is hosing > the python script (that's not sketchy at all is it?): > > http://www.welivesecurity.com/**wp-content/uploads/2013/04/** > dump_cdorked_config.7z > > > tl;dr version if you don't want to grab the script. > > - defines a key and size of a linux shared memory segment: > 17 SHM_SIZE = 6118512 > 18 SHM_KEY = 63599 > > - attempts to load librt.so via ctypes python module so it scan interact > directly with systems shared memory pool: > 22 try: > 23 rt = CDLL('librt.so') > 24 except: > 25 rt = CDLL('librt.so.1') > > - the scanning/detection bit is a little fuzzy to me atm - although i > believe it looks for a chunk of shared memory allocated at SHM_KEY of > SHM_SIZE assuming the backdoor exists if this pattern is matched. > > dunno...still scratching my head about this whole thing....my current > suspicion is that if this backdoor is dependent upon linux shared memory > then the non-linux systems *should* be OK (assuming said systems are not > running httpd via linux compatibility layer)? > > dunno - still waiting for a good analysis about this whole thing :) > > > > > -p > > > > -- > Pete Wright > pete at nomadlogic.org > twitter => @nomadlogicLA > > ______________________________**_________________ > talk mailing list > talk at lists.nycbug.org > http://lists.nycbug.org/**mailman/listinfo/talk > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chsnyder at gmail.com Fri May 10 10:13:35 2013 From: chsnyder at gmail.com (Chris Snyder) Date: Fri, 10 May 2013 10:13:35 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] Cdorked.A Backdoor In-Reply-To: <518C3CA8.80002@nomadlogic.org> References: <518C3502.5030809@nomadlogic.org> <518C3CA8.80002@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 8:17 PM, Pete Wright wrote: > > had some cycles to dig deeper - found a python script from eset.ie that > they believe will detect this code. it's pretty simple - so i'm not sure > how reliable it is tbh. Isn't detection a matter of comparing the system's httpd to a known-clean binary? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bonsaime at gmail.com Fri May 10 11:04:21 2013 From: bonsaime at gmail.com (Jesse Callaway) Date: Fri, 10 May 2013 11:04:21 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] Cdorked.A Backdoor In-Reply-To: References: <518C3502.5030809@nomadlogic.org> <518C3CA8.80002@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: On May 10, 2013 10:16 AM, "Chris Snyder" wrote: > > On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 8:17 PM, Pete Wright wrote: >> >> >> had some cycles to dig deeper - found a python script from eset.ie that they believe will detect this code. it's pretty simple - so i'm not sure how reliable it is tbh. > > > > Isn't detection a matter of comparing the system's httpd to a known-clean binary? > > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > talk at lists.nycbug.org > http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk > often,yes. sometimes no? but yeah if it's a binary install then checksumming would be a great first approach. what's scary about all this is there's no vulnerability that's been pointed out... just seems to magically infect -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at nomadlogic.org Fri May 10 13:27:41 2013 From: pete at nomadlogic.org (Pete Wright) Date: Fri, 10 May 2013 10:27:41 -0700 Subject: [nycbug-talk] Cdorked.A Backdoor In-Reply-To: References: <518C3502.5030809@nomadlogic.org> <518C3CA8.80002@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: <518D2E0D.1070209@nomadlogic.org> On 05/10/13 08:04, Jesse Callaway wrote: > > > but yeah if it's a binary install then checksumming would be a great > first approach. what's scary about all this is there's no vulnerability > that's been pointed out... just seems to magically infect > yea i agree with you on that jesse, as well as with bob's earlier point along the same lines. i gotta say i do like how this backdoor runs out of shared memory and apparently doesn't leave any traces of itself on the filesystem. i'm certain that has been done before - but thought it was a pretty novel idea :) -pete -- Pete Wright pete at nomadlogic.org twitter => @nomadlogicLA From marcus.james at gmail.com Fri May 10 13:56:53 2013 From: marcus.james at gmail.com (James Marcus) Date: Fri, 10 May 2013 13:56:53 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] Cdorked.A Backdoor In-Reply-To: <518D2E0D.1070209@nomadlogic.org> References: <518C3502.5030809@nomadlogic.org> <518C3CA8.80002@nomadlogic.org> <518D2E0D.1070209@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: I also thought the details on this backdoor were pretty weak. I only read about the vulnerability last night but I did run the python script on all our webservers this morning and everything returned clean. James On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 1:27 PM, Pete Wright wrote: > On 05/10/13 08:04, Jesse Callaway wrote: > >> >> >> but yeah if it's a binary install then checksumming would be a great >> first approach. what's scary about all this is there's no vulnerability >> that's been pointed out... just seems to magically infect >> >> > > yea i agree with you on that jesse, as well as with bob's earlier point > along the same lines. > > i gotta say i do like how this backdoor runs out of shared memory and > apparently doesn't leave any traces of itself on the filesystem. i'm > certain that has been done before - but thought it was a pretty novel idea > :) > > -pete > > > -- > Pete Wright > pete at nomadlogic.org > twitter => @nomadlogicLA > > ______________________________**_________________ > talk mailing list > talk at lists.nycbug.org > http://lists.nycbug.org/**mailman/listinfo/talk > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mspitzer at gmail.com Thu May 16 13:41:58 2013 From: mspitzer at gmail.com (Marc Spitzer) Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 13:41:58 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd Message-ID: basic instructions for getting f# up and running on freebsd: http://fsharp.org/use/freebsd/ thought it might be useful to some, marc -- Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better. --Albert Camus The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. -- Winston Churchill Do the arithmetic or be doomed to talk nonsense. --John McCarthy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at nomadlogic.org Thu May 16 13:50:26 2013 From: pete at nomadlogic.org (Pete Wright) Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 10:50:26 -0700 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> On 05/16/13 10:41, Marc Spitzer wrote: > basic instructions for getting f# up and running on freebsd: > > http://fsharp.org/use/freebsd/ > > thought it might be useful to some, > I am new to F# - is there a good tutorial and/or good usecase of when I would want to use F#? It looks like it is built on top of Microsoft's .NET CLR - is that a good thing? I'm not trolling - just hoping someone on the list has experience with this lang that provide some insight :) cheers, -pete -- Pete Wright pete at nomadlogic.org twitter => @nomadlogicLA From mspitzer at gmail.com Fri May 17 00:41:27 2013 From: mspitzer at gmail.com (Marc Spitzer) Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 00:41:27 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd In-Reply-To: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> References: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: Not sure, I just saw thos on hacker news and though it might be of interest marc On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Pete Wright wrote: > On 05/16/13 10:41, Marc Spitzer wrote: > >> basic instructions for getting f# up and running on freebsd: >> >> http://fsharp.org/use/freebsd/ >> >> thought it might be useful to some, >> >> > I am new to F# - is there a good tutorial and/or good usecase of when I > would want to use F#? It looks like it is built on top of Microsoft's .NET > CLR - is that a good thing? > > I'm not trolling - just hoping someone on the list has experience with > this lang that provide some insight :) > > cheers, > -pete > > > -- > Pete Wright > pete at nomadlogic.org > twitter => @nomadlogicLA > > ______________________________**_________________ > talk mailing list > talk at lists.nycbug.org > http://lists.nycbug.org/**mailman/listinfo/talk > -- Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better. --Albert Camus The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. -- Winston Churchill Do the arithmetic or be doomed to talk nonsense. --John McCarthy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zippy1981 at gmail.com Fri May 17 10:09:40 2013 From: zippy1981 at gmail.com (Justin Dearing) Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 10:09:40 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd In-Reply-To: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> References: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Pete Wright wrote: > >> > I am new to F# - is there a good tutorial and/or good usecase of when I > would want to use F#? It looks like it is built on top of Microsoft's .NET > CLR - is that a good thing? > > I'll try to answer objectively. I've never written F# personally. I've written a lot of CLR code in C# and powershell, and when forced at gunpoint VB.NET. I don't have a suggestion for a tutorial. As far as when you want to use it, its an extension of OCAML, and there is an option to compile pure OCAML code. Its a really good language for implementing algotithims. Its not good for "plumbing code." So as an example, if you were writing a daytrading system in the CLR, you code to talk to the bloomberg terminal, and talk to the system that executes the trade should be in C#. The code that's taking your data from your bloomberg terminal and doing all kinds of crazy math to determine when and what to buy and sell should be in F#. F# is apache licensed[1] and bundled in mono. I've never seen an instance of Microsoft harming an open source .NET project via copyright or patent claims. Miguel, the head of mono has a commercial business that produces Visual Studio plugins to let you develope in the CLR and deploy on android and iphone[2]. Microsoft hosted the 2010 monospace conference in the NERD center in MIT (where I happened to speak about Mongodb). So in a very pragmatic sense, as a person who produces and consumes lots of open source code that compiles to the CLR, Its not a bad thing IMHO. Footnotes: 1. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dsyme/archive/2010/11/04/announcing-the-f-compiler-library-source-code-drop.aspx 2. http://xamarin.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at nomadlogic.org Fri May 17 13:57:52 2013 From: pete at nomadlogic.org (Pete Wright) Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 10:57:52 -0700 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd In-Reply-To: References: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: <51966FA0.2020004@nomadlogic.org> On 05/17/13 07:09, Justin Dearing wrote: > On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Pete Wright > wrote: > > > > I am new to F# - is there a good tutorial and/or good usecase of > when I would want to use F#? It looks like it is built on top of > Microsoft's .NET CLR - is that a good thing? > > > I'll try to answer objectively. I've never written F# personally. I've > written a lot of CLR code in C# and powershell, and when forced at > gunpoint VB.NET . I don't have a suggestion for a > tutorial. As far as when you want to use it, its an extension of OCAML, > and there is an option to compile pure OCAML code. Its a really > good language for implementing algotithims. Its not good for "plumbing > code." So as an example, if you were writing a daytrading system in the > CLR, you code to talk to the bloomberg terminal, and talk to the system > that executes the trade should be in C#. The code that's taking your > data from your bloomberg terminal and doing all kinds of crazy math to > determine when and what to buy and sell should be in F#. ah ok thanks Justin! We've been adopting "R" in my domain over here - so it sounds like F# may fit a similar role as that. Got it. > > F# is apache licensed[1] and bundled in mono. I've never seen an > instance of Microsoft harming an open source .NET project via copyright > or patent claims. Miguel, the head of mono has a commercial business > that produces Visual Studio plugins to let you develope in the CLR and > deploy on android and iphone[2]. Microsoft hosted the 2010 monospace > conference in the NERD center in MIT (where I happened to speak about > Mongodb). So in a very pragmatic sense, as a person who produces and > consumes lots of open source code that compiles to the CLR, Its not a > bad thing IMHO. I agree with you this. I've been following mono for ages now ever since I was at a gnome dev conference and miguel announced and gave a pretty exciting live tutorial on mono. sometimes i feel that is the R&D guys and most of the engineering talent at microsoft were able break free from the business constraints of trying to maintain various monopolies we'd be seeing some *really* interesting cross platform code out there. but then my company decides to force everyone to use the office365 cloud products and i turn back to my normal hater self :) thanks again for your perspective on this - i feel like it's always good to keep a well stocked toolbox of computer languages handy, kinda like my liquor cabinet... cheers, -pete -- Pete Wright pete at nomadlogic.org twitter => @nomadlogicLA From bcallah at devio.us Fri May 17 17:39:26 2013 From: bcallah at devio.us (Brian Callahan) Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 17:39:26 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] MiniPCI WiFi cards free to a good home Message-ID: <5196A38E.2070802@devio.us> Hi talk -- As the subject line says, I have a bunch of minipci (not minipci-e; what I have are the bigger, older) wifi cards that I don't need anymore, so I'm offering them to nycbug people for free. These cards are good for soekris and mikrotik boards, and older laptops. Please check to make sure you can use them. Other OpenBSD devs (and free/net/dfly devs) get first priority (if you're a f/n/d dev, let me know so you can get the dev bump); other than that, first come first served. All cards are used but presumed working (I no longer have the hardware to test, but there's no reason these cards should not work). Here's a list of what I have, plus their corresponding OpenBSD driver: * ALPHA Networks WMP-N06SA.03, Atheros AR5008+AR5416 (athn) * Broadcom BCM94318MPG Rev 4 (bwi - may not work on OpenBSD/other BSDs) * Intel WM3B2200BG (iwi) * Unknown AR5212A (ath) * Unknown RTL8185L (no OpenBSD [no BSD?] driver - write your own!) * Unknown WL-850R/E, RT2561T (ral - should work but never tested) I'd prefer it if I hand it over to you at the next nycbug meeting, but by all means if you're willing to pay the few bucks for me to mail it that is ok as well. Email me off-list if interested. ~Brian From siraaj at khandkar.net Sat May 18 22:57:57 2013 From: siraaj at khandkar.net (Siraaj Khandkar) Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 22:57:57 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd In-Reply-To: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> References: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: On May 16, 2013, at 1:50 PM, Pete Wright wrote: > On 05/16/13 10:41, Marc Spitzer wrote: >> basic instructions for getting f# up and running on freebsd: >> >> http://fsharp.org/use/freebsd/ >> >> thought it might be useful to some, >> > > I am new to F# - is there a good tutorial and/or good usecase of when I would want to use F#? It looks like it is built on top of Microsoft's .NET CLR - is that a good thing? > > I'm not trolling - just hoping someone on the list has experience with this lang that provide some insight :) F# is one of the latest additions to the ML [1] family of languages, which are strongly, statically-typed, mostly-functional [2] languages, sporting Hindley?Milner type inference (so type-annotations are optional). It was originally modeled on OCaml [3], though leaving-out some important features (like functors and first-class modules) and adding a bunch of .NET-specific stuff. I'm a regular user of OCaml and spent only a few concentrated days exploring F# - my impression was that if you're hopelessly stuck in MS/.NET world - F# is quite a treat. For a *nix user, OCaml is probably a better choice [4] - you get the unadulterated ML goodness (functors), excellent Unix interface [5] and compilation down to blazing-fast native code. To be fair, F# did introduce some very cool new features like concurrency primitives - async tasks. You can also do shared memory parallelism (due to .NET's concurrent GC) whereas in OCaml you'd have to fork for parallelism (threads are supported, but bounded by the single-core GC). That said, last I checked, both .NET and Mono were using stop-the-world GC, whereas OCaml's GC is incremental and optimized for lots of short-lived allocations (to better support functional style) so it gives a much more predictable latency profile. Sorry to make this more of comparison than just about F#, but my point is that MLs are awesome and F# is the best ML experience on Windows, while Unix users have better options. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML_(programming_language) [2]: Imperative features, like loops and muatable data types are supported, though unidiomatic in most cases. [3]: http://ocaml.org [4]: SML would also be great, just with much less libraries [5]: http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Unix.html -- Siraaj Khandkar .o. o.o ..o o.. .o. ..o .oo o.o .oo ..o ooo .o. .oo oo. ooo From siraaj at khandkar.net Sat May 18 23:07:46 2013 From: siraaj at khandkar.net (Siraaj Khandkar) Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 23:07:46 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd In-Reply-To: References: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: <34D560FA-B1A8-4DA7-824B-5D66F157E9F3@khandkar.net> On May 17, 2013, at 10:09 AM, Justin Dearing wrote: > On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Pete Wright wrote: > >> >>> >> I am new to F# - is there a good tutorial and/or good usecase of when I >> would want to use F#? It looks like it is built on top of Microsoft's .NET >> CLR - is that a good thing? >> >> > I'll try to answer objectively. I've never written F# personally. I've > written a lot of CLR code in C# and powershell, and when forced at gunpoint > VB.NET. I don't have a suggestion for a tutorial. As far as when you want > to use it, its an extension of OCAML, and there is an option to compile > pure OCAML code. Its a really good language for implementing algotithims. > Its not good for "plumbing code." There's no reason to make that distinction, if you like the language you'll use it for whatever, if not - you'll avoid it. I happily write plumbing code in OCaml. > So as an example, if you were writing a > daytrading system in the CLR, you code to talk to the bloomberg terminal, > and talk to the system that executes the trade should be in C#. The code > that's taking your data from your bloomberg terminal and doing all kinds of > crazy math to determine when and what to buy and sell should be in F#. Are you making that distinction based on availability of 3rd party libs? Because if so - I'm pretty sure one can easily call other .NET code from F#. > F# is apache licensed[1] and bundled in mono. I've never seen an instance > of Microsoft harming an open source .NET project via copyright or patent > claims. Miguel, the head of mono has a commercial business that produces > Visual Studio plugins to let you develope in the CLR and deploy on android > and iphone[2]. Microsoft hosted the 2010 monospace conference in the NERD > center in MIT (where I happened to speak about Mongodb). So in a very > pragmatic sense, as a person who produces and consumes lots of open source > code that compiles to the CLR, Its not a bad thing IMHO. > > Footnotes: > 1. > http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dsyme/archive/2010/11/04/announcing-the-f-compiler-library-source-code-drop.aspx > 2. http://xamarin.com/ > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > talk at lists.nycbug.org > http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk -- Siraaj Khandkar .o. o.o ..o o.. .o. ..o .oo o.o .oo ..o ooo .o. .oo oo. ooo From siraaj at khandkar.net Sat May 18 23:22:35 2013 From: siraaj at khandkar.net (Siraaj Khandkar) Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 23:22:35 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd In-Reply-To: <51966FA0.2020004@nomadlogic.org> References: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> <51966FA0.2020004@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: On May 17, 2013, at 1:57 PM, Pete Wright wrote: > On 05/17/13 07:09, Justin Dearing wrote: >> On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Pete Wright > > wrote: >> >> >> >> I am new to F# - is there a good tutorial and/or good usecase of >> when I would want to use F#? It looks like it is built on top of >> Microsoft's .NET CLR - is that a good thing? >> >> >> I'll try to answer objectively. I've never written F# personally. I've >> written a lot of CLR code in C# and powershell, and when forced at >> gunpoint VB.NET . I don't have a suggestion for a >> tutorial. As far as when you want to use it, its an extension of OCAML, >> and there is an option to compile pure OCAML code. Its a really >> good language for implementing algotithims. Its not good for "plumbing >> code." So as an example, if you were writing a daytrading system in the >> CLR, you code to talk to the bloomberg terminal, and talk to the system >> that executes the trade should be in C#. The code that's taking your >> data from your bloomberg terminal and doing all kinds of crazy math to >> determine when and what to buy and sell should be in F#. > > ah ok thanks Justin! We've been adopting "R" in my domain over here - so it sounds like F# may fit a similar role as that. Got it. R and F# are as different as they come: R is quick and dirty DSL for explorative statistics and is a poor fit for developing systems, while ML and thus F# is a language focused on safety, expressiveness and pragmatic interoperability, so it is excellent for developing complete systems [1] (not just math). [1]: As in "business systems", not as in "operating systems" (for that it would also be terrible :)) -- Siraaj Khandkar .o. o.o ..o o.. .o. ..o .oo o.o .oo ..o ooo .o. .oo oo. ooo From zippy1981 at gmail.com Sun May 19 09:30:36 2013 From: zippy1981 at gmail.com (Justin Dearing) Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 09:30:36 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd In-Reply-To: <34D560FA-B1A8-4DA7-824B-5D66F157E9F3@khandkar.net> References: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> <34D560FA-B1A8-4DA7-824B-5D66F157E9F3@khandkar.net> Message-ID: On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 11:07 PM, Siraaj Khandkar wrote: > Are you making that distinction based on availability of 3rd party libs? > Because if so - I'm pretty sure one can easily call other .NET code from > F#. > > Like i said I never coded F# so I'm speaking from the experience of others. However I don't think you can generate a WCF service reference (SOAP client stub code) in F#. I would also assume if you were implementing your own ILogger in log4net, you'd prefer C# or VB.NET because you'd be writing a lot of boilerplate inherit a class and overwrite all these methods code. Maybe someone who always codes in F# or ML languages would do that in F#. The only functional programming I've done in javasccript closures and anonymous delegates and lambas in C#. Perhaps if I ever grok monads I will think different. Justin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vmiller at hostileadmin.com Mon May 20 09:22:44 2013 From: vmiller at hostileadmin.com (Rick Miller) Date: Mon, 20 May 2013 09:22:44 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] vBSDcon Website Is Up! Message-ID: Hi all, In April 2013, Verisign announced the inaugural biennial vBSDcon event in Dulles, VA to occur October 25 ? 27, 2013. In the weeks since the initial announcement, the vBSDcon website has been activated with details on the dates and location of the event. The website is available athttp://www.vbsdcon.com/. Some details have yet to be published, but will be available on the official vBSDcon website in the coming weeks. Please check back periodically for new updates! -- Take care Rick Miller From siraaj at khandkar.net Mon May 20 10:28:25 2013 From: siraaj at khandkar.net (Siraaj Khandkar) Date: Mon, 20 May 2013 10:28:25 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] instructions for building f# on freebsd In-Reply-To: References: <51951C62.6020707@nomadlogic.org> <34D560FA-B1A8-4DA7-824B-5D66F157E9F3@khandkar.net> Message-ID: <772668DF-0B25-4CD5-9B32-3E4B01626150@khandkar.net> On May 19, 2013, at 9:30 AM, Justin Dearing wrote: > On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 11:07 PM, Siraaj Khandkar wrote: > >> Are you making that distinction based on availability of 3rd party libs? >> Because if so - I'm pretty sure one can easily call other .NET code from >> F#. >> >> > Like i said I never coded F# so I'm speaking from the experience of others. > However I don't think you can generate a WCF service reference (SOAP client > stub code) in F#. I'm quite ignorant of the .NET world, so this doesn't mean very much to me, but a cursory google for "f# WCF service reference" gave me this as first hit: http://dotnet.dzone.com/news/building-wcf-services-with-f-p Though because of my ignorance, I have no idea if that actually addresses your concerns :) > I would also assume if you were implementing your own > ILogger in log4net, you'd prefer C# or VB.NET because you'd be writing a > lot of boilerplate inherit a class and overwrite all these methods code. > Maybe someone who always codes in F# or ML languages would do that in F#. > The only functional programming I've done in javasccript closures and > anonymous delegates and lambas in C#. Perhaps if I ever grok monads I will > think different. My main point is that F# is not a domain specific language - it was designed to be general purpose and delivers quite well on that. There's no reason to pigeonhole it into any particular application. Of course, whether or not anyone chooses to use any language (or OS, or whatever) is mainly subjective preference, so there's no reason to be defensive (or offensive) about that either ;) RE: Monads - they're only required in a pure language (Haskell, Miranda, Idris, etc). MLs are impure, so you can have as many side effects as you please. In fact, most F# that I've seen around (which isn't much, mind you) is heavily imperative in style (.NET people prefer it largely for the terseness (as compared to C#)). -- Siraaj Khandkar .o. o.o ..o o.. .o. ..o .oo o.o .oo ..o ooo .o. .oo oo. ooo From mark.saad at ymail.com Tue May 28 11:18:57 2013 From: mark.saad at ymail.com (Mark Saad) Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 11:18:57 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] PFSense wifi card for hostap mode Message-ID: All I am currently using pfsense 2.03 for my home router. It has been good for a long time however recently my atheros wifi card has started acting up. It will reset and drop all the wireless clients for no apparent reason. I am looking to replace it with a newer card that of a mini-pci variety, but I wanted to see what talk's recommendations were before I go out and get something new. So what do you all recommend ? -- Mark Saad | mark.saad at ymail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ike at blackskyresearch.net Tue May 28 11:40:23 2013 From: ike at blackskyresearch.net (Isaac (.ike) Levy) Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 15:40:23 +0000 Subject: [nycbug-talk] PFSense wifi card for hostap mode Message-ID: <201305281540.r4SFeNiP029439@rs102.luxsci.com> On May 28, 2013 11:18:57 AM EDT, Mahttp://pcengines.ch/cm9.htmrk Saad wrote: > All > I am currently using pfsense 2.03 for my home router. It has been good for > a long time however recently my atheros wifi card has started acting up. It > will reset and drop all the wireless clients for no apparent reason. I am > looking to replace it with a newer card that of a mini-pci variety, but I > wanted to see what talk's recommendations were before I go out and get > something new. So what do you all recommend ? For b/g use, I'm a huge fan of the ol' reliable "CM9" cards, they feature older atheros chipsets, and pretty easy to find: http://pcengines.ch/cm9.htm Rock solid boring. The CM9 is a bit old, and I'm a bit of a kermudgen with wireless... For the latest and greatest cards, it may be best to consult this page: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Supported_Wireless_Cards Rocket- .ike From mark.saad at ymail.com Tue May 28 12:00:06 2013 From: mark.saad at ymail.com (Mark Saad) Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 12:00:06 -0400 Subject: [nycbug-talk] PFSense wifi card for hostap mode In-Reply-To: <201305281540.r4SFeNiP029439@rs102.luxsci.com> References: <201305281540.r4SFeNiP029439@rs102.luxsci.com> Message-ID: Ike Thanks for the reply I am actually using a CM9; and I guess I will just get another. Anyone using a N capable card in hostap mode ? On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Isaac (.ike) Levy < ike at blackskyresearch.net> wrote: > > On May 28, 2013 11:18:57 AM EDT, Mahttp://pcengines.ch/cm9.**htmrkSaad < > mark.saad at ymail.com> wrote: > > All >> I am currently using pfsense 2.03 for my home router. It has been good >> for >> a long time however recently my atheros wifi card has started acting up. >> It >> will reset and drop all the wireless clients for no apparent reason. I am >> looking to replace it with a newer card that of a mini-pci variety, but I >> wanted to see what talk's recommendations were before I go out and get >> something new. So what do you all recommend ? >> > > For b/g use, I'm a huge fan of the ol' reliable "CM9" cards, they feature > older atheros chipsets, and pretty easy to find: > http://pcengines.ch/cm9.htm > Rock solid boring. > > The CM9 is a bit old, and I'm a bit of a kermudgen with wireless... For > the latest and greatest cards, it may be best to consult this page: > http://doc.pfsense.org/index.**php/Supported_Wireless_Cards > > Rocket- > .ike > > -- Mark Saad | mark.saad at ymail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: